Mother Ree shakes her head. “Captain Chhun nurses wounds brought from such messages. He must recover.”
The bot nods. “Of course, Mother Ree. I am inclined to agree. The human body’s capacity for enduring stress and damage, while considerable, is not inexhaustible. However, I believe Captain Keel was aware of Captain Chhun’s situation, and took it into consideration before sending me to retrieve him.”
Chhun swings his legs out of bed and stands. A searing pain in the small of his back causes him to grimace from the effort. He finds that he cannot stand straight, and stoops over like an old man with a curvature of the spine.
“Captain Chhun…” Genuine concern fills Mother Ree’s voice.
Hobbling along like a geriatric, Chhun waves her off. “It’s fine. I’ll be okay. I should see what the matter is. Besides, it’s probably good for me to get out of bed and move around a bit.”
“If it were,” Mother Ree says, moving to assist him, “I would have told you. But I will not seek to prevent the free choice of another.”
As Chhun hobbles outside, with Mother Ree’s help, he sees that he has not been resting in a single room in an archaic hospital, but rather in a one-room hut in the midst of a lush garden.
The big war bot, standing to one side, extends a large mechanical hand. “I am able to carry you back to the Indelible VI.”
Chhun smiles at the thought of going to see his buddies like a bride being carried across the threshold by her husband. “No, I don’t need you to carry me. But I won’t argue if you help keep me steady.”
“Very well.” The bot grips Chhun’s arm gently, allowing him to put most of his weight in the big machine’s care.
As Chhun is led through the garden and sanctuary villa to the ship, he becomes aware that Mother Ree has left. But she soon returns and covers him with a thick, woolly blanket. And just in time—the temperature drops drastically as they come to the docking platform where the ship resides.
“Thank you,” he says.
Mother Ree replies with a gentle caress of his arm.
Captain Ford leans against one of the struts at the base of the Six’s ramp, waiting. He gives Chhun a perfunctory nod, and Chhun returns with the same.
Chhun limps inside the ship with the big bot’s help. It feels to Chhun that his forward motion is due more to the bot powering him up the ramp than to himself. He is exhausted.
Mother Ree remains outside.
Chhun finds Masters and Bear out of their armor, sitting at a card table.
“Glad to see you up,” Masters says, but it’s clear that something is troubling him.
Exo stands in a corner, arms crossed, looking as though he wishes to kill someone. He barely even takes notice of Chhun, but finally says, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Chhun mumbles, surprised by the effort it takes him.
The other shock trooper stands opposite Exo like some great sentinel, his arms crossed at his chest, his face unreadable. “I am Okindo Bombassa,” he says. “You have my respect, Captain Chhun.”
With a weak smile, Chhun manages, “S’posed to be a major.”
Sitting alone across the lounge is the slim code slicer named Garret, looking as if he’d rather be back at his console. He waves at Chhun. “Glad you’re okay.”
Chhun doesn’t have the energy to reply.
Finally, Ford comes up the ramp behind Chhun. He looks to Chhun more like a soldier than the smuggler who left before the rescue of Major Owens from Herbeer. It’s the way he carries himself. The responsibility of command seems to once again rest on his shoulders.
“You better sit down, kid,” Ford says, gesturing to an open seat. “Even if you weren’t banged up, you’d want to be sitting for this.”
With KRS-88’s help, Chhun levers himself into the offered seat. As he tries to get himself comfortable—his back is on fire—he spots the pink Endurian, the former MCR, down a corridor. She pauses to look at Ford, then moves on.
Chhun points a finger in her direction. “How come you didn’t tell me she was MCR? Lao Pak told me.”
Ford peers down the passageway, then gives Chhun a confused look. “I did. A while ago.”
“Oh.” Maybe Chhun forgot. It was a stupid thing to bring up anyway, and he wonders why he did. He isn’t thinking straight. “Sorry.”
Ford waves a hand as if to say it is already forgotten. He exchanges a look with Exo, then begins. “I got a message from the Legion commander. We all listened to it. You need to, too. Garret, go ahead.”
The code slicer punches in a sequence on a communications console. “This is a recording captured by Major Owens. He gives an introduction, but I’ve skipped past that to the main bit; we wanted you to hear that first. The voice you’ll hear belongs to some bigwig in Nether Ops.”
The recording begins. Audio only. It starts with a few background noises, but mostly an ominous silence. And then a voice—one that Chhun has never heard before—speaks.
“It was all me,” the voice begins.
It sounds academic and stentorian. A man speaking like he is proclaiming something with unashamed pride. But then the speaker laughs nervously. “I don’t know why I’m about to tell you this. I didn’t mean to tell you all of this. But I think I will.
“We knew, Goth Sullus. We knew someone like you would come along. We knew you were out there on the edge, though we didn’t even known your name back then. We had our reports—stolen from elsewhere in Nether Ops, but ours. A strange and dynamic man with seemingly magical powers. Not a holy man. Not some… mad prophet.
