Ixan Legacy Box Set

by Scott Bartlett

  Till this moment, Husher’s battle group had trailed behind their capital ship, but now they swooped in behind her missiles, targeting Brotherhood ships with primary lasers. Three more enemy vessels went down in quick succession.

  By the time the Pythons launched from their tubes, the enemy ships were already turning to flee.

  “Tell Ayam to give chase until they’re outside firing range of the civilians, Coms,” Husher said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Husher frowned as he stared at the tactical display. Their strong showing had been enjoyable to watch play out, but the speedy retreat it had prompted meant the ships out of Roundleaf wouldn’t arrive in time to tighten the noose.

  The Brotherhood lived on, to help the Progenitors rain destruction down on the galaxy’s inhabitants.

  “We’re getting a transmission request from the Artemis, sir,” Fry said. “A lot of messages of gratitude from the civilian ships, too, but I assumed you’d want to hear what Artemis has to say first.”

  Husher nodded. “Tell the civilian captains we’re deeply sorry for the ships their convoy lost, and that helping them on their way to Home was the least we could do.”

  “I will, Captain. And, sir—the transmission request from Artemis is apparently from President Chiba.”

  Chiba’s aboard the Artemis? Coming from Roundleaf? “I’ll take it in my office.”

  As soon as he’d lowered himself into the chair behind his desk, he instructed his Oculenses to connect him with Chiba. The Kaithian appeared in a throne-like chair upholstered in burgundy velvet, with ornately carved legs and armrests.

  A second identical chair appeared beside the alien. It held Eve Quinn, of Invigor Technologies.

  “Mr. President,” Husher said, ignoring Quinn for now. “I’m surprised to find you’re aboard the Artemis, and coming out of Roundleaf.”

  “Good,” Chiba said. “The idea is to randomize my location and keep the enemy guessing. As for being aboard a capital starship, where else would you suggest the President of the Union should go? Abdera is gone, thanks to you. I’m likely not safe on any colony. Isn’t it best for me to remain on the move, aboard one of our strongest ships?”

  “I think the Progenitors had more to do with Abdera’s destruction than I did,” Husher snapped.

  Chiba shrugged, and both he and Quinn regarded him in silence.

  Husher itched to ask why Quinn was with the president, but he knew there was a more pressing question at hand: “Why does the Brotherhood have more ships, now?”

  A look of studied innocence took shape on Chiba’s face, though Quinn’s knowing smirk remained intact. “I’m sure I don’t know,” the Kaithian said.

  “I’m sure you do. For them to have a spike like that in recruitment, you must have done something. Those captains wouldn’t have simply joined up with the Brotherhood on a whim.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, Captain,” the Kaithian said. “And while we appreciate you saving what civilian ships you did, we haven’t approached you to discuss the Brotherhood.”

  “What, then?”

  “The field test. How did lucid perform in space combat?”

  “Horribly. It sent my Nav officer into a seizure the moment the Vesta took some damage, and we were dead in the water until I could get my secondary to the CIC.”

  Chiba grimaced. “How unfortunate.”

  “A minor hiccup,” Quinn cut in. “I stand by my statement that this tech will change the war. We’ll work out the bugs that caused your mishap, Captain, and we’ll have the next version rolled out to you soon. I actually think we’re on the verge of fleetwide implementation.”

  Chiba nodded solemnly, but Husher stared at them like they’d both sprouted extra limbs from their foreheads. “I’m not letting lucid anywhere near my ship or crew again.”

  Eyebrows shooting up, Quinn said, “I thought you wanted to win this war, Captain.”

  “I do. That’s why I’ll have nothing to do with your product. Mr. President, why are you rushing Invigor’s technology like this? It’s beginning to remind me of the Darkstream days.”

  The president smirked. “Trust me, Invigor has no political clout. They’re merely helping us bring our fleets to a level at which we can compete.” The Kaithian shook his head. “I see a contradiction in your behavior, Captain. The capital starships have all had their lifeboats converted to warships capable of interdimensional travel, just like the Vesta’s. You must have received that report, yet you’ve raised no objections about that. Why object to one upgrade but not the other?”

  “Because adopting lucid will weaken the Fleet. I sense an ulterior motive behind this. I don’t know what it is yet, but there’s a reason you’re so keen to shove this down our throats, isn’t there?”

  “I have to wonder about your motives as well, Captain Husher,” Chiba said, tiny teeth suddenly bared. “Why won’t you take the sort of calculated risks we’ve already agreed are necessary to victory?”

  “I don’t consider this a well-calculated risk. Not after what happened to us while we were in Gok space.”

  “That’s where we differ. You’ve never shown much faith in your government, and so your irrational opposition to this tech makes a certain sort of sense, I suppose. If you won’t adopt lucid, I won’t try to force you, Captain. I certainly have better ways to spend my time than that. But we will be integrating it with other ships, starting with the remaining capital starships.”

  The backbone of the fleet, weakened to breaking point. “Will that be all?” Husher ground out.

  “No,” Chiba said. “The Interstellar Union has adopted wartime policies, which will need to be implemented in Cybele as well. In order to fund the defense and evacuation of the galactic civilian populace, we are appropriating fifty percent of the wealth of its richest citizens. We’re also commandeering every privately owned ship.”

