Endgame (13 page)

“I wouldn’t dare do otherwise.”

Then, to my surprise, she hugs me. Constance doesn’t feel like a machine, all gears and rotors beneath the bioware. I huff out a choky breath and stand there imagining this is what it would be like to have a mother who worried instead of conducting illegal arms deals. Eventually, she steps back, hands on my shoulders.

“Did I do it correctly?”

I arch a brow. “What?”

“Display warmth and concern?”

It would be more effective if she hadn’t questioned her mastery of the concepts, but I nod. “It was perfect. Thank you, Constance.”

“You are welcome.”

“Do you know where March is?”

She jacks into the computer with a touch of her fingertip, what a marvelous wireless interface. After a few seconds scanning the vid feeds, she replies, “In your quarters, Sirantha Jax. Shall I tell him to wait?”

“Please.”

He must have come looking for me, and I just missed him as I headed to comms. This time, I don’t run. In fact, I can barely put one foot after another, knowing what’s waiting for me at the other end. I want him fighting beside me but he can’t. He’s all Sasha has. Being stuck here doesn’t change that.

I don’t know if I can say good-bye to March under these circumstances. He’s never had to send me off to war like this; I don’t know how he’ll handle it. When battle looms, it’s usually him leaving me. The time I took off during the Morgut War, I sneaked off while he was asleep.

“Jax.” He steps into the hall to greet me as I arrive.

“I’m leaving soon.”

March fills my head with warmth and aching regret. He wants to don armor and join the battle. The soldier in him is sick to his soul that he has to be a father instead of a warrior. I’ve never seen him in such desperate conflict with himself. Tears glisten in his hawk’s eyes, shining molten gold. He blinks, so that the dampness tangles his long lashes. Not a single droplet falls. I can feel him swallow it back until it becomes a knot in his stomach to match the one in mine.

“I wish you weren’t stuck here,” I whisper.

“It’s worse,” he says, closing his eyes. “If I were far away, on Nicuan, I could pretend it wasn’t happening. But here, I feel so helpless. I want to
come with you
.”

“You can’t.”

“I know.”

He hauls me into his arms so I can feel him shaking, or maybe that’s me. We kiss; and it’s salty, bittersweet, heat preceding the ice of separation. Our love is chased by endless
farewells, like a sweet shot of liqueur with bitters at the bottom.

I don’t say good-bye to him. Once we break apart, I just turn and move in the opposite direction. He’s in my head until the distance grows too great. As he slips away, I hear,
Stay safe, my love.

The scene in the hangar reminds me of when we all split up on Emry Station. So much has changed since then, so many lost. Dread twists my insides. This could be the last time I see some of these people. I no longer think about dying; instead, I fear being left behind. Even Vel, with his built-in chitin armor, though he’s long-lived, can still die. And Loras, upon whom every hope is fixed, is merely flesh and bone.

The shuttle puts down near a town too small to deserve
the name. There’s little Imperial presence because it’s rural and remote, too far from the capital to offer any prestige as a post. Those centurions assigned here are atoning for some misdeed, like sleeping with a nobleman’s wife or skimming from the legate’s till. They’re stationed at a mining outpost, as that’s the industry that keeps this village going. The La’hengrin work the shafts, repairing equipment and doing hard labor.

It’s a poor community; that much is obvious as I step off the ship. I’ve never seen such conditions on a world that wasn’t class-P, which means it’s too primitive to have developed spacefaring technology on its own. While the outpost manned by the centurions has every modern convenience, including a comm array on the roof, the houses down the mountain are humble, made of mud and stone, and they don’t seem to have power: not solar, electric, or any other modern amenity. I cannot believe my eyes.

“Was it always like this?” I ask Loras.

Fury clenches his jaw, and he speaks through gritted teeth. “No.”

Confronted with what my people have done to his, I feel sick to my stomach. It’s not like this in the capital, although the La’heng are certainly subservient to the Imperial forces who protect them. But I didn’t know it was like this in outlying areas.

