by Dan Schiro
“Orion,” said the politician, his three eyes baggy with exhaustion. “I take it someone has seen to your injuries?” A muffled explosion rocked Zovaco’s side of the interface, and fine silt rained down on the politician’s bald head.
“I’m fine,” Orion said, dismissing his concern with a wave of his hand. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m—” Another explosion hit and the transmission jittered. “I’m beneath the Grand Chambers, deep in the Engineers’ old catacombs.” His eyes darted around nervously, something Orion had never seen from him before. “It’s the Mad Thinker — he’s got his hands on Thegra’s Sword.”
“Thegra’s… never heard of it,” he said with a shrug.
“You wouldn’t have, since it’s the Union’s closest-held secret.” Zovaco leaned toward the camera. “It’s a warship, and it’s the single most powerful piece of E-tech in the known galaxy.”
Aurelia sat up with a groan, removing the amulet from her smooth stomach and stretching like a cat in the sun. “Thegra’s Sword?” she yawned. “The warship of myth?”
Orion turned to Dalaxa. “Was this part of his plan all along? Why am I just hearing about this now?”
Dalaxa clapped a hand to her chest. “He didn’t get it from me. I’ve never heard of it, I promise you, Orion.”
“That’s… not necessarily true, Dr. Croy,” Zovaco muttered, his hologram fuzzing and resolving. “As the Union’s lead weapon scientist, you were given access to the ship to study it under the requirement of a memory wipe afterward. You couldn’t figure out how to activate it, but apparently the Mad Thinker has.”
“You…” Dalaxa staggered back, both hands rising to cradle her face. “The Union wiped my memory? How many times?”
Zovaco shrugged, seemingly too tired to feign regret. “Only when you agreed to it, Dr. Croy.”
As Dalaxa paced away from the interface speechless, Orion pounded his fist into the surgical table. “Why didn’t you tell me about this, Zo?” he barked. “Why did you hold out on me with all this at stake?”
Zovaco sat back, his eyes vacant and his face slack. “We thought the memory was lost. We thought we were safe.” He shook his head and leaned toward the camera again, his narrow jaw clenched. “Listen, Orion, I’ll lash myself long and hard for my many, many mistakes, but right now, I need your help. The people of the Hub need your help. All the people of the Maker Rings need your help.”
Orion suppressed his rage with a hissing breath through his tight lips. “Okay. So… what? Typhus is hammering the city with this ancient ship? What am I supposed to do about that?”
Zovaco shook his head. “Thank the stars, he hasn’t turned that space whale’s firepower on the city yet — we’d be atomized. He’s simply in orbit above the Hub. We’re throwing our whole armada at that damnable ship, and we can’t even dent its shields.”
“He’s not fighting back?” Orion asked with a puzzled tilt of his head. “What’s all that noise in the background?”
“Oh, he’s fighting back.” Zovaco folded his thick fingers on the table in front of him. “The Mad Thinker is swatting our warships down like flies, but he hasn’t fired a bolt at the Rings yet. All of that,” he said, glancing up as another explosion shook silt down on him, “is from the ground assault.”
Dalaxa gasped, and Orion’s eyes went wide as they both caught his meaning. “The manowars,” Orion breathed.
Again Zovaco nodded grim confirmation. “The pods fall from the sky, and the blue monsters come out of the rubble. The Legionnaires are engaging them all over the city, but...”
“He means to occupy,” Orion said, his mouth beating his mind to the realization. “He means to take control of the Hub.”
Zovaco’s image jittered and resolved. “The biosynthetics are marching on the Grand Chambers, wind-power facilities, hydroelectric plants and solar arrays, all very strategic.”
“Surely the Legionnaires are containing them?” Kangor asked.
“Our people are getting torn apart.” Zovaco ran a hand over his sweat-slicked forehead. “It won’t be long before they find their way to these catacombs.”
“Alright, I get the picture,” Orion said, his fists clenched. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know, Orion.” Zovaco offered a hapless chuckle. “But you’re a singular talent, unlike anything I’ve seen in this life… or the last,” he added, a coded reference to his time with the Assassins Guild. “If anyone can make a difference, it’s you.”
