The Prodigal Sun

by Sean Williams

  The telemetry officer intruded softly. “Captain...?”

  Kajic turned to face her. “Yes? Report!”

  “We are registering a transmission from the surface,” she said, tasting her lips nervously. “A precise fix is impossible through the interference, sir, but it does seem to be coming from the landing field transponders. And... it’s directed at us.”

  Kajic paused momentarily. “What sort of transmission?”

  “Presently unknown, sir. We are detecting only a carrier wave.”

  “Let me know when the source of the transmission and its contents are confirmed. It may be Major Gyori attempting to report.”

  “Sir.” The officer returned to her station, her face a mask of concentration. Kajic glanced at Makaev, but his second was busy relaying his previous orders. Accurately, he hoped.

  priority /

  / gold-one

  Suddenly, people were staring at him. Half the bridge crew had swiveled in their combat harnesses to focus on the command dais.

  “Atalia,” he said, perplexed. “What’s going on?”

  “You... disappeared, sir.” Kajic’s second stared at him openly from her station. “We tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

  Kajic sent a self-diagnostic probe through his circuitry and systems. A millisecond later it returned: all clear. “There has been no malfunction.”

  “But you—” Makaev stopped, swallowed. “For an instant there your persona just ceased.”

  “That’s impossible,” Kajic snapped, feeling panic stirring in his mind. “I sensed no discontinuity.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Of course I am!” Despite his denial, Kajic’s uncertainty manifested itself as anger, under which loomed a growing fear that maybe stress was causing a malfunction in his circuitry.

  priority gold-one

  “Just let me think.” He said this aloud, wanting to silence the voice in his head, although he immediately regretted it. His behavior had provoked a look of concern from a number of the faces around the bridge, and he knew he couldn’t afford to have them doubt his competency at this vital stage of the mission.

  Trying to reestablish a sense of control and thus regain the confidence of his crew, Kajic casually folded his arms behind his back and addressed Makaev in a smooth and calm manner.

  “The transmission,” he said. “Has its source been identified?”

  “No, sir.” Although most of the crew slowly returned to their duties, Makaev’s worried frown remained. She wasn’t fooled by his attempt to resume proceedings as though nothing had happened. “Analysis concluded that it was probably a spurious echo of our own transmissions,” she said. “There has still been no word from Major Gyori.”

  This last part was spoken a little smugly, Kajic thought, but he refused to rise to the bait. “Nevertheless,” he said. “We will wait a little longer. Five minutes more, then we will assume that Major Gyori has failed.”

  Kajic kept his image on the bridge overlooking the crew, trying desperately to maintain an even composure and not submit to the anxiety that increased with each passing second. The truth was, he suspected that Makaev was right: if he waited too long to send backup, the opportunity might be lost forever. Should he trust his own judgment in the aftermath of what had apparently happened to him? Was he malfunctioning in some unanticipated, subtle way, without being aware of it himself?

  If so, then there was only one way to find out.

  Two minutes passed. Then three. Fifty seconds before the deadline, telemetry spoke again:

  “Sir—we are registering a launch!”

  Kajic turned to face the screen. “Elaborate,” he said. “I want all available data.”

  A map of the region appeared. “One craft, rising through the dust above the landing field,” said the officer. A flashing red dot appeared on the screen. “A surface-to-orbit vehicle—probably one of our own, judging by its emissions. No communication as yet.”

  “They are still too close to the source of the interference,” Kajic said. “It must be Gyori. Given the traffic ban, only one of our own would be so bold as to launch unannounced.”

  “It could be a ruse, sir,” Makaev cautioned.

  “I am aware of that possibility.” Kajic remained pensive for a few moments before speaking. “Instruct Paladin and Galloglass to intercept before it reaches orbit, just in case.”

  “Sir.” She turned away to relay the orders.

  Kajic watched the screen closely. The red dot rose higher, curving slowly to reach orbit. Green dots marked the two raiders as they dropped to meet it, swooping like aerial hunters with claws extended upon some lone and silent prey. Then:

  “Ident confirmed,” said telemetry, swiveling around to face the captain. “It is the shuttle, sir.”

  “But still no communication?”

  “No, sir. There has been...” She paused, pressing at the communication bud in her ear. “Wait,” she said, leaning over her console to concentrate. “Something’s coming through now.” Another pause. “They are requesting permission to dock.”

  “Who, exactly?” asked Makaev, the suspicion clearly evident in her tone.

  Kajic also thought he detected a brief expression of annoyance flicker across her face. Had her plans to subvert him been foiled, or was he just imagining things?

  “He has identified himself as Sergeant Komazec.” Silence as telemetry once again listened. “He says that there have been many casualties—Major Gyori included. It seems that—”

  priority gold-one

  “The mission,” Kajic snapped, silencing both the officer and the prompts from his programming. The deaths of Gyori and the others were regrettable, but irrelevant. “What is the status of their mission?”

  Another unheard exchange between telemetry and the sergeant passed before: “They have the COE agent and the AI aboard, sir.”

  Kajic did smile, then. “Permission to dock granted,” he said. “Atalia, notify the commanding officers of Paladin, Galloglass, and Lansequenet that we will be leaving in two hours.”

