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by Trevor Wyatt

  She surges upward, hoping to slam her forehead into my nose. At the same time, having freed her left hand (with all its fingers unbroken), she whips it up in a perfect uppercut. I manage not to get my nose broken (though it will be sore for several days), but I take most of the uppercut and don’t have to fake being slightly stunned. She’s got a hell of an arm on her.

  I take a little revenge. As she leaps up from the couch, yanking and tearing at the ropes, the room swims around me before I can get my vision clear, and I cling to her as though I were clawing for balance, which in fact I am. I am not done with you yet, sweetheart.

  I bear down, apply leverage—and hear her right ulna snap.

  Now she shrieks, and now we’re done. She won’t be doing any more shooting for a few weeks. More to the point, she’ll be a lot easier to follow now. Though I know she won’t make the same mistake she made earlier—seeking hospital care for an injury—she won’t be able to hide a sling or a cast.

  She kicks me hard in the stomach, and again, I don’t have to fake it; the wind is knocked out of me. By the time I recover, she’s gone.

  Chapter 12

  No-One

  As I thought, trailing the assassin (I can’t help thinking of her as Cookie) isn’t very difficult. After our confrontation, I’m sure she definitely got hurt; two black eyes, fat lip, a fractured jaw, broken finger, broken forearm...She’s good, and she’s trained, but those injuries will slow her down and make her noticeable in a crowd.

  I let myself out of the back entrance and pick up her trail in front. Her vehicle is still in its assigned parking place, which is no surprise. She won’t be able to drive until she gets that arm checked. I look up and down the street. It runs north-south. She could have gone either way, and I have no idea of her destination. I look around. It’s mid-day, people are at work—no one is on the street.

  Moving at about half top speed, I cast about in both directions. Twenty yards to the north I see a wet spot of blue. Grinning, I am off, moving very quickly.

  I lost her trail twice, but she’s still shedding drops of blood, and I catch up within a few minutes. I fade back, using shrubs and ground cars for cover. I don’t want to catch her—I want to know where she’s going.

  I’m happy that there aren’t many people around. As a Terran, I always attract attention, and that’s the last thing I want right now. But soon I am gritting my teeth because Cookie’s bloody little trail is leading me into a more crowded area, away from the residential district. Oh well—I square my shoulders and walk with authority as if I have every right to be here.

  Which I do, given my status as a visiting scholar. In case any authorities stop me, I have my ID and a good alibi: I’m absorbing the local culture. To make that more reasonable, I take out my pad and take observational videos with it every so often.

  I make sure to keep my eyes on her. When I see her pause outside an ornately-carved gate, speak urgently to the guard posted there, and then pass through, my heart sinks. I know this place. I first read about it while prepping for this assignment. The gate belongs to a temple complex, and the temple in question just happens to be the Sacred Temple of the Holy Combine. It’s the largest of its kind on Sonali Prime and is devoted to the state religion, known to all as The Way.

  So much for my original plan. Assuming that she didn’t know I was tailing her, I was supposed to zip into her destination, which I had figured would be some unobtrusive office building. Then, I would flash through the place until I find her, slap a listener on the outside wall of whatever office she entered, and beat it out of there to some nearby café where I could tune in to her conversation.

  A good plan, now utterly blown to shit.

  I’m frozen for about a second, then I raise my pad to my face as though I were examining one of its settings.

  I allow myself a few choice swears, then keep going after taking one quick video.

  This place is definitely forbidden ground for me. I know from my studies that this particular temple, which is the nexus of The Way, is taboo to all non-Sonali. Not even most Sonali get to enter the temple except on specific ceremonial days. More than that, it’s got the best security systems on the planet—maybe even in this entire sector. I could follow her, but chances are I’d never make it out of there again. The entire complex, not just the temple itself, is blanketed with spy rays and sensors of all types. Not even I, with all my enhancements, could stay hidden for long.

  Regarding paranoia and xenophobia, the Holy Combine could give lessons to Terran Nationalists. So far on this assignment, nothing has happened that I can’t fix but if anything were to happen to me in there, it would cause a major diplomatic shitstorm.

  Cookie has put me in check. I stroll on, mentally reviewing what I know about the Holy Combine. I am not a religious person myself, but many are, and that includes most Sonali. Part of my cover is knowing the basics of the religious faith.

  The Way was founded circa 1000 BCE by followers of a man named Xorrig, a post-Ascension male who was known in his time as a poet, philosopher, and teacher. For most of his lifetime, he was derided as an eccentric. He avoided contact with people and lived a hermitic existence tending a flock of sheep-like animals outside of his village, living with them outside at all seasons of the year.

  The official line is that his solitude and the purity of his life rendered him susceptible to enlightenment, whatever that is, but contemporary records say that he had a habit of chewing on the berries of a plant known to have hallucinogenic properties. Xorrig insisted that the visions he saw were a direct communication from a supreme spiritual being. Claiming to have seen Eternity, he spent the rest of his life composing poetry about it and giving sermons to his neighbors in his village’s marketplace, exhorting them to live simply and to be kind to each other. He was articulate and convincing about his experiences and wandered around talking about what he had seen.

