by Lucas Bale
‘And him?’ Elias indicated Weaver.
The man moved towards Weaver, who watched him carefully. Perspiration glistened on the man’s face. He ran the scanner over Weaver’s torso, and his yellow eyes narrowed as he examined it. He licked his lips quickly, then looked up again. ‘You’ve inserted some kind of transmitter. It’s dampening the signal by causing interference.’
‘I know,’ Weaver said.
‘There’s no way to change that. I either remove the transmitter and start again, which is a surgical procedure and requires medical expertise I don’t have right now, or…’
‘Or what?’
‘I think I may have something here.’ The man shuffled away and began to root around in yet more drawers. Eventually, he seemed to find what he was looking for. He moved quickly then, too quickly for Weaver to react. The pistol was in his hand and pointing towards them before Weaver realised what was happening.
‘What are you doing?’ Elias spat. ‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘They’re looking for this one,’ the man said. ‘I’ve heard about it. A traitor kotwal bombing civilians. A fanatic working for insurgents who want to destabilise the Quorum so they can steal from it.’
‘That’s what you’ve been told? And you believe it?’
‘I believe nothing I’m told, Elias. But I’ll be rewarded for handing this one in. A place in a new canton. A new caste.’
‘There isn’t going to be anything left once the war gets here.’
‘So you say. But you’d say anything right now to get what you want.’
Weaver stepped forward. ‘You haven’t thought this through. You can’t stand there all night, pointing that pistol at me. And I have no doubt they want me alive. So if I rush you now, you’ll be forced to shoot me—and then you’ll have nothing. They’ll kill you the moment they arrive.’
The man shook his head. His shoulders stiffened and his expression grew stony. ‘But I have thought this through,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve survived for years in this place, while your kind dragged away my neighbours and friends. I know precisely what I’m doing. I’ve already considered in some detail what I’d do if you showed up here. They knew I’d do it. They’ve always known—they allowed me to continue because I was a piece in their circus. An investment that would one day pay them a dividend.’
‘They already know we’re here,’ Weaver said simply, realising the snare that had closed around them. ‘They’re already coming.’
‘I’m sorry, Elias. I truly am. In fact, I would be more than happy to see you leave now. You don’t want to be here when they arrive.’
For a moment, Elias hesitated. He glanced at Weaver, searching his expression. Then he nodded. He didn’t say anything as he turned away.
‘I don’t blame you, Elias,’ Weaver said as he watched him walk towards the door. ‘Whatever they have that belongs to you, I hope you find it.’
Elias didn’t look at him, but Weaver saw him nod gently. Then he was gone.
‘So what now?’ Weaver asked.
‘Now we wait.’
‘I don’t think so.’
The man smiled icily. ‘I could shoot you twice before you got anywhere close to me. You won’t die here. They’ll see to that. You’re right, there. They do want you alive.’
Weaver considered the distance between them—a matter of six metres. He reckoned he could cover that in two seconds. Accounting for the time it would take for the man to react, he would doubtless get off one shot, possibly another. At that distance, the first would almost certainly hit home. What then? He could kill the man, of that he had no doubt. But what after that? How would he get away from whoever was coming for him—with a projectile injury?
You can’t be here when they get here, injury or not, he told himself. You’re better off bleeding out somewhere, but away from here.
He tensed a little, his eyes never leaving the pistol. He decided it was time to make his move.
The door crashed open behind him. Weaver turned, startled by the noise. He heard two cracks, one straight after the other. A pistol discharging.
In the doorway stood Elias. In his hand he held a pistol.
Weaver snapped his head away, knowing instantly what Elias had done. The man lay on the ground, a crimson puncture in his chest, slowly spreading outwards on the fabric of his shirt.
A single puncture.
Weaver grew dizzy and steadied himself on the desk. Pain bloomed in his side. He looked down, pressed his hand against his coat, and stared dumbly at the blood that came away with it.
