The Matsumoto Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “But it’s the only real option,” Driscoll agreed.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all we had.

  The days were long. I felt the time pass with a keenness born of my new ambitions and my intense worry about Roman. When I had thought him a Blackwatch marine I had been worried, because life for marines is dangerous, but I’d been pleased. After all, it was a life and I thought he would do well in it, but now he was sentenced to death and I was consumed with worry.

  He hated the Empire for what we had done to his family and he had been made to serve. The woman he loved had been taken from him by death, and he had still served. He was sentenced to a hopeless task, and I knew he would still serve. Somehow I would rescue him from this endless servitude and give him what he had always wanted – freedom from this life he didn’t want.

  I missed him. I’d failed him. It was the least I could do for him.

  I imagined his eyes alight as he helped me take down Nigel. My heart warmed as I remembered his soft lips on mine. I wanted him safe and whole and happy. I wanted him somewhere far away from where I – or any other Matsumoto- could damage him. I wanted him to be okay.

  My face healed enough that I was able to remove the bandage, revealing a fat pink scar with jagged, puckered edges. It wasn’t pretty. That scalpel must have really been out of control when it carved Daniels’ signature down my cheek.

  My eye was blessedly untouched though the scar came very close. Moving my face hurt, and I felt nothing where the scar was, or in the skin surrounding it. Nerves must have been cut. I could still move my eyes and mouth, but the left side of my face was a bit stiff looking when I smiled or frowned. It felt like a foreign piece of plastic rather than my own face. Then again, very little about me felt the same anymore.

  Driscoll was not idle in the days that we waited. He had won the hearts of these half-shadow drifters and they hung on his every word. Kitsano had taken the longest, but now she was the worst. She followed him with a dog-like devotion. The Matsumoto-hating cause would have three very dedicated followers by the time he was through. I should have been offended, but I wasn’t.

  They left me alone, whispering when I was near. I no longer thought it was about me. Most likely it was secret Driscoll’s Own business, but it worried me when they sent hungry glances in my direction. Did they want me to join, too? That was somewhat irrational. What, exactly, did they want from me?

  One morning I overheard what they were talking about.

  “You should have seen her. She rode a rhino and came charging down the hill into their ranks. The whole army of shadows scattered.”

  “Now that’s a Matsumoto I would follow.”

  Strange. I didn’t have time to think on it, though, because my implant chirped.

  Starship has been detected on course for Baldric.

  THE SPLITTING: 25

  ETA?

  Starship is on vector for least time transition to Baldric orbit. ETA to orbit approximately six hours.

  We would be in range of communications by the time they reached orbit. Six hours wasn’t much time to fight through an army of shadows to the colony and talk them into seeing things our way, so we needed to leave Casa Baldric Three.

  I made a beeline into the common room where the usual suspects had their heads close together drinking their local tea and talking quietly. I cleared my throat, and they all looked at me. Driscoll looked amused.

  “It’s go time,” I said, in the most clichéd way possible.

  “Already?” Michael said, as if we hadn’t been waiting for days.

  My vision swam for a micro-second, but I blinked away any worries about that. It was probably oxygen toxicity. That caused bouts of disorientation.

  I picked up my assigned pack and firearm. Kitsano had been reluctant to set one aside for me. They had plenty, but I think the marine still saw me as a potential threat.

  I was still strapping on my pack when I realized that no one else was joining me.

  “Have you changed your mind?” I asked Patrick with a raised eyebrow.

  “Far from it,” he replied with an odd note in his voice. He’d been strange the last few days - or maybe I should say ‘stranger than normal.’ He was still his passionate, but somewhat hidden, self trying to attach strings to everyone he met and apply gentle pressure to those strings, but something had changed in his demeanor to me.

  “Move out,” Kitsano said, picking up her pack and gun and elbowing past me.

  The others followed now that she was the one giving the orders instead of me, and I found myself in the rear with Driscoll.

  “Never a dull moment, is there, Vera,” he said wryly.

