A Warrior's Sacrifice

by Ross Winkler

  "There's more to it than that, Kai. Phae made a comment to me back when … back when she was alive, and I checked it out. You know how she is — impulsive. I didn't think she'd go through with it, but she did."

  Their words drifted through the open com link, each one bouncing on Corwin's consciousness, alighting before bursting, the idea gone in that same instant. He heard none of what they said, nor did he ever expect to again. So when familiar voices mumbled through into Corwin's hearing, he was surprised.

  Corwin blinked, took a moment to feel out his body. He hurt everywhere. Cold had crept into every pore, and he shivered despite the suit's climate control. Bits and pieces of memory came back: fighting, killing, hurt, a ship, a Siloth dragging.

  Turning his head to the side, he saw a blue, armored body, headless, the wound still steaming with the night's cold. Corwin reached over, every muscle protesting, to pull the hip pouch from under the dead Choxen. His hand felt a round orb buried inside, and Corwin stuffed it away, pack and all, into his own hip pack.

  The movement took everything he could, and he sighed, "Wickt, ow," into the air. His helmet transmitted his words to the nearby Maharatha.

  Kai and Chahal stopped talking, turning as one.

  Chahal rushed to Corwin's side, holding him down so he wouldn't move and injure himself more. She looked up. "What's it going to be?" she asked the Variant.

  "Wickt, let's go." He joined Chahal at Corwin's side, and together they lifted their Void Commander and carried him onto the ship. There were no benches, nothing soft from which they could fashion a bed; instead, they strapped him into the cargo netting along the aft wall.

  Chahal then set her suit's computer to work running a full diagnostic of Corwin's hurts, readying her meager medical supplies. By the time the computer had finished, she was already at work, a molecular cutter in one hand carving away strips of Corwin's suit, the other hand wedging whatever she could in to keep the gap open.

  Kai left her to it, joining Hadil in the cockpit just a few meters away. He plunked down into a chair sized for a Siloth. It dwarfed the giant man.

  Hadil looked back at Chahal tending Corwin's wounds. She grunted, shrugged, turned back to the dash with its cuneiform letters, and continued to press them in sequence.

  "You remember how to fly this thing?" Kai asked.

  "Yeah. It hasn't been that long since I covered it at the Academy," she said, gripping the over-sized steering stakes. "Tell me when."

  "Uhh," Kai said as he used his helmet and memory to translate the symbols. "Engines fully booted and powered; thrusters at your mark."

  "Bring up the ramp and give me 10 percent thrust."

  Kai pressed at giant buttons. Their view screen went blank, thermal, back to normal; lights flickered in the cockpit; Kai's seat tilted to the left then righted itself.

  "Come on," Hadil said.

  "Yeah, yeah." He found the button and the ramp slid up, telescoping into its place beneath the hatch, the hatch sliding closed with mechanical yet somehow alien noises. "That's why you're flying." He pressed more buttons. "Here's the thrust…"

  The starboard thrusters fired first, the legs straining to keep the ship upright, Hadil fighting to do the same. It teetered, rocked, swayed as ship and pilot struggled to find a working balance, and the giant ship, the minuscule scout, slipped its way westward like an infant dragonfly on an unsteady breeze.

  Approaching the Republic's border triggered every alarm in every base within 3,000 kilometers. Jets scrambled to intercept, and thousands of anti aircraft guns sprang to life to counter the threat.

  The commanders in charge of those scrambled jets didn't believe that four Humans were in charge of the Siloth vessel, and it wasn't until Hadil had set the ship down a mere ten meters from the Republic border, as she had said she would, that they called off the fighters from their intercept.

  Even still, two Voids of Maharatha and a thousand Tercio were hauled from their beds and sent tearing across the sky in carriers to verify that the ship was in allied hands, for one could not ever be too sure.

  To Corwin, the entire adventure was a fevered dream, waking and sleeping one and the same. He awoke in a world of shifting blue, tiny bubbles drifting up from around his nose and mouth, his eyelashes batting them away.