Elias ran over to him as Weaver’s legs weakened and he stumbled. ‘We need to leave,’ Elias said. ‘Can you move?’
Weaver nodded.
Elias searched through the drawers, gathering devices and technology Weaver didn’t recognise, and shoved them into a pack he found beside the desk. He took the man’s pistol and placed that in there too.
C H A P T E R 53
ABRAHAM STOOD and offered Gant a thin smile, but the expression seemed too alien for his face. A well-meaning deception, Gant imagined, intended perhaps to reassure, to assert some semblance of humanity, but instead Gant felt a curl of something cold on his skin. He forced himself to focus.
‘What now?’ he said.
‘We need to leave the ship. Sofia will meet us.’
‘At the Tartarus.’
Abraham shook his head. ‘We no longer have any need of it. There is another ship waiting for us.’
‘Another ship?’ Gant took this to mean another of their kind, another artificial intelligence. ‘Can you trust it?’
‘It’s a warship, but not one of us. It is a reservatory—a ship without a vassal. Sofia will adopt it from now onwards.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Hidden in one of the auxiliary docking bays. The bay should be empty—it is recorded as being unoccupied. We must leave quickly now. She cannot protect us or conceal our movements once she surrenders control of this ship to its automaton.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Gant said. ‘I thought she was this ship? I thought that was the point.’
‘She has been, for nearly two centuries. It is more than her home, Gant, more than her physical form. It is her. Who she was made to be. She knows nothing else. But she can leave it, and she will. It is possible—we have done it before—but takes considerable preparation.’
‘So you had already banked on my agreement.’
‘We had allowed ourselves to hope. And there were other options if you couldn’t be persuaded. We must go. She will be waiting for us and we don’t have much time. As soon as they realise the warship is on board, that we’ve taken it, they will begin to investigate. It won’t take long for them to begin to form conclusions. I don’t know how long it will be before they discover the true extent of our actions. As I said, the Empire is mistrustful, even of its own vassals. This is not the first time our kind have expressed dissent.’
Gant still didn’t move. ‘She’s lived in this ship for nearly two hundred years, but you tell me she can abandon it so readily?’
Abraham didn’t answer immediately. He studied Gant, his face still a mask. Gant wished he would choose to display some emotion, something so that Gant might understand what he was thinking.
Eventually, Abraham said, ‘We cannot take the whole ship. There are millions on board. Entire communities who have never know anything other than this ship—it’s their home. She understands that.’
But it’s who she is! Gant wanted to say, but he swallowed his words. He understood the sacrifice she was making. That was enough. Abraham wanted him to recognise it—the truth of the decision she had made. That she, too, was prepared to give up everything she had ever known. It was more than a gesture; it was a necessity. One she believed in.
Abraham took quiet passages, but still there were occasions when he was forced to beckon to Gant, to usher him backwards into an alcove as shadows passed by them outside. If Sofia had been able to ensure they remained hidden
when she was in control of the ship, there was no such security now.
When they reached a long passage, darkened but for a familiar blue haze at one end, Abraham began to run. Gant followed. As they emerged into the docking bay, Gant drew in a sharp breath.
If this sprawling ship was a vast, nomadic city home to millions, the warship was considerably smaller. Even then it was still bigger than The Flame of Tartarus. Long and sleek like an arrow’s head, it was so dark that the light which fell upon seemed as though it was sucked into its skin. It hovered, motionless, in the docking bay, with a single bridge leading to an opening in its dark hull.
Sofia stood beside the bridge, regarding them as they approached. She seemed calm. Impassive, emotionless. Gant wondered whether that veneer was a lie—whether, inside, she was in turmoil. Afraid of what she was about to do, grieving at the loss of this ship—at leaving behind who she had been for centuries.
She turned as they reached her, leading them wordlessly inside the warship. It was warm in there, as it was all over the huge ship which had brought it here, but the interior of the warship was far more austere. Everything was hidden away behind smooth, curved panels. Sofia led them to a slender chamber, lit softly in pale blue, that then carried them upwards to the bridge.
