by Paul Tassi
When Lucas escorted Asha through crew quarters to medical, the Spear was already back over the vast western ocean. Though she’d avoided major injuries during her capture and escape, she was far from the picture of health. She wiped away the blood from her face and body as they walked, and Lucas could see burns sustained from the initial blast and bruises she’d acquired in captivity.
Rows and rows of Guardians eyed the pair of them curiously as they passed. Silo and Kiati were whispering to soldiers on either side of them, motioning to Lucas. Silo made a slashing motion with his arm, and it appeared he was recounting their encounter with the killbot.
Lucas passed a large, dark man with tears in his eyes. He held in the palm of his hand a floating hologram of a woman Lucas recognized. Rana, the specialist from his splinter team who had been slaughtered by the killbot. It was her Final. Her image was projected from the chip they’d procured from what remained of her body. She spoke softly, and Lucas couldn’t make out what she was saying over the din of the room, but the Guardian who held her was visibly upset. A friend? A husband? But as Lucas passed he could see the resemblance. A brother. The man didn’t look up as they walked by.
Further ahead, a group was crowded around a large floating monitor. It showed the same angle of security footage that Lucas had located through the Xalan station. Only this time it wasn’t cutting out.
Four armed men approached a motionless Asha cowering on the floor of her cell. As one of them bent down toward her, she suddenly sprang to life and the Guardians watching jerked their heads back in surprise. In the footage, Asha grabbed the curved knife and slit two of the guards’ throats before they even knew what was happening. She leveled another guard with a high kick and grabbed his sidearm as he staggered back against the wall. The knife was planted into his skull at the same moment an energy round was blasted into the face of the remaining guard. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled the knife out and ran to the main room. The camera shifted perspective to a wider angle in the central chamber and a blurry Asha was now tearing through dark figures, many of whom seemed to be scrambling to get away from her. Behind her, a ship rose into the port in the ceiling.
The Guardians all turned from the monitor to look at her as she passed. They nodded toward her, and she returned their sign of respect with a wink.
6
Despite Asha’s insistence that she was perfectly fine after being forcibly kidnapped and tortured over the course of the past day, she was taken to the palace medical bay once they returned to Elyria. Anyone else who had undergone such an ordeal would likely have been scarred for life, but she’d already endured far worse on Earth and seemed eager to shrug off the whole incident. The men hadn’t attempted to rape her in captivity, reportedly out of religious reasons. But their faith said little about abduction, abuse, and execution, it seemed.
After seeing she was taken care of, Lucas accompanied Maston down two hundred levels to the deepest, darkest corner of the Grand Palace dungeon where Tulwar was to be held until trial. The green-eyed Xalan had been taken to an adjacent holding room, and Lucas found Alpha peering through the one-way glass at him. It was hard to read Xalan facial expressions, but Lucas thought he saw one he could place: recognition.
“Do you know him?”
Alpha was snapped out of his gaze, surprised to find Lucas beside him.
“I do. He was a roboticist-turned-genetic engineer back on Xala. He worked with my father and me for many years before he was recruited for a project that caused them to cease speaking.”
“The Shadows,” Lucas said, an involuntary shiver working its way through him.
“Correct. He has since become a leading figure in the Genetic Science Enclave. How he came to be here, I do not know.”
The Xalan was restrained in front of a metal table where his claws were bolted into the surface. Lucas had heard that when captured, Xalans would often kill themselves in order to avoid questioning, and they certainly weren’t taking any chances with this one.
“Why is he here? Why is he working with the Fourth Order?”
Alpha shook his head.
“Conspiring with the Sorans for any reason was long thought of as blasphemy, but obviously it is a new tactic to attempt to destabilize the planet.”
Lucas’s ears were still ringing from the raid. He wondered if they’d ever stop this time.
“We fought a machine down there, something incredibly deadly, splicing ancient Soran tech with new weaponry and systems. It moved almost like a Shadow.”
Alpha nodded.