“I’ll think of something, Zo.” Orion took a deep breath, attempting to still his racing mind. “Hang in there until I do.”
Zovaco gave him a curt nod. “That seems to be my only option.”
Orion pulled his datacube out of the air and sat back on his elbows. As the old durok had taught him, Orion took the space of eight breaths to enter Blooming Flower and examine all of the problem’s interconnected elements. A few silent moments passed, the others watching him expectantly. Then he looked around at his team, his mismatched eyes clear and focused. “We need to go to the Planet of the World Walkers.”
“The World Walkers?” Kangor grunted.
Aurelia shook her head. “You know those fossils won’t lift a finger to help anyone.”
“It’s not about them,” Orion said as he hopped off the stainless-steel table and plucked the needle from his arm, dotting the crook of his arm with crimson drops. “We’ve got to tell Costigan to turn this boat toward the Bloodstone Nebula.”
“Orion,” Dalaxa said softly, a stricken look on her face as she touched his arm.
“Little friend,” Kangor said, his eyes downcast as he scratched at the back of his furry neck. “Jim Costigan did not survive his wounds.”
“He… no.” Orion shook his head. “He got sliced up a little, just like me. He’s fine… right?”
Dalaxa shook her head, her small mouth twisted into a deep frown. “The cuts were too deep, and the consulin only sealed the surface of the wounds.”
“He bled to death, little friend,” Kangor said. “Inside.”
Orion dropped his face into his hand. “Reddpenning must be…”
“On the bridge,” Aurelia added with a rare note of reverence. “Doing her job.”
“I’m sorry, Orion,” Dalaxa murmured without meeting his eyes.
Orion climbed into his damaged bodysuit with trembling hands as the rest of the team fell quiet. When he had his smartcloak clipped around his neck, he took a deep breath and did his best to stride out of the med bay without showing any pain, be it physical or emotional. He moved through the corridors with long steps that made his consulin-stiff body ache, and soon he felt a tear rolling down his cheek.
After what felt like the longest walk of his life, he passed through the hissing automatic doors onto the two-tiered bridge. Reddpenning sat in the pilot’s chair with her back to him. Her long black braid had been unfurled into a tangled mane, and the viewscreen in front of her showed a drone’s eye view of the stealth ship off their port side. She didn’t turn to acknowledge Orion as he came in.
“Red,” he said softly as he walked down the short ramp to the navigation pit. “Alana.”
She glanced up at him, her flinty face set and expressionless as stone, then looked down at the control dash. She toggled the viewscreen to a grid of body-cameras worn by the Briarhearts searching the stealth ship.
“Alana, I’m so sorry.” Orion cleared his throat and wiped his fingers over the wells of his eyes. “I… Jim was a good friend, a good man, he…”
“He knew the stakes,” she said as she fiddled with the control dash.
Deep furrows creased Orion’s brow. “I promise you, I’ll make sure Zovaco pays out a full death benefit… you know, not that that changes—”
“I’ll be expecting ample compensation paid to the families of each Briarheart who fell today,”
she said, interrupting him blankly. “It’s in our contract, after all.”
A wave of nausea washed over Orion. “Red, I’m so sorry. I brought this to your ship. All of those deaths are on me, including Cos.”
She shook her head, her face hard as concrete. “Could have been worse. The barracks would have been full if most of the field agents weren’t working late to search the stealth ship.”
“Right, right.” Orion shook his head, stunned by her stoicism. “We’ll mourn later, long and hard, when this is all over. Right now, we need to call the field agents back and get to the Bloodstone Nebula as fast as possible. I need to—”
With a growl, Alana Reddpenning leaped out of her chair and slammed into Orion, knocking him off balance and riding him to the ground. His head thudded against the floor, and Reddpenning pinned him with a hand gripping his throat. With her other hand, she held a pulse pistol to Orion’s temple.
“He would have followed you anywhere,” she spat at him. “He idolized you!”
