by Larkin, Matt
A fugitive from both sides.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
November 30th
Jericho Corp has been a long-time rival of Quasar Industries. The two companies have separate portfolios of interest, but there was enough overlap to create a continuous competition for resources and customers. Jericho’s main focus has been on nanotechnology and medical research. Since QI also uses nanobots in some of its designs, such as nanomesh armor, that has become a primary point of contention.
“You sent for me,” Knight said.
Leah jumped at his approach. To unaware of her surroundings. She was supposed to be a warrior, but if he’d meant her harm, he’d have killed her before she knew he was there. He hadn’t even intended to sneak up on her.
The Ark had no medical bay, but she’d recommissioned one of the science labs for the purpose. Knight rarely came here, though she’d asked to examine him a few times. She’d wanted blood samples to test his DNA. Something Rachel had said about his ancestors being genetically engineered. Probably part of some Angel experiment.
He had no idea how to feel about that. It might have explained his preternatural reflexes, but it only opened more questions. He tried to tell himself he was no different than any of the other non-Norm Races. Void, Phoebe was an Icie, and Leah was an Amphie. Neither of those Races lived on Gehenna, as far he knew.
It meant Leah was an oddity to him. Hard to even imagine a world covered in water, much less a people designed to live there.
Leah grunted, then motioned for him to sit on one of the benches. “I’m concerned about this ship’s … captain. I know you spent a lot of time with her on Gehenna. I trust David, but I have to be honest …”
He folded his arms. “You don’t have to. If you choose to, then out with it.”
She sighed. “We’ve become fugitives, Knight.”
Nothing new for him. It seemed everywhere he went some government or another was hunting him. And he kept killing them until they got the message. Which they never did.
“Rachel’s an idealist,” he said, “but she has a way of seeing things through in the end. You can trust her.”
Leah sighed and fiddled with a tablet on the desk. “You’re close to her, obviously. But you have deeper feelings for her, too. I see it in the way you look at her, when she’s not looking.”
“We’re just friends.”
It’s all they could ever be, now. She’d chosen David. He’d been a fool to think anything more could come of it. Even back on Gehenna she’d tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. But now, after seeing them on the shuttle, after having to listen to their emotional turmoil, she’d no doubt fallen right into his bed. And likely was happier for it.
“But that’s not what you want, is it?” Leah said.
“Look who’s talking. Is it Rachel you’re concerned about, or do you just not like any woman getting so close to David? I’ve seen how you look at him, doc.”
The Amphie looked away, focused on the tablet. “There’s nothing like that. I don’t have time for any … David’s my best friend. There could never be anything more.”
He didn’t have to be an empath to see some buried pain there. He knew it only too well. A few years ago he’d been an assassin with no other purpose in life but the kill. That’s how the Shadow Council had raised him and he was the best. And then Shirin came into his life, fucked up a mission, and wound so tightly around his brain he could not get her out.
And in the end, they’d run together. They’d run from his government and hers. They’d run from a fate they couldn’t escape. For the first time in his life, he’d loved someone, even if he hadn’t known how to put it into words, how to understand it.
“Someone hurt you, before,” he said.
“No. I’m fine.”
He jumped off the bench and stalked closer. She’d started this. Now she would get the same treatment. “Past lover? Somebody died?”
She spun on him. “Is that what happened to you?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice just a whisper. Somebody died.
And he’d been twice the fool to think he could replace her with Rachel.
Leah recoiled, as if she hadn’t intended to hit so close to the mark. Or regretted it. Whatever. It was over, done a long time ago. Why should he even talk to this woman? But somehow, she seemed to understand, and he couldn’t stop himself.
“She was Asheran. She’d said she’d leave her government to be with me. It just … didn’t work out like that.”
Leah sighed. “I was with someone a long time. We … I thought we’d get married.” Her voice became fragile. “Every time I asked, he had some reason for delay. Finally, I insisted, and he broke it off. And I ran off to join the Sentinels.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I never told anyone about it. Not even David.”
But she had confided in him, of all people. It was a strange kind of honor. He didn’t know how to feel about the crew on this ship placing their trust in him. Rachel was one thing, but the others were turning to him like he was one of them.
Knight pulled up a chair beside Leah. “I won’t tell either.”
“Thanks.” Leah swallowed, and was quiet for a moment.
Yet another woman he didn’t know how to comfort. God, Phoebe was right. He had no idea how to deal with people if he wasn’t killing them.
“Asheran?” Leah said at last. “Really? Was she …?”
“Cybered?” Knight snickered. That had been hard to get past, at first. The First Commandment was so ingrained, even in him. And yet, after a while, he could almost forget. She was, in the end, still human.
“The Angels have a lot of implants, too,” Leah said. “I wish Rachel would let me revive one for a better examination. They’re clearly cybernetic organisms, but it’s hard to tell how much is man and how much is machine.”
“And how much is divine?” Mostly, he chose to ignore the Angels they carried around in the cryo chamber. It was easier than wrapping his mind around the idea they had frozen emissaries of God on the ship.
