Out of the corner of his eye, Falcon watched as Hawk shot two more Inquisition soldiers and stepped over their red-robed bodies. The kid wasn’t bad. He was definitely a Hand. A Hawk, yeah. As bizarre as that sounded to him, after all the centuries that had passed, it had to be true. He started to motion to Hawk again, the rudiments of a new plan finally forming in his mind—Hey, I’m not Condor the strategic genius! I just blow stuff up!—when a small, round object bounced down the corridor at them. As it arrived, another one came bounding along behind it.
Falcon whirled, motioning frantically at Hawk. “Shock bomb! Get down—”
The first object exploded.
The concussive force drove both Hands down into the deck.
Falcon raised his head a couple of inches, trying to see what had become of Hawk. His head was spinning and he actually thought he saw stars spinning around his head—or maybe they were little birds. Hawk was down, not moving.
The second object exploded.
Time sort of blinked on and off for Falcon. The deck beneath his prone body shifted back and forth, as if he lay upon the deck of a sailing ship.
Black boots appeared in his very limited field of vision. The sonics had shut off, and so had his auditory countermeasure, so he could hear again.
“Well now,” said a man’s voice from somewhere high above. “If these two men are impostors, I’d hate to face a real Hand.”
“This one’s down for the count,” said a voice from a couple of meters away.
The one that stood over Falcon gave a surprised laugh. He bent down closer.
“This bugger’s still awake, believe it or not—though I’m sure his brains’re scrambled pretty good right now.”
Falcon attempted within his mind to unleash a string of threats and profanities, even as he tried to swing a punch at the man. In the real world, all that he accomplished was to emit a sort of groan and wiggle ever so slightly.
The Inquisition trooper laughed again and brought a rifle butt down hard on the human part of Falcon’s head.
Darkness descended.
9: Raven
Raven’s ship emerged from the hyperspace realm of the Above back into normal reality quite suddenly and unexpectedly, accompanied by a flash of vivid blue light.
She sat up, reaching for the virtual joystick controls, ready for anything.
Anything, that is, except the sight that greeted her.
Looming ahead of her was a star—a sun—in the distance. No planets, though—as the tactical holographic display confirmed. Nothing, in fact; no asteroids, no moons, nothing.
Nothing… except…
“Ship—what is that?”
To the right and slightly below her, relative to the ship’s orientation, a broad gray…wall…curved past, shrinking and disappearing into the darkness in each direction. If it was another ship, it was an unbelievably huge one. In fact, as Raven’s eyes attempted to adjust to the perspective, she came to realize that what she was seeing was much farther away than she had first believed.
Since it represented the only body anywhere near her ship, she focused her attention on it.
“Object configuration unknown,” the ship announced. “Scanning.”
While she waited for the ship to try to make sense of what lay before it, she watched the preliminary sensor data forming a sort of wireframe image within the holographic display. What she saw nearly took her breath away, and confirmed that her initial impressions of a “wall” had been very nearly accurate: it was a wall—a perfectly circular wall—that extended all the way around the star.
She blinked, frowned, and studied it more closely.
Yes, a wall all the way around a sun. It was as if the path of a planet’s orbit had somehow been tightened into a circle instead of the usual ellipse, and then converted into solid material. Into solid material.
The implications were obvious to her as she considered them. Obvious—and staggering.
“A ring around the sun,” she whispered.
“Yes,” the ship replied. “The object does entirely encircle the star.”
Raven thought about it for another few seconds.
“Too many questions,” she said then. “Where did it come from? Is it new, or left over from the war? Who built it? Who could possibly have the power and the technology to create such a thing? Why would they—what’s it for? And, most importantly—did it, or someone on it, bring us here?”
Another alarm wailed. This time, Raven scarcely reacted.
“Sublight engines offline, now, as well,” the ship announced. “And we have been seized in a tractor beam. We are being drawn forward—toward the ring.”