  One day, Xorrig took himself out into a wasteland to seek further enlightenment. What he found instead was death from thirst and starvation. By the time his body was found, he had already been almost forgotten.

  But his teachings had attracted the attention of a few people who thought his ideas about the Infinite and how to live well made sense. His ideas became more widely known through the efforts of his followers, particularly one named Aricanthas, a pre-Ascension female who retained her gender identity throughout her life. Though Xorrig had written down very few of his works, Aricanthas devoted herself to preserving his ideas, which became known as The Way, or Xorrigism. Xorrig himself was not revered as a god, but his status as a prophet was secure and his writings regarded as holy writ. The union of Xorrig and the supreme spiritual being he claimed to have been enlightened by what was referred to as the Holy Combine.

  Believers of The Way adopted many practices from smaller regional faiths or brutally oppressed them if their believers weren’t willing to convert—making it easier (or at least safer) for folks to switch their allegiance. As The Way spread across the planet, growing in strength and influence, temples dedicated to the Holy Combine were established in all major cities and many villages.

  And my quarry has taken refuge in the biggest one on the planet.

  I am almost quivering with frustration. I know she’s in there reporting to her handler—who is obviously some high-order prelate. But there’s no way I can get in there to confirm my suspicion.

  I try to back off from my feelings. Cookie is of the military caste, ostensibly loyal to Noble Marshal Yanick, the man she killed; but here before me is proof that her true loyalties lie elsewhere. Among the Origin Movement, who has religious affiliations?

  Whoever it is, they’re in there, and they’re behind an assassination that might put the Terran Union at odds with the Sonali Combine – just a few short years after a disastrous war.

  Could Cookie be in his inner sanctum even now, spilling her guts about me?

  That wouldn’t be good. Her handler knows me, however slightly, and her description
of me will be good enough for him to realize who attacked and injured Cookie.

  Not good. The very best I can hope for, in that case, is to be expelled from the embassy and sent home in disgrace. I am going to need a disguise, and soon, I am also going to need help. Somehow or other, I must get inside that temple and start gathering information.

  As a Terran, I can’t do that. Therefore, I need a Sonali proxy to do it for me.

  The pool of potential assistants is extremely limited. In fact, there’s only one person in it.

  I turn around and walk away. I’ve got to get off the streets as soon as I can and go to ground before the alarm goes out. It may already be too late. I pick up my pace.

  Chapter 13

  No-One

  With Gresh’s presence in the hospital and Cookie’s temple situation, I had to put a stop to my plans. My first thought is to head over to the hospital and get him out. I realize, however, that Gresh is not a soldier. Perhaps, I have a lot of convincing to do; hence, it’s better if he were fully awake and in complete control of his faculties than if he were drugged and woozy.

  I take an aircar to the Residential Estate. This is by far the largest Estate on Sonali Prime, or at least the largest Estate that is part of the Capital Grid. One of the first things I learned about Sonali Prime is that unlike New Washington, where I was domiciled before I got transferred here, Sonali Prime isn’t a one city world. It’s much like earth in this regard. There are clusters of civilization, known as Estates, separated by vast stretches of wildlife, oceans, natural formations, and so on.

  The central cluster of Estates is the Capital Grid, where most things happen in Sonali Prime. In fact, I daresay that everything happens in the Capital Grid. This is where the government is based. This is where the military leadership is domiciled. This is what most of the population on Sonali Prime call home. This is where most of the industries and corporations operate. The Capital Grid boasts a fifty-seven percent share of the entire landmass of Sonali Prime.

  I am in a private air car, whizzing across the vast network of Sonali architecture. Though it’s nighttime, the city below buzzes with a vibrancy that matches a morning in New Washington.

  My thoughts begin to hover around my next move. What do I do next? I have an idea who might really be behind the assassination. The person had to be a member of the religious caste if they live in the Sacred Temple. But it didn’t make any sense. Is there something else at work here that I’m not seeing?

  As an intelligence operative, I have learned never to discount any possibility, regardless of how improbable or impracticable they may seem at the time. A lot of good agents die because they are too smug to accept a highly unlikely scenario. Usually, those “somebody” makes their scenario probable and ends up killing those agents.

  What if the guy who was assassinated isn’t all that righteous? What if he really wasn’t Pro-Ascension? What if he really was just an insert by the government to monitor the Pro-Ascension faction and make sure they don’t cause trouble? In that case, assassinating him would not really be assassinating one of its own since in the real sense the man was really Pro-Ascension. But that wouldn’t make sense because Ascension is the government’s party line. It’s a Sonali tradition.

  As I consider this scenario, I’m baffled by the fact that it is, indeed, highly improbable that the guy was a spy. It’s usually almost impossible to infiltrate a zealot, fanatic group, such as what both the Pro-Ascensionists and Origin Movement have started to become. In fact, fanatic groups are hard to infiltrate anywhere in the galaxy, even in New Washington.

  Nowadays, during the early years of the formation of the Galactic Council, it has been extremely difficult to infiltrate the ranks of the anti-alien movement led by Lucien Parker and his Terran Nationalists. Many agents have tried and been burned.

  Including me.