“We knew there was a base… somewhere. Knew that someone was recruiting an army. We wondered what was going on out there and why our operatives weren’t coming back. All disappeared out there in the deep. We went looking for them, of course. But we didn’t find them. It was as though… they never were. The funny thing was, that might have been the first time we in Nether Ops, and you out there on the edge, were actually working together. We erased their past, and you erased their future.
“But everything was blurry, you understand. Not quite confirmed. A rumored state-of-the-art training base. Military. Shipyards. A major buyer for unused Republic research and development. Someone was up to something. You were out there, but… we had no idea who you were. We didn’t know what your game was.
“So I hired the best sociologists, and even some speculative fictionists, to tell us what would happen next if you sought to use all that unconfirmed power from all that unconfirmed recruiting and building. The consensus was the ‘benevolent dictator’ theory. But all was uncertain. And uncertainties are not what I deal in. So I bided my time. In fact, it would be fair to say I was still biding my time… right up until this meeting. You see, I didn’t like you, Goth Sullus. Not then, at least.”
The voice falls silent for a moment. The subtle, almost non-existent noise of a starship fills the void. Chhun looks to Exo, who nods as if to say, keep listening.
And then X continues.
“Here’s what I was certain about. At some point, the Republic would face a crossroads between war and revolution. I had been working for years to ensure that that moment would occur—and that when that decisive moment that would shape the future of the Republic finally came, I would be the one who made the decision. I was the only one who could.
“So a plan was hatched. And it wasn’t just my plan, because something this grand has so many moving parts. But I was in control. I added the refinements. I made the hard choices. It was I who took responsibility for meeting the spectral gaze of a galactic civil war straight on. It was I who set the plan in motion. Moved the pieces as required to get close to your primary arms dealer. Scarpia.”
X laughs. “I had no idea he was selling to you. At that time, I didn’t even know you existed out there. I deduced it all when I saw that the MCR was getting a significantly smaller slice of Scarpia’s wares than I’d thought possible. So… who was getting the rest? I wanted Scarpia captured at any and all cost. So I stepped on another d
epartment’s operation on Kublar. And that did cost. The Chiasm. A forward operating base… all of it. All the dead legionnaires.
“But it got my man close to Scarpia. It was worth it.
“Kublar was nothing new, of course. The only difference was, I staged it. To get close to Scarpia, which wound up getting me closer to you. And before you judge me, remember the House of Reason had been sending men to become just as dead in countless battles long before I was a legionnaire wounded at Psydon. Which was just yet one more sad little conflict for young men to go and die in so that the perpetual insiders could make just a little bit more on the back end.”
X clears his throat.
“I was the only one with the stones to do it. It didn’t matter that I had been one of them once. A legionnaire. It didn’t matter that we were sending them to their deaths on Kublar. What mattered was that I thought Kublar would put me where I needed to be to make sure this little thing we call galactic civilization wouldn’t perish under the weight of its own corrupt opulence.
“But then Scarpia disappeared. We still don’t know how, or where to, though I know he ended up working directly for you. Did you do it?” X chuckled to himself. “I thought a lot about you after that. Out there, unknown… I wanted to know if you were the man who could change the status quo of a dozen little meaningless conflicts a year, all of them taking place for no other reason than so the pigs at the top could collect their interest on a percentage of the take. I wanted to know if you were the man who could put an end to the House of Reason. Not the Republic mind you—it’s worth saving—but could you stop the House of Reason? Directly, or… indirectly. By creating the right incentives. A gentle nudge, if you will.
“Because Article Nineteen needed to go into effect. That much was obvious. Has been for years. But the Legion High Command, for all their shiny bravery, wasn’t willing to do the bravest thing of all: state the truth, and mutiny. Stating the truth was an act of war—and the Legion already had enough wars to keep them busy dying by the bucket load. So, I lobbied to have the zhee armed, because that’s what it would take to finally get Keller off his rear and declare Article Nineteen.
“But he moved faster than I would have imagined. Must give him credit for that. The Legion was poised to topple the House of Reason and seize control of the government, had captured your General Nero… It was what I had planned for. Schemed for. Paid for in blood and treasure.
“And yet…
“What would change, really? The corrupt delegates in the House would be tried and sentenced; sunlight would sweep clean the darkest corners of that infestation. The Republic would rejoice. But then what? I’ll tell you what. Elections, my dear—my emperor. A new wave of politicians. Hucksters. Con men. Oh, they’d be noble enough at first—earnest, sincere. But it was just a matter of time, wasn’t it, before the rot set back in? And then we’d be back to square one. Because the problem wasn’t the corrupt delegates—those specific corrupt delegates… it was the House itself. Its very structure. By its nature, it could lead only to one end. A House determined to cling to its power above all else; a Legion too overwhelmed, or too loyal, or simply too squeamish, to resist the inevitable creep.
“And then… I thought about you. The Legion had the support of my heart. But my mind… it believed in a benevolent dictator. It believed in you.
“Or, at least what you could be.
“So I stalled. Kept my options open. I warned the House of Reason about the Dark Ops raids coming for their delegates. Gave them advance warning of Article Nineteen. So I could make sure that the chance for change, real change, for the greater good—through you—wasn’t wasted.”
