EVE®: Templar One (19 page)

“Welcome to your new home,” Sister Marth said, as their dropship rotated into its vertical orientation with the spaceport below.
“You seem nervous.”

“I’m starting a new life again,” Gable answered.
“I lost count of how many times I’ve done that.”

“It’s the same life as before,” the Khanid priestess corrected.
“Only now, you’ll never face it alone.”

Gable and her mentor were among several dozen passengers aboard the craft, which was making a few stops within the Irmalin system.
The craft nestled perfectly into position; the sound of magnetic clamps latching onto the fuselage marked the end of their journey together.

“I believe that now,” Gable admitted.
“I really do.”

“You’ve been an inspiration to us,” Sister Marth said.
“I think you’re going to be very happy here.”

“Sister, thank you so much,” Gable said.
“I’ll make the most of this chance.”

“You have a gift,” the priestess said.
“Empress Jamyl herself underestimated your talents.
Few people can make that claim.”

The first waft of Hexandrian air rushed into the cabin as the outer ramp lowered; it was warm and humid, sweet with the smell of flora carried by a soft wind.

“I still doubt myself at times,” she admitted.
“I don’t think that will ever change.”

Sister Marth clasped her by the shoulders.

“Do you remember when you asked to have the memory of the
Retford
erased?”
she asked.
“What was my answer to you?”

“You refused, because ‘it would make you less than what I see before me now,’” Gable replied.

“When you doubt yourself, it means you doubt everything we’ve learned from each other,” Sister Marth said.
“All your pain, all those horrid experiences and wonderful moments, together make you who you are today—a brilliant doctor with a beautiful heart, someone who is truly capable of performing miracles.”

The Khanid priestess paused.

“You
found
us, Gable,” she said, becoming emotional.
“This may sound awful, but in a sense I’m thankful.
Had you not suffered, the miracle of
you
wouldn’t have happened to
us
.
You’re going to make a real difference here.
Please don’t question yourself in front of those who look up to you.
Be strong for them.
You have our
faith
now.
That makes you invincible.”

“I’m going to miss you,” Gable said, wiping a tear away.
“I don’t want you to go.”

Sister Marth smiled, her gentle features glowing in the warm sun.
Reaching around her neck, she removed the golden pendant of the Amarr holy sign and pressed it into Gable’s hand.

“Take it—” she said.

“Sister, I can’t accept this—”

“—so that we never forget one another,” Sister Marth insisted.

Gable stared at the holy symbol in her hand and felt the most bittersweet joy she had ever known.
Sister Marth turned back toward the boarding ramp.

“Farewell,” she said.
“Faith be with you always!”

Gable raised an arm and waved.
They would see each other again someday, but until then, there was work to do in the service of Amarr.
She would spend her days doing what she loved most—studying and practicing medicine, and by doing so, helping humanity.
Sister Marth, on the other hand, would continue her calling to find more wayward souls in the universe and guide them toward redemption.
They now shared a bond that could never be broken.

The dropship’s serrated intakes began sucking in air and ionizing it; magnetic nozzles then directed the air mass toward the ground, kicking up a faint plume of dust.
A spaceport tech approached Gable, gently wrapping an arm around her shoulder to herd her away from the landing pad.

“Right this way, Doctor,” he said.
“There’s a group of physicians waiting for you just down this path, near the main entrance.”

“Thank you,” she said.
The downwash was powerful now, and she could sense the craft lifting off.
When it was ten meters above the ground, its mighty plasma engines roared to life, and the craft began rocketing back up toward the clouds.

Gable had just taken her first steps toward the entrance when a bright yellow fire chased by a white contrail cut across the sky.
Before she could register what was happening, Sister Marth’s dropship erupted into a sinister blossom of fiery debris.
The explosion sent a deafening rumble through Gable’s rib cage and across the countryside.
She heard the roar of a second dropship nearby and was about to run for cover when a bolt of light dropped from the heavens.

HEIMATAR REGION—HED CONSTELLATION

AMAMAKE SYSTEM—PLANET II: PIKE’S LANDING

CORE FREEDOM COLONY

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE MINMATAR REPUBLIC

Present Day

As far as good luck went, the fact that the Valklear had
backed
into the outer range of the flay trap was “fortunate.”

The microfilament came from beneath him at a steep angle, entering his inner thigh, cutting through the lower pelvis, and exiting through his right hip.
The rest of him fell forward and outside of the killzone as the rest of his squadmates were eviscerated.
Two circumstances saved his life: First, he had been assigned a rear-guard position in his patrol and happened to be facing away from them when the trap detonated; second, despite the extent of his injury, he somehow had the presence of mind to jam biofoam into his lacerated groin to slow the hemorrhaging from his femoral artery.

Unfortunately, the attack happened near a laaknyd nest.
Whether the trap was placed there intentionally or not, the severed limb was devoured by the time rescuers arrived, and the voracious insects were already taking test nibbles out of the dying man’s wounds.
That ruled out a reattachment, making him a candidate for an artificial limb and partial hip replacement—except there were no longer any limbs, organic or cybernetic, to replace it with on the colony.
The soldier’s name was SSG Lance Kryle, of Vherokiorian ancestry.
He had just turned twenty years old.

Gable had stabilized him, sealed off the wounds, and flushed his system with antibiotics to counter infections from the insect bites.
She and her team had, with the help of a machinist, fashioned a replacement pelvis from titanium that would accomodate a prosthetic.
She capped the nerve endings and vessels so they could quickly be reattached to culture-grown or cybernetic limbs.
She used most of the precious remaining supply of nanite meshes and stem-cell biotics to begin restoring the lost tissue in the man’s gluteus, hips, liver, and upper colon.