  My order was to infiltrate the anti-alien movement, shortly after the supposed destruction of the Tyreesian cruiser and the massacre in the global diplomatic headquarters. At first, I looked at the Director of Armada Intelligence in New Washington, a smug and young son of a bitch who never carries a single strain of hair on his bare head.

  “You’re kidding right?” I asked him.

  He smiled at me.

  “Are you so fucked up that you can’t think again?” This time I yell at him. Of course, any other officer, even an Admiral, could have gotten court marshaled and eventually executed, but not me. I am No One, and we had sex before—in fact, he still makes passes at me every goddamn time!

  “No, Anika,” he said, without anger. “This is important. All our best agents have said it’s impossible. No one is willing to risk being blown.”

  Then I smiled. Indeed, No One.

  In the end, I was unable to infiltrate the anti-alien movement.

  My only failure to date.

  So, no, I highly doubt that this guy who was assassinated could be an infiltrator. If I haven’t been able to yet, it’s impossible.

  Nevertheless, until I have hard evidence, I can’t accept speculation.

  “How long to our destination?” I ask the driver.

  “About ten minutes to the Terran Embassy,” replies the Sonali.

  “Make a course correction,” I say out of habit. That’s what I usually tell my navigator when I was still commanding the Armada Intelligence TUS. Oh, the glory days.

  The Sonali doesn’t reply at first. “You mean you want to go somewhere else?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Take me to section YT234 in the Residential Estates.”

  “Okay.”

  The air car makes a sharp turn to the right, and we’re on our way to my rented apartment. My plan is to do a little research on the soldier that was assassinated. To do this, I’ll have to speak to my guys back at New Washington. I don’t want to do this at the Embassy for two reasons. First, I know the communications in and out of the Embassy are being recorded and decoded by the Sonali. I’d be stupid to think it isn’t. And while our encryption protocol is pretty strong, we still do not know the full extent of the Sonali’s electronic capability.

  I don’t want the Sonali making trouble for the Terran Embassy if they discover a communication about the dead soldier and infer that we are conducting an unauthorized intelligence operation on Sonali soil, which is tantamount to an act of war. Of course, they wouldn’t go to war for such a trivial reason, but they can ask for some compensation, which the Terran Union will be compelled to pay.

  Doing the research from my house will ensure my communication is secure. After all, no one would be monitoring my communication.

  I guide the air car to one of the numerous housing units in the Estate. The male Sonali lands on the roof, and I pay him. I take an elevator to the fiftieth floor where my apartment is. It’s a spacious, three-bedroom, two-floored, self-contained apartment that could be in any metropolitan capital.

  In the center of the sitting room, I say, “Initiate the Chameleon Protocol.”

  “Working,” comes the computerized voice.

  Within seconds, every door closes and locks itself. The windows slide shut, and the lights go out. The walls instantly come on, giving off a blue bioluminescence that dimly lights up the room.

  “Contact OD,” I say, “Priority. Authorization code NO1.”

  “Confirmed,” comes the voice.

  Right before me, a holographic projection explodes into existence. It’s Eric, one of the analysts at Armada Intelligence Operations Division. I can see he’s at his workstation.

  “What can I do for you, ma’am?” he asks.

  “I need a quick information on the Sonali soldier that was assassinated recently during the Pro-Ascension movement—Noble Yanik,” I say as I type the required information into my pad. “I’m sending you the details now. Give me something I can’t find on the net.”

  Eric calls up the information on his workstation. While he’s doing that, I begin pacing.

  “His name is Yanik,” Eric begins to say. “He was a
Noble Marshal in the Sonali military—that’s like a four-star Admiral in Terran Armada rank system. Anyways, at that rank, he was one of the highest-ranking officers in the military caste and renowned for his decisive actions during the war.

  “What you wouldn’t find on the net is that he led the Special Dreadnaughts Division that was responsible for the orbital bombardment of the Azukene Colony during the war,” Eric states and I take a sharp intake of breath.

  Asukene Colony happened in the fourth year of the war. Both powers were slamming each other so hard. Along the way, we both decided that it was a waste of time to send down ground forces to capture a colony. So ships began to just bombard the colonies from orbit.

  Azukene Colony was wiped out. One hundred and ten million people. Glassed.

  A horrible tragedy in a conflict filled with them.

  “So he was a mass murderer of Terrans…” I mutter to myself.

  “You can say that,” Eric says, catching my words. “We have conclusive evidence that he was Pro-Ascension, although he never got involved in politics until he officially changed his status to Pro-Ascension in his records.”

  “So why was he speaking at the conference?” I ask. “Aside from the whole coming out. Any other reasons?”

  Eric doesn’t reply at first.

  “Well, just after his quasi-retirement from active duty, which was just after the war, he was appointed a liaison between the military and the religious caste. So he met regularly with the high-level clergy at the Sonali Temple.”

  “But if the assassin was affiliated with the Sacred Temple…then someone in the Temple assassinated one of their own?” I mutter to myself.

  “It would appear so,” Eric said.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Keep digging into this Yanik guy and let me know if you find anything that you think might help.”

  Eric nods and the slipstream connection ends.