By now, Raven was done with being surprised, with being puzzled. And staying on edge for the entire time it would take her ship to be drawn to the Ring seemed entirely wasteful to her. So instead she relaxed back into the pilot’s seat, laying her head on the cushions.
“Fine,” she growled. “I guess that answers at least one of my questions—they wanted me here. Maybe we’ll get some more answers when we get to that…thing.” She closed her eyes and began her slow-breathing exercises.
“Just wake me when someone shows up who wants to talk—or to fight,” she added, before settling into a dreamless sleep.
10: HAWK
“You will be given a fair and equitable trial for your horrific crimes,” the Grand Inquisitor told Hawk and Falcon. “Following that, you will be executed, of course.”
With those words, the hatchet-faced man in the blood-red robes whirled about and strode majestically from the cabin, two armed acolytes following along behind him. In his hand he carried genetic samples from the two men that he had just collected.
Hawk watched them go, not knowing exactly what to say. He had awoken some time earlier only to find himself—and Falcon—bound to the wall by some sort of invisible force. That wall, it had turned out, was an interior bulkhead of a starcruiser. Quite likely the same starcruiser that had forcibly docked with Hawk’s ship and captured them some time earlier.
Hawk was able to turn his head slightly to the side, despite the almost magnet-like force that pressed against him, and could see Falcon trapped in similar fashion a couple of meters away. The big man was wide awake and glaring back at him.
“So,” Hawk said.
Falcon continued to glare.
Hawk waited.
Falcon exhaled slowly, then turned his head away and looked down.
“What?” Hawk asked. “You’re angry with me? Why?”
Falcon still said nothing.
“Because we got captured?” Hawk scoffed. “Remember—they were chasing you before I even met you.”
Still no response from the big cyborg.
“If I hadn’t picked you up on that planet,” Hawk pointed out a few seconds later, “these guys would’ve had you even sooner.”
“But they wouldn’t have been wanting to execute me,” Falcon barked back. “Or, at least,” he added after a second’s reflection, “probably not.”
Hawk frowned at this.
“You’re saying you’re in more trouble with this ‘Inquisition’ crowd because you’re with me?”
“Oh, definitely,” Falcon answered, still looking down at his booted feet. “Much more.”
Hawk felt his emotions welling up. He wanted to shake his head but the force binding him to the bulkhead barely afforded him the freedom even to breathe.
“Alright,” he said at last. “I think it’s time for some answers. What exactly is it these guys don’t like about me? What did I—or rather, an earlier version of me—do that was so horrible?”
Falcon looked up at him finally. His mechanical eye was impassive as ever, but Hawk would’ve sworn the human one looked to be filled with tears.
“You betrayed us.”
Hawk was utterly taken aback by this. He opened his mouth but found he couldn’t speak for several seconds. When at last he found his voice again, he managed, “You mean—I betrayed you, pers
onally? Or the Hands?”
Falcon shook his head slowly, his mouth curving downwards.
“I mean you betrayed the entire galaxy.”
Two hours later, the Grand Inquisitor returned, accompanied by many soldiers, and took Hawk and Falcon down from the wall. Under heavy guard they were led to a broad and high-ceilinged cabin that would serve as the courtroom. Hawk moved slowly, sluggishly. He felt as if the weight of the galaxy had descended upon his shoulders. In some ways, it had. Falcon had told him the bare bones of the story; the reason why Hawk was so hated by those in the galaxy who still remembered what he—or rather, the original version of him—had done.
“We face the most repulsive of crimes here,” the Inquisitor stated as Hawk and Falcon were led inside and the proceedings began. The tall, slender man in red stood at the center of the circular room, the two defendants standing opposite a row of similarly-robed and hooded figures that were introduced as the tribunal panel.
The jury, Hawk guessed. And a very impartial-looking lot, too.
His defiance was hollow, however. Hawk couldn’t find the energy to argue, to resist. After what Falcon had told him, he felt nothing but deep depression.
