by Kal Spriggs
“Lucius... is it true? Is our father actually alive?” She looked just as emotionally frayed as he felt.
Lucius sighed and collapsed onto the couch across from her. “I'm sorry, Alanis, I should have called you or made some time.” He took a deep breath and then began to relay the events of the past hours. He felt almost incoherent with exhaustion as he began, but by the end of it, as he sipped at a drink she'd poured, he felt a second wind. Not that he would hesitate to stumble to bed when he could, but he at least felt somewhat more capable. He finished relaying the news with, “So... as you can see, we're not really certain.”
She just shook her head at him. “That's... well, I guess that's the best way to put it.” She stared at her own drink and Lucius didn't miss the aroma of alcohol as she sipped at it. “I'm not sure how I feel about this idea that our father wasn't the ambitious bastard that everyone made him out to be.”
“Yes,” Lucius said with a faint smile. “I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that as well, much less the idea that he may be alive. The revelations of the evening, particularly regarding his 'treason' leave me questioning a lot of what I thought I knew about him. It puts some of the nobility's treatment of us under a different perspective too, that they were afraid of what we might know.”
Alanis shook her head, “Those bastards should have been afraid.”
Lucius's eyebrows went up at the venom in her voice. “Alanis,” he said, “I know they must have made millions in selling the Shadow Lords' loot, but they also acted in the interests of their people, preventing bloodshed with their agreement...”
“No,” Alanis said, her voice flat and angry, “Not millions, billions, with a 'B', Lucius. There were questions that people didn't ask, questions they should have, about how we produced so many consumer goods so cheaply.” Her lips twisted in derision, “Stolen goods, stained with the blood of their previous owners, that those selfish bastards resold for profits. Think about it, the Shadow Lords loot entire worlds, there were always questions asked as to what they did with the things they took... farm equipment, frontier clothing and tools, building materials... all of it sold to the nobility of Nova Roma and then resold at a profit again.”
Lucius winced at that. She was right, though. How many times did that question come up, he realized, only for it to be brushed aside by senior officers, who said the focus should be on how to stop such an attack rather than the attackers goals?
“Then, too, that must have driven our expansion,” Alanis said. She shook her head, “They must have had warehouses full of goods, waiting for markets to sell them. The nobility pushed so hard to expand and then to conquer to gain those markets where they could sell their goods and where no one would ask them where they came from.”
Realization shocked him. Lucius remembered the children, shackled together aboard Lachesis's flagship. Men, women and children taken in by the tens of thousands as slaves, all their worldly goods traded to the Nova Roma Empire for weapons and equipment to conduct still more raids. He felt his stomach roil, he suddenly wanted to be sick.
“No wonder they feared us,” Alanis said. “If even a hint of this kind of conspiracy came out, our own people would have rioted in the streets. This kind of thing is what makes governments fall overnight.”
Lucius nodded slowly. “Yet...” He shook his head, “It still doesn't tell me which of them, if either, is telling the truth.”
“Clearly we can't trust either of them,” Alanis said. “But what bothers me is the implication that not just one or two but three Shadow Lords were working together. I thought that didn't happen. Clearly they were afraid, really afraid, of the potential of Nova Roma under the rule of a psychic.”
Lucius snorted at how quickly she'd come to the realization when it had taken his staff a good portion of the night to come to that same conclusion. “True enough. It is something I'll have to take up with Kandergain sometime. God only knows how different it would be if our father was the Emperor. The one question that came up was whether or not he was a psychic... of which I have no earthly idea.”
“Grandmother was...” Alanis said. “And from what you told me, our great-grandmother was as well. Which suggests that it was at least a possibility. I would have thought that you or I would have shown some sign of it, if that were the case though.”
Lucius shook his head, “I don't know enough about it to make even an educated guess, honestly. It's not like grandmother ever told us much.” The idea seemed absurd, yet on the face of it, psychic abilities were supposed to run in families. They sat in silence, both missed the fierce, independent woman who had raised them. She had never talked much about herself, but her morality and standards had put them both on the right track, Lucius knew.