There is another pause. Chhun feels sick, to have been betrayed like this. That the House of Reason was corrupt is no surprise to him or to anyone… but here is proof that Nether Ops is just as bad. He remembers Major Owens telling him as much when he first encountered them. And whoever this speaker is… he is the worst of all.
“I came here to tell you one thing, Goth Sullus, and now I’m telling you everything. But… I need you to know just how much thought I put into all of this. I am for you, Emperor Sullus. Though I didn’t fully realize it until this very moment. Because you are the only way, when the scenarios played themselves out. The only way that the House of Reason, festering pestilence that it is and will always be, does not remain in power. And that—the status quo—is the one thing that is no longer acceptable.”
X again speaks proudly, as if captivated by his own genius. “So yes. I did it all. I sacrificed the legionnaires—on Kublar, and in more than a dozen different smaller wars—to make it clear that the House of Reason had to go. I kept the MCR supplied when Dark Ops broke their backs, because I knew how petty their grievances were, and thus how easily they could be weaponized, converted, and used as a new army. And so they have.
“I let you grow, Goth Sullus, and I ensured the full weight of the Republic was not brought down on you when you were at your most vulnerable. I fed critical intel to the enemies of the Republic. I authorized that a massive piece of ordnance destroy a Republic destroyer as well as Camp Forge, using the MCR and indigenous Kublarens to provide cover.”
There is another pause. Chhun feels his strength returning to him. A strength born of rage. He clenches his fists repeatedly.
“Am I a monster?” X asks. “I’m directly responsible for upwards of forty thousand lives lost… So yes. In fact I am. But to stop the carnage of all the wars since the Savage Wars, we—no, I had to make the hard choices when no one else would. And you, whoever you really are behind that armor… you, Goth Sullus, are just one of my choices.
“I…” For the first time, the voice sounds uncertain. Almost… small. “I didn’t come here to tell you any of this. I came here to draw you into a trap. The Legion commander, he wouldn’t listen to reason. He sees you as as much a threat to liberty as the House of Reason itself.” The voice grows stronger. “He doesn’t understand. He, who for far too long served at the House’s whim, too squeamish to overthrow their rule until I forced the matter… still he remains cautious, hesitant. Timid. The commander lacks the boldness that I possess. The willingness to take the chance, to take a real risk… to do what needs to be done.”
X sniffs.
“So… down to business. I come to you with an offer, Emperor Sullus. I can deliver the House of Reason, the Legion, and Utopion. All right now, in one swift and decisive blow. You just have to pick whom you want to work with, and I will make it happen. We’ve killed a lot of people, Emperor Goth Sullus, to give you the chance to stop the slaughter once and for all. I’m offering you the keys to the kingdom.”
There is another pause, broken by a voice that could belong to none other than Goth Sullus himself.
“The House of Reason… is already mine.”
The audio cuts off abruptly, and a cheerful digital assistant announces, “End of recording. Addendum from Legion Commander Keller.”
The Legion commander’s addendum begins immediately. “Captain Ford.” He sounds grim but not defeated. “You’ve just heard a message that Major Owens died to deliver to me. And shortly, I’ll be sharing his fate. The back of the Legion has been broken, and I want someone to know what happened. And you, Captain, are a survivor. I will not make the error of binding you with calls for vengeance. Do with this information what you will, and know that I forgot nothing.”
The digital assistant declares, “End of message.”
The lounge of the Indelible VI falls silent.
Then Wraith speaks. “So that’s it, Chhun. And it’s all true. The House of Reason has introduced Goth Sullus as the new leader of the Republic. And Garret here dug up some dirt that even that Nether Ops bastard didn’t know. Garret found out that Orrin Kaar and Goth Sullus—and Devers—had been working together, under the nose of the entire Republic, for years.”
Chhun feels like his body had been cut to pieces. There’s a burning rage in his stomach that he is sure matches that of Exo’s
. His old comrade is chewing the inside of his mouth, fire and hate in his eyes, staring intently at Chhun.
They all are.
Every legionnaire in the room is waiting for him to speak. Even Bombassa, the shock trooper, seems to want Chhun’s opinion on the matter.
But it is Masters who voices the question. “So what are we supposed to do now?”
Exo, who looks as though he is roiling with a lifetime of anger, finally explodes. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna kill the bastard in that message. I’m gonna find X, and I’m gonna gut him with my own hands!” He punches the wall, his teeth clenched so tightly that they look as though they’ll splinter and shatter.
Chhun’s body wants nothing more than to remain seated, but he struggles against his injuries to rise to his feet and stand straight with his shoulders back. He takes a deep breath and addresses the room.
“I spoke to Major Owens before he left on what I assume was this mission. He placed me in charge of his old Dark Ops sector… and he deactivated Kill Team Victory. ‘Too damaged to salvage,’ he said. Not enough bodies to fill the void.”
He pauses.
“But the way I see it, Kill Team Victory is back at full strength.”
He pans his gaze across the room, looking each man square in the eye. They nod back in return, one by one, except for Ford, who looks on passively.
“We’re the last kill team. We’re Victory Squad. And we’re gonna make ’em pay.”
THE END
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