  Makaev nodded once. “As you wish, sir.”

  Yes, thought Kajic to himself, not caring for once who might be listening through his back door. Yes, I do wish. And this is your captain speaking...

  * * *

  The snub-nosed shuttle, trimmed and ready to dock, approached the grey bulk of the Ana Vereine, propelled by increasingly delicate nudges from its thrusters. As the orbits overlapped, the shuttle’s relative velocity decreased until it was practically stationary with respect to the larger ship. The last few meters passed most slowly of all, as the nose of the shuttle edged into a vacant gantry.

  A muffled clang announced that contact had been made. The gantry’s manifold waldoes enfolded the shuttle in a gentle embrace and tugged it deeper into the mother ship, where cables waited like open-mouthed serpents to link it to the Ana Vereine’s life support. A gaping transit corridor groped for the airlock lip, clung tight, and pressurized. All that remained was the linking of computer systems; only after that would the shuttle truly be home.

  Dato Bloc engineers called this final process “unscrambling the egg.” Kajic had watched many thousand such maneuvers from the cameras installed in the hangar’s ceiling, but never before with so much at stake.

  On the contents of this particular egg rested not only his mission, but perhaps his very life.

  “The shuttle has docked,” Makaev said from the bridge. “When its cargo has been unloaded and verified, we will be ready to leave.”

  “Very good.” Kajic resisted the impulse to tell her that she was stating the obvious. Now that the crisis had passed, she was performing her duty as impeccably as ever. Perhaps—if she truly was the traitor—he had finally earned her trust. Either that, or she was simply biding her time...

  The shuttle’s airlock, invisible within the transit corridor, opened with a hiss and distracted him from that train of thought. He moved to a camera within sight of the egress airlock
and waited. Not long after, heavy footsteps tramped down the short corridor, and booted feet appeared. Two fully armored troopers led the way, their suits blackened and charred by battle. Two others followed close behind. Between the latter two hung a suspension stretcher, and on the stretcher lay—

  Was it her? Kajic hardly dared to believe his eyes. Could it really be...?

  Of course it could. There was no mistaking that face, even partly burned and swollen. He had studied her files extensively over the last few days, so much so that her image was now imprinted upon his mind.

  Lying unconscious on the stretcher was Commander Morgan Roche of COE Intelligence. Beside her, still connected to her wrist by a length of cord, was the valise. The AI.

  He only half heard the brief radio communication between the landing party and the hangar techs. His thoughts were elsewhere, focused instead upon the blessed silence that now filled his mind. Suddenly, with his mission completed, the priorities had ceased their endless prompting. That alone made the success of his mission worthwhile. To be free of interference for a while; to be himself.

  Then, without warning, as though following on the heels of that very thought, came a new invasion, a new priority:

  return at once to Szubetka Base

  priority gold-one

  The sense of elation sank as quickly as it had surfaced. Not until his hologram stood before the Ethnarch and the Military Presidium and he presented his report would they allow him to entertain any sense of achievement. Only then, perhaps, would he be free.

  He watched after the unconscious commander with an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. There was still work to be done. Perhaps, he thought, returning his image to the bridge, there always would be.

  * * *

  “We are secured to break orbit, sir.”

  return at once

  Kajic nodded as he looked one last time at the picture of Sciacca’s World on display. “Do so,” he said tiredly.

  Dissolving the hologram, Kajic swung his attention through the ship, performing a quick scan of the drive chambers, the matter-antimatter fuel mix, and astrogation’s plotted course. Beyond the metal shell of his surrogate body, the three raiders accompanying the Ana Vereine performed similar checks before leaving the system.

  When the time came, four mighty engines fired, casting a false dawn over the facing hemisphere of Sciacca’s World. The Soul twinkled around them, then behind them, as they rose above the equatorial plane. In strict formation, the four ships swooped over the northern pole and its tiny patch of ice, angled down past the Soul again, then aimed toward the orange sun. The intrasystem thrusters flared to maximum power, the Soul flashed one last time, and then they were free of the planet’s gravity well.

  Their course would take them around the sun, past the smallish gas giant on the far side, and out to the system’s nearest anchor point. When they reached that point, in three days’ time, they would depart the Hutton-Luu System forever.

  return to Szubetka Base

  Four hours into their journey, when he was certain that everything was proceeding according to plan, Kajic focused his attention on internal matters. More specifically, on Sergeant Komazec’s report of events that had transpired on Sciacca’s World.

  The ambush at the landing field had been a disaster due in part to the fact that Major Gyori had attempted to capture Roche without the assistance of the local Enforcers. Despite being severely outnumbered, Roche’s strike force had successfully penetrated the MiCom building and taken control of the installation. How she had accomplished this, exactly, was something of a mystery, although it seemed that she had allied herself with at least one powerful epsense adept whose powers gave her a significant tactical advantage.

  Once inside the building, she had used the AI to assume control of the MiCom installation. But instead of sending a message requesting assistance from the Armada, she had broadcast a plea on behalf of the local rebels. Why, Kajic could only guess. Perhaps she had owed it to the rebels who had helped her, been obliged to aid them in their cause before they would let her complete her own mission—which, thankfully, she had been unable to do.