“I don’t see any Nicuan presence at all. How do the people survive?” Loras told me, long ago, that he required a protector—that the bond was necessary. Obviously, for traveling, he needed somebody to protect him physically, but I recall the way he spoke, as if it were a physiological imperative.

“There are protectors in the cities. They hold bonds in abeyance.”

“Sort of like absentee landlords?” I ask, puzzled.

“Yes. It should be a personal thing of honor and promises, but it has dwindled to this, handled by proxies. Protectors hold massive rosters of those they ‘safeguard.’”

“From the comfort of their palaces in the cities.”

“Yes,” he says through clenched teeth. “And then, when someone wishes to pick a pet for personal use, they apply to the protector to take the bond.”

My head feels like it’s going to explode. “That’s
disgusting
.”

“Let’s go,” Zeeka interrupts.

Just as well.
I need to think about something else.

His armor has a special solar-heat feature since he’s not warm-blooded, and the mountains get cold at night. According to all the treatises Loras has read, it’s easiest to fight a superior force in such terrain. So that’s where we begin.

The others fall in. As we get a few steps away from the ship, it blends with the rocky hillside, so that, from a distance, it’s indistinguishable from the landscape. I’m really pleased with how R&D perfected the camo paint. As a unit, we close our helmets so that we fade in the same fashion. Movement gives us away, of course, but there’s nobody on watch.

They’re all inside drinking and watching vids, commiserating on drawing such a shit post. Loras chose our initial targets well. We fired the first salvo already, but we’ll fight the war out here in the provinces. As with all great guerilla generals, he’s determined we must win the hearts and minds of the people. Later, they will support us. They will hide us.

I’ve memorized the names of my new teammates, at least; we accomplished that much on the way out here. There are four males, two females, one of whom is breathtakingly beautiful—Farah, whom I met at the secret conclave in Jineba.

The other female is called Bannie. With brown hair and eyes, she’s pretty, of course, but not awe-inspiring. She’s capable, though, which is more important. I hear she did particularly well in the martial-arts portion of March’s crash training course. It’s impossible to tell the four La’heng males apart with their armor on, as they’re all of a height. One of them is Farah’s brother, Timmon, who resembles her somewhat. The other three are Rikir, Eller, and Xirol.

Loras leads the way up. The terrain won’t permit a clean landing, so we come in on foot. Soon, over the next rise, I spot the mining station. It’s all corrugated metal, ugly as hell, and hard to heat. Quickly, I skim the outpost for assets we can repurpose.
Aha.
The comm tower on the roof will prove useful once we take out the skeleton crew.

It’s nearly dark; therefore, the workers have all gone home. Inside the fence, the compound is full of machinery and mining equipment in various states of disrepair. In a glance at Vel, who’s easy to ID given the shape of his helmet, I ask a silent question. He inclines his head to confirm that he can do all kinds of interesting things with this stuff. Loras urges us toward the gate with a gesture.

“Stay low!” he orders.

The rest of us comply. It takes sixteen seconds to disable the simple analog lock; and then I follow the others through the compound toward the building. Using the machines as cover, though that’s probably unnecessary, I climb the stairs behind Vel. Zeeka is behind me, weapon in hand, and Loras brings up the rear. Bannie has point, and I crouch as she kicks the door open, then drops. The first half of the team strides in.

Xirol nails the guy sitting before the comm before he has time to raise his hand. His head splatters. I drop to one knee to steady my aim and take out the man I gauge to be the commander. Chest shot, no fancy shooting for me. The burn forms immediately, the stink of charred meat in the air, and the surviving centurions dive for their weapons, but they’re middle-
aged and slow, plus they don’t even keep their sidearms nearby. It’s been that long since they had to fight.

The attack, if you could even call it that, doesn’t take long. It’s more like an execution. Afterward, Timmon and Rikir haul the bodies outside, so we have room to work. Zeeka’s vocalizer has the mimic function, so he finds the comm, plays the log, then makes a call to central that will prevent them from sending a team.

