Message for the Dead

by Jason Anspach

  Audacity

  Within Portside Hangar Deck of Imperial Dreadnought Overlord

  Tarrago System

  As he looked out the forward cockpit window, it was clear to Desaix that the shock troopers surrounding his ship meant business. This was no formal, pass-in-review parade of legionnaires or marines. Anything they didn’t like about the situation would be replied to with blaster fire.

  Via deck-to-ship transmission, the crew of the Audacity were ordered to prepare the ship for search, and to disembark. “With your hands up,” added the shock trooper captain overseeing boarding and search operations.

  One by one, they exited through the forward boarding ramp that dropped away from the underside of the hammerhead section of the bridge. Desaix went first, followed by Atumna, then Jory, Lieutenant Nadoori, Major Thales, Rocokizzi, Corporal Casso, Owens, and X.

  On the deck of the massive ship, along the inside of the outer hull, the overwhelming size of the internal sections of this new behemoth was awe-inspiring. And at the same time it left Desaix, a veteran of spacers, uneasy. As though no ship was ever supposed to be this big.

  The shock trooper captain came forward with two troopers, each at port arms with their cut-down matte-black automatic blasters. The troopers patted down the Audacity’s crew, with over forty blasters covering them from all directions.

  Owens told everyone to remain calm and collected. This was all to be expected.

  “That’s funny, whoever you are,” Atumna hissed in reply. “I don’t remember any kind of mission briefing covering us being captured again.”

  Owens remained silent.

  When the search finally got to X, the old man mustered his most scholarly of airs and delivered a thorough dressing-down on this egregious violation of established diplomatic protocols.

  “We are under guaranteed diplomatic immunity,” he barked. “This is simply not how things are done in polite society.”

  “Guaranteed by whom, sir?” asked the shock trooper commander as his men continued to pat the old man down.

  “The House of Reason, of course. There are universally accepted codes of conduct regarding the treatment of diplomats, of which I am one.”

  “Well there’s your first mistake, sir. We don’t recognize the House of Reason as anything but a bunch of crooks who should be whipped, hanged, and then burned at the nearest stake, preferably remaining alive through the entire process. I see now the source of your confusion with how we do things. You think we respect you.”

  After the pat down, they were marched to detention. Much of the ship, or at least the small part they passed through, was still under construction. Even so, Desaix was able to see that the modern Republic warship had been put to shame. The tech here was the latest. The polish and finish was like something out of a movie about some tyrannical state that wanted spit-polish and dress-right-dress to be not just the order of the day, but the rule by which all lives were lived. For the greater good, of course.

  At the detention facility, the shock troopers set force fields in place, sealing the crew of the Audacity within a single cell. Only two troopers were left behind to supervise the detainees, and they seemed to prefer doing that from a central surveillance node. Long, silent, uneasy hours passed. The detainees found platform blocks to stretch out on or spots on the floor to wear out, hoping, or not hoping, as was their wont, for something new to happen.

  And at last something did. Another detachment of shock troopers came—for X and Owens. As the two men exited the detention cell, the old man turned to Desaix and his ragtag crew, and told them this: “They will release you. If we are not with you, then return to the fleet and tell them what happened.” He looked at Desaix. “Or go play pirate, Captain. It may be more fun than you ever imagined.”

  With a smile, he was gone. The thudding of the shock troopers’ boots faded, then disappeared behind some distant blast door—and the silence of detention resumed its reign.

  Desaix sat down, surrendering to another long wait. Some distant part of his mind thought there should be food, but he didn’t feel hungry enough to eat even if there was. And so he didn’t care.

  Atumna sat down next to him. “What was that about ‘playing pirate’?” she asked.

  “Nothing. He’s just a crazy old man who thinks because he’s been around so long he can see into people’s minds.”

  Atumna slithered one delicate tentacle into his hand. Desaix could see the fear in her big, dark-brown, gold-flecked eyes. Gone was the no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners fighter pilot.

  She was scared.

  “We’ll get out of this,” he said quietly.

  “I know. It’s just hard on me because of the way I’m wired. I’m… I’m…” She struggled to explain, and couldn’t. And then she spoke a phrase in Tennarian. It sounded like melodious bubbles, rising to the surface of some placid sea, popping on singsong chiming notes against the call and response of a gentle surf.

  And it was that simple, helpless reversion to her alien nature that reminded Desaix that the Republic, and everything it tried to be, was just a facade. Its citizens weren’t all the same—try as the House of Reason might to con everyone into believing that they were. They were each wonderfully different. And there was something uniquely special about that.

  “It means,” Atumna said, “to disappear into the green sky.”

  He looked at her.

  “It’s our way of explaining when someone is too wild to stay in the grottos where our people live. When someone leaves the shells we call our homes to seek the deep seas, or wander the shallows of the southern islands. Or even… to live forever in the lands above. It means they’re… a rover. A wanderer. A dreamer of not good dreams. And what that means to them is… not truly Tennar. An alien, even among their own. That’s me. That’s why I joined the navy. That’s why I wanted to fly the latest and best interceptors right up against the best the galaxy had to offer. I wanted to see everything. And I always wanted to be free. In my heart, even among my people and their ways, I was…” She made that soft winsome bubble sound again. “And so I always wanted to be.”

