“Now that,” Colin observed, “is a potent threat.”
Jack smiled wryly. He held his hand up. “I surrender.”
“Good. Now point that thing in the right direction and get going.”
Colin caught up with Amber. In a voice pitched so that Jack could not hear it over the hum of the cart’s motor, he offered, “You shouldn’t be so hard on him.”
Her nose was pinched white, belying her attempt to smile. “I know,” she answered. “But when a miracle can’t even save him… when you know there’s nothing you can do, that you’re absolutely helpless…” She stopped at the edge of grass that was brown and brittle, as desperate in its need as she was in hers. “I’ve just got to knock some sense in that thick farmer’s skull of his. I know what it’s like inside that suit… you think you’re unstoppable. Well, he’s not. And the sooner he realizes it, the more chance I’ve got that he’s going to keep coming back to me.”
Colin took her words in with a deep sigh. He reached out and took her hand, pulling her along with him as he hurried to catch up. “That’s why, my dear, so many of us believe in God.” At the outside walk to the officers’ apartments, he took his hand from hers and gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek. “I’m going no farther. This is a sensitive area at best, and I want no more friction with Pepys than necessary.”
Amber threw a look over her shoulder to make sure Jack was waiting for her before he stood up. She looked back. “Have you heard from Denaro?”
The old man smiled. “Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it? I’ll talk to you two in a day or so.” He gave a graceful half-bow, then turned and left them.
Amber helped Jack stand. If he noticed her new strength and firmness of muscle, he said nothing. What he did say was, “Where’s Bogie?”
“In the shop. There was a lot of damage, Jack. I went in yesterday after I left you. But he’s okay. Just, I don’t know. Different.”
Jack paused, leaning his weight on her shoulder, his warm breath grazing her face as he talked. “I think he’s dying. I can’t give him what he needs to grow anymore.”
“Jack!”
“I don’t know what to do. We could turn him over to one of the university labs, I guess.”
“We couldn’t! He’d die anyway without us. And what lab could you trust?”
Jack’s silence confirmed her fears. She shouldered his weight a little better. “Come on. Let’s not stand out here and talk about it.” With her free hand, she checked the security seals. All were intact.
He made himself smile. “You just want to get me in bed.”
“Keep thinking positively,” she shot back, and palmed the door open. He found it necessary to lean on her more than he’d thought as his newly healed thigh and shoulder weakened on him. Inside the apartment, he took a few short breaths to quell the pain and dizziness as Amber left him long enough to lock the door. She left all the shades down and the lights off and he blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
“Can you make it, to a chair?” She thumbed at an unresponsive light switch. “Damn light sensor’s broken.”
A third voice caught them in the dimness. “Don’t bother, Amber. I can see just fine.”
When Amber had pulled the shades, Jack could see the golden mesh ocular piece glinting at them. The rest of the face had changed… harsh angular lines biting into heavy jowls. The tousled black curls were going a dirty gray. The intruder rested a handgun on his thigh lightly, its red charge button shining at them. But Jake knew the man well. Long ago deserter and underworld scoundrel, Ballard.
He clenched his fist even as he fought to stay upright, solid, menacing. “How did you get in here?”
Ballard glanced at Amber. “She knows we have our ways. She bought jammers a few months ago. Simple enough for me to slip in a microchip that made your home easy for me to unlock. Thought I might need it.” He held up a thick hand. “Before you tear me apart, Storm, let me say that I had nothing to do with what happened last year.”
Jack had little reason to believe him. “The terrorists carried an unusual calling card. Your prosthetic eye.” Sour memories of threats and beatings filled his throat.
Ballard made a noise, half scorn and half as if painful remembrance. “That bastard Winton set them up. Me, too. He tore my eye out, then sent me on my way.” He smiled without any warmth. “I didn’t think I’d be able to get another one put in. But Winton also paid me well. I found a good surgeon this time. I hid out until I heard you’d killed him on Bythia.” Ballard shifted in the chair.
“What made you crawl out from under the rocks this time?”