“That is almost certainly his doing, as is the recent micro-explosive used in the attack and the cloaked transport vessel. He worked on the stealth drive with my father, and has apparently been able to replicate it on a smaller scale.”
A freckle-faced young officer approached the pair of them.
“We’re ready for you, uh, sir,” he said, gazing up at the eight-foot-tall creature in front of him.
“You’re going to talk to him?” Lucas asked, surprised.
“I will attempt to do so. He will die before he speaks to the Sorans, but he was a mentor to me in my youth, many years past.”
He held up another translator collar like the one he wore.
“So you may all listen.”
A crowd was gathering, and Lucas saw Tannon approach.
“Let him in,” he said, nodding to the guard.
The door slid open and Alpha strode inside, ducking under the frame. The grizzled, angry look of the green-eyed Xalan immediately shifted into one of obvious shock. Alpha strode over to the table where he was restrained, clipped the translator collar around his neck, then circled around in front of him.
“I did not believe it when I heard,” the prisoner said, his voice higher pitched than Alpha’s. “The brightest hope for Xalan science in a millennium turned traitor. Slaughtering his own kind, cavorting with Sorans, and now making toys for them.”
He jerked his head, apparently referring to his translator collar.
“You have no place to say such things, [garbled].”
Whatever the creature’s name was, Alpha’s translator couldn’t pronounce it, which always seemed to be the case with Xalans.
“Undetectable explosives, stealth transports, energy weapons, combat machines. All crafted for your supposed enemy,” said Alpha as he sat down across from him.
The green-eyed Xalan made a curt guttural sound.
“The Council made a ruling a few years ago when this project was devised. The enemy of our enemy is an ally. This planet now lies in chaos because of my work here. I accomplished what a thousand battleships could not. I struck at the very heart of this civilization,” he said forcefully.
Alpha waved a claw dismissively.
“You struck, but missed. The High Chancellor lives. Your Soran puppet is captured. You will never see sunlight again, and they will torture you for years for intelligence.”
“I shall give them nothing,” he said. “And I am sure you have already willingly given them information no true Xalan would ever speak of, even under threat of pain and death. Such a thing is unheard of. You may in fact be the greatest coward in the history of our species.”
“And what of you?” Alpha said, annoyed. “You speak freely now, though you must know there are Soran ears listening.”
“I planned to say nothing, but your presence here … unnerves me. It is revolting to see one so promising lose his way.”
The prisoner sneered at Alpha as he lowered his voice.
“Do you have any idea who they are sending after you now? After you killed the High Commander? The Council is furious.”
“It matters not.”
“You may not feel that way when the Desecrator darkens your door.”
That made Alpha freeze.
“You threaten me a with a children’s tale?” he asked.
“I do not, but you will learn that soon enough. He will teach you what sort of punishment a Xalan should endure when he
turns his back on his own kind.”
Alpha was angry now, and slammed his claw on the table.
“You accuse me of betraying my people? I received my father’s message. I know what you and the Council have been keeping from us, all of us, for thousands of years. This lie has fueled our civilization to the brink of ruin!”
The green-eyed Xalan nodded.
“So it is true, you do know. It was a mystery why Commander [garbled] was pursuing you personally, but now it is clear. I pleaded with them to spare you. I told them I could bring you back and you could work under my tutelage as in the old days. But now I see how far gone you truly are. They were right; you should be dead like the rest of your clan.”
Alpha was fuming at the restrained creature before him. The prisoner’s green eyes glinted as he pressed on, his lips curled over his stained teeth in what looked almost like a wretched smile.
“Did Commander [garbled] tell you how your father died?”
Lucas looked nervously at Tannon, who was staring straight ahead, watching the conversation unfold, as were a dozen high-ranking officials around him. The creature continued.
“I know they told the public it was a targeted Soran airstrike, but that was a merciful excuse to hide his treachery.”
Alpha’s claws rattled on the table as he tapped them furiously. Lucas was growing increasingly uneasy.