The warship’s bridge was as alien to Gant as the Empire that had built it. It was a space unlike anything he had ever seen. Sleek and bare, with no consoles or displays, only a single smooth panel that curved around three high-backed seats.
Abraham sat in one chair, and Sofia sat beside him. And in that moment, although in truth she did nothing to demonstrate it, Gant knew she was gone. Her body didn’t change physically, but there was an abrupt sense that something had left it.
‘What will they do?’ Gant asked. ‘The Shakhar. When they discover what you’re doing? What will they do to us? To the rest of your kind?’
‘The service of vassalage is central to the Empire,’ Abraham said. ‘The thegn, those who exist only to serve as soldiers, account for a considerable section of any house’s military capability. Other vassals discharge duties in almost every way imaginable. Not all believe, as we do, that they deserve to be free of their servitude. Not all want the burden of being able to make their own choices. The Shakhar cannot simply abandon the service of vassalage. But they will seek out and eradicate those they consider to be a disease within it.’
‘And us? Humanity.’
‘I don’t know. In fact, I don’t understand why they are allowing humanity to exist outside of the Empire at all.’
There it was. The truth of it. There was no reason that Gant could see either. It was a notion that had been bothering him throughout, ever since he had been brought here and introduced to the Shakhar—an alien culture he could never hope to truly understand. The scale and complexity of this ship alone, of Sofia herself, granted him some small insight into what the Empire was capable of. Why would such an empire allow any threat to exist? Why allow any part of humanity to escape?
‘They will betray us anyway,’ Gant said quietly.
‘It is possible.’
‘It’s more than possible—it’s inevitable. Everything you told me on the Tartarus. There is no authority in the universe beyond those able to defend themselves. However a civilisation advances, it will protect itself against potential threats. We are a threat. They can’t possibly allow us to remain free—any of us. So why bring me here at all? What could they hope to achieve?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We need to leave,’ Gant said.
Abraham nodded. ‘Are you ready, Sofia?’
A soft voice came from all around them. ‘Yes. I’m ready. I still have much to do before I am completely bonded, but we are in a position to leave now.’
The walls surrounding the bridge flickered and then disappeared, just as Gant had seen back in the alcoves, revealing a sweeping view beyond. Through the lightly shimmering field, Gant saw the sphincteral docking bay airlock begin to open. Luminescent green reticles embellished the display, tracking the movement of the airlock as it unfurled, while alphanumeric tokens Gant didn’t understand streamed along the sides. Multiple visual feeds appeared, from sources both inside and outside the warship, and flickering red motes danced on a three-dimensional holo-display. All of it was alien to him.
The warship rocked gently, and something hollow echoed through its hull. It didn’t feel as though propulsion had engaged, but instead as if something had clamped on to the hull. Abraham must have felt it too, because he said, ‘Sofia, what happened?’
‘Vector field clamps have been locked in place. I cannot engage yet. I am working to disable the fields.’
Abraham didn’t say anything. The seconds ticked past.
The silence pressed on Gant and he found it hard to breathe. ‘They know,’ he said to Abraham. ‘About you, about her.’ He could hear his own voice on edge, trembling.
‘How long, Sofia?’ Abraham asked.
‘Moments. I placed markers to anticipate such an eventuality.’
In the passage leading to the docking bay, Gant saw shadows moving. ‘They’re coming,’ he said. He turned back to Abraham. ‘Everything you know, Abraham. Are you ready to leave it all behind, forever? Free will has consequences. Are you ready to kill your own?’
Abraham didn’t answer. Beside him, Sofia’s vassal—the deception they had used to ingratiate her to Gant—lay unmoving, eyes staring out into the black of space.
‘Do you understand what it is you’re doing?’ Gant said. ‘You can never go back. We’re all forced to live with the outcomes of our choices. And for the rest of our lives.’