  Husher nodded slowly as comprehension dawned on him. “So that’s why the Brotherhood’s recruitment has skyrocketed. You’ve decided to use the galaxy’s death throes as an opportunity to make good on your goal of radical wealth redistribution.”

  “We are doing only what’s expedient,” the president said, regarding Husher imperiously.

  “No, you’re doing a lot more than that. You’re leveling society, and it’s going to finish the job of tearing us apart. I’ve said it before, or at least I’ve tried to: there are ways to reduce inequality that don’t doom us. But you’d rather take a sledgehammer to the bedrock of society.”

  “Your opinion is irrelevant,” Chiba said.

  “Actually, it isn’t. Not on my ship, anyway. This policy won’t be enacted aboard the Vesta. I don’t need even more unrest in the middle of my ship.”

  “You don’t have a choice. The banks are granting us access to the funds stored in accounts on Cybele.”

  Husher whipped his com out of its holster and sent a priority transmission request to Ensign Amy Fry.

  She answered immediately. “Captain?”

  “Deny all outside requests to Vesta’s narrownet,” he said.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Husher out.” He ended the call and replaced the com back in its holster. “Now what?” he said, locking eyes with the Kaithian. “Are we going to go to battle with each other again?”

  “Not at this time,” Chiba said after a brief pause. “But you should know that for you, victory in this war isn’t possible, Captain Husher. Whether we beat the Progenitors or not, I will see to it that you are ruined.”

  Chapter 28

  Half-Baked

  The alien mech accepted Jake inside of it readily enough, its front peeling away to form a ramp for him to climb.

  But once he was inside, it bombarded him with whispers.

  Do you want to win this? Or burn?

  What good is dying along with your friends? They will die regardless. Merge with me, and we’ll survive.

  Embrace your destiny. Embrace the void.

  He fought t
o withstand the whispers, like a boulder withstands the ocean’s onslaught. That proved a useful way of conceptualizing his relationship to the whispers. They were nothing but waves of the sea: relentless, but devoid of content. They required nothing of him, and he would give nothing.

  At last, after a half hour of meditating inside the mech dream, he was able to move the machine’s foot, taking a single step toward Hangar Bay Epsilon’s opposite bulkhead. The whispers raged at that, turning up the volume and mixing in obscenities. He continued to ignore them.

  One step. It’s more than I managed the day Beth died. It had taken him thirty minutes to accomplish, but he berated himself that he hadn’t managed it then.

  Ash still wasn’t talking to him, spending a lot of time with Rug instead. Even though she’d known Jake a lot longer than she’d known the Quatro, he supposed it made sense. They’d both lost someone.

  Though at least there’s a chance Rug could get Lisa back.

  The next step took him only twenty minutes to accomplish, and the third, twelve minutes. So slow. After everything he’d accomplished using the alien mech in the past, this pace felt excruciating.

  But he was doing it. Gradually, he was learning a new way to control the mech. Hopefully, they’d come out of this even stronger than before.

  Only if you integrate with me, the mech whispered.

  Never, Jake answered.

  Hangar Bay Epsilon wasn’t currently in use, making it the best option for training with the unpredictable machine. In truth, there weren’t any good options. Not anywhere on the Vesta.

  The fact that they were willing to use Progenitor tech at all showed how desperate this war had made them. After what it had done to Gabriel Roach, along with most of the Quatro who’d climbed inside Progenitor-made mechs... We’re crazy to have this thing aboard at all. Of all those who’d used the alien mechs, only Jake and Rug had managed to avoid losing themselves.

  But this mech was also the reason he’d been able to evacuate anyone at all from the Steele System. It was the reason he was still alive.

  I have to stick with it, at this point. I have to stay the course.

  The truth was, he was addicted to the thing. He was self-aware enough to know that. I just have to manage the addiction until the end of the war.

  “Hey,” someone said from the hatch.

  Jake didn’t have to turn his head to see who it was—the mech had sensors all over its body, and he could see out of any of them from inside the mech dream.

  “Iris,” he said. His heart rate spiked, mainly from fear. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why not?”

  The mech turned, then, of its own accord. That was more movement than Jake had gotten from it in an hour.

  Then, it tried to raise its arms and convert them into heavy guns.

  It also shut down Jake’s ability to communicate with Iris—it would no longer let him speak through its exterior speakers. He couldn’t tell her that she needed to flee.

  The mech’s arms raised halfway, and Jake brought his will down like a hammer, keeping the appendages at bay. His prior meditative approach wouldn’t work, here. He had to attend to the whispers directly.

  The mech stood in quavering tableau as Iris looked on in confusion and Jake did battle with it.

  At last, he wrested control of the external speakers from the whispers. “Please,” he grunted. “Wait for me in the corridor.”

  “All right,” Iris said, and backed away, disappearing from the open hatch.

  With its would-be target out of sight, the mech became slightly easier to manage, and Jake forced its arms down by its sides.

  That done, he opened the front ramp and stepped out onto the deck.

  He looked up at the hulking machine. “If you’re going to kill me, go ahead. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m not going to try to fight it.”