“The facts are these: Our agents on Maltheus discovered this demonstrably false Hand—” he gestured toward Falcon, “—doubtlessly using a uniform and weapons he found or stole to defraud the people of the galaxy. Upon discovery, this false Hand killed or wounded many of our brother Inquisitors on that world.” He leaned in closer, his narrow face and long nose mere inches from Falcon’s rough visage. “Those crimes alone are, of course, serious enough to warrant the death penalty. But then, then…”
Hawk watched as the Grand Inquisitor moved away from Falcon and approached him, regarding him as though he were a particularly troublesome insect that had somehow gotten inside their ship.
“…then we find him in the company of this man… Another false hand, obviously, but—” The Inquisitor stopped moving and stood just in front of Hawk, gesturing at him. “—but one who has chosen to present himself not as a Falcon or a Condor or even a simple legion soldier, but as…a Hawk.”
Whispers washed across the chamber from the jury then; the words “traitor” and “betrayal” could be picked out in particular.
From what Falcon had told him earlier, Hawk understood why their reaction was as it was. He merely closed his eyes and listened, waiting.
The Inquisitor turned from the two and strode across the room to face the jury.
“While the thought that this cyborg might actually be a Falcon, having survived for so long without the Machine to guide him, is rather far-fetched, to say the least,” the Inquisitor went on, “the idea that a Hawk has been recreated and reintroduced to the galaxy—particularly at a time when the God Machine no longer speaks with his children or interacts with us in any way—well, this is patently absurd.” The Inquisitor motioned toward Hawk where he stood pinned to the wall. “This model of Hand was discontinued immediately after the Great Betrayal, many centuries ago. There was only one Hawk—and he was killed the moment his treachery was revealed.”
The Inquisitor turned his back on the jury and stalked back over to the defendants. He jabbed a long, slender finger in Hawk’s direction.
“Therefore, this man is unquestionably a fraud—a false Hand.” He glared at Hawk with undisguised disgust. “And, what is worse, he has chosen to masquerade as the worst Hand of all—the great traitor to our galaxy—a Hawk!”
Hushed sounds of anger and revulsion echoed from the jury.
“Both the verdict and the sentence are more than obvious,” the Inquisitor concluded. “Guilty, both of them—and death, swift and sure.”
The Grand Inquisitor strode regally to one side as the jury members muttered to one another. After a moment, the figure serving as judge spoke up. His hood was pulled back and it was obvious he was a good bit older than the others gathered in the room; he had very short, white hair and deep creases across much of his face.
“Have neither of you anything to say for yourselves?” he asked, his voice still firm and strong.
Falcon cleared his throat carefully—a particularly disconcerting sound, coming from him. Then he said, “You want to be very sure I’m unable to escape from this restraint.” He smiled in a kindly fashion to the judge, jury, and Inquisitor. “Because if I do—if I succeed in getting loose—then by the Machine itself, as I am a Hand, I swear I’m going to kill every one of you simpletons and idiots.”
This actually took the Inquisitor and most of the others present aback. For a long moment no one spoke at all. Then the startled expression on the Inquisitor’s face gave way to one of furious anger.
“Threaten us all you like, charlatan,” he snapped. “Soon you’ll be dead, just like anyone who dares to mock the God Machine.”
Falcon shrugged and looked away, silent. He’d said what he wanted to say, and found no need to continue conversing.
Next to him, Hawk swept his eyes across the jury, seeing the looks of anger and contempt that filled every face. He shook his head, bewildered. “I don’t fully understand what I—what the original Hawk—is believed to have done,” he said. “I would very much appreciate hearing at least that much, before I’m executed.”
The Grand Inquisitor laughed at this. “He pleads ignorance! He would doubtlessly have us believe he merely found this uniform, stole it, and has used it for various nefarious purposes without ever knowing anything about the original Hawk—without anyone who saw him ever telling him anything!” The Inquisitor laughed. “As if that somehow would make impersonating a Hand of the Machine a pardonable offense.”