  He was underwater! He struggled but found that his arms and legs had been fastened to handles on the inside surface of the tank. Corwin held his breath while he tried to find some means of escape.

  A face appeared on the far side of the plasteel glass; a stern face, a Medic by his coat and the digipad he carried in one hand and poked at with the other.

  "You may breathe normally, Void Commander. You are suspended in an oxygenated regeneration gel. You will not drown, and you must keep a fresh supply circulating into your lungs."

  Corwin gritted his teeth and breathed, his cheeks billowing, the viscous liquid sliding through the spaces between his teeth and around his tongue. There were a few moments of panic as every Human instinct he had told him he was mad, that he would die, and then settled.

  "Very good, Void Commander." He stepped to a button on the side of the tank, pausing with one finger near. "I'm going to remove your restraints. Please don't struggle."

  He pressed the button, and the straps arresting Corwin's appendages rolled back against the wall. Corwin felt a chill where the straps had met skin as fresh gel replaced old.

  "You sustained quite a few injuries, sir. The external ones have healed, but your collapsed lung will require yet another day in the regeneration tank. Are you comfortable?"

  Corwin nodded, sending small vortexes of bubbles spiraling away.

  "Very good, sir. Please refrain from vigorous movement." The Medic tapped at his digipad once more. "You are welcome to visitors during your stay inside the tank."

  Corwin nodded once, but he didn't hope — he knew there would be no visitors for him.

  The Medic stepped to the door. "The Oniwabanshu will send an agent to interview you regarding the events that befell you during your mission. You cannot speak as you normally would, so you may sync yourself through your mesh and speak through the computer." He turned and left the room, on to his next patient.

  Corwin waited, anxious for the interview that would damn him to the Support Caste if not sentence him to outright execution. He watched the bubbles slide past his face and counted them in an attempt to still the fear that gnawed at his chest.

  He must have fallen asleep, because a sharp tap at the glass awakened him.

  Kai stood frowning, flanked on either side by the svelte Exilist and young Hadil.

  Corwin frowned back. He hadn't expected to see them.

  "Some greeting for the three who saved your life." Kai's bass rumble was painful inside the gel.

  Corwin smoothed his face. "Thank you," said the mechanical voice for him. "I did not expect to see any of you again."

  "Nor us you," Hadil said, arms crossed. "We were about to put in for transfers along with requests to have you demoted."

  "That would be fair," Corwin said. He realized that the robotic nature of his stand-in voice was quite similar to how he really felt.

  "Yes, well, we haven't," Kai continued. "Pending how your interview goes, we have been slated for a special assignment with the Oniwabanshu. They will only take us as a cohesive Void. This will be a boon for our careers."

  Chahal stepped forward, voice low. "Here's what you tell them…" She laid out a story, the details of which were close to the truth, but omitted the fact that Corwin had deserted his post.

  "It's unlikely that they'll push too hard for the real story, as the end result — the capture of an intact Siloth ship — has yielded the locations of bases all across the Earth, the Sol system, and several systems nearby," Chahal said at last.

  Kai stepped close and poked the glass at every word. "You owe us. Don't screw up."

  "I will not. I am sorry." Corwin meant it.

  Chahal turned to her Voidmates. "Excuse me a second
, please. I'd like to speak with the Void Commander about personal matters."

  Kai grunted and turned, Hadil following with a flip of her hair.

  When they'd exited the room and the door slid closed, Chahal turned back to Corwin. "I found the Śeṣanāga on your sneak suit."

  Corwin nodded. "Did you give it to the Guard General?"

  Chahal snorted. "Wickt, no. That wickt got Phae killed. She doesn't get to win. I'll keep it safe." She picked at her lower lip as she thought. "Where did you find it?"

  "It was on the Choxen that you shot."

  "Is that why you followed them?"

  "Yes. No, I —" The machine voice hesitated. "I did not know that It had the Śeṣanāga. I knew only that It … that It had caused all of this."

  "Wickt, Corwin…"

  "Yes. I was ready for death, especially if my death could avenge her."

