“Which I was.”
“Don’t push it, Logiel.”
He rolled his eyes as if put upon. “Send it now.”
“You don’t believe I will keep my word?”
“I believe my luck has been in quite short supply of late, and I am not inclined to take a chance and assume it will make a surprise appearance now.”
She pressed a palm to her forehead. The extended verbal sparring was worsening a headache that had arrived with the looming weight of what she was about to do. “Very well. Give me five minutes to prepare the communique, as I do want to make certain to be as eloquent and persuasive as possible.”
7
MACHIMIS STELLAR SYSTEM
MILKY WAY SECTOR 36
* * *
ZORAVAR BAZUK T’YEVK HAD NEVER met this Anaden chieftain. Words in messages then more words from the operators of the flying machine insisted the chieftain was important. Big. Powerful—the most powerful Anaden chieftain of all the powerful Anaden chieftains. Must be treated with respect.
Now that he stood before the chieftain, Zoravar decided the man looked weak and puny, same as all other Anadens. Soft. Easy to bleed.
“Commander Zoravar Bazuk T’yevk, allow me to present to you the leader of the great Anaden military. Our Primor, Machim.” The flyer of the flying machine bent over at the waist toward the chieftain as if he were about to…Zoravar laughed.
“Do you find something amusing, Commander T’yevk?”
“Did not know Anaden chieftains were suckled by their serfs. Keeps them in their place, yes?”
The chieftain’s fleshy face contorted in what looked like pain as he waved his fingers in the air. “You misunderstand our formalities, but I care not. I’ve called you before me because I am tasking you and your horde—cavalry—with a mission of supreme importance.”
They always said such things. Every task came with words like ‘vital’ and ‘grave’ and ‘importance.’ Soft Anaden words from soft Anaden men. Stripped of fancy words, they wanted creatures killed—sometimes animals, sometimes walk-talls—and killing was not for soft men.
Zoravar grunted. “We execute every mission to our fullest, until the blood runs thick.”
“Good, for the purpose of this mission is, above all, for the blood to run thick.”
But it always was, so Zoravar waited.
“Eight hundred of your best fighters will be accompanying our ships to a planet called Chionis. It is cold, snowy and mountainous, so have them prepare appropriately for the elements.”
“We wear woven mittens, then.”
The chieftain made another squishy wrinkle-face. “Is that a joke?”
“Funny one, yes?”
“I…did not know the Ch’mshak had a sense of humor. Fine. Wear whatever you want, but you’ve been warned. Chionis houses a base of operations for a group of terrorists—enemies of the Directorate. Once our fleet has eliminated the perimeter defenses of the base, your troops will be transported to the surface.”
As it always was. “What are we killing this time?”
A new expression grew on the chieftain’s fleshy face. Zoravar had seen it on Anadens before, when he’d fought side by side with the stronger of the Anadens’ weak warriors. When the battle fever overtook them and they ceased being proper and soft and became the animals even they had once been. He hadn’t expected to see such an expression on a chieftain in shiny clothes.
“Everything.”
Zoravar nodded. “Makes things easier. But everything of what? Giant spiders like in the Antlia galaxy? Giant reptiles like in the Briseis galaxy? Something more giant? My warriors hunger for a proper challenge.”
“No.” The chieftain turned from Zoravar to stare at the front of the ship. “A variety of species will be on Chionis: Naraida, Novoloume, Barisan. Others.” The bulge in the front of the chieftain’s throat bobbed up and down. “Anaden.”
It had been many cycle-years since Zoravar had felt surprise at anything an Anaden said. “We are killing Accepted Species—who we are forbidden by the Directorate masters from killing? We are killing your kind?”
Red veins popped into streaks running through the chieftain’s eyeballs, and he looked as though he was straining not to release his bowels. “The individuals who are on Chionis have committed grave crimes against the Directorate and its citizens. The gravest. They have earned their death sentences. More than this, they have earned slow, agonizing deaths. We could bomb them from the sky and the end result would be the same, but that is too merciful a death for these terrorists. Commander T’yevk, I want your troops to turn the mountainside red.”