“I don’t know. I can’t measure divinity, but the cybernetics run deep. It’s not just the wings. There’s metal and nanobots throughout their bodies. I have to be honest—it’s scary as void. They commanded us to never do anything like that, but they did it to themselves.”
He shrugged. “The same rules don’t apply to Angels. Obviously. ‘Man Shall Not Alter the Form of Man’. It says nothing about Angels altering us. Or themselves.”
She was quiet a moment. “So did the implants make her … different?”
“I never knew her before she had them.”
“I mean, make her less human.”
“I’m not the best to judge that.” He was the predator in the night. The darkness that consumed mankind. Who was he to measure anyone’s humanity?
All he could say was Shirin was special.
Leah sighed. “And Rachel? Can you judge her? Are you sure she’s fit to command to this ship, Knight?”
Rachel had gotten through the chaos on Gehenna, but it was chaos she had largely created. Still, they were in it now, and he knew of no one else to see them out of it.
“She might be the only one who is,” he said at last.
Leah grunted. “I hope you’re right. And for what it’s worth, I wish she had chosen you.”
But Rachel didn’t.
And the truth was, Knight was better off alone. The way things were going, Rachel was going to need a protector, not a lover. And that was one thing he was suited for. The only thing.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
December 1st
The Asheran Confederacy arose in 2642 EY, following the War of Seven Systems—a misnamed war, as it actually grew to encompass several dozen solar systems, but that’s another story. Following the War, a loose confederacy of systems was formed. The formation of such a united government naturally halted Mizraim’s attempt to reunify the human race under a single rule.
David stared at the news bulletin
across the Mazzaroth, reading it for the third time. War. War had broken out between the Mizraim Empire and the Asheran Confederacy. War between his people and the enemy who had destroyed his mum. The enemy he’d sworn to protect the universe against.
Asherah had invaded Mizraim space. They’d seized whole solar systems, destroyed Sentinel cruisers. People were dying and he was hiding in some uninhabited system, watching it happen. While he ran from the consequences of his actions, the universe burned around him. And though he had done it all for Rachel, some things he could not abide.
No more. He was a Sentinel. He had a duty to protect people, his people, and he’d be buggered if he was going to sit here and do nothing. He strode toward the bridge, almost breaking into a run. The Ark could make all the difference in such a conflict. Even if the Sentinels wouldn’t have him back, with this ship he could still aid their cause. He could still protect his people.
Rachel was sitting in the command chair when he arrived, as she always seemed to be these days. She’d become so attached to this thing. He could understand the allure, the mystery it posed. This was a thing out of legend, and she’d found it. He understood. What he didn’t like was when she began talking like it was an extension of herself.
This thing was alive, and it was possible she was becoming too connected to its mind. One day soon he would have to do something about that, but right now, he had more pressing concerns.
“We need to go to the front,” he said.
“What?” Her eyes were glazed over, staring at something only she could see. Like a bloody Mammon addict. Angels above, what was this ship doing to her? Would he even be able to cut her off from it?
“Rachel. War is raging between Mizraim and Asherah. We have to go out to the front and help our people.”
She blinked, shook her head, then looked at him with wide, but blissfully clear, eyes. “Are you completely off rotation? Mizraim, the Conglomerate, and probably the Confederacy are all looking for us, trying to take my ship away, and you want to march in and hand it to them?”
“No, lass. I want to go and make a difference in the universe. Isn’t that why you wanted the damn Ark, back before you even knew it was a ship?”
She blinked again, as if trying to shake her mind free. “Look, we came here to rest for a bit. We’ve got to find Eden, Mac. Now I know you can do it. You can navigate the pathways like no one else. Can you imagine it? Being known as the man who found the way back to Eden?”
“Eden has been lost for thirty-one centuries! It can wait a few more weeks while we address the situation in the here and now.”
Rachel stood and stepped toward him. “A few weeks? You think this conflict will be over in a few weeks? Even if it was, you think we could keep the Ark from all sides that long? Consider, for a moment, what it would mean if we found Eden. That might well end the fight right there. Who, in Mizraim or Asherah, would not be left in awe of such a discovery? It’s our homeworld, Mac. If we give back what the Angels took away—”
“What they took? They took us from there for a reason! They saved mankind from the Adversary and carried us away from a broken, barren world.”
She waved the comment away. “The Adversary has been gone for thirty-one centuries, too. Take us back to Eden.”
He sighed. Somehow, he doubted even the return of Eden would stop the war. Certainly, such a discovery might well pause the hostilities. But the cessation would be only temporary. The divide between Mizraim and the Confederacy had grown deeper over the centuries. It would have to come to a head. And his place was alongside the Sentinels.
“What makes you think there’s even anything left to find, Rach? The planet was scorched. The Codex calls it a wasteland.”
“The Angels wrote the Codex. They didn’t want us to go looking for it.”
“Then we bloody well shouldn’t be looking for it!”
She pressed her palms against his chest. Her hands were warm through his shirt, her touch a comfort. “Please, Mac. We both want to save mankind in our way. Help me.”
