by Larkin, Matt
She shook her head. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Raziel had played her on Gehenna and led them to this off rotation mess they found themselves in. She’d been so sure if she found Eden it would save the universe. But it had done nothing. Not a damn thing had changed—at least not for the better. She no longer knew who to trust.
And maybe Raziel was the last place she should turn. But sadly, he was also the last place she had left to go.
“We can at least try,” she said.
“He’s gotten into your head before.”
True. But then, he seemed to be able to do that wherever she was on the ship. His mental assault had resumed not long after she returned to the Wheel.
“Let’s wait for Knight,” she said.
“No argument from me.”
A minute later, the Gehennan entered the wing. “Why are we here?”
“Because we’re lost,” Rachel said. “And because if we’re going to find our way, we need Raziel.”
Knight folded his arms across his chest. “You can’t think to trust that little shit.”
Well, no. But trust him enough, she hoped. The Angel had, after all, given them his ship. It was because of Raziel they had escaped the Ark at all. He told her back then she didn’t understand what she’d started. God, how right he’d been. She’d made one mistake after another. She’d refused to give the Ark to Mizraim for fear they would awaken the Angels. She’d refused it to QI for fear they’d exploit it. And in the end, she’d handed it back to the Angels, deluding herself into thinking they alone would not abuse the power. But the Angels were the worst of all. Even Jericho might have given them a better future—one that didn’t involve exploding planets and genocide.
Rachel sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do anymore. We’re losing this … Everything is falling apart. And we can’t gain an edge unless we understand the rules of the game.” She strode over to the Angel’s cell and tapped the smart glass to turn it transparent.
The Angel stared at her, his eyes cold, his head cocked slightly to the side.
“Do you know what’s happened?” she asked, at last.
“I know my brethren have turned on you. I feel fear permeating this ship like a cloud of toxic gas, creeping through every seam. I hear the echoes of sorrow, the grief that threatens to drown your crew in the inexorable tide of the future.”
“They bloody destroyed planets!” David shouted at him. “How could they do that when we asked them here to negotiate for peace?”
“Speak to me with respect, human.”
“I …” David stammered.
Oh, no. This was not going like that. “You’re the one in the brig, Angel. Ditch the pompous attitude if you want to win any points with us.”
“I should have killed him,” Knight mumbled.
Somehow, Rachel doubted that would have made things better. A dead Angel would have bought them nothing.
A glower settled on Raziel’s face. “You thought they would negotiate? Would you negotiate with a monkey? No. You would tell the creature what to do, and if it disobeyed, you would punish it. My brethren see you as far beneath themselves as a monkey is beneath you.”
“We are sentient beings!” she shouted at him.
“So are monkeys. They care about their lives, too. But you do not overly trouble yourself with their happiness if it conflicts with your own aims.”
“And what are their aims?” David asked. “What do the Angels want?”
Raziel was silent a moment, and Rachel actually felt uncertainty wafting off him. Was he so distracted he forgot to guard his emotions, or did he let her feel it on purpose? “They are preparing for war.”
“They’ve already declared war on us,” David said. “They’re killing people by the millions.”
“Kings do not war with pawns—they war with other kings. In breaking the Covenant, you have allowed yourselves to become pawns of the other side. Pawns may be crushed under foot, but they are never the targets.”
Rachel took a step toward the Angel and was stopped by the smart glass. Was he saying …? She opened the door and walked closer.
“Rachel …” Knight said.
She kept advancing. “You’re saying … the Adversary is real?”
“Of course it is real, you arrogant child. You have played around in the dark until you have woken something you do not understand. And in so doing, you have ignited enough fear in my brethren they would sooner quash you than allow you to be used against them. And in that fear, they go too far.”
No. The Angels had made up the Adversary. It was a ship like theirs. A ship no one had ever seen again. But Raziel was admitting the other Angels were wrong? He had known all along where the Ark was, but he never activated it himself. Why?
“Why freeze yourselves at all, then? Why risk losing control?”
At that, the Angel snorted, the sound all too human. “They did not. One of their own, an agent of the Adversary, betrayed them and forced them into cryo slumber.”
An agent of the … Void, so some of the Angels did serve the Adversary? But Raziel still had not awakened his fellow Angels. Even knowing the danger.
“Because,” he said, clearly reading her mind, “I wanted to give humanity a chance to rise on its own. We had long wondered how well your kind would do were we to move on to the depths of space. It was the perfect experiment. And I had other reasons that do not concern you now. If you want me to help you survive what is coming, you must release me.”
She glanced at David, who nodded, and Knight, who shrugged. They were leaving it up to her. And she would again be responsible for shaping the fate of the universe.
“You swear to help mankind?” she asked.
“Yes. I always have.”
Was that possible? That he had always been trying to help? And she’d been too blind to see it? “Release him,” she said to David.
He did so, pressing a panel on the smart glass that caused Raziel’s restraints to pop open.
The Angel stepped down and rubbed his wrists. He flexed his wings once, then cracked his neck. “I’m glad you have come to your senses, Ms. Jordan.”
“The Angel that betrayed you, the Adversary, they’re still out there?”