Now this was a zeal for killing he could respect. He gestured with enthusiasm. “And yellow!”
“Pardon me?”
“Novoloume bleed yellow.”
The chieftain took a forceful step toward him and thrust his face in close. Anyone less than an Anaden chieftain and Zoravar would have ripped the soft man’s throat out for the implicit challenge, but here he limited himself to a deep, threatening growl.
The chieftain didn’t seem to notice, and by the wildness overtaking his tiny eyes Zoravar wondered if the man was already hearing the call of the battle fever.
“It’s not yellow, it’s copper, and I don’t care the color of their blood. Just make sure they die screaming. Every last one of them.”
PALAEMON
ANARCH POST EPSILON
MILKY WAY SECTOR 17
Caleb made his way across the elevated walkways toward the Siyane as Palaemon’s sun set on the watery horizon. It had been a good day, and would likely prove to have been a fruitful one as well. David Solovy’s return to the living was thus far going as smoothly as anyone could hope for, and a fair bit better than he’d feared.
He was beyond happy for Alex…but he was also giving her and her family a little space to reorient themselves without the complication of his presence. Yes, they were his family now, too, but they hadn’t been his family during the fateful events currently being rewritten.
No, rewritten didn’t feel like the right way to characterize it. The past was not being changed, only the future. He’d be a part of that future, in time.
For today, however, he’d made himself useful elsewhere. Several squads of Marines had spent the afternoon at Epsilon training anarch field agents, and vice versa. He’d sat in on two sessions of the latter, as he still had much to learn about the idiosyncrasies of Amaranthe and its inhabitants: weapons he might come up against in an encounter, defensive tools his enemies took for granted, nonobvious weaknesses of a lengthy list of alien species.
The Directorate had quickly escalated its offensive following Nisi’s broadcast, sending its Machim armadas against any target associated with the anarchs they could find. Both AEGIS and the anarchs were ready for the escalation, and thus far they’d met every challenge. Tomorrow they would….
He slowed to a stop near an intersection of three walkways, senses instantly vaulting to heightened alert. Why?
The diati stirred to ripple within his skin in anticipation. Anticipation of…he closed his eyes and listened, not for sounds but for the disturbance to normal that the diati perceived. He began turning in a deliberate circle—the diati spiked.
He opened his eyes and discovered he faced a transport module from the AFS Saratoga. It had brought the Marines down earlier today and remained here until they were ready to rejoin the fleet. When he’d left them, the Marines were enjoying some downtime socialization with their anarch counterparts before heading back to the Saratoga.
He cautiously approached the transport, cognizant that with every step the diati hummed louder. But the vessel should be empty and locked up tight.
The hilt of his blade found its way into his hand.
Nothing looked amiss as he reached the transport. He confirmed the airlock was closed and secure, then walked the perimeter of the hull. Nothing. Nothing but the diati singing in his ears and vibrating against his sternum.
The lan
ding gear elevated the vessel almost a meter above the ground, so when he’d completed the perimeter check he crouched down, blade at the ready, to peer beneath the—
—a mild surge of power washed over him, and in its wake the diati quieted. Had he just absorbed a new dose of diati? The sensation had been faint. He might not have noticed it were he not noticing everything in his perception: what he touched, saw, heard and even smelled. Everything he felt. But from where had it originated, or what?
LIGHT
A ball of artificial illumination materialized above his free hand, and he extended it beneath the undercarriage to try to see more clearly.
This stretch of the hull, between the engine and the single defensive laser housing, was smooth…except for one small imperfection. Now confident no attacker lurked under the vessel, he rolled onto his back and scooted under the frame.