  Under pressure from Dato troopers within the building, she and her allies had been forced to the roof. Two Enforcement flyers commandeered by Major Gyori’s squad had harried her from the air while Enforcement used mortars to weaken their position from below.

  But still Roche had not given up. One of the flyers—the one containing Major Gyori—had been damaged in the battle. And somehow she had taken remote control of the landing party’s shuttle, possibly to seek refuge in the transmitter station orbiting the planet.

  It was at this point that luck had turned in favor of Sergeant Komazec, who had assumed command of the landing party following Major Gyori’s untimely death.

  Weakened by casualties of their own—and the neutralization of their reave—Roche’s band had turned against her. Knowing that escape from the planet was impossible with the Dato ships enforcing the blockade, and that any defense of the landing field was temporary at best, they had overpowered her and attempted to negotiate. Speaking from inside the shuttle, one of them had coordinated a meeting between the landing party and the rebels, the intention being to exchange Roche for safe passage.

  The meeting had taken place on the roof of the DAOC Administration building. Sergeant Komazec had agreed to everything. The ultimate fate of the rebels—and, indeed, DAOC Enforcement itself, a one-time ally—was irrelevant. The AI and its courier were all that mattered.

  Roche, unconscious and injured, was brought out of the shuttle, with the AI, and handed over to the soldiers of the Dato Bloc.

  Once Roche was safe, Komazec had opened fire upon the rebels and regained control of the shuttle. He had left no survivors. Not one. Such ruthlessness might once have appalled Kajic, but now, with his priorities burning so effectively into his conscience, he felt only indifference. All that mattered was that the AI and Roche had been successfully returned to him. His mission had been accomplished.

  He directed his attention to Roche in the sick bay holding cells. She was still unconscious, still attached to the AI. The stolen combat suit had been removed, and the burns on her scalp, face, and neck were undergoing treatment, as were minor injuries to her ribs, shoulder, and hip; apart from that, she had been left in peace. Until they were certain how deep the link between her and the AI extended, the Ana Vereine’s surgeons would not dare sever it from her.

  In less than a week she would be a captive of the Presidium, an unwilling accomplice in the ongoing state of tension existing between the Dato Bloc and Commonwealth governments. She would become a traitor of the worst kind, one whose involuntary betrayal meant the deaths of friends, family, and colleagues.

  This saddened him, obscurely. She had no choice in the matter—an impotence he could empathize with. It would have been better for her if she had died on Sciacca’s World. That way, her mission would only have failed, not been perverted to her enemies’ ends.

  He looked forward to the opportunity of meeting her properly, when he could speak to her face to face, one soldier to another. She had been a worthy adversary throughout his assignment...

  return to Szubetka Base

  As he scanned through Komazec’s report one final time, he noticed a minor item in the inventory that he had missed earlier. The body of an elderly Eckandi male, apparently killed during the attack, had also been returned to the Ana Vereine. His exact identity was unknown, but, from what little the rebels had said when handing over Roche, Komazec had received the impression that it had been the Eckandi who had arranged the message to the COE High Equity Court. Possibly he was a clandestine member of the Commerce Artel; not unlikely, given his citizenship in the Eckandar Trade Axis. The body, with its distinctive flash burns from a Dato weapon, had been recovered as a precaution to divert the powerful Artel’s wrath.

  Kajic had to admire Komazec’s quick thinking. Such a move had been entirely in accordance with his own orders. Sec
ond only to success, stealth had been the important thing. And, while the mission might not have gone as well as he had hoped, at least he could say that nothing had been overlooked. His crew had acted without fault, which would reflect well upon his command.

  Yet how near defeat had been: the panicky moments before Komazec’s return; the interminable waiting, the lack of information; then the apparent malfunction of his own systems, and Makaev’s almost open defiance. A few minutes longer...

  But now, with Roche safely aboard the ship and the remains of the penal colony receding into the distance, those moments were irrelevant. The end result was all that mattered.

  Twenty-eight hours away from the penal colony, he arranged for the body of the Eckandi to be placed in cold storage, performed one last check of his ship, then resigned his higher functions to oblivion.

  Sleep, he mused to himself as darkness slowly fell. The one true reward after battle.

  * * *

  He dreamed—

  ... of voices he could almost hear, faces he could almost see, people who almost existed...

  ... of chains binding him tightly, binding his nonexistent body, holding him firmly while some terrible threat approached, against which he could not move to defend himself...

  ... of things forgotten, things not noticed, things he should have attended to...

  ... of his home planet, which, from above, appeared as a woman’s face, a once faceless woman whose features were even now strangely blurred...

  ... of details too small to focus on in a picture too large to comprehend...

  ... of a person, another face, a voice calling him—

  “Captain? Can you hear me, Captain?” Filled with a premonitory dread, Kajic awoke with a mental jerk.

  A few seconds later, the voice spoke again: “Captain?”

  “Atalia?” Slowly the sleep-numbed layers of his mind peeled away. An image of his second in command appeared, staring directly into a camera, directly at him, concern pressing at her features. “What is it? What’s happened?”