“The Angel’s name is Apollyon, and yes, he is still out there, along with others of his kind. We must move quickly if we are to stand against him and stave off the Ark’s wrath.”
Rachel nodded and headed out. David leaned in close to her ear. “His presence is going to be a wee bit hard to explain to the crew, lass.”
She shrugged. “You’re the captain. That’s your job.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN
February 9th
Part of me never expected Raziel to agree to help us. Who is this being? Who was he in the Days of Glory? I once thought of him as a creature … I wonder, under the cybernetics and psionics and pretense, if he more a man after all.
The Angels had continued to strike worlds across Andromeda, so Ekron, deep in the Milky Way, made the best meeting location David could think of. He’d spread the word as best he could. Twenty Sentinel captains had come with their ships. Maybe no one else heard, or maybe no one else was able. Many Sentinel ships had tried forming blockades around Conduit Gates, hoping to guard the most populated worlds in the Empire. So far, no such blockade had stopped the Angel advance.
Now, Sentinel ships hid behind moons and uninhabited planetoids, trying to disguise their presence. Sentinels—once the proudest fighting force in the universe—now stalked the shadows like the very smugglers they once hunted.
They had known the Angel ship was powerful, but had never understood its true potential. Now though, with a full crew of Angels, the monstrosity seemed unstoppable. And so, the captains sat huddled around a table in a secluded office on Ekron, parkas discarded by the entrance.
Rachel and Knight stood nearby. Rachel had advised them not to reveal Raziel’s presence—it would only further confuse the already divided captains
. David was forced to agree. Since he’d sat down, his fellow officers hadn’t ceased squabbling.
Hannah Hertz knocked on the table, finally bringing the commotion to a stop. “All right, all right. McGregor called this meeting. So what’ll it be, David? Do you have a plan?”
David scratched his head and sighed. The heat was cranked up high in the office, and with so many people packed inside, it had become a wee bit stifling in here. Everyone was losing patience. Including him. “No, lass. Not a plan, exactly. But we have to unite the Sentinels. If we can come up with a course, any course, and take it to the others …”
“Angels above,” Waller said. “McGregor’s wasting our time. We should be out there, right now, protecting the Empire.”
As usual, David’s former captain had no interest in anything he had to say. David half wondered if the man agreed to come just to antagonize him.
“Oh, we’re doing a damn fine job of that,” Captain Harrison said. “We’ve lost hundreds, maybe thousands of ships. No one can say for sure, and that’s the real problem, isn’t it? We’ve been sundered.”
“The Mazzaroth still works,” Hertz said. “If we just call everyone …”
A dozen people spoke at once.
“You have to know who to call.”
“We’ve lost central command.”
“Without the Sanhedrin we can’t hold together.”
“All right!” David shouted, finally bringing the bickering down to whispers. “All right. What we’re doing is not working. We’re spread too thin to protect the entire Empire without knowing where the Ark will strike next. We’re going to need a new strategy. Something the Angels won’t expect.”
“We know that, McGregor,” Captain Jacobs said. “But unless you’ve got a suggestion …”
“Aye. I do. But you’re not going to like it.” Void, David didn’t like it either. He’d been mulling it over for days, since before he’d even called the meeting. It was the last thing in the universe he’d want to do. But the holy universe was bloody ending all around them. “Asherah.”
“We have no resources to strike them now,” Hertz said. “And they’ve withdrawn their offensive, so they’re not a threat at the moment.”
“I’m not suggesting we invade, Hannah,” he said. “I’m suggesting we … we try to ally with them against a common threat.” With the cyborgs who had murdered his mum. With the people who had invaded the Empire and begun slaughtering Mizraim citizens. With the monsters … who were still more human than the Angels. The one faction he could be absolutely sure would not capitulate.
Waller stood, towering over the rest of the table. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this, even from you. Even from a traitor like you—you would sell us out to the enemy! You would have us bend knee to the abominations that have threatened our space for centuries! Does your treason know no bounds, McGregor?”
Wanker was calling him a traitor again. Knight had told him to kill Waller back then, but David had insisted the man face trial. Instead of punishing him, the Sanhedrin had given the bugger back his ship. David rose slowly, staring right into the Anakim’s eyes. “I am no traitor.”
“A court martial said otherwise, McGregor! And just because the Shekhinah gave you a pardon doesn’t mean the rest of us should.”
“The Shekhinah is the highest authority in Mizraim,” Harrison said. “Its decision is good enough for me.”
“Now look here,” David said. “The Asherans are in an even worse spot than us. Half the conflict we’ve ever had with them, half the reason for the war is because they abandoned the Covenant and we didn’t.”
“Sounds like a fair reason for war,” Hertz said.
“We are fighting against the bloody Angels, lass. That goes a wee bit beyond abandoning the Covenant. We’ve declared war on our former masters.”
“There’s been no declaration of war,” Jacobs said.
“They’re blowing up bloody planets!” David pushed down on the table, and took a deep breath to steady himself. He needed to stay calm to deal with the situation.