A tiny piece of equipment three centimeters in diameter and a centimeter tall jutted out from the hull. He tried to pull it off, but it stuck fast. Yet it wasn’t part of the hull; the color and shape were wrong. The location was wrong. It was wrong.
He brought his blade up, activated it, and narrowed the blade to its thinnest width. Then he carefully worked it between the hull and the foreign object until the object came free and dropped onto his chest.
He returned his blade hilt to its sheath, palmed the object and shimmied back out from underneath the transport. He stood and opened his palm, but he couldn’t discern any details about the object, as the sun had completed its descent beyond the horizon and left behind only shadows.
LIGHT
The illumination shifted to hover above the object.
It didn’t look AEGIS-made. In fact, it looked Anaden-made. Had diati been concealing it?
Valkyrie, I’m sending you several visuals taken with my ocular implant. What am I looking at?
A moment. I cannot say for certain, but a comparison against images found in the anarchs’ files suggests the object closely resembles a Vigil tracking device.
“Motherfucker!” He called forth his power and transported briefly to a distant point in space, then from there to the Stalwart II.
PART II:
ANGELS & MONSTERS
“Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.”
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
8
AFS STALWART II
MILKY WAY SECTOR 17
* * *
DAVID RETURNED FROM REFILLING his drink to half-sit on the arm of Miriam’s chair. His free hand instantly, naturally, alighted on her forearm; her gaze instantly, naturally, rose to meet his in answer. A blink and the moment passed, but the fact that it occurred at all was nothing less than a miracle.
Richard and Will had joined them in the Stalwart II’s captain’s suite for drinks at Miriam’s request. Events were in motion with respect to the war, but a measure of calm had been snatched out of the chaos this evening. Richard was glad Miriam seemed to not only recognize it for what it was, but be willing to take advantage of it. Though he suspected she would vehemently deny it if asked, in the span of hardly a day, David’s presence had changed her.
David took a quick sip of his drink then rested it on his thigh. “So the three of us are attending this ball the brass arranged in honor of Admiral Zvedski, who was retiring from active duty to head the prime minister’s Advisory Board. Everyone is outfitted in their shined-up dress uniforms and wearing their best airs, but of course this being a ball, there is a well-stocked bar, which is where Richard and I are.
“We’re minding our own business—by which I mean drinking—when this woman saunters up beside Richard and orders two Negronis straight up. She might have been a noteworthy arrival on account of the screaming red dress slit up to her thigh, or due to the five-carat diamond necklace dangling into her ample cleavage, but no. She’s a noteworthy arrival because she’s the trophy wife of Admiral Zvedski himself—and because she arrives as drunk as a bridesmaid crashing a bachelor party.
“We both recognize her from prior formal events. Her name was…Sylvia, I think. We square up our shoulders and are trying to look respectable—or was it respectful?—when she sidles up closer to Richard and starts hitting on him. And I don’t mean subtly.”
Richard sighed. He wished David were exaggerating. “I’d had women hit on me in bars before—” he caught Will raising an eyebrow beside him “—a few. The point is, I had experience in getting rid of them. But I’m serving up every ‘no thank you’ cue, signal and body language I know, and nothing is working. She’s completely oblivious to my polite rejections and getting drunker by the second. Then she puts her hand on the back of my neck and lays her head down on my shoulder, and I flat-out freeze. This is the admiral’s wife, everyone knows it, and I have no idea what to do to diffuse the situation without causing a scene. At this point, I’m resigning myself to the reality that my military career is at an end.”
Will winced at Richard but tilted his head toward David. “Where had you gone?”
Richard scoffed. “Oh, he’d moved down to the end of the bar where he could laugh his ass off while he watched. Refused to be of any help whatsoever.”
David shrugged. “This is all true.”
Will shifted to Miriam. “And you were somewhere, too, right?”
“I had been tasked with giving the introductory speech for the admiral. So while this—” she waved a hand in Richard’s direction “—is transpiring, I’m across the ballroom beside the stage going over the order of events and various procedures with the admiral and his attaché.