  But the mech remained motionless. It doesn’t want to kill me, he realized. In a strange way, they truly had bonded, and there was nothing the mech wanted more than to merge with him entirely. Was the machine simply a tool of the Progenitors, or had it developed agency of its own at some point? If it was only the former, Jake should have died a long time ago.

  “What happened in there?” Iris asked when he joined her in the corridor.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  Her mouth quirked at the corner. “Sort of an abrupt question, but I deserve it. I know I was harsh, back in Santana Park. I came to apologize.”

  “Does the captain just give you free reign of the crew section, now?”

  “I get in on family visitation passes. But I abuse them. I admit it.”

  That made him chuckle. “Well, apology accepted.” He began walking along the corridor, with no particular destination in mind, and she fell in beside him.

  “Did you hear about the wartime measures the IU’s taking?” she asked.

  Jake grimaced. “No, but I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Every privately-owned ship is being commandeered for the evacuation, and their owners are being entered in the same lottery as everyone else for spots on them. Plus, they’re taking fifty percent of the richest people’s wealth.”

  Suppressing a groan, Jake said, “Let me guess. You love these policies.”

  “I’m kind of torn about them, actually,” she said, surprising him. “On the one hand, I can see the logic—the government needs a lot of money to get everyone to Home, and a lot of the wealth they’re taking was gained dishonestly. On the other hand, this seems kind of extreme.”

  “I would say it does. Couldn’t they ask the wealthy for their help first, before they swooped in and stole half their money and all their ships?”

  Iris shrugged. “They’re using what happened on Thessaly as justification—the fact that some shipowners didn’t take any other civilians with them when they fled.”

  “So, because some of the well-off people are bad, it’s time to punish all of them?” Jake shook his head. “This is what’s been pissing me off so much since I came to the Milky Way. Politicians jumping at whatever criticism is lying around, just to justify screwing over everyone who’s done well.”

  “But there has been oppression in the past, Jake, and plenty today. Plus, there’s still plenty of bias between the species.”

  “I get that. But these half-baked, short-term solutions are only going to hurt everyone. There just isn’t any way to fix this stuff overnight. Not unless you’re okay with breaking society in the process.”

  “You sound like my dad.”

  Jake blinked. “Well, I never would have expected to say this, but…I think I’m on the same page as the captain, on this one. He’s a lot better than me at explaining it, but you know, he might actually know what he’s talking about.”

  Iris grinned. “I’ve been realizing that too. It’s a painful process.”

  Cocking his head back a little, Jake said, “Why did you really come here today?”

  Iris’s grin took on a strange quality that Jake would have called a mix of playfulness and…well, shyness. “Because my mother didn’t want me to.” She winked at him and turned to walk in the opposite direction, leaving him to stare after her, speechless.

  Chapter 29

  Making a Play

  Something about Price’s demeanor seemed off as he entered Husher’s office.

  As well it might be. He’d heard the rumors about the young man spending time with his daughter.

  But that wasn’t what he’d called Price here to discuss—not right away, anyway.

  “At ease, Seaman,” he said, and Price separated one foot from the other, folding his hands behind his back. “Have a seat.”

  Price did, meeting Husher’s eyes for a fraction less than he normally would.

  Ah, yes. “I met recently with the president.”

  “Oh? How was that?”

  “About as enjoyable as you might expect. There was a reward waiting for me at the end of
the meeting, however, and it almost made it worth it.” Who am I kidding? Nothing could make a meeting with Chiba worth it. But this did come close. “The IU has actually done something with the MIMAS you donated to them. At least, their scientists have done something with it. There are now a total of forty newly manufactured mechs, along with forty pilots who’ve trained on them, mostly using lucid simulations.” Husher felt his mouth twist involuntarily at that, but his ban of lucid tech didn’t extend to mechs. He couldn’t afford to kick Oneiri off his ship because of what had happened in Gok space, not least of all because lucid seemed to work well when it came to controlling the mechs.

  “The president decided it would make the most sense to assign the new mechs to the Vesta,” Husher continued, “since you and your team are here to guide them. To lead them.”

  “There’s not much of my team left, sir,” Jake said.

  “Well, there’s about to be a lot more of it. The mechs are on Zakros, in Feverfew, and we’re headed there now. You’ll be responsible for all of them. How is progress going on regaining control of your alien mech?”

  “Slow,” Price said after a brief pause.

  “Have you considered switching over to a MIMAS?”

  A shrug. “Not truly, sir.”

  “What if I ordered it?”

  Price raised his eyes. “I don’t think you should order that.”

  “Okay. I’ll continue to trust your judgment. In fact, I’ve decided to grant you a field promotion, to Petty Officer Third Class. It’s still too low a rank to command a platoon, technically, but there’s no one else with the experience you have. I wouldn’t want to trust anyone else with the job.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Price sounded both surprised and pleased.

  “Do you think you can have your mech back under control by the time we reach Zakros? I’d like you in it when you go to meet your new pilots.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to make that happen, sir.”

  Husher nodded. “Good. Oh, I almost forgot to mention—I hear you’ve been spending time with my daughter.”