  She watched him.

  “Do you understand?” she asked, in a small, child-like whisper.

  “I do,” he said.

  And then he felt her tentacle, warm and tender, and alive with electricity, wrap tighter around his hand and wrist, the tip caressing his pulse point.

  “That’s what he meant by playing pirate,” whispered Desaix. “I have it too. You aren’t alone in that.”

  “Good.” She leaned her beautiful orange head against his jacket like a child who needs to be sheltered. And in time, calmed, she dozed peacefully. And Desaix remained the thing she leaned against, and sheltered in.

  ***

  It was Admiral Ordo who met X and Owens first. He intercepted them with a detachment of his own troopers as they were escorted through the darkly gleaming corridors. In this part of the ship, construction mostly appeared to be complete. Muted blue lighting reflected off the highly polished obsidian deck, and sensors flashed dimly from stations along the walls.

  The black-uniformed man stepped forward, his limp noticeable, and introduced himself. “Admiral Ordo, Imperial Intelligence,” he said.

  X fobbed off a made-up name.

  The admiral made an overly contrived face, as if to say that he knew the charade and was intent on playing his part badly. Just to see how far the playlet could be pushed. How much disbelief could not be suspended.

  The admiral and his contingent fell in step with the escort, and together they continued up the passage. Blast doors shushed open and irised shut. Owens tried to orient himself within the ship as they went.

  “We checked that name out,” began the limping admiral, “and it doesn’t exist in any of the diplomatic records or contact archives. So… before you meet the emperor, I suggest you level with me, so we can communicate effectively. I assume you’re Dark Ops?”

  “Nether, to be more specific,” rep
lied X with quiet pride.

  Owen bridled at this, but he didn’t let it show. Nether Ops’s schemes had no relationship to the good, hard work done by the Dark Ops teams. Nether was just plain crazy make it up as you go and never mind the collateral damage because there won’t be anyone to blame on the other side of the mess that’s been made.

  But now was not the time to split hairs between intelligence services.

  Ordo seemed taken aback by X’s claim. “So the rumors are true,” he said after a moment.

  “And what rumors would those be?” asked X.

  “That you guys even exist.”

  X thought about this. Then he answered with his usual academic tone.

  “Only because we didn’t kill the spreaders of such rumors.”

  “Tell me your offer,” said Ordo, cutting to the chase. “I can support you in there, and trust me, you’re going to want it. You…”

  He hesitated, and this bothered X, because the man was getting more nervous the closer they got to their destination. A high-ranking military officer who’d probably been such back in the Republic… nervous. Like there was something to be afraid of just down the tracks on which this train of an operation was heading.

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” Ordo finished.

  X had heard these rumors as well.

  That Goth Sullus was some kind of mystic. Some ancient myth from the dark days of every culture. Some possessor of magical powers and abilities.

  Some kind of boogieman. As it were.

  X suspected the man might be post-human. Like the Savages. Or rather, the Savages at their secret worst that not even the general public, House of Reason, and most intel services knew anything about. No, you had to be on a special list, need-to-know access, to visit “the Site” as it was called. Its official designation, which officially did not exist, was Base 88.

  Very few knew how post-human the last days of the Savage Wars had actually gotten. And X, and others, had long suspected that somewhere out there in the dark spaces between the systems, some squirters had gotten past Rechs’s legionnaires and escaped out into the nepenthe of the galaxy to fester and grow somewhere else. Knowing this didn’t make X feel better. In fact, he was scared. But once, long ago, he’d been a leej. The man at his side, the Legion Dark Ops major, would have been surprised to learn that. But yes, X had been a Legion Pathfinder. A long time ago, at Psydon.

  So he knew what it meant to be afraid and still do the thing that needed doing. Not being afraid just meant you were stupid. And stupid got you killed. Every leej, even the ones from long ago, learned that as well as they learned to KTF.

  “Thank you for the offer, Admiral,” said X with his best air of nonchalance. “But the offer I bring is for one, and one only. I do look forward to working with you on the other side of this, though. That is… if everything shakes out as I suspect it will in the next few minutes.”

  Admiral Ordo shook his head.

  “I think you have no idea what the next few minutes are about to do to your mind, and your view of the galaxy… as you think it to be.”

  And then the admiral and his detail peeled off from the main group and disappeared into other shadowy corridors.

  Ahead lay a set of blast doors no different from the many they’d passed through already. But they felt different. Like these were the last ones that ever needed to be designed, constructed, and installed. As though they guarded some great secret most of the galaxy was never to gaze upon. As though they were the last word in barriers.

  As though what lay behind them was all that needed to be known by the ever-curious busybody and master of games that was X.

  He took a deep breath and followed the guards through.

  Before them, in a command chair within a dark gloom, sat a figure in repose. He wore armor much like of that of the leejes of old, but finished in carbon-dusted black, and somehow alive with new tech.

  The shock trooper commander kneeled.

  They kneel? thought X incredulously.

