by Larkin, Matt
“I have.”
“I suspect Asherah, even more than Jericho Corp, does not want to see a return of the Days of Glory.”
The man raised an eyebrow like that went without saying. Since the Angels would likely destroy every cyborg in existence, Caleb supposed it did.
“What I propose is simple—an alliance between the Confederacy and the Conglomerate. We work together to take down Mizraim, and then, when we find the Ark, we take it back from the Angels and ensure the Days of Glory remain behind us.”
The Aluf nodded. “And the end result for you? Your ultimate goal, Mr. Gavet?”
To the point. Caleb liked that. “Exclusive and favorable trade agreements for Jericho Corp with Asherah. And, of course, you will help ensure Jericho becomes the leading voice of the entire Conglomerate.”
Besides, it was in Caleb’s best interest to see the Angels, the Commandments, and the Sentinels all buried.
“You are one of us,” Lamport said.
Caleb stiffened. Had the man been able to scan him for cybernetics? Some kind of internal sensors—or cybernetic eyes with more features than Caleb’s own. Maybe that had been Apollo’s plan all along. One more layer of the trap. “Indeed. So you know we share common interests.”
The Aluf stood and offered his hand again. “So we do.”
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
December 17th
I was wrong about the Sentinels, of course. I mistook a dedication to duty for subservience, principles of honor for blindness. Even as I fell for David all over again, I thought him a fool, a man in need of saving.
“Are you sure about this, pretty-boy?” Phoebe asked.
Knight ran a hand through his hair. It was long, reaching almost to his shoulders. He’d grown it out since he’d left the Gibborim. He’d become a mercenary. Rachel had called his hair, his style, an affectation. And she was right. God, he was getting tired of realizing how many things she’d been right about. He had been a selfish fool, caring only about himself, sulking in sorrow over the wrongs done to him. But the universe was bigger than that. While he ran around Gehenna murdering anyone in his way, Rachel had traveled the known universe trying to save mankind. And if she’d made mistakes, at least she made them for the right reasons.
Knight wasn’t sure he had ever done anything for the right reasons. At least, not until he’d decided to save Rachel.
“Do it,” he said.
Phoebe shrugged. “Yup, yup. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The razor buzzed as she trimmed away Knight’s hair. It tingled against his scalp as strands of his hair fell away and landed in his lap.
“You know,” she said when it was done, “I actually really liked the tangled mess the way it was.”
“You probably should have said that before giving me a buzz cut.”
“Yup, yup. Better late than never.” She blew on his head, spraying stray hairs around the room.
Knight closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was time he left his old life behind. He was no longer Gibborim, and he hadn’t been in a long time. He was not an assassin. He wasn’t the mercenary anymore. Rachel no longer paid him for protection. And yet, here he was, by her side, a part of her crusade.
He stood and grabbed an undershirt to put on, then slipped on the Sentinel jacket. The black-on-black uniform of those who served. Military, a real military. Just as he now had real quarters on this battleship, a real commission. He slid a finger up the seam of the jacket and the nanobots bonded, sealing it airtight.
“Knight … How can you commit so quickly to this? You’ve bounced from one thing to the next like leaving your old lives behind means nothing. Is it so easy for you to make changes in your life?”
Was that insecurity? Was she asking about him becoming a Sentinel, or wondering whether he’d leave her the same as she saw him leaving one mission after another?
He stalked over, grabbed her around the waist, pulled her in for a deep kiss. At last, he pulled away. “I was born for this.”
Literally. He’d been trained almost since birth to be a soldier. He just hadn’t known the cause. The Gibborim had taught him discipline and killer instinct. They had made him a weapon. Only now, finally, that weapon was aimed where it belonged. Like Rachel, he would fight for things that mattered, instead of only for corrupt governments or for himself. The Sentinels existed to protect mankind from any threat. In his whole life, he had never considered such grandiose concerns—and Rachel was right, he should have. Phoebe and those like her were heroes, fighting for something so much greater than themselves.
“You should be happy,” he said. “I’m finally seeing things your way.”
“Yup, yup. You’ve skipped the training, the education, the hard work and been promoted straight up to—”
“Never think I’ve skipped the hard work, Phoebe. My life has been nothing but struggle. Just because you had different struggles doesn’t mean—”
She held up her hands. “Right, sorry. Forgot about the ‘whole raised in a ninja school’ thing for a split second. It’s just … I worked most of my life to get here, with my brother, you know? I mean, I get you just took a different road to reach the same place … But some of the others are going to resent you being promoted to such a rank without going to the Academy on Hazaroth. It’s fine, though. I’ll help you get caught up on all the things you need to know. Like the benefits of certain activities in zero-G.”
“Wait, what?” That sounded interesting.
“Well, certain sections of the ship aren’t affected by the AG field. And we’re able to reserve time in those sections for … educational activities.”
He chuckled at the mental image. “Uh, you should probably put us on the list, then. I’m all about education.”
“Yup, yup. Believe me, I’ll be a great teacher.”
He nodded. “I should get up to the bridge.”
“Hey, Knight. You look hot in the uniform.”
“You too. I mean, you look even hotter out of uniform. Naked, I mean.”