“The war.” Ballard waggled the gun. “I was taking libation in a bar, looked up, and there you were in Congress. You did us proud, Jack. I was the first to call you what you are, the last remaining true Knight. I want you to remember that. I want you to know that I knew who you were, and even with my eye gone, I didn’t tell Winton. He had his suspicions, but he never had the truth from me.”
Jack shook his head. “You deserted and took your armor with you. Don’t be proud of yourself now.”
Ballard hawked deep in his throat, turned his head slightly and spat on the rug to his right. “Listen, hero. If it weren’t for scum like me and Amber, you wouldn’t have survived two weeks in Malthen.”
Jack moved then. He launched himself across the room so quickly that Ballard could not react, wrapped his fist in the front of the intruder’s short jacket and shook him as if he were not even human. The gun fell to the floor and Amber snatched it up.
Ballard’s teeth rattled. He blurted out, before Jack could say a word, “I’m wrong there. Amber’s not scum, never has been. Dammit, man, let me go. I came here to help you.”
Jack staggered back on his heels as he gave Ballard one last shake and dropped him.
The chair cracked as it took the man’s weight and Ballard sat, panting. He brushed a limp curl off his gold screen eye.
“Say what it is and get out.”
“All right. Amber—” the man’s good eye flickered visibly toward her.
“She can take care of herself.”
Ballard shrugged. “It’s not good, Jack, getting her involved. All right.” Gingerly, he reached inside his short jacket. “I brought you something.” He flipped the recording disk in the air and Jack caught it.
“What’s this?”
“This, my Knight, is something you should know about. Rumor has it that the new Minister of War makes Winton look like a saint. There are more things in heaven than you or I can dream about,” and Ballard smiled crookedly. “Thank me for it later. If you need a witness, let me know.” Ignoring Amber, he got to his feet and lumbered toward the door.
Amber trained the gun muzzle on him. Her finger began to tighten on the trigger sensor. But Jack waved. “Let him go.”
She gave Ballard a poisonous look as he reached the portal. “Don’t ever confuse me with yourself again.”
Ballard paused, a massive wreck of a man. He reached out and chucked her under the chin. “No. I won’t make that mistake again. I owe you a sincere apology, little one.” His gaze flicked over Jack once, quickly, then back to her. “Let’s just say that a small and jealous man can make bitter remarks.” Amber wavered uncertainly and he took the opportunity to leave.
Jack held the recording in his palm. “Let’s see what the hell this is.”
The recording faded into silence. Amber looked up from her kneeling position on the floor. “What’s going on?”
Jack stayed in the broken armchair. It had gone lopsided after he’d dropped Ballard’s mass into it. He drummed the padded arm beneath his hand. Three fingers and a thumb, drumming, a discordant noise. “It means that whoever it was got in under the primary and secondary alarm systems and past the shields. The computer had to have been right: they couldn’t have been Thrakian. It took week’s worth of pounding to break the shields on Oceana before they got to go dirtside. No one I know has the technology to circumvent shieldin
g as if it wasn’t there.” The face of the war was changing before his very eyes.
“Then why weren’t you told?” Amber countered.
“I don’t know. It could be they don’t trust me since Denaro defected. I could kill Colin for getting me involved in that.” He stopped drumming his fingers and, instead, rubbed his thigh as if the deep gnawing pain he still felt from the wound could be eased that way. “It sounds to me like the same outfit that got Opus.”
Her golden-brown eyes widened. “Them?”
“I think so. Don’t get me wrong—it could be freebooters, there’s none of them above a little looting during wartime, when the majority of the fleet is distracted elsewhere—but there’s no one, no one, with that kind of technology yet.” He stood, still a little wobbly, and made an effort to hold himself tall. “I think that we’re facing brand new players, and we can’t begin to know the rules or stakes until we know who or what they are. Ballard says he can get me witnesses. Contact him. I want to meet with them. I don’t think there’s a way in hell we can trust Pepys or Baadluster to tell us the truth if they even know it.”