“He was my friend,” Orion groaned as she straddled the gash across his belly. “I never wanted any of this to happen.”
“I should put a smoking hole in your pretty head right now.” Reddpenning’s dark eyes narrowed and her wild hair fell around her face. “Sure, you save the day and smile for the cameras, but how many innocent people have to be sacrificed every time?”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Orion squeaked under her tightening grip. “It’s never clean. I wish it was, but it’s never clean.”
“He was my husband,” she shouted as she jammed the gun barrel against his head. “I need a reason not to kill you, Orion. I need a reason not to kill you, then kill myself.”
“Alana, I can still stop Typhus,” he rasped. “Help me save someone else’s husband...”
She seemed to consider it for a moment as her chest heaved with angry breaths. Then she stood, screamed and flung the pulse pistol away to crash against the back wall of the bridge.
“Fine,” she shouted as she stalked back to the command chair, sat down and slammed her hands on the control dash. “Play the epic hero. Where are we going?”
Coughing, Orion rose slowly to his feet. “The Planet of the World Walkers.”
“You think those neutered statues will lift a finger to help us?” Reddpenning cast a scathing glare at him. “Or are you counting on the army of pacifists that worship their toes?”
“Neither,” Orion sighed wearily. “But I’ve got a friend there, and they owe me one.”
Chapter 28
The Prodigal Star glided out of the White Heath’s hangar bay with its shift-skin tuned to gleaming silver. Accelerating gently, he piloted them down toward the scattered clouds, blue seas and pastoral continents of the Planet of the World Walkers.
“Win or lose,” Orion said into his dash mic, “we’ll be back soon. Then we’ll take the fight straight to the Maker Rings.”
“Affirmative,” said Reddpenning over the audio-only channel. “Setting geosynchronous orbit.” She closed the channel with a click.
“That was terse,” muttered Aurelia as she folded her long green legs on the crash couch behind Orion.
“She’s in pain,” Orion said, the nearly uninhabited planet growing larger on the viewscreen. “She will be for a long time.”
“Pain can be an ally,” Kangor said, harnessed to the crash couch next to Aurelia.
Over at the ops station, Dalaxa nodded solemnly. “It can be a weapon, too.”
They made the rest of the descent in silence, and soon they saw the World Walkers on the forward viewscreen. Facing each other in profile, the two goliaths loomed against the horizon as tall as Echohax Tower. They had vague humanoid features, one male and the other female, and silver skin that glinted dimly with diffused light that passed through the shattered eggshell of cloud cover. As Orion took his Prodigal Star in low over the rolling continent, there were no settlements; only low foothills, rolling meadows and the occasional copse of trees.
Soon they passed over a wide, flat plain where other dropships and tour freights parked. Hundreds of supplicants shouldering bedrolls and rucksacks made their way down the long path from the landing zone to the plateau where the World Walkers stood. As Orion remembered from walking the pilgrim’s path when Zovaco’s campaign had stopped there, the steps up the mesa were worn smooth by the millions of worshippers who had made the final ascent on their knees.
“Unfortunately,” Orion murmured to himself, “I don’t have time for ceremony today.”
He approached the two silver giants like a missile, only decelerating in the last few seconds. He stopped at the flat expanse of the mesa and set his Prodigal Star to hover a few hundred feet up at the World Walkers’ knees. “Wish me luck,” he said to his crew as he unbuckled from the captain’s chair.
“Do you think the ancient one will still be here?” Aurelia asked.
Orion shrugged. “Last we spoke, it sounded like it would be a while.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Dalaxa shook her head as if dazed. “How can one of them be alive after such an ocean of time?”
“The universe is stranger than even I like to admit,” Aurelia said with a knowing smile. “Do you think L’yak will be able to help?”
“Let’s hope.” Orion straightened his blue-gray smartcloak with a sharp jerk. “It’s the last card I’ve got up my sleeve.”
Kangor raised a bushy eyebrow. “Are you anticipating some kind of game to win the Engineer’s aid?”