“Yup. Got the innuendo the first time, big guy. And speaking of naked, you never really said anything about … you know.”
The Shekhinah? What the fuck could he say to that? He shook his head. Maybe, once, he might have agreed to share his DNA with any willing partner who’d lined up. But now, with Phoebe … He’d turn away from a hundred women for just one. And the oddest thing was, it wasn’t even a hard choice.
“You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Yup. Fine. Then neither do you. For the moment.”
Knight laughed and headed up to the bridge. Like the Logos, the Wheel of Law was a Tribulation-class Sentinel battleship, meaning its design was similar. Most of Knight’s time on the Logos was spent in the brig—or fighting against Sentinels—so it was odd to stride onto the bridge like he belonged there.
David had taken over the pilot’s chair, despite being a captain now. People always fell back where they were most comfortable. Maybe that’s why Rachel stood right beside him. She’d lost part of herself in giving up the Ark. Knight hoped she could find it again, the same way she’d eventually led him to himself. It was because of Rachel he could stand here, proud of the man he was. Of the uniform he wore.
She wore it too, and the form-fitting black armor looked good on her.
She turned to look at him and actually jerked back. “God, Knight! I didn’t even recognize you.”
David glanced at him, too. “Aye, lad looks like a real soldier, now.”
Knight gave David a mocking salute. And David returned it with a real one. He’d just saluted him. Knight. A soldier. He blew out a breath and folded his arms across his chest. Odd. Who would have thought such a small gesture of respect would matter to him at all? He shouldn’t care. But …
“It’s good you’re here, Knight,” David said. “We just got a message. Asherah has arrived in the Eden System and they’ve begun landing troops there. It seems they intend to claim the planet for the Confederacy. Mizra
im isn’t going to let that happen. I just spoke to Imperator Vibbard and he’s authorized us to return to Eden.”
Knight caught himself looking to Rachel. He had fallen into the habit of turning to her in these situations. But she had placed herself under David’s command, and so had he. And maybe it was for the best. David had the training and command experience. It was what he did best.
And what Knight did best … Well, he would do that when they reached Eden.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
And maybe David did need saving. But less so than myself. If I saved him or Knight, the two of them did the same for me a hundred times over.
The Conduit route to Eden was well hidden. A single passage, always behind you, only reachable by a sudden sharp turn—a dangerous maneuver given the walls of the Conduit could sheer off a ship’s hull. And no one knew what would happen if you breached the Conduit—Angels just said not to. Ever. That was part of the Second Commandment.
Still, finding Eden the first time was the real challenge. Now, David was able to quickly return to planet. He jumped the Wheel of Law out of the Conduit Gate on the edge of the Eden System.
Almost immediately a swarm of Asheran drones converged on the Wheel. A Sentinel battleship, a pair of cruisers, and several destroyers were engaged with an entire fleet of Asheran ships—including three Leviathans. They’d come as soon as able, but already David’s people were hard pressed.
“Angels above,” Phoebe swore.
“Take out those drones!” David said. He jerked the joystick to try to dart behind an icy planetoid on the system’s edge.
His scanners showed one of the Leviathans breaking off to pursue the Wheel. Good. Any ships they diverted from the Sentinel fleet would aid his beleaguered mates.
“It looks like ten Asheran cruisers,” Rachel said. David had assigned her to scanners, and she took to it quickly.
“Prep the ion cannons, but soften them up with a barrage from the pulse cannons.” The pulse cannons would do a good job of tearing through the kinetic shields, and without those, an ion beam would detonate on the Leviathan hull with the force of a nuclear explosion.
The Leviathan crested around the edge of the moon.
“Incoming missile barrage!” Phoebe said.
“Laser batteries, take those out.” A Tribulation-class ship had thirty defensive laser batteries, operated by three different crewmen. David could afford to direct his attention elsewhere.
Like piloting the ship and a squad of drones. The lightning-fast drones were small, unmanned fighters—ideal for shooting down missiles, or raining MAG rounds on the enemy hull. David steered them right for the Leviathan. They needed a quick kill. They needed a statement.
The Asherans thought they could come in here and intimidate the Sentinels. Eden was in the Milky Way, deep within Mizraim space. An invasion like this was bold—and he intended to show them it was too bold.
Turrets on the Leviathan turned on the drones. A stream of plasma toroids spewed from the turrets in a crisscross that blanketed the sky. Drones disappeared from his screen faster than he could blink.
Defensive plasma batteries? That was new.
“Phoebe, bring the ion cannons to bear.”
The Leviathan had tried to dodge her barrage of pulses, but most struck home, and there was no shooting those down.
“They’ve prepped their own ion cannons!”
David banked the Wheel, tried to get the planetoid back between the two ships. But there was no bloody way it would be enough.
The ion stream traveled at them so fast he felt it explode over their hull before he even saw the beam. His console flashed as kinetic shields failed all over the Wheel. Thermonuclear explosions cascaded along the ship, breaching multiple decks.
Shite! Shite! Shite!
A dozen hull breaches, probably hundreds dead.
“Where are those ion cannons, Phoebe?”