“So, what tests have you thought up?” Alanis said finally.
“Tests?” Lucius asked.
“To determine which one of them is really our father,” Alanis said.
“They both passed our biometrics and genetic testing,” Lucius said. “I heard back from the team we sent aboard the Void Dragon just before I left the offices. Both are not only a match for Marius Giovanni, but to one another... down to their fingerprints.”
“That is really weird,” Alanis said. She frowned, “Well the one is aboard a Shadow Lord vessel, could he or another psychic be manipulating the equipment or people?”
Lucius shook his head, “Reginald checked the personnel and their equipment. He saw no signs of tampering, psychic or otherwise.”
“Reginald?” Alanis asked with puzzlement.
“Oh, right,” Lucius said. “You haven't met him, yet. He's... well, he's an associate of Kandergain, though he doesn't seem to be able to tell me where she is or what she's doing. He's a psychic, but on a much more limited scale.”
“Huh,” Alanis said. “Couldn't you have him, you know,” she wiggled her fingers at him, “read their minds, find out which one is real?”
Lucius gave a pained grimace, “That's, not, strictly speaking, something you're supposed to do to an Ambassador. I think it's probably grounds for war, actually.” He shrugged, “And if the other one is a psychic, he'll be able to not only sense it, but defend against it.” He shrugged somewhat self-consciously, “I asked.”
“Well, what other tests can we do?” Alanis asked. “I was barely a baby when... when all that happened, so I wouldn't be of any help.”
“I wasn't much older,” Lucius said softly. His father's execution had come three days before his fifth birthday. His mother's suicide had happened barely three weeks later. “My memories of him are vague, at best. Admiral Mund was his close friend, but with how much time has passed, he doesn't feel confident in telling a well-coached liar from the truth. For that matter, he clearly wasn't trusted enough for Marius to tell him in full about the conspiracy with the Shadow Lords.”
“Which makes me wonder how close of friends they really were,” Alanis said. “I don't know about you, but if I had some potentially government-shattering information, I would probably go to my friends and family to at least see what they thought I should do.”
“But our father didn't, apparently, tell our mother anything,” Lucius said. The shock on their mother's face when she heard the news was ingrained on his memory, as was the sadness and depression that followed. “So, we don't know that he would have gone to a close friend.”
“But he led the officers of his ships against their new monarch,” Alanis said. “So he at least trusted them.”
“He got all of them killed,” Lucius grimaced. “For that matter, his enlisted men were only spared because he surrendered at the end to spare them. Supposedly all of the officers were executed along with him.”
“This is giving me a headache,” Alanis said. “It's like we're trying to piece together a puzzle, but all we have is vague word of mouth as to what it is supposed to look like from people who are already dead.”
“And we don't even have all the pieces,” Lucius said.
“Well,”
Alanis said cheerfully, “I've got a medical appointment in around three hours, and after that I have to report to the Academy for in-processing. So I'm going to get some sleep. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you.” She stood up and dusted off her hands, as if satisfied the task was in good hands.
Lucius grimaced, “Thanks... and good luck.” Having heard about the brutal schedule that Colonel Proscia had for his cadets, Lucius wasn't sure which of them would have a harder time.
“Well, if you wanted an easy job,” Alanis said with a smile, “you probably shouldn't have taken on the task of saving humanity.”
Lucius sighed, “You know, I've got a war to plan, a daughter to raise, a fifty-year-old conspiracy to unravel, and a government to run. I'm swamped.”
Alanis gave him a solemn nod, “Lucius... get some rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything.” She managed to reach the door before he could find anything appropriate to throw at her. I introduced her to that movie, Lucius thought with irritation, not fair of her to use it against me.