  “Rise,” came the powerful yet calm voice within the armor. An ethereal baritone that sounded like a ghost chanting a dirge from across the moors. And yet there was an inside-the-head feeling about it. As though X was hearing it not only with his ears, but also… in some fundamentally more direct way.

  And X could feel something in his mind. Something poking around. Something like an insect, like a spider, quietly yet efficiently crawling around in his brain. Investigating everything that was supposed to be hidden.

  X had anticipated such an event.

  He’d taken a thirty-day dose of Psychatrex just in case. The theory among the intel Mandarins of Nether Ops was that this Goth Sullus was somehow the inheritor of Savage post-human tech, or possibly even a real live blast-from-the-past Savage from one of the weirder cults that had once plagued the free peoples of the galaxy. Something like what they’d found at the Site. And Psychatrex had been proven to shut down unwanted mental investigations by the empathic races of the galaxy.

  But then, thought X, as he smiled at the thought of a spider crawling around all his dark doings of the past, who really knew anything about what this “space wizard” really was? The galaxy was a strange place.

  X had learned that long ago.

  And there was an odd thing, X realized. That last thought hadn’t totally felt all his own. More like a suggestion, or a shared comment. Or… an overheard observation from some house buyer haunting the halls of one’s own home.

  “I bring an offer from the House of Reason,” X began.

  “I’m aware of the offer,” said Goth Sullus from his throne.

  X tried not think of the real plan. The one to lure Goth Sullus to his death. That wasn’t the truth. That was just a dark thought someone like him might have. The real truth, X told himself, as the spider crawled along his cortex, was that he, X, had come here to sell the Legion out to the highest bidder.

  “Then you are aware that when you conquer the Republic,” replied X, “exterminating the resistance you will find only from the Legion, the House of Reason will welcome you as its new master, and will pledge faithful service to a new sovereign.”

  An electronic harrumph or snort emanated from the figure in the armor. But X was having a hard time concentrating now. The spider was like a living thing in his brain; it made his ears itch.

  X recalled the time, long ago, when he was young and a legionnaire, and he sat tied to the roots of water tree in a yellow river on Psydon. Three days not moving as poisonous two-headed vipers swam past his submerged legs. He had discipline then. He would have it now.

  Don’t move an inch, he told himself, willing himself to restrain the desire to scratch.

  “Your feeble plan…” intoned the emperor, and X could not tell if this was said aloud, or merely inside his own brain, “to hide your trap from me was… amusing, spymaster. Now. You will tell me everything.”

  And then X began to babble. Not just helplessly. But connivingly. Because it was all the truth. Or at least what X thought was the truth. As though he were a true believer in some insane cult where truth was whatever they decided it to be. He told the emperor everything.

  Owens listened in the shadows behind X, among the shock troopers. He listened in growing horror.

  His implant recorded everything that was said.

  18

  The Emperor’s Inner Sanctum

  Overlord

  Owens stepped back. Two steps. Slowly. Inches at a time. Even the elite praetorian guard of shock troopers seemed transfixed by X’s willing confession. They stood in stunned silence. Many of them had probably been leejes. Once.

  But to Owens none of that mattered.

  What mattered was a message. A message of payback for the crimes that had been committed. The crimes Owens had just listened to as X spilled his guts to… to… the emperor.

  Goth Sullus.

  Owens wasn’t going to wait for this Goth Sullus, this emperor, upon hearing the end of X’s con
fession, to decide that he no longer needed the crew and passengers of the Audacity and their pathetic white flag of parley.

  It still sounded like X had one more card to play. But Owens needed to make sure the message—the message of what he’d heard the old man confess—got through.

  He knew his life was most likely over.

  He started to think about his wife. He loved her. They’d had plans. Plans that started after the Legion.

  Few plans survive contact with the enemy.

  The major grabbed the nearest shock trooper within the emperor’s throne room of gloom and shadows, pulled him backwards, and smashed his knee in a way it wasn’t meant to go. And in that one second of pain, the trooper let go of his wicked matte-black blaster It was a weapon better than anything the Legion had been able to field in years, due to a never-ending stream of budget cuts from the House of Reason… and now it fell into Owens’s hands.

  He turned it effortlessly on those guarding him. He knew what to do. It was a high-tech blaster, but all blasters basically worked the same. Point and pull the trigger.

  He didn’t even think about shooting X. Though… in a way… wouldn’t that have solved everything right there?

  Keller had to know what had really been going on since before the Articles and Tarrago. Before Kublar even.

  The Legion had to know that it had been used as nothing more than bait to draw out both the House of Reason and the mysterious Goth Sullus.

  A message had to get through.

  Owens ran through the shadowy dark of the emperor’s inner sanctum, chased by the hot streak of bolt fire.

  He had a blaster and a twenty steps’ lead.

  No matter what, the message had to get through.

  ***

  It wasn’t easy for Owens to lose the detachment of shock troopers, but his mind had been working the game of escape and evasion ever since he’d seen the size of the ship they were about to board. Maybe even before that.

  When?

  When the mission seemingly hatched between X and Keller started?