“I’m trying! We lost a power relay. I’ve only got two working cannons and they’re on the starboard side.”
That, he could do something about. He banked heavily, jerking the ship around. It meant opening themselves to a broadside of MAG rounds—which were devastating without their shields—but he saw no choice. They needed to make this Leviathan bleed. Now.
“Missile tubes one-o-one through two-hundred, full barrage! Phoebe, fire the ion cannons the moment the missiles hit.”
As expected, the Leviathan defensive batteries concentrated on the incoming missiles. The antimatter warheads would cause serious damage if they impacted, but nothing like ion cannons.
Phoebe fired the cannons. The ion stream was a blue-white beam that, if you didn’t know better, might look like a laser. But it fired ions at near the speed of light. The beam slammed into the Leviathan and ignited a cascade of explosions along her hull.
A power relay on the Wheel blew out. Ion cannons used so much bloody energy.
“I’m reading multiple hull breaches on the Leviathan,” Rachel said. “But it looks like they’ve still got some shielding.”
What the holy universe? He’d fought a Leviathan a few months ago and it hadn’t been this tough. These ships had had some upgrades recently, it seemed.
With current power levels they’d never be able to use the ion cannons.
David swallowed. He needed to end this as quickly as possible.
“Prepare MAG cannons for close firing. We’re going to strafe them.”
He accelerated as rapidly as he could, diving the Wheel of Law right along the Leviathan, barely five hundred meters apart. Enemy drones tried to intercept, but the Wheel’s own drones kept them at bay.
“Sir, the plasma batteries!” Phoebe shouted at him.
“Aye.”
The Leviathan’s defensive batteries ripped into the Wheel’s hull, tearing open more breaches. His maneuver was off rotation. Battleships didn’t strafe one another for just this reason. Defensive batteries were powerful short-range weapons designed to shoot down enemy missiles, but they could rain fiery hell on a ship foolish enough to draw in range.
But desperate times called for an off rotation plan.
Phoebe worked frantically, as he knew she would. The Wheel’s own laser batteries carved slices out of the Leviathan and MAG rounds pounded through the enemy ship. A large enough breach opened she fired an antimatter warhead inside the Leviathan—a near impossible shot. Crippling explosions cascaded through Asheran ship as David jerked the Wheel away, peeling off.
The Leviathan detonated, the explosion scorching the planetoid.
He breathed a long sigh.
“Casualty estimate?”
“I …” Rachel stammered. “I think we may have lost as many as two hundred crewmen …”
Two hundred? Angels above, what had he done? His first battle as captain had also become the biggest disaster of his career. Two hundred Sentinels dead. They had taken down the Leviathan, but the Wheel of Law bore severe damage throughout and he’d just lost near a third of her crew.
And there were still a dozen Asheran ships out there—apparently with a technological edge.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
Still, I like to think I have been a positive influence on the lives of the people around me. Last night I found Knight and Phoebe in the zero-G chamber playing moon ball. And he was laughing—Knight! Not the dark chuckle I once knew from him, but a full-bodied laugh of the kind I’d expect in a boy.
David had given the crew several minutes to get the ship back in order before steering them toward the greater battle. Rachel could feel how much the wait had pained him, but, in all honesty, she doubted it was enough time. The Wheel needed days to repair, not minutes to patch a few breaches and reroute a few power relays.
Knight stood by her side, and she could feel tension wafting off him. He felt useless, and she knew the feeling. Manning the scanners might have been important work, but after controlling the awesome power of the Ark, it felt insignificant.
“I can feel the holes in t
he ship,” he said.
She glanced at him. She wished they’d had more time to map his psionic potential. They didn’t even really know what rank he was. His telekinetic ability seemed to give him an intuitive spatial sense. What else would it let him do? How far could he reach?
“See that ringed planet there? Can you feel that?”
Knight closed his eyes a moment, then shook his head.
So nothing beyond his immediate vicinity, then. “Okay, don’t worry about it. What else can you feel?”
He shook his head again. “That’s it.”
Well, it was a start.
“We’re going back in,” David said. “Brace yourselves. We’re going after that Asheran cruiser engaged with the Eternal Light. I want a tight barrage of missiles followed by concentrated pulse cannon fire. Take them down before they even know what hit them.”
David’s guilt, anger, and fear almost choked her. It wafted around the bridge like a cloud of darkness, threatening to swallow her. It ran so deep she had to look around to see if anyone one else was affected. But she was the only empath on the bridge, and she alone bore the weight of such burden—or shared it with David.
She rose from her seat and stalked over to whisper in his ear. “What happened is not your fault, Mac. It’s war and we were caught off guard.”
“Take your station, lass,” he whispered back.
“Mac …”
“On scanners, Rachel!”
She sighed and started back for the console.
“Rachel,” Knight said. “I think you’d better see this.”
She dashed over to examine the screen. Another fleet had jumped through the Conduit Gate. A brief scan identified them as Jericho and Zebulun ships, a battleship and seven cruisers.
“Conglomerate fleet behind us!” she shouted.
David ground his teeth so loudly she could hear it from four meters away. “Bloody void. Continue with the planned strike. Let them come to us.”