Rachel coughed from some distance behind him, and all heads turned toward her. “Whether anyone likes it or not, we are at war with the Angels. Unless all of you are ready to submit to their terms and authority, we have to fight. And we know Asherah is doing the same. Ask yourselves if your ire against them is only because they already turned their backs on the Angels.”
Waller jabbed a finger in her direction. “Jordan is not a captain. She’s not even a Sentinel, and she has no business at this debate.”
Rachel had been given a commission by the Shekhinah, but David wasn’t sure that mattered at the moment—especially since she had once resigned. “Regardless, she’s right. And I strongly suggest you start listening to her. Because we cannot do this alone.”
The looks on the other captains’ faces told him the answer before the shouting resumed. They wouldn’t side with Asherah. Too few of them could see past the same hatred that had blinded him for so many years.
And that hatred would cost them all.
Divided, humanity could not stand against the Angels.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY
Raziel guards his emotions well. Even if I try, it’s hard to read him. But sometimes, I can feel the tension roiling beneath the surface. Fears so deep I could drown in them. As if he sees something beyond what we even imagine. I asked him, once, what darkness lurked behind his eyes. He quoted the Codex, saying ‘the Road to Hell is Paved with Good intentions.’
Knight leaned against the wall, watching the Sentinel captains argue. By the sound of it, this whole meeting had been a waste of time. The only good thing liable to come out of this whole trip was giving Phoebe the chance to see her family again. And since David had asked Knight to come along as security, he didn’t even have the chance to apologize to them for before.
In the midst of the commotion, David turned, looking at the door with a mask of consternation on his face. His gaze flitted to meet Knight’s, and his eyes went wide. Prescient insight?
Knight grabbed Rachel and shoved her away from the door. A second later it exploded into the room. The blast took the nearest Sentinel and hurled him over the table. A wave of heat washed over Knight. He curled into a ball and folded his arms over his head, protecting it from the scorch. The second it faded he tapped the control on his suit and formed his helmet.
Smoke filled the chamber, but his suit helped him see through it. Men and women poured in through the openings, MAGs in hand. They wore gas masks and goggles to see through the smoke. One leveled his weapon at David, who was rising, even as most of the other Sentinels choked on the smoke or tried to get their helmets up.
Knight reached out with his mind and telekinetically ripped the gun from the man’s hand. He flipped onto the table, caught the weapon as it flew toward him, and fired. MAG rounds slammed into the attacker.
Others returned fire. Rounds ricocheted off Knight’s suit. His HUD reading for his kinetic shields diminished rapidly as the attackers focused their fire on him. He shot down another man, flipped onto the wall and kicked off it, landing in their midst. Too close for them to use auto fire without risking friendly fire.
He kicked out a man’s knee while grabbing another’s head and slamming it into the smoldering wall.
Pulse shots took down an assailant to his left. David’s Smogger genes must have helped him recover faster than the others.
Knight caught a man’s arm and twisted, breaking it at the elbow. He shoved his screaming victim into his fellows, and two of them collapsed in a heap.
Other invaders had rushed in through the hole in the wall and moved in on the recovering Sentinels. They struck with stun batons. Those Sentinels who had not formed helmets yet went down, painful shocks to their brains that Knight remembered all too well.
These little shits were Redeemers. He hated Redeemers.
Knight spun, time slowing around him, and landed a dozen body blows against the nearest man. He jerke
d an elbow into a woman’s face, shattering it, then slammed both palms over a man’s temples. His enemies collapsed in heaps around him. An Icie woman leveled a MAG at him. Knight jerked to the side and a slug soared past him and into one of her companions. He grabbed her arm and twisted, bending her over her own gun. Then he squeezed her hand until the MAG fired. At point blank range the slug tore right through her nanomesh, out her back, and punched a hole in the ceiling.
A pair of Redeemers came at him with stun batons. Knight evaded a swing, caught his attacker’s wrist, and shoved the baton into another man’s face. A heartbeat later he broke the Redeemer’s arm.
Pulses soared through the air around him. Knight rolled to the ground, getting clear. The Sentinels had recovered, and they would make short work of the remaining Redeemers.
One of the invaders roared, charging at him. Big man. Knight had seen him before. Rachel’s brother.
Knight ducked and evaded blow after blow. Jeremiah Jordan swung was fervor and rage, but no control. Fool had let his fury overwhelm his obvious training, and it would cost him.
Knight dove into a roll and came up behind Jeremiah. From a crouch he aimed a downward hook at the Redeemer’s knee. The punch shattered the kneecap and the man fell, shrieking in pain. Before the Redeemer hit the ground, Knight had an arm around his throat. He landed a tight blow on Jeremiah’s kidney, and then another.
Fucker wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. Knight dropped his moaning victim, then moved to help the Sentinels secure the remainder of the Redeemers.
They must have sent three full Hearts in. Twenty-one Redeemers, probably hoping to capture as many Sentinel captains as possible. Knight had no idea how they’d found out about this secret meeting. He supposed someone had seen the Sentinels and sent word. Men like the Redeemers had loyalists everywhere. Sycophants too blind to see the zealots for what they really were—fools clinging to myths, too afraid to face the new reality that had been revealed to them.