***
Chapter IX
Halcyon Colony
Garris Major System
October 6, 2403
Lauren looked up as Kandergain stuck her head in. “You don't knock?” Lauren asked, somewhat irritated as she lowered her weapon. She had thought she'd locked the door and put it on privacy mode. No one other than 'Captain Stavros' should have been able to bypass that and then only in an emergency.
“Sorry,” Kandergain said. She had a solemn look on her face that made Lauren reach for her body armor and jacket. Kandergain caught the movement and gave a grim smile. “I was wondering if you could give me a hand.”
Lauren grimaced, but she didn't stop putting on her body armor. “Is this related to...” she hesitated and then finished lamely, “...our business here?”
“Sort of,” Kandergain smiled. “Though I haven't checked with Captain Stavros, I think he'd approve. I don't want to involve him directly, though, in case any of this gets back. He can escape any blame in case it goes bad.” Despite her light tone, Lauren felt her eye twitch. 'Going bad' sounded extremely ominous, especially given how dangerous Mason had said the psychic was.
“Right,” Lauren said. She pulled her jacket on over her armor and gave the other woman a nod, “Shuttle available?” She pulled a bulky rucksack from under her bunk and lifted it over her shoulder. It clinked, reassuringly, with the sound of weapons and ammunition.
“I... acquired one for this job,” Kandergain said. “It's at the starboard airlock, should be unobserved.”
Lauren's eyes went wide. It shouldn't be possible for her to have gone planet side and acquired a shuttle and brought it back and docked it to the Kraken. For one thing, their combat shuttle was locked down, only Mason knew the command codes for it, and their cargo shuttle was down for maintenance. For another, the personnel manning the sensors should have alerted the entire vessel if someone tried to dock with them. And last, Mason and Lauren had locked down all the airlocks, which had odd docking mechanisms anyway and needed either a special connection or some kind of jury-rigged connection. For that matter, someone down on Halcyon Traffic Control should have said something.
Lauren didn't speak about the impossibility of the other woman not only getting planet-side to get a shuttle, bringing it back unnoticed, and docking with an airlock of unusual make. She just gave her a nod and followed her out.
They didn't run into anyone on their way through the Kraken's corridors. At the airlock, Kandergain toggled open the hatch, despite the red icon on it. Inside, Lauren saw that the outer hatch was open to the interior of a shuttle. Some kind of expanded foam sealed off the connection to the hull. The tiny flight compartment suggested it wasn't a cargo or even a combat shuttle. Lauren climbed into the copilot seat and saw Kandergain power the shuttle up, even as she sealed the outer hatches. “We should be secure here,” Kandergain said.
“What is this?” Lauren asked as she figured out the controls and systems. From what she could tell, the craft was tiny, far smaller that she had expected.
“It's a shisha courier shuttle. The Shogunate produces them for military and executive use, you can find a few of them throughout human space. The owner is from here on Halcyon and it shouldn't be reported missing.” The light way she said it suggested the owner wasn't going to be reporting much of anything. “I'm masking our presence on sensors, so the light size makes it a bit easier.”
“Okay...” Lauren said. She glanced out the view-port as they flashed past the hull of the Kraken. The angular, menacing ship seemed to watch them disapprovingly as they departed. “So what's going on?”
Kandergain was silent for a long moment and Lauren began to wonder if she had even heard the question. When she finally spoke, her voice was tight, “There's a psychic here, working with Admiral Collae. I thought at first that she wasn't here, but I finally got a break earlier that let me find out where she would be. We've got a thirty minute window when I can corner her.”
“Isn't this going to give away Mason's identity?” Lauren asked.
Kandergain snorted, “Not unless this goes very wrong. Our target works with Admiral Collae, not for him. She's going to want to keep this as quiet as possible, even if she gets away. Also, she shouldn't have any way to track us back to our ship. For that matter, with how secretive she is, if she goes missing for a few weeks or even months, Admiral Collae won't be certain why.”
“So who is the target... and why do you need me?” Lauren asked.