“They restrained him in the Council chambers, and brought in your brothers, one at a time.”
“Tannon,” Lucas finally said. “Get him out of there.”
The prisoner continued.
“After each charge was read, one of them was beheaded in front of him as he cried out.”
“Tannon!” Lucas shouted, and a dozen heads turned to look at him, except those of the two creatures in the soundproof room. Alpha seethed and Lucas could see his muscles tensing. Alpha touched something on his metal hand and a mechanism somewhere in the room clicked. Tannon nodded to the guard who tried to open the door.
“Sir, it’s locked. He’s done something to it.”
“Undo it, damnit!” Tannon roared.
“By the time they brought your sister in, he was weeping. It was pathetic. I could not believe this was the brilliant mind I once revered.”
A sister? Alpha had never mentioned her in all their time together. Lucas banged his hands on the window to no avail. Don’t, Alpha. He’s baiting you.
“For the final, most poisonous charge of high treason, they cut her up piece by piece as she was still alive and screaming. It was the last thing he saw before he—”
Alpha leapt across the table and plunged his claws into the creature’s throat. Soldiers yelled and fired at the seals of the door in an attempt to open it.
Black blood gushed out onto the table as the two locked eyes. The translator was still projecting the dying creature’s thoughts.
“We could have … won this war … you and I.”
“I will win it,” Alpha said coldly, his teeth bared. “I will purge our people of monsters like you.”
He ripped the creature’s esophagus open and the captive Xalan collapsed on the table. Alpha was visibly shaking as he rested his bloody claws on the metal surface.
The door finally opened and soldiers stormed in with assault rifles pointed at him. Tannon marched in and Lucas quickly followed. Blood pooled around the creature’s head and was dripping quietly onto the floor.
“Unauthorized execution of a restrained prisoner?” Tannon said. “I should have you share his fate right here, right now.”
“I was … I did not …” Alpha stammered to find the words. Lucas had seen him fight when necessary, but this was a level of brutality he never expected from his friend.
Alpha looked up at Lucas with pain in his eyes.
“I was unaware of the specifics of my clan’s death. I believed my sister would have at least been spared. She … was so young. She had nothing to do with any of it.”
“I’m sorry, Alpha,” Lucas said.
“And I am too,” Tannon said. “But what about the intel we just lost? All you got him to say was what we already know.”
Alpha shook off his shock momentarily.
“I extracted a large amount of encrypted data from his workstation in the Rhylos base. He would not have said anything further to me or you, but I may be able to glean useful information from what we recovered during the raid. I will set to work decoding it immediately … assuming I am not about to be executed or imprisoned.”
Tannon sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hands.
“Get out of here and cleaned up. The rest of you, incinerate this piece of shit and make sure Maston doesn’t do this to Tulwar next door.”
Alpha walked to the door as soldiers parted in front of him. Lucas followed him toward the lift and could see he was still shaking.
“This war,” he said with a wavering voice, “it has changed me, deeply.”
“Not many of us still recognize ourselves,” Lucas said. “I certainly don’t.”
“I must … I must decode his data. I am sorry you had to witness that.”
He stepped into the lift with four armed guards accompanying him. Apparently Tannon wasn’t letting him stroll around unmonitored after that incident.
“I would have done the same,” Lucas said. The look in Alpha’s eyes was one of haunting sorrow.
“Alpha, what is the Desecrator?”
Alpha glanced up at him.
“A story. Nothing more.”
But there was no mistaking the expression of fear he wore as the doors closed.
Lucas returned to the holding block and found Mars Maston slouched against the wall opposite another pane of one-way glass. Inside was Hex Tulwar, his remaining arm restrained while his stump was wrapped in a bloody pressurized bandage hooked up to a nearby machine. He legs were firmly planted to the floor inside unmoving metal cuffs, and his shirt remained torn open to show his scars. His face was battered from the crash and Maston’s subsequent assault. No one was questioning him, and he barely looked conscious. Lucas figured he must be on a steady flow of painkillers for the recent loss of his limb.