He swallowed, unable to form words. It was too hard to deny her anything, but … He took her hands in his own, rubbing them. “If I do this … Once we find Eden, or if we look and don’t find it, you have to use the Ark to help Mizraim against Asherah.”
Rachel pulled her hands away and began to pace around the bridge. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“You want me to help you fight your crusade, but you won’t help me with mine?”
“This is not a warship, Mac. And we shouldn’t be using it as one.”
“That sure as bugger didn’t stop you at Horesh.”
She recoiled. “That was different. I was trying to save you. It’s not the same as turning the Ark into a weapon of war. Or looking for a fight with the intention of using an Angel ship to annihilate our foes. It’d make us no better than what Jericho or any of the others would have done with my ship. We have a bigger destiny than flying around like a battleship shooting other ships out of the sky.”
We? Did she mean her and him, or herself and the bloody ship?
“I’ve made my decision, Rach. You want my help, I need your word you’ll do the same as soon as we find the planet.”
If they even could.
Rachel sighed. “We give you our word. We’ll help you.”
David cringed at her choice of words.
But he had his answer. And it meant it was time to go looking for Eden.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
From the formation of the Asheran Confederacy there has been no end of tensions between it and Mizraim. The two factions are so different in purpose and ideology, conflict has been inevitable. Mizraim seeks to unite all the universe under a single rule, while the Confederacy supports independently run solar systems. Mizraim follows the religious doctrines of the Angels, most importantly the Covenant. Most of Asherah has cast aside these rules.
Caleb’s shuttle descended through the atmosphere of Kiriath—if atmosphere was even the right word for the toxic mass of ammonium, fluorine, and nitrogen. The planet was about the most inhospitable place he’d ever heard of, which was probably why Jericho used it for one of their hundred or so secret research stations.
He didn’t take kindly to being summoned by Apollo, especially now he was the Chairman. Still, the scientist had helped him attain that position, so when he’d said he had something of note to show him, Caleb had come.
The station’s hangar doors opened below them, allowing the shuttle to descend directly into the bay. As soon as they landed, the doors shut and the hangar began to siphon out the toxic gasses.
“Just a couple minutes,” he said to Rebekah, who sat beside him, looking pale.
He couldn’t blame her. A breath of the air outside would not be good for one’s health. Even a Smogger wouldn’t survive too long out there.
The station itself was all unmarked chrome, not a window or decoration in sight. Depressing, really, especially to someone used to the beauty of Sepharvaim. Angels, this planet was disgusting. He made a mental note to never return here once this was done.
A chime sounded inside the shuttle, telling him the hangar was now pressurized with breathable air. He hit the buzzer to open the shuttle hatch, then strode into the hangar. Already techs scurried toward his shuttle. Standard inspections and other boring minutiae.
A man in a lab coat motioned for him to follow. Best get this over with. Caleb walked behind the tech, Rebekah in tow. The man led them through a chrome hall to a lift, and they went down what he judged to be ten levels. The bowels of this planet.
The lift opened and the tech pointed to a door at the far end of the hall. Angels above, the least Apollo could have done was come to meet him in the hangar. Instead the scientist expected him to visit the lab like some common bureaucrat. He walked down the hall and almost jerked when Rebekah slipped her hand into his.
She was nervous. Another thing he couldn’t really blame her for.
He patted her on the
shoulder and extricated his hand. “Why don’t you wait outside.”
Rebekah opened her mouth and stammered. Caleb wouldn’t want her to see what was ahead anyway.
He buzzed the door. It opened into a large, dimly lit room filled with workbenches. Caleb’s cybernetic eyes cut through the darkness and spotted Apollo bent over one of the tables. He walked toward the scientist, wending his way around the maze of a workspace.
A cybernetic arm twitched on a table he passed. Good thing Rebekah hadn’t come in. Poor girl would have been out of her mind.
Apollo wore a black robe with the hood pulled over his face. Ever a flare for the dramatic. He worked on a man strapped to the table. The man’s chest had been opened and Apollo had fitted him with a cybernetic core, probably designed to replace his heart and lungs. The subject’s head was strapped down, and he was gagged, but his eyes tracked Caleb. Which meant the poor bastard was awake, and from the look of it, hadn’t had any idea what he’d signed up for. He supposed that meant Apollo would dispose of the victim once the experiment was done.
One more death on their hands.
“I did what you asked. I made the announcement about the Ark.”
As expected, it had led to war between Mizraim and Asherah. The Confederacy could never allow the Sentinels to hold such a powerful technological advantage. They’d believe their only chance lay in striking before Mizraim had time to unlock the secrets of the Ark.
Apollo had all but insisted he start this intergalactic war, though Caleb had doubts it would lead to any good. Thousands were already dead, and what had it bought them? Chaos. Or maybe that was exactly what Apollo was counting on.
Apollo didn’t look up from his victim. “Good. Now Mizraim is distracted. Mobilize the Conglomerate against Jordan and get us that Ark.”
Caleb started to chew his thumb, then thought better of it, instead folding his arms across his chest. Had to look strong here. He was the head of this corporation, and it was time Apollo accepted that.