Hawk ignored this. He could see nothing to be gained by arguing that he actually was a Hand—that he actually was a Hawk. It sounded like, if anything, that would only make these Inquisitors execute him all the faster.
“I would simply appreciate being informed of the crime I’m being accused of,” he stated.
The Inquisitor’s face was nearly as red as his robes at the moment. He opened his mouth to ridicule Hawk once again, but the judge interrupted him. “I will allow it,” the older man said.
The Inquisitor turned to look at the judge, his face betraying his surprise.
“You will play the recording?” he asked. “You would do that—for these two criminals, who are soon to be dead?”
The judge gazed back at him levelly. “If this man truly does not understand the severity of his act of pretending to be a Hawk, we have a duty to show him. Before he dies.” The judge hesitated. “And it might do the rest of us some good to once again be exposed to the moral lessons it imparts.”
The Inquisitor considered this for a moment and then bowed slightly to the judge. “Very well.”
The lights dimmed and a holographic field shimmered into existence in the center of the chamber, even as the Grand Inquisitor hurried to get out of the way. Images began to appear, floating in midair.
“This is a recording from Hawk’s own consciousness—from the time before the Shattering,” the judge announced. “Legend holds that it was delivered to the Machine by the mighty Eagle himself, before…” His voice trailed off.
The Inquisitor stepped forward again, glaring at the two prisoners, even as the image of a planet’s surface filled the holo display, rapidly growing closer—as though it had been filmed by a parachutist, or from an aircraft coming in for a landing. The vista beneath the viewpoint of the recording was of a great city, vast and ancient-looking. A tremendous domed structure grew quickly in the center of the image, with outlying buildings surrounding it.
“See, then, the Great Betrayal of our galaxy by the Hand of the Machine called Hawk,” the Inquisitor said. “And let this, impostors, be the last thing you ever see.”
PART FOUR
Before the Shattering:
The Seventeenth Millennium
—
Scandana
1: HAWK
As gentle as a feather and as invisible as the wind
, Hawk descended onto the roof of the planetary palace. The broad red sun dropped below the horizon just as his feet touched down.
“I’m moving into position now,” he signaled to the others over a secure Aether channel as the reactionless thrusters in his backpack switched off. The merest thought directed the pack to shut down and detach from his back; it fell to the hard roof with a clatter and lay there as he sprinted for cover. The cloaking field that had at least partially concealed him from electronic surveillance switched off. The outer layer of his normally blue and red uniform had darkened to nearly black.
“Good luck, Marcus,” came the voice of the commander over the Aether connection. “I’m holding everything else back, in the hopes that you can do this surgically and with a minimum of collateral damage.”
“Understood, Eagle,” Hawk replied. “I’ll do my best.”
“Eagle here didn’t like my suggestion of simply detonating Merlion’s entire wing of the palace from space,” came a deep, resonant voice over the connection. “I think it would be safer for everyone, but…”
“Not for the innocent people—probably hundreds—who live in the palace, Falcon,” Eagle pointed out. “And walking openly up to the front door would just be asking for Merlion to do something crazy. Not to mention, what we really want is to ask the man a few…friendly questions. No—this is the best way. Hawk will take him down with a minimum of violence and loss of life and property.”
“That I will,” Hawk agreed. He had reached a place of concealment behind an ornamental sculpture and gazed out at the long expanse of tan-colored stone that comprised the roof surface. A short distance from him stood a doorway leading down into the palace. His eyes switched through a variety of vision modes as he searched for signs of surveillance equipment, defenses, and so on. After a few moments he felt that he had successfully identified all of them and he ordered his uniform to adjust and adapt in order to block their probing sensors. Even so, something was bound to take note of him before too long; the palace defenses were simply too sophisticated. The best thing he could do, he knew, was to rely on speed—to move, and move quickly, toward his objective.
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