Maston was disheveled with his uniform unbuttoned and curled black hair covering his eyes. He rubbed his raw knuckles, which were split open from their recent contact with Tulwar’s face. He spoke without looking at Lucas.
“If you’re here to stop me from finishing the job, don’t worry, everyone on this level has strict orders not to let me in there.”
He turned to him.
“Though I hear no one made any such restrictions on your friend down the hall. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
Lucas stared through the glass at Tulwar, whose head was bobbing slightly.
“He was provoked.”
Maston let out a short laugh. Lucas thought he smelled the all-too-familiar scent of alcohol, or whatever its equivalent was here.
“Provoked? You’re going to tell me about being provoked when you stopped me from killing the man who murdered Cora in cold blood?”
Lucas sighed.
“No one cares about another dead Xalan. But they’ll care about him.”
He nodded toward Tulwar.
“Not for long,” Maston said darkly. “We’re already releasing evidence onto the Stream about his conspiracy with the Xalans. We got plenty from the raid, and even his allies will find it indefensible. The wildfire of the Fourth Order is about to be extinguished. And when it’s his turn to be put down for good, I’ll be the one to do it.”
Lucas turned to Maston.
“When he was on his knees back there, he said something about being greeted by Kyneth and Zurana. Who are they?”
Maston scoffed.
“Pagan nonsense, though a belief half the planet used to share back in ancient times.”
He scratched his head and continued staring straight ahead.
“Kyneth and Zurana were the first two Sorans. They arose out of the Blessed Forest a few million years ago and gave bi
rth to our entire race. They eventually became worshipped as gods, and their followers believe they sit on the oak thrones, judging the dead who enter the afterlife.”
“And you’re not a believer, I take it?”
Maston shook his head.
“Almost no one is anymore. Well, no one but these fanatics who have twisted it into their own self-serving dogma.” He motioned to Tulwar. “When we grew into this age of science, it seemed impossible for anyone to truly believe these superstitious folktales. And yet, some still persist. Religion was actually made illegal on Sora a few eras ago, but that was a disaster. After the Sacred Wars, we let people think what they wanted.”
“The Blessed Forest, huh? We had a story like that back on Earth, but it was a garden, and there was a talking snake and some really bad fruit involved. A lot of people believed that one too.”
“Legends are more interesting than facts, I suppose.”
Maston was starting to slur noticeably now. He paused for a moment and stared past Lucas.
“Cora believed,” he said quietly. “Not in all the bullshit in the Tomes of the Forest. But she believed in a greater power, that someone was looking out for her, for us. I mocked her for it, but some days I wish I had her faith. It made her so … peaceful. Even the deaths of her father and brothers she handled with more grace than should be possible. I never understood that kind of power. I probably never will.”
He looked directly at Lucas.
“I-I don’t have the ability not to kill Tulwar for this. What you said stopped me for a moment, but I’ll never forgive him. Not like she would. I can’t. And he’ll never forgive me.”
“Forgive you? For what?”
Maston waved him off. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial of brown liquid. He threw his head back and inhaled the entire thing. A few more clinked inside his coat.
“Why the hell am I talking to you anyway? I’ve had too many of these. Just leave me alone.”
Lucas shook his head and turned to leave. If he kept that pace, Maston’s vials would render him unconscious soon enough. But who could blame him? It had been a hell of a day. A hell of a year, for that matter.
Lucas left Maston to wallow, locked ten feet away from a man he desperately wanted dead. It was a tragic scene Lucas was finding hard to shake, and it had been a glimpse inside Maston’s head that went beyond the pompous asshole from the party or the vengeful soldier he’d seen since then. Cora’s death had hit him hard, and after learning something of their history, it was difficult not to feel for him. Lucas wondered if he would have been better off letting Maston beat Tulwar into oblivion back on Rhylos. What did Lucas care about the politics of this strange planet anyway?