Kandergain looked over and gave Lauren a smile, just as they swept close past the bulk of a freighter. Lauren's fingers dug into the padding of her chair's armrests as the ship flashed past. “Glad you don't have a problem.” She sighed, “Mistress Blanc has a crew, her senior personnel are mercenaries, purely there for the profits. She's got a lot of physical muscle to back her... and a lot of them are thralls.” At Lauren's blank look, she explained further, “Take a person, wipe their personality, their emotions, everything that makes them human... turn them into a meat puppet.”
Lauren shuddered at that. “Okay, so how many of them will she have?”
“She can control as many as ten at a time directly and she can give fifty or so general commands... like shoot anything that moves.” Kandergain grimaced. “On top of that, she'll have a team of bodyguards, probably in armor, who have their own drive and initiative. They're minor psychics, still very dangerous. Leave them to me, but you can take one of them down with a bullet if it comes to that.
“Ten to fifty thralls?” Lauren asked uncertainly. She could handle a few people, but fifty sounded a little out of her league.
“You'll do fine. Don't hesitate, by the way, to kill them. They're not human anymore,” Kandergain said, her voice sad. Lauren gave her a level look that was wasted since Kandergain seemed entirely focused on flight and doing whatever psychic abilities kept them concealed. Lauren didn't think she would hesitate to kill anyone. She'd killed the Roirdan boy, hadn't she? Not that I liked it, she thought, but I had to, or else Mason would be in danger.
Kandergain brought the small craft down over the town and settled it on a private cargo landing pad near a section of warehouses in New Telluride, the Halcyon capital. New Telluride, like most of Halcyon's cities, was nestled in the rugged peaks of the planet's single continent. In a city where flat ground was expensive, the warehouses were all built into the slopes of the mountainside, many of them looked to extend inwards, carved into the living rock. Lauren had found it an interesting design. Granted, her perspective was militarily oriented and she figured they'd make good bunkers for people to shelter in if the planet came under attack. They also would be good spots to mount weapons, especially given the heavy rail system designed to feed them. It would be easy enough to mount missile and even light energy or projectile weapons on rail cars and wheel them out to fire in surprise.
Kandergain popped the seal on the small airlock hatch and led the way out and then do
wn the platform towards a section of warehouses. “We don't have much time, I understand she'll be finishing her business here soon and then headed for her vehicles.”
“What business here?” Lauren asked, even as she scanned the area for signs of ambush. The disparate heights and long sight lines made her nervous. A few trained snipers would make the area a killing ground.
“Some of equipment transfer for Admiral Collae,” Kandergain said, just as she led the way into a long, narrow set of stairs which led down to the next level of warehouses. “I'm not sure of the details.”
As they went down the long set of stairs, Lauren felt increasingly nervous. The area was quiet, too quiet even for a warehouse district. She could see Kandergain had noticed it too. There was no sound of distant machinery or traffic. It was like the entire area was empty of human life. Most of the lights were out, too, other than a tiny pool of light at the bottom of the stairs.
As she thought that, four men stepped out to block the stairs ahead of them, all with weapons in hand. They wore gray body armor complete with full helmets. A glance behind showed a half dozen at the top of the stairs.
A woman, dressed in a gray business suit with a gray overcoat stepped into the pool of light at the bottom of the stairs. “Kandergain,” she said, “good to see you are predictably obsessed, as always.”
Kandergain shook her head, “Nice to see you're still dressing so sharply. I take it my informant was one of your people?”
“He works for Collae,” Mistress Blanc said. Lauren's eyes narrowed as she heard the soft sounds of footsteps on either side above them. Clearly the woman had more forces moving into place. “Though, I must say, your dedication is admirable, I do find it troublesome when you show up places you shouldn't. Who tipped you off about our operation here?” Lauren shifted slightly and saw all ten of the men instantly move, their weapons raised. They moved with the kind of synchronization that Lauren had only seen in bad action holovids.