  “Not on Baldric,” I agreed, booting up my implant’s fighting programs and mapping program.

  We were an hour’s hike from the colony. If we were quick and didn’t encounter resistance from the shadows, we would have more time to negotiate with whoever was leading the colony.

  Driscoll was in a chatty mood. “And before Baldric? Where were you then?”

  “Capricornia,” I said, biting my lip as a wave of homesickness for Roman washed over me.

  “I understand it was a bit chaotic there, as well,” Driscoll said, “and there was also drama on Nagara. Has there been anywhere that you’ve been since you graduated that was not quickly thrown into chaos and death.”

  I frowned, and my eyebrows knitted together. What did he want me to say? Was I supposed to admit I was the angel of death or something?

  “I do what I have to do when I have to do it.”

  “To what end?” he challenged.

  “To fulfill my duty and loyalty to the people and nation I was born for,” I said, like it was a catechism answer. In a way it was. I turned to look at him square in the face, and my cheeks flamed with my own passion. I was so sick of having to explain myself to everyone all the time. “I know you hate me for that. I know you’d all like to see me dead. But guess what? I don’t care anymore. I am carved of duty and born to responsibility. I’ve failed, but I will find a way back somehow. Know that. And know that all your challenges and reality checks can’t tell me anything bad about myself that I don’t already see every time I look into a mirror.”

  I grimaced and looked away. I knew that I’d earned the hell everyone seemed to want to put me through, but it sure was getting monotonous.

  We trudged quietly down the mountain, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible so as not to stir up the shadows. The trees were getting larger, with wider spreading branches and more of the eggplant-colored leaves growing thick. I was admiring how the too-white light looked on their pale undersides when I felt that same echo in my implant that I hadn’t heard since the Baldric Three saved me.

  My head pounded with it, and somehow it was more intense than ever before. Waves of those echoes rolled over me, growing stronger and louder with each successive wave. After a full minute I saw the Baldric Three stiffen also, their bodies becoming less solid and more faded. They flickered at the height of the wave I felt and I thought that they must be feeling them, too.

  This was bad! If we were already under attack how would we get to the colony in time? I hadn’t believed them that the shadows would be on top of us so quickly. How could they know we were here? They didn’t have any modern tech. Was it because our allies were half-shadow themselves? Were they connected somehow? Or had it just been good old-fashioned surveillance? Maybe they had been waiting around at the base of the hill the whole time we were on the ledge.

  The next wave hit me like an avalanche and then our way was blocked by a wall of shadows. I unslung my nettlegun. The Baldric Three sunk to their knees, hands held to the sides of their heads like they were trying to hold their brains inside. The pain was fierce. Dricoll and I opened fire.

  I ran forward, positioning myself in front of the Three and splashing the shadows before me with a wave of nettles. They tore like tissue paper, but re-formed just as quickly. Behind me Driscoll was screaming at the Three to
get up as he fired into the shadows closing behind us.

  The nettles were useless. Desperate, I kicked the hand-to-hand program into overdrive as the first wave of shadow-figures materialized in front of me. They were close enough that I could smell rotting fungus and the ringing sound they left in my mind left a copper aftertaste under my tongue.

  They were humanoid, some more human looking than others. Before they had only appeared as reflections of us, but now they assumed their own shapes.

  The ones that weren’t as human were taller and thinner with an extra set of arms and an elongated lower jaw. Their hair was mane-like and wild. They must be the original residents of Baldric. The part of my brain that wasn’t busily fighting for survival took a moment to marvel at how similar to humans this life-form was. That life existed at all on other planets was phenomenal, to have it appear so similar to ours was astronomically rare. Why in the world would my family have wiped out such a rare and amazing species? Did they pose a threat to our Empire?

  I didn’t have long to dwell on that as the shadows flooded in. I leapt forward, spinning in a kick that threw five of them into their own ranks. I spiraled around, punching another in his elongated jaw, and dodging a furious attack from my right. With so many of them trying to engage me, they were getting in their own way, but I needed to defend the Baldric Three and Driscoll. They didn’t have my advantages.