“I get this random pulse from David…” her voice dropped into a rather adept imitation of his voice and accent “…‘Keep the admiral distracted and don’t let him turn his attention to the port bar.’ That’s it—no elaboration. Well, I can’t look over at the port bar, because if I do, the admiral will notice and do the same. I’m completely in the dark as to what’s happening, so I simply keep talking.”
Richard lingered on the realization of just how surreal this all was. David, here. He and Miriam acting like a couple. Will joking with David…for years he’d wished they had gotten the chance to know one other. Now here they were.
But the story was about him—and guaranteed to embarrass him at any given point—so he forced himself to return to the present. To enjoy it, too, for it was its own miracle.
David picked back up the story. “Meanwhile, the situation is deteriorating. Sylvia keeps trying to order another drink, and Richard keeps trying to stop her. She’s leaning into him so hard her diamond necklace keeps hitting him in the chin. But he’s a gentleman to the last, so he tries to politely move her away—and she starts climbing into his lap. No shit. I’m about to come over and step in—”
Richard scowled. “No, you weren’t.”
“I was. But I don’t have to, since Tom Hammett shows up then. Now, Tom’s ninety-five kilos of solid muscle, as straight-laced as they come and married with two kids, but Sylvia doesn’t know this. He stomps up to them, puts a hand on Sylvia’s shoulder and comes out with, ‘What are you doing shoving your tits in my boyfriend’s face, bitch?’
“She jerks and, wearing ten-centimeter heels and being sloppy drunk as she is, stumbles backward and falls on her ass. In the quest to keep things quiet, this is not a good development.”
Miriam interrupted. “It most certainly was not, because it did cause a commotion. People start staring, then pointing, and I’m reduced to sidestepping back and forth in front of the admiral to keep him from seeing whatever is happening at the port bar. In the sole stroke of luck I’d had so far, he was not a tall man.”
“And he suffered from a classic case of Napoleon complex as a result, but it’s not relevant to the story. Hammett hurriedly leans down and offers a hand—”
Richard cleared his throat while trying not to blush. David was having entirely too much fun telling the story. For Will’s benefit, surely. David. “Which I was
getting ready to do myself.”
“Of course. Hammett offers her a hand and helps her up—then pulls her in close, gets in her face, and growls, ‘Are we going to need to take this outside?’ Sylvia’s a waif of a woman—except for the cleavage—and this hulking Marine in full dress uniform is calling her out. Her eyes get as wide as saucers, and she shakes her head and backs away. Hammett turns to Richard and throws an arm around him, then says, ‘I’m sorry I was late, honey, but I got held up at the base.’
“Richard looks like he’s about to vomit from mortification. But he calmly takes a sip of his drink and responds with, ‘I understand, dear, but you need to try harder to be on time for these sorts of occasions. Appearances are important.’ ”
Will twisted around on the couch to face him fully. “You didn’t!”
“It’s all kind of a blur. I’m not sure—”
“He absolutely did. I’ve never been prouder of him. Then the music quiets, Miri takes the stage, and she gives as brilliant a speech as one expects from her.”
Richard scoffed. “How would you know? You and Tom were too busy stifling your glee into the bar to notice anything else going on.”
Miriam stared up at David expectantly. “That’s an excellent question. How could you know?”
Her tone remained affectionate, but Richard had known her for more than forty years, and he sensed the undercurrent of challenge in the question. It asked for affirmation, for validation that she’d been right to accept him, to trust that he returned the same man he had been and welcome him into her arms and her life.
If David recognized the challenge, he didn’t retreat from it, instead dipping his chin in concession. “When I finally stopped laughing, which was about the time the admiral took the stage, I accessed the vid feed. I restarted it from the beginning and watched you instead of the admiral.” He leaned down until his forehead almost touched Miriam’s. “Double win for me.”
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 85