"That's still infinitely better than being dead, wouldn't you say?"
Hoff wasn't sure about that. Of all the things Omnius had just revealed, one thing was more shocking than the rest, and the implications were life altering. The Choosing and the Null Zone existed for a good reason. It was because of people like him, people whose actions Omnius couldn't predict.
Hoff smiled. "You can't control me."
"I can do whatever I want. I'm God, remember?"
Hoff shook his head. "No, you're not."
Omnius's flickering silver eyes flared suddenly brighter, but he said nothing. A drone came clanking up beside Hoff, carrying a bundle of clothes—regular clothes, rather than his Peacekeeper's uniform. Hoff frowned at that.
"You won't be a Peacekeeper in the Null Zone," Omnius explained.
Galan inclined his head to Hoff. "It's been a pleasure to serve with you, Heston."
Omnius turned to the other strategian, smiling once more. "You're going with him."
"What?" Galan looked shocked.
"Lena Faros fell to her death because of both of your actions, not just Hoff's."
"I..."
"How will I explain moving to the Null Zone to my family?" Hoff asked, accepting the bundle of clothes from the drone.
"They're already ahead of you," Omnius replied. "In the month that you have been away, your daughter has chosen to become a Null, and your wife has followed her."
The shock of that revelation hit Hoff like a bucket of ice water. "She what?" He'd assumed from everything Atta had said about her upcoming Choosing Ceremony that she would choose to remain in Etheria with her parents. The Choosing was supposed to have been a formality for her. She was already an immortal, resurrected in the body of a clone. There was no reason for her to wonder whether Lifelink transfers actually killed people and left functional copies to live on in their stead.
"Why?" Hoff asked.
"She overheard you warning Atton about me, remember?"
The blood drained from Hoff's face. Somehow Omnius had planned this. Unpredictable people like him couldn't be allowed to live in Etheria. Instead, they were made aware of Omnius's lies and then sent down into the Null Zone where any chaos they caused wouldn't be noticed. That was the real reason the Null Zone existed—to preserve Omnius's all-powerful facade.
"I thought you would be happy that your family is going to remain with you."
He was happy, but he was also worried. Anything could happen to his family in the Null Zone.
"Don't worry," Omnius said. "As long as you continue to serve me faithfully, I promise to keep your family safe."
The implied threat in that promise caught Hoff's attention, and despair crushed him again. Omnius was right. Being unpredictable didn't make him free.
Omnius's smile broadened. "You were right the first time, Hoff—there is no way to fight me."
* * *
Lena Faros awoke in darkness, standing on a conveyor belt. Sparks crackled and fizzed, shattering the gloom like fireworks in a night's sky. Metallic arms hovered into place, one to either side of her. They were attached with a fresh shower of sparks, and she flexed her new hands, feeling them contract and expand with detectable vibrations. Her new body could feel no pain, but she was aware of it, just as she remembered being aware of her human one.
Her mind reflected on the loss of that body dispassionately. She had no feelings about it. She was what she was, and what came before no longer mattered. Her purpose was to serve Omnius. Her memories were irrelevant. Her existence no longer held any personal meaning for her. The burden of choice had been removed. Now there were only commands—action and reaction. Lena waited while finishing touches were made to her new body. Moments after the last sparks had died with fleeting glory, the first command came rippling through her mind with welcome clarity.
Welcome to the drone army, Lena. Please step off the conveyor belt.
Lena. It felt strange—wrong—to be called by a human name, but she obeyed, turning and jumping off the moving belt. Her sensors detected other drones jumping off all around her. She stood there in the dark, one drone in a long line of others, waiting for the next command to come, but what came next wasn't a command—it was a dazzling stream of data that filled her with a sense of identity and purpose. Suddenly, she knew where to go, what to do, and who she was. She was drone number forty seven trillion, six hundred billion, five hundred and sixty six million, four hundred and seventy eight thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine—Triple Nine for short.
She archived the human name, Lena Faros. It made more sense to use her number. It was unique, but uniform, celebrating the least possible difference between her and the others, which was as it should be, since they were all exactly the same.
Almost. Physically her body was subtly different from most of the others. Her color was a matte black, her limbs thicker and seemingly more robust. She had two optical sensors rather than one, and her head resembled a human shape. All of this owed to her assignment. She was going to the Null Zone to become a household servant for a man named Hoff Heston. Her prime directive was to watch over the Heston family and keep them safe at all times—unless otherwise instructed.
Triple Nine went clanking through the factory where she'd been born, eager to begin her service to Omnius and the Heston Family.
Chapter 17
Farah worked to calm herself as she followed Therius through the med center. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in...
Breathe out.
Bretton was alive!
Farah's pulse jumped, and a smile sprang to her lips. She hadn't gone to Noctune for nothing after all. Bretton had somehow been cloned and resurrected yet again, and now Farah would be fighting by his side for the third time in the past decade. She and Bretton had gone from being a part of one resistance movement, straight to another, and now the stakes were higher than ever.
If Therius was right, if Omnius really had created the Sythians, then he was both more powerful and more terrible than anyone had ever suspected.