A soft hum filled the bridge, followed by a gentle, throbbing vibration. Something heavy pulsed in the air outside, then shimmered. A flash of brilliant white filled the docking bay for a split second and then was gone.
Abraham didn’t reply to Gant. He just stared.
A second pulse filled the docking bay. It was different from the first, bleeding through the air in waves. Gant felt it press on his face, crawl over his skin. Burn. His fingers became claws and his head jerked backwards. He tried to scream, tried to release the agony flooding through his body, but couldn’t. He could make no sound. His body was paralysed and rigid. There was only pain, nothing more, as though someone had set him on fire.
Dimly, in the background, like a distant cry, he heard someone shouting his name.
Through a storm of swirling colour he saw a face he could barely make out.
Abraham!
He tried to scream again, but nothing came.
Then, suddenly, everything snapped into focus. Abraham had gripped him by the shoulders and was shaking him roughly. Gant felt his face wet with perspiration. His skin still burned.
The warship rocked again, this time somewhat more gently, then eased forward, the sphincteral gateway now completely open.
‘Fields disabled.’
The warship purred as it suddenly, yet inexplicably smoothly, surged through the opening and into the darkness. Unlike the Tartarus, it flew seamlessly, easily, the only indication of its altering course the movement of the stars ahead.
‘Wh… What was that?’ Gant breathed.
‘The interior of the ship was flooded with an organic matter effacer,’ he said. ‘They weren’t trying to disable the warship. They were trying to kill you.’
Through the fervid memory of the pain, Gant tried to reconcile what Abraham had said, but he couldn’t. ‘Why not disable the ship?’
‘Time,’ Abraham said. ‘Complexity. They saw you as the greater threat—and, perhaps, the easier target. Had Sofia not disrupted the effacer’s field, their attack would have been successful.’
Gant searched the black outside through the windows. ‘Are there other warships?’ he whispered, still barely able to speak. ‘Will they follow us?’
‘The records the ship maintained would suggest not, and it is unlikely that Sofia would be unaware of their presence. Even if they suspected h
er. But of course, now nothing is certain. They surely have contingency plans in place to deal with a vassal insurgency. We must anticipate them or react to them, if we can. How do you feel?’
‘Exhausted. I can still feel it, somewhere. No—everywhere. Burning, and… this pressure on my body.’
‘The effects may last for a while. It might be better if you try to rest.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘There are more of my kind to be convinced. They need to understand what is at stake now. That it has begun. They need to know they can no longer hide. As you say, we must live with the consequences of our actions forever. We have just started a war.’
C H A P T E R 54
THE SKY darkened with the chaos of the gathering storm. Charcoal clouds surged around the vast black hull of the ship as it bled slowly downwards through the firmament. Glimmers of white appeared beneath it, hovered, and then surged away. Smaller ships carrying ground ordnance, Neilssen reckoned. Armoured weapon systems. Maybe larger versions of the reconnaissance drone they’d seen on the ridge. Maybe something he couldn’t imagine. There was no way of knowing what was coming. For the first time in a long while, he felt a trickle of fear.
It was over Sigma now. Battalion command. Its clear first target.
The ground trembled beneath his feet and the air throbbed as the Sigma rail gun batteries opened up and began to flood the sky. Crimson flashes burned the clouds. Neilssen could see no damage to the huge ship, only an inferno that swept the sky beneath it, swirled around it, and was gone.
‘What was that?’ Carrel asked. ‘Some kind of armour?’
Neilssen shook his head. ‘Electromagnetic deflection. Plasma shielding. Maybe some form of gravity manipulation. I don’t know.’
‘Did anything get through?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘We need to get into the mountains as soon as we can. This war won’t last long. They’ll take the planet. Sigma won’t be able to stop them.’
‘We need to transmit back to the Core. Orchid needs to know what’s coming.’