  I danced around them, trying to avoid Driscoll’s friendly fire while still battling the shadows. The sound of their rushing voices, for that must be what that was in my head, was overwhelming. I couldn’t pick any particular voice out; instead they melded together within me. No wonder the Baldric Three were frozen, clutching their heads pain. Whatever was still human in them must find the cries of their half-brothers crippling.

  The press of bodies was becoming ridiculous. I lunged, thrusting two large shadows out of my way, my skills enhanced by the program, and then I grabbed the shoulder of one and used the leverage to spin upward and plant two feet in a massive kick to the chest of another, throwing him back and bowling over another dozen behind him.

  “Vera!” Driscoll cried, and I risked a glance behind me to see him fall beneath the press of shadow bodies. His hands clawed out as they pressed in on him until I could only see one hand, clutching at grass, dirt, shadows, anything it encountered. I pushed towards him, throwing shadows out of my way, but others poured into the gaps until I was further away than I began.

  Out of my way! I screamed in my mind, forcing my way through. OUT OF MY WAY!

  Shadow bodies parted, scrambling over one another’s shoulders and heads in a mad panic as if something were lighting their heels on fire. A path opened from me to Driscoll, clearing around his body and the bodies of my half-shadow friends.

  BACK!

  They pushed further backwards, and I gaped with amazement. That I could communicate with them was thrilling, although not entirely unexpected. Since I could hear the hum of their voices I had thought that perhaps I would eventually be able to pick out a way to speak, but I had never expected to be obeyed. They had obeyed me like I was a god to them. The shock was still reverberating in my mind when a single shadow stepped into the cleared path, standing between me and the frightened shadows.

  He spoke to me through the link, but it wasn’t speech. He sent the idea to me somehow and I understood it in my mind, but I still could pick out no words from the rushing-river sound of their communication.

  What do you want here with us? Your coming is trouble. Go on your way quickly.

  I want to be on my way as quickly as you want me gone , I sent to him, I need access to the colony beyond here.

  Your kind kills. Death. Pain. Horror. If you live then death. Pain. Horror. Can’t be allowed. Can’t comply.

  I’ll promise no violence if you let me through. We want only to be free of this planet.

  Free. Whole. Released is what we want. You must all go. Go now.

  We’ll go as quickly as we can, only please let us leave.

  A pact. Promise. Hope. No blood shed. Violence. Betrayal. And we will leave you to go. She will come to ensure. She will keep your word for you.

  Agreed, I said.

  Go. Be rid of you. Final peace. Peace. Sleep.

  It was confusing, but I seemed to be getting the drift. At least we all agreed on one thing. We all wanted the humans to be gone off of Baldric.

  I walked forward, and he stood aside to let me haul Driscoll back on his feet. The Baldric Three were gaping at me, hands lowered to their sides. I wondered how much they had heard. Their guns were still on the ground.

  Driscoll had his gun up and tracking the shadows as soon as he was on his feet.

  “Gun down. No shooting,” I said to Driscoll, hurriedly putting a hand to his trigger finger. “I’ve brokered a temporary truce but it will be over the moment we shed blood, or are violent, or something. The exact rules aren’t super clear.”

  “Of course not,” Driscoll said, trying for his usual cynical tone, but his eyes blazed with something else. Hope? It looked akin to hero worship, but that made no sense. Maybe he was enormously impressed by xeno-communication.

  The Baldric Three were on their feet and they grouped up behind Driscoll almost unconsciously, they were smiling. The aliens must leave a strange impression on people. Maybe I was immune because of my implant.

  “Come on,” I said, trying to hide my confusion, and leading them through the narrow path between the press of shadows.

  Not a single one made a move to attack us. They stood perfectly still, immobile and straight, like they were standing at parade rest. It was incredibly eerie. I walked slowly at first, being sure not to touch them or provoke them, but as we progressed and the shadows seemed to go on and on I sped up without meaning to, till I was almost jogging, I was so anxious to escape their claustrophobic ranks. The sheer volume of them was enormous. Their river of thought continued to rumble and from the depths of it a recurring thought rolled through, She comes.