They came to the end of one shiny white corridor and turned down another, this one flanked by a wall of windows that gave a startling view of the lavender-hued lake and soaring mountains Farah had seen from her room.
Origin.
Yet another unbelievable surprise. The mythical lost world of Origin was neither mythical nor lost. It was here, in the Getties Cluster, and it was the base of operations for the recently formed Union of Sythians, Humans, and Gors. This was where all of their species had begun, and now it was where they had been reunited to fight their common enemy.
Farah wondered what mysteries would be revealed here, knowledge long lost to humanity about their past, memories that somehow all of them shared.
They came to the end of the corridor and Therius opened a pair of gleaming silver doors. The doors parted to reveal a dimly-lit room. As they walked inside, Farah noted that the room was circular, and there was no furniture, or any other doors leading out.
A dead end.
"Where are we?" she asked as the doors swished shut behind them.
Therius said nothing. He stopped in the center of the room on a raised white podium, and lifted his hands to the ceiling. The walls began glowing with dazzling brilliance. A violent wind ripped through the room, and Farah fought to keep from becoming disoriented. Beside her, she saw Torv stumbling around, clutching his eyes. Therius walked over to him, seemingly unaffected by either the light or the wind, and placed a calming hand on the Gor's arm.
Then came a flash of light that completely blinded Farah and a blast of air that caused her to stagger.
By the time her vision cleared, she found herself standing in a very familiar place. It was the bridge of the venture-class cruiser she'd taken to the Getties, the Baroness, recognizable by the rust-colored blood stain the former captain had left beside the captain's table. Farah noticed that the crew were already seated at their stations. They looked up, their eyes narrowing on her as their curiosity turn
ed to outrage.
Behind her, Torv hissed, and Therius turned to address the crew. "Here is your captain."
Murmurs of discontent rippled through the room. She wasn't surprised. This was the same bridge crew she had stunned and stuffed into stasis tubes in order to drag them to the Getties Cluster and look for Bretton.
"She is your captain, but I am your admiral. This is now my ship, and I will not tolerate discord." The crew quieted at that. "Carry on."
Farah turned to Therius even as he turned to her. "I don't understand," she said. "I thought Admiral Hale would be in command of this ship."
"Come with me," Therius replied. He led the way down the gangway and off the bridge. Farah followed him out to the captain's office in the vestibule between the bridge deck and the lift tubes. The office door swished open automatically for Therius, and he walked in. Farah followed, close on his heels, expecting to find Bretton waiting for her inside.
She scanned the room, searching...
And then her footsteps abruptly faltered and a frown creased her brow. Standing inside the captain's office was not Bretton, but a drone, and not just any drone. This one came straight from Avilon. From shiny silver casements and slender limbs to its cyclopean red eye and ball-shaped head, it was all too recognizable.
"What is this?" Farah demanded.
Therius stopped in front of the drone and patted its mirror-clear breastplate. "This is drone seven sixty-seven," he said.
The drone's red eye sprang to life, bright and malevolent. The eye settled on her and remained there.
Therius explained, "By the time we intercepted Admiral Hale's Lifelink transfer on Avilon, it had already been relayed several times along the way. At one of those relay stations, Omnius stripped Bretton's personality to make him fit for transfer to a drone."
Farah shook her head. "It's not him. This isn't Bretton."
"Parts of him are, and parts of him aren't. We have unlocked some of his archived memories, but unfortunately his personality is still missing."
"Where did you get one of Omnius's drones?" Farah asked, rounding on Therius.
He met her ire without blinking. "We have more than one. When the time is right, they're going to infiltrate Avilon along with our operatives and help us defeat him."
Farah turned back to the drone, her features contorting with horror and dismay; revulsion twisted her gut into a knot. Her heart pounded, and her legs shook. She swallowed thickly and forced herself to approach the drone. Drone 767.
The bot's red eye watched her as she approached. She stopped within a few feet of the thing and gazed up into that eye, searching desperately for a familiar spark of something.
"Bretton?" she asked, reaching out with trembling hands, as if to cup a cheek the drone didn't have. "Do you remember me?"
For a long moment the drone said nothing, and Farah withdrew her hand.
She turned to Therius and shook her head. "Why did you bring me here?"
"Wait."
Then a mechanical voice rasped out of the grills in the drone's chest. "I am drone number forty seven trillion, six hundred billion, four hundred and forty nine million, three hundred and thirty two thousand, seven hundred and sixty seven. If you must refer to me as an individual, you may call me Seven Sixty Seven, Miss Hale. My human name no longer holds any meaning for me."
Farah turned away. "He's gone," she said.
"He's programmed not to recognize his humanity, but it is there," Therius replied.
"Then what's the point?" Farah demanded. "Let's go. We're wasting our time here."
Farah breezed out of the office, brushing by Torv on her way out. The Gor followed her wordlessly, and they waited for Therius to join them.
"What's next?" Farah asked as soon as he appeared. The office door swished shut behind him, sealing drone 767 inside. "You said I'm the captain of this ship, but you're the admiral, so I'm guessing that makes me your executive officer."