  "You turned your back on us Corwin, on Kai and me, when all we've done is try to be there for you. You repaid us by stabbing us in the back."

  "I am sorry."

  "You say the words, but do you feel them?"

  Corwin didn't respond. All he'd felt the last few months was burning anger or ice-cold numbness. "I don't know," he said at last.

  "That wall you've built up between yourself and everyone, that's thick, and while it helps you avoid feelings, it keeps everyone else out." She paused, leaned against the glass, and rubbed the back of her neck. She turned to look through the blue-tinted gel into Corwin's eyes. "Get your mind right, Corwin. You … you'll have harder decisions to make soon enough."

  "What…" Corwin began, but the door slid open, and a half dozen Oniwabanshu representatives entered. A handful of Media subcaste technicians with cameras and microphones flowed in behind.

  Chahal bowed her way out, a glint and warning in her eye as the door slid closed.

  "Void Sergeant Shura," began the man at the head of the procession.

  "E-excuse me, what?" Corwin asked in the robot voice.

  "Have you not heard? You have been raised up to the rank of Void Sergeant. Anyway, I am Clari Danna, Chief Propagandist of the Oniwabanshu. These lowly Media subcastes have joined me to make a recording of your statements for a documentary we will release shortly on you and your Void's exploits. Answer my questions truthfully, and we shall be finished presently."

  He turned from Corwin without waiting for a reply. "You, you, and you, set up in these locations." Clari sent the Media scrabbling about the room as they positioned lights and microphones and cameras to catch every angle of the interview.

  When they were in position, Clari turned to Corwin. "Now, please state your caste, rank and name; a brief family history as well."

  Corwin frowned at the Propagandist. "Are you sure you wish that public knowledge? It could be damning."

  "Your history is what makes your victory so much more special. You are a shining example of how well the system works at rehabilitating the unfortunate wretches of this world."

  Corwin frowned again, nodded, and gathered his thoughts. They wanted to hold him up as proof against the naysayers of the Republic in general and likely the Oniban and her administration. Fine. He'd give them what they wanted and nothing more.

  "I am Maharatha Void Sergeant Corwin Shura, and I am a Quisling."

  The interview was short, as those things went. Corwin's answers were as terse as he thought he could make them, and everyone involved seemed happy enough with his answers.

  They brought his Voidmates back in, too, and they stood on either side of Corwin's regeneration tank and smiled, hands touching the tank of their friend and leader, of the man who had orchestrated the capture of a Siloth ship and the treasure trove of information inside.

  Corwin spent only a day longer in the regeneration tank after the interview and was then moved to a single bed in a ward with a hundred others. The noises of machines, the murmur of voices, the shuffling feet, were raucous after only the soft gurgle of bubbles. He was ornery, and the pokes and prods and nanite injections did little to lighten his mood.

  Worst of all, he was alone. In the single room that contained the regeneration tank, he'd been able to convince himself that he received no visitors because none were allowed; here, that fallacy was shattered, and that little boy inside shrank back into hiding, sobbing as he went. The wall thickened.

  By the time the Medics released Corwin back to duty, he was almost as cold and detached as he'd been going in.

  The documentary aired that same day. Each of the four Maharatha that comprised the Void was given air time, their friends and families interviewed and woven together into a cohesive piece that praised the Oniban and her cabinet for their insight in joining together a Quisling, a Variant, an Exilist, and a Human.

  Corwin and Phae's relationship was exposed as well — and her tragic death. It even spawned a mini-series entitled Love in the Midst of War that ended with the man who played Corwin crying over the body of Phae — pristine in death — as she was sent into the incinerator. The actor's closing statements to his on-screen beloved were quite beautiful.

  Everyone, it seemed, knew his name now. He was a celebrity, and he couldn't walk down the street without someone stopping to chat or flocks of women from all castes following him around and propositioning him. He spent as much time as he could in his bunk, though that afforded him little relief as the anger of his betrayal had only simmered in his Voidmates instead of dissipating.

  A knock at the door brought Chahal to her feet. Corwin didn't look up from his com where he scanned the headlines and war updates.