“This is Montrose. We’re having some trouble with the emitter array. I’m going to take it down while we make repairs.”

It’s a little eerie to hear a dead man’s voice coming from Zeeka’s helmet. The comm crackles. They’ve restored planetary communications since the bombing, but because Leviter’s gambit has come to fruition, their messages won’t be bounced off world via satellite. La’heng is now in lockdown, coded red. Nobody’s coming to help them. The Imperials just don’t realize how dire the situation is, yet.

“Acknowledged, Montrose, keep us posted. Central out.” The centurion on the other end sounds bored.

And why wouldn’t he be? There’s no reason to fear that the La’hengrin may rise up. They’re helpless and subservient, bound to follow orders.

Vel gets up on the roof to disconnect the array to keep the story consistent, which buys us some time. We’ll plug it back in later to make regular bogus reports from Montrose. Old comm logs should give us a better idea what they expect from this station.

Afterward, I help the rest of the squad haul the other bodies beyond the gated perimeter. Mountain beasts should drag them off. If not, the elements will claim them. It’s not like anybody is coming to look for them so long as Zeeka plays his part.

Then it’s a forced march back to the shuttle.
So far, so good.
I swing into the back with the others while Loras runs up front with Vel. Xirol and Timmon are jokers, cracking wise about how soft the centurions are. Rikir is quiet, along with Farah. Bannie’s talking to Zeeka about his implant.

I lean over, watching the ground rush toward us as Vel maneuvers the craft for a landing just outside the village.
From our preliminary intel, there’s reason to believe they’ll welcome us here. As I leap out of the shuttle—I’m the fifth to disembark—the La’hengrin come out of their houses to greet us. Despite the darkness, lit only by flickering torches, I’m not afraid.

Loras steps forward, pulling off his helmet so they can see his face. “Do any of you recognize me?”

One of the miners, still filthy from his shift, steps forward and lifts his hand in affirmation. “Your broadcast came on when I was in the rec room up at the mine. I told everyone…I’m not sure they believed me.”

“What’s your name?” Loras asks.

“I’m Deven.”

“Loras.” His clear gaze skims the crowd. “On the mountain above, your captors lie dead. Liberation starts here. If I must, I will go quietly, town by town, offering the cure. I won’t lie to you. There’s a chance you won’t survive it. But for me, it was better to risk death than to continue living as a slave.”

A chill ripples over me. In ten villages around the world, just like this one, cell leaders are speaking these exact same words. Maybe they don’t all have Loras’s charisma, but they do share his conviction. The crowd murmurs, then a woman whispers in Deven’s ear.

“Tell us about this cure.”

Loras glances over. “Vel?”

He’s the most qualified, scientifically, to lay it out thoroughly yet in layman’s terms. So in simple language, he explains how Dr. Carvati perfected the cure, using data found in the Maker records; they’re ones who build the technology we use to navigate grimspace—and without our trip to the other ’verse, liberation wouldn’t be possible now. Vel elaborates on how the treatment works, step by step, how long it takes, and, finally, the risks.

He concludes, “Currently, the failure rate is 5 percent. For every hundred who take the treatments, five will perish.”

We’re not trying to trick them. The audience rumbles more, confused, uncertain. In some ways, it must sound too good to be true but also terrifying. Because who wants to gamble with his life that way?

A woman raises her hand. “How will it affect our children? Will our babies be born free?” Clearly, this is a mother’s concern in taking the risk.

Fortunately, Vel has the answer. “Yes, due to La’hengrin adaptive physiology.”

That makes sense. Just as RC-12 caused their children to be enslaved, Carvati’s Cure will undo the damage. If I had kids, I’d want this for them. Nobody should be forced to live as the La’hengrin do, devoid of agency and free will.

Finally, Deven says, “We’ll hold a meeting in the morning and decide what’s to be done. There’s a cottage where you can stay tonight.”