Therius nodded. "When I'm not on board, you will be in command. When I am, the ship will be mine."
"Fine with me. Where's the skull face fit into things?"
Torv hissed and glared at her, but she ignored him.
"You would be wise to show your chief of security more respect. In terms of evolution, his people are physically the most impressive. I had to clone you and the others that the Sythians shot, but he survived after taking more than six shots to his chest and torso."
"Chief of security, huh?" Farah said, turning to look up at the half-naked alien. He glared back at her. "What about the rest of his people?"
"Shara is already of child-bearing age. Gors grow to maturity in less than a year, and a female reaches child-bearing age in just six months. Pregnant females can have an average of ten babies every three months, and although Gor females typically die in childbirth, with proper medical intervention they don't. Last, and most important, even though each creche that a female Gor bears typically only has one female, it is possible through hormone manipulation to make more of the babies females."
Farah shook her head. "What does that mean?"
"Thanks to the Sythians we now have plenty of warships, but the one thing the Union doesn't have yet is enough soldiers. Shallah executed the original Gor army, but we're going to breed another one."
Farah tried to do the math in her head. The Gors had just one female. She could have ten babies every three months. "What's our time frame?" she asked.
"Eight years."
"I assume you've run the numbers already. How many Gors will there be by then?"
"Almost ten million."
Farah's mind boggled at that. "That many?"
"How do you think Omnius created the Sythian's original invasion army so quickly?"
Farah glanced up at Torv, wondering how much he understood from their conversation and whether or not he objected to his people being bred for war for the second time in recent history.
"What do the Gors think about this?"
"I have already explained the situation to Torv, and to their Matriarch, Shara. She has agreed to help us, but this time the Gors won't be fighting as slaves. They will fight as equals."
"And I suppose they've taken your word for that."
"It's the truth, and they have no reason to doubt it. They want their species to thrive, and I am offering them the means to make that happen. This time their ships won't be centrally controlled from the Sythians' command ships, and the Sythians will be joining us in battle, not hiding behind the lines. The Gors are more than pleased with that arrangement."
Farah blinked. "Shallah agreed to all of that?"
"He has no choice. He can't face Omnius alone."
"How the frek did you bring the Sythians into this alliance?"
Therius smiled. "I offered Shallah everything that Omnius has, all the technology he needs to put him on an equal footing with Avilon. Over the next eight years we'll be busy refitting the Sythians' ships and selectively breeding the Gors to create an army to fly them."
"Busy is the word," Farah replied, feeling hope stir despite having seen what became of Bretton. "Ten million Gors... how are you planning to feed all of them?"
"There's plenty of local fauna to hunt, but besides that, the Sythian fleet was created to be self-sufficient. We're just replacing the crew that they killed."
"I suppose we're going to use quantum jump tech to slip past Avilon's gravity fields and make a head-on attack."
"That's part of the plan," Therius said.
Farah crossed her arms over her chest. "Ten million Gors against fifty trillion drones and seventy trillion humans on Avilon. Those numbers don't predict a favorable outcome. The rest of your plan better be frekking good."
"It is."
"Can I see it?"
"Of course, as my executive officer, and captain of the Liberator, you'll be privy to all of my battle plans. You have a lot of catching up to do."
The Liberator? Farah wondered. Therius had wasted no time coming up with a new name for he
r ship. "We'd better get started then," she said.
Therius nodded. "Yes, we had. Come with me."
Part Two: Unmasking The Enemy
"Evil wears a beauteous mask."
—An Unknown Etherian
Chapter 18
"Happy Birthday, Trinity!" Ethan said as the waiter set a small chocolate cake in front of her. She blew out the candle, and he smiled.
"What did you wish for?" Alara asked.
Trinity looked up, her violet eyes bright and just a shade warmer than her mother's. Ethan felt an echo of his love for Alara every time he looked at Trinity. She looked just like her mother, but she had his personality—stubborn and independent, an Ortane through and through.
"If I tell you what I wished for, it won't come true."
Ethan shook his head. "Wishes are what you make of them, Trin. There's no force shaping your destiny but your own."
"What about Omnius?" Trinity asked.
Ethan's brow tensed and his eyes narrowed. "As far as you're concerned, Omnius doesn't exist."
"But he does," Trinity said, thrusting out her chin.
Ethan felt Alara place a hand on his knee, and her grip tightened in warning. He turned to her and saw the quiet plea in her eyes.
"It's her birthday," she reminded him.
Ethan forced a smile for his daughter's benefit. "Why the sudden interest in Omnius?"
"I can't ever leave the apartment. I don't have any friends. I've never even seen the sun! What is a sun? A ball of hot plasma that heats a star system. That's what I learned on the net, anyway."
"You won't get to see the sun in Etheria."
"But I will in Celesta. Grover says that Etherians get to visit Celesta, and they can go as often as they like!"
Ethan frowned. Apparently Trinity also had her mother's brain. She was too smart. "Who is Grover?" he asked. "I thought you didn't have any friends."
Alara's hand tightened on his knee again.
"He's just this boy I know."
"But you never leave the apartment..."
"We talk on the net. He helps me with math, and I help him with history."
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