  "Excuse me, ma'ams and sirs, I'm from the Oniwabanshu Office of Family Affairs. We require your presence immediately."

  Corwin closed his com, looking up in dull surprise. "If it's another request for adoption, I decline."

  "Negative, sir. The Chief Propagandist demands you attend, even if you relinquish control of the genetic rights."

  Corwin frowned, eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

  Chahal stepped in between. "On your feet, all of you." Her voice was set, filled with Command. Kai stood, shoulders bunched with tension. Hadil sighed, closed her own com, and did the same.

  Corwin didn't move. "Whatever it is, I de—"

  Chahal thrust her face into his, hand clamping over his mouth before he could finish. "Shut up." She helped him to his feet with a tug on the collar of his shirt. Without another word, Chahal turned and led the procession from the room. Corwin fell into line at the end, sulking.

  To Corwin's surprise, they took the trams to the Medic complex, a warren of plasteel, glaring lights, and few windows.

  They entered a room filled with people. Corwin's frown deepened. Cameras recorded from all sides, microphones hung from the ceiling like slim stalactites, and in the center, an Iron Womb hummed.

  Corwin froze as all eyes and lenses turned to fix on him. His palms went clammy as memories flitted though his subconscious, struggling upward but not quite breaching the surface into full understanding.

  Phae's mother stood amid several members of her family, her uniform pressed and appearance neat. She had prepared for this, had taken pains that every hair was in place. Corwin only looked as good as he did from Military habit, but bags drooped under his eyes, he slouched, his pants and shirt wrinkled from lounging.

  The woman walked over, a shark's smile on her face. "Hello, Void Sergeant Shura," she said with a bow, "I am Wei Brigade Master Lieng, Phae's mother."

  "I know who you are." Corwin's voice was cold. He remembered how she'd treated Phae, remembered her nickname, their conversation in the Lieng family complex. "Why are you here? What's going on?"

  Her smile didn't waver, though her eyes squinted to menace. "We are here for the birth, of course. We know of your situation and have already filed the necessary forms and followed the appropriate channels to adopt the child into our Family. She will be cared for and trained with the highest skill. Surely you want that?"

  Corwin blinked. His head spun. "I
…" he cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I understand."

  "All we need is for you to decline ownership of the child, and she will be accepted into her rightful Family with open arms."

  The Iron Womb buzzed, hissing and gurgling as the nutrient medium that suspended and nurtured the infant drained. Corwin looked past the woman, extended a hand, and pushed her to the side.

  He crossed the open space in a daze, moving, but with no recollection of any thought or decision on his part. The gurgling slurped to a finish, the plasteel lid unlatched. A tiny wail escaped into the room.

  Corwin sucked in a breath. He reached out and tipped back the lid. Peering over the edge, his eyes went wide. An infant lay sopping, hair plastered to her small head with growth medium. She coughed, regurgitating liquid up onto herself, cried again.

  A Medic appeared beside Corwin, rolling the child onto her side, rubbing her bare back to help her retch up more. He took a small plunger and cleared one nostril, then another, then duplicated the process with her ears. Taking a blanket from under the Iron Womb, he wrapped the baby, quiet now that her immediate discomfort was remedied, and handed her to Corwin, smiled, nodded, and withdrew.

  Corwin settled her into his arms, overly careful in his attempt to make her comfortable, to support her head and neck.

  Corwin stared into his daughter's eyes, and she stared back. He saw in them recognition. She saw him and knew him for what he was: her own, his own.

  The world fell away. Deeper still, the inner walls that had kept Corwin separate, kept him safe, now cracked, shattered, dissolved at the strength of that gaze. To close himself off meant to close her out, to abandon this child as he was abandoned, as he had abandoned his Voidmates.

  As he had abandoned himself.

  Here was his daughter, this tiny person who would serve as his anchor to Humanity as a specie, and to himself. He would be on the outside no longer; for her sake he could not be. He reached out with his Sahktriya and caressed her, wove her being into his own.