Chapter 25
Pepys looked at the report. “Another one,” he said, wearily, and rubbed his eyes. They had lost their emerald brilliance from fatigue. His freckled face was puffy.
Baadluster stood at the window, looking out to where a light rain attempted to clean Malthen’s air, water its greenery, and purge its technology. He held his hands clasped loosely behind his back and, perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, his voice sounded a little smug as he answered the emperor. “No one else has seen this yet, not even the Dominion Security Council. If you wish me to arrange it so… no one will.”
Pepys looked over a copy of the transmission one more time. Then he said, “What about Washburn?”
“We may have to take him out to keep him quiet. That was his son making the recording.” Reluctantly, Baadluster turned away from the sight of the rain.
One carrot-colored eyebrow arched. “Surely someone would notice the absence of four major defense industries.”
“Accidents happen. We could release news of a Thrakian strafing.”
“On a shielded world?”
“A traitor let down the forcefields,” Baadluster said blandly. “Washburn or his son. It would not matter, to the dead.” He turned back and missed Pepys’ shudder.
The emperor took a deep breath. Then he said, “Whatever is quickest and easiest to arrange. Do it neatly. I want no connections to be made.”
“Don’t worry,” said Baadluster smoothly. “If anything comes back, it will lead to the Green Shirts. Now, as to the other matter we spoke of, I believe it’s time to come off the defensive. I think we should look to beating the Thraks on their own territory.”
“When?”
“I think we can have the new recruits up to it in two weeks.”
Pepys stood up and stretched his wiry body. “What about the new recruiting centers?”
“Up and operational. Commander Storm appears to have a certain amount of charisma. They’re still lining up for enlistment. We’ll have all three centers fully equipped for basic training by the end of the week. Five thousand more graduates in six months.”
That brought a smile to the emperor’s face. He stepped to the window, deliberately blocking Baadluster’s line of sight. It was, after all, his view. “I never thought I’d see the day the Dominion willingly donated ground to me, to my troops. I wonder if they’ll like the flower that grows from that seeding!” He laughed. “All right then. We can afford to take the offensive. What about our new commander? Will he be well enough?”
Baadluster stood behind the emperor. The man was small enough that the minister could easily see over his head. He had, in fact, a better panorama than Pepys did, and he knew it. His too thick lips thinned cruelly. “If not, he would never admit the weakness. One way or another, he’ll accomplish what we want him to. And if we’re lucky, the Thraks will rid us of him.”
Chapter 26
Jack fingered the Flexalinks. He curled a fist and pounded the shoulder plate, unhappy with the feel of it. It might have just been his imagination, but he felt the give in it. The weakness. The edges of certain links here and there retained their crimping in spite of having been pounded out.
*Good as new, boss.*
He did not answer Bogie. The armor was not as good as new. Could no longer be repaired as good as new. And, he knew from previous outings, its obsolescence impaired his leadership. Leadership, hell, it impaired his very survival.
“Ever think of moving, Bogie?”
*Huh?*
“Never mind.” He dropped his hand. What could he do? “Still cold?”
The sentience was slow in answering, then, *Yes.*
He slapped the armor sleeve. “We’ll think of something.” He turned to leave. The shop was quiet. It was mid-shift, in the middle of the night, and he’d left Amber alone in the bed once again to come here. Soon, even in mid-shift, the shop would be filled as staging began for the operation to invade the Thrakian League. He approved of Baadluster’s decision and that filled Jack with the faintest of misgivings, but he could not deny himself the sweetness of a strike at the Thraks. He turned away, and was caught by the edge of Bogie’s thought.
*What is life?*
Jack said ironically, “You ask me? Maybe I should haul St. Colin in here and let you grill him.”
*I am serious, Jack. When you were injured, I… tasted you. I tasted your life, and it was warm.*
The sentience had to mean blood, not life. Jack thought of the Milot berserkers and how they were born into existence. He shuddered. Was Bogie then, if not an actual berserker, a parasite as he had once feared? Did he fight the possibility of being first possessed, then consumed, every time he wore the armor? He fought the revulsion the idea brought to him. “You’re alive, Bogie. You’re thinking and aware.”