  I didn’t think they meant me. Their ultimate leader must be female. She was the one who was going to enforce our promise, and now she was coming. I was very nervous about what that meant. I wanted to be at the colony before she arrived. Maybe we could convince the ship to send a shuttle right to us, and we would never have to meet the terrible leader of these shadows.

  I drew myself to my full tiny height and tried my best not to pull on my shortened hair. The shadows loomed on both sides, their semi-translucent bodies almost humming with energy as they spoke together in the roiling stream of projected thought. They varied in height and size, some more human, and some less, but all completely focused on us. They were dressed in varied ways. The humans were in shadowy lab coats, skinsuits, and uniforms. The aliens were in swathed fabric that covered them from nose to knees and wrapped around their heads like turbans. They held no weapons. I wondered about their shadow lives. Did they eat? Did they need to? Could they hold solid objects? I couldn’t tell from their endless forms. Why hadn’t I checked before? Oh yes, I had been focused on survival.

  I heard a gasp from Driscoll behind me and I immediately saw why. Sammy stood in the forward ranks lining our path, or at least his shadow did. It stared straight ahead, vibrating like the others and looking at a point somewhere in the mid distance.

  “Sammy?” Driscoll said, in tones of horror. “Is that you?”

  Sammy said nothing.

  “Are you ok, lad?”

  Still nothing.

  “Driscoll,” I warned, “Best to leave it.”

  I flushed. Sammy had been under my leadership when he was taken. He was my responsibility, and it was my fault that he was a shadow now. I had to do better. I’d failed in all my responsibilities. I must do better.

  The weight of an empire was settling on my shoulders as I walked the ghoulish gauntlet. It was time to take up the mantle of the Matsumotos. They had rejected me, but I did not dare reject them. There was already too much blood on our hands.

&nb
sp; Driscoll’s face was lined with sorrow and guilt. He stopped and searched his friend’s face doggedly as he passed, seeming reluctant to leave him.

  “Remember that time on Nightshade? We stayed all week at that fishing shack. You caught a Night Snapper so big it almost sunk us. I told you it wasn’t worth hauling home, but you never let anything beat you…”

  He reached forward, like he was going to grip his friend’s hand.

  “Driscoll,” I said gently.

  He shook himself and frowned, but he started to walk again, watching Sammy over his shoulder like he thought his friend would join him.

  How many shadows were there? The minutes ticked by as we walked between their ranks, and still there were more. They seemed endless, and as they had said, this was only a part of their army.

  I was beginning to fear this walk of death would never end when we broke, finally, through their ranks. The press of bodies eased as quickly as it had swelled and I gulped down quick breaths of over-oxygenated air. It had never tasted so bitter.

  The trees swayed gently before us, but their innocent limbs seemed like reaching arms now, and their plum leaves seemed too much like dried blood. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cooling air or the sterile white light. Baldric was not our home.

  “It’s time to leave this yellow-dust-ball,” I said.

  Driscoll was the only one who laughed, and it sounded forced, but the confidence in my voice lent me courage and I picked up the pace, refusing to turn and watch the shadows. We just had to keep from panicking and running for a little longer. I had a chilling fear that if we ran all bets would be off. They seemed to be the types to enjoy the chase.

  We were all breathing a little too quickly when we finally caught sight of the colony. I thought I’d feel relieved when I finally saw it, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

  THE SPLITTING: 26

  IN FAIRNESS, I HAD BEEN unconscious the last time I arrived here and also when we left, so this was my first time seeing the colony. It was a ramshackle lump of modern buildings rising up in the center of a surrounding ceramicrete wall. They were in poor repair, which was little wonder with the intense turnover and poor quality colonists that had been marooned here over the years. Overgrown foliage showed singe marks at the top of the wall where a spiral of wire was electrified. It reminded me of a run-down ghetto in the worst of cities. Unfortunately that wall, despite its ill-repair, still made it impregnable.