Aurelia deflated with a sigh. “Let’s go over this again, Kangor. Figure of Goddess-cursed speech.”
Orion smiled — for what felt like the first time in a while — and exited the dropship’s main cabin. Entering the rear decontamination chamber, he clambered down a tight ladder to the Prodigal Star’s small extracurricular vehicle compartment. He eased into the saddle of his new SkyStreak 400 XE skysled, taking a moment to admire the fine machine that he’d barely had a chance to enjoy. Then Orion hammered his fist to the wall-mounted button that opened the hatch beneath him. He plunged in free fall for a handful of exhilarating seconds before thumbing the skysled’s thrusters to life. Cruising out over the plateau, Orion maneuvered slowly between the colossal silver bodies. When he looked down, he saw the angry faces and raised fists of the peace activists, spiritualists and scientists who had made the appropriate pilgrimage to the World Walkers’ feet. Orion waved at them sheepishly, their curses fading beneath him as he pumped a foot-lever to start a slow, straight rise.
Orion rose past the World Walkers’ parted legs, and their silver torsos walled him in on both sides. This close to their bodies, he couldn’t even make out the masculine and feminine contours that were apparent from a distance. He was simply between two huge silver surfaces, alone with his hazy reflections as he flew straight up. Finally, after many thousands of feet, Orion reached the space between the two great faces. The smooth heads of the World Walkers tickled the passing clouds at this altitude, and Orion’s chest grew tight in the thin, cold air.
L’yak, last of the Engineers, perched on the bulbous nose of the male. The androgynous creature looked like a colorful fly resting on a placid face in the same brightly embroidered tunic s/he always wore. Orion glanced up at the World Walker’s ruby-red eyes for any sign of danger, then slowly maneuvered his skysled toward L’yak.
“I was hoping you’d still be here,” Orion said, raising his voice to be heard over the swirling wind. S/he looked exactly as Orion remembered — flowing black hair, electric-blue eyes, elfin ears with a silver loop piercing, an emerald ring on a six-fingered hand and that familiar silver tattoo on the right wrist. “It’s been, what, months?”
“Half of your standard year,” L’yak said with a slow smile. “We’re just getting to know each other. The language of the World Walkers is tectonically slow. It’s beautiful.”
“L’yak,
I could really use some help,” Orion said, shaking his head. “The Maker Rings are under attack, and I need—”
L’yak held up an open hand, the ancient creature’s eyes closing for a long beat. “I already know.” S/he pointed down to the distant mesa and the specks gathered there. “Their prayers travel up through my new friends like vibrations through a steel staff. They’ve become quite specific as of late. The mad vycart, the s’zone planet, the warship and, now, the Maker Rings.”
“Good,” Orion said, exhaling the deep breath he had taken to summarize the galactic chaos. “Then you understand why I need to get on that ship.”
“Oh?” Pale L’yak raised a fine black eyebrow. “And what makes you think I have that power?”
Orion spread his hands. “It’s E-tech. You’ve got to have something, right?”
“Say what you mean, young human.”
“I don’t know.” Orion slapped his hands on the dash of his skysled. “A backdoor? A secret passageway? I’m desperate here.”
Eyes growing distant, L’yak seemed to think about it for a few long seconds. Orion had the fleeting thought that perhaps the World Walkers’ glacial nature had infected the Engineer. Finally, s/he leveled a narrow gaze at Orion. “It is not my fight. Civilizations rise and fall like winter wheat. It is the way of things. It happened to the Chosen, and it will happen to this Union.”
“It doesn’t have to happen today,” Orion spat, his face growing red. “Don’t forget, you’d still be in a stasis pod if it wasn’t for me.”
L’yak nodded calmly. “Yes, and I helped you escape my forgotten planet after your crash-landing. That seems to settle our account.”
“If you’re going to be nothing more than an observer in this galaxy, you might as well go back to your pod.” Orion felt his spellblade tingling in his arm, and he wondered if L’yak could sense it too. “I’ll wake you up in another 100,000 years, fill you in on what you missed.”