*Only through you. Take you away from me, and I am nothing.*
That was what Jack feared most. Did the alien sense the inevitable choice Jack was being forced to make?
Jack took up some tools and sat down, helmet in hand, while he worked. The feeling of having something to do while he talked settled him. Finally, he said, “That will change when you’ve grown.”
*I can’t grow any more. What will feed me? Blood feeds you. What will feed me?*
“Blood isn’t the only thing that feeds me. I breathe air. I like the feeling of sun on my skin. A bottle of good beer and a medium-rare steak now and then. I need to feel good.”
*You need Amber’s love.*
“That’s one of the things.”
Bogie was silent for a long time. Jack finished checking the circuitry he was working on. He did a minute bit of soldering and cursed when he burned his fingertip. He ought to let the technicians handle this, he thought to himself. It’s too bad Bogie wasn’t a seed. He could just transplant him. Or a seedling that could be grafted somewhere. He looked up. “Other things grow differently. A seed takes sunlight and water. Photosynthesis. It grows that way.”
*Explain.*
Jack tiredly brushed his hair from his forehead. “I can’t explain. Listen. Feel.” He reached out and held the armor’s gauntlet and remembered his family’s agra station on Dorman’s Stand. The rows of growing things. The ATH moving down, harvesting, its bulk and its roar. Roots being pulled from the soil. The smell of dirt and heat.
There was a lingering moment when Bogie tried to hold onto him even though Jack was finished and was attempting to pull away.
With a shuddering sigh, he broke contact, and saw the white-hot rays of first sun under the shop door. Half the night had gone in what had seemed a few moments. He stood. His injuries had stiffened and he moved to stretch them, carefully, mindful of the weeks of healing still to come. The gauntlet moved after him, curving for a grasp on his arm. Jack paused and let Bogie touch him, aware of the effort it took the sentience to animate the battle suit.
*Let me feel the
sun again.*
Jack felt the wash of heat against the shop’s garage door. “Feel it yourself.” He braced his good shoulder against the equipment rack and shoved it across the begrimed concrete flooring, until they were up against the door. He palmed it open and heard the servos begin to whine.
As the door rolled up, Jack blinked. The sun, almost too harsh for human eyes, flooded his senses. He tugged the rack after him and wheeled it outside.
*I never realized,* Bogie said. Wonderment tinged his rough tones.
Jack felt the new day wash over him. Recent rains had cleansed the air somewhat. No brown tinge hung over the cityscape, cloying the horizon, and the pink tinge of sunrise had already burned away. It was not as beautiful as Dorman’s Stand, or even as beautiful as Oceana had been, destroyed though it was.
But it was, indisputably, alive.
*What a fool I was,* breathed the alien sentience.
Beside him, Jack felt the sleeves move as, haltingly, Bogie held his hands up to the sunlight.
*This is life.*
It was not the celestial brilliance that had brushed him when he thought of bleeding Jack. But it was of the same stuff, and it flooded him, fed him, warmed him.
“Sunlight?” Jack said. “But you’ve been out in the sun—” he stopped short. What was different? Why did Bogie feel energized now?
They stood in the wash of the sun’s rays. Jack still held the helmet in his hands. He reached over and screwed it down.
Almost immediately, Bogie gave a muted cry of frustration. The rending sound echoed in Jack’s mind.
*Gone!*
Jack reached over quickly and took the helmet off. He grinned. “Not gone, Bogie. There’s solars in the helmet… their job is to absorb the energy and channel it into the suit batteries. All you’ve got to do is learn how to tap into the circuitry. You’ve been doing it—I’ve got power drainage every time we go out, but what you’re getting isn’t solar energy. If that’s what you need, there’s no reason why you can’t bypass the solars. We only need that if we’re on extended field maneuvers. I’ll work with you on the rewiring.”
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