Six hours after arriving in her care, SSG Lance Kryle awakened.

“How long have I been—” he asked, his eyes still closed.

“Almost seven hours,” Gable answered.
The sound of her voice sparked recognition in the soldier’s face, and he opened his eyes.

“You’re that Caldari doc,” he said.

Gable knew what was coming, but she was too exhausted to put up with it.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” she muttered.
“The biofoam saved your life.”

“They pulled you out of that Khanid research center,” he said, not letting it go.

Gable leaned over to examine the healing progress of the nanite meshes.

“I never set foot in the place.”

“Yeah, but what
would
you have been research—”

“The trap severed your right leg,” she interrupted.
“There’s nothing organic to replace it with, and it’ll be some time before you’re ready for a prosthesis.”

A wave of pain washed over his face.
“How long?”

“It takes at least ten days for the meshes to fill in,” she answered.
The holy pendant slipped out of her coveralls, dangling briefly before the soldier’s eyes.
He jerked, trying to reach out with his arm to snatch it, but instead cursed sharply as an explosion of pain erupted in his hips.

“They should take that fucking thing away from you,” he snarled.

She hurriedly tucked the pendant beneath her scrubs.

“Save your strength,” she said.
“Don’t move unless you have to.”

“They never should have let you in here,” he winced.

“A gold pendant can’t hurt you,” she answered.
“And neither can I.”

A familiar voice boomed out from behind them.

“Doctor Dietrich,” General Kintreb bellowed, walking into the ward with a contingent of guards.
“How is the patient doing?”

“He’s stabilized and healing,” she answered.
“But we can’t replace the limb.”

“Sergeant Kryle, how are you feeling?”
he asked, brushing Gable aside.

“I’ll live.”

“Of course you will.
Doctor Dietrich is the best.”

“She’s a brainwashed convert, sir.”

“We don’t waste anything here, Kryle.
You’d be dead now if it wasn’t for her.
And she’d be dead if she wasn’t a good physician.”

“But—”

“Shut up and rest.
We’ll talk about what happened on the ridge later.
Doctor, come this way please,” he said, taking her arm with nonnegotiable force.
He led her toward the cadaver room, where corpses were harvested for organs.

The guards closed the door behind them.

“Believe it or not, I value your opinion,” Kintreb started, “and the quality of your work.”

“I’ll bet it hurts you to say that.”

“Doctor, you practice a religion that has been the bane of my race for hundreds of years.
Hatred of it is about all I have left to motivate these men to fight another day.
Do you understand?”

“Religion is all
I
have left to fight another day.
I’m sure you understand that.”

General Kintreb stared at her a moment without any change in expression.

“Tell it to me like it is, Doctor.
Where do we stand?”

“The next victim who comes to this ward in that condition won’t survive.
There are nearly two hundred patients here; more than half are soldiers.
Biofoam, nanite meshes, cybernetics, and plasma supplies are all depleted.”

General Kintreb grunted and began to stare at one of the laser saws used to amputate limbs.

“The Republic is sending mercenaries,” he said.
“Several ‘advisors’ are on their way here now.
Answer their questions truthfully.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t?”

“That pendant hanging around your neck.”

The fatigue was starting to make her hallucinate now, and Gable startled at what might have been a small animal darting across one of the nearby gurneys.

“Which mercenaries?”

“Mordu’s Legion,” he said, with a trace of contempt.

“I’ve always liked them,” said Gable, who nearly fell backward but corrected herself.
“They don’t start wars.”

General Kintreb opened the door.
Guards were posted outside.

“Take her back to her room,” he ordered.
“Wake her up when our guests arrive.”

20

GENESIS REGION—EVE CONSTELLATION

THE NEW EDEN SYSTEM

>>
SIGNIFICANCE
MISSION LOG ENTRY

>>BEGIN RECORDING

I was inside the ship’s capsule when the probe struck.

The
Significance
was undetectable, yet this machine hurled directly toward us with the relentless charge of a hunter-seeker drone, blistering through electronic countermeasures with ease.
Seconds before impact, the ship was completely disabled: All flight systems suddenly ceased despite my frantic efforts to revive them.

I could feel the alien probe attach itself to the hull, driving pincers through armor and bulkheads with alarming ease.
Trapped inside my pod, I was helpless; even the ejection mechanism was inoperable.
Gashing and ripping, the attacker gouged through my ship deliberately, as if it were trying to discover something else first.

And then the noise stopped.
All I could feel was the motion of the
Significance
tumbling through space.
I waited impatiently for the termination of my life.

Instead, the ship’s systems were restarted one by one, like a preflight launch cycle in dry dock.
Repair bots emerged from their bays, reversing the damage caused by the intruder.
Still ignoring my commands, the internal pod gantry activated, removed me from the capsule, and dumped me onto the deck.

While acclimating to breathing air again, I suddenly noticed the grainy projection of a Jove standing before me: jet-black eyes surrounded by pale white flesh, marred with dark veins that originated from the scalp and branched all the way down to the jawbone.
He was wearing a form-fitting uniform of unknown origin that began at his neck and tapered down to dark-colored boots.

No part of the
Significance
was under my control.
The probe must have been using the AI to manipulate the projection system of the room.

“Doctor Marcus Jror,” the Jove said.
“My name is Grious.
I wish we could have met in person.”

“What have you done to my ship?”
I demanded.

“The damage will be repaired,” he said.
A cacophony of groaning metal rumbled beneath my feet as the alien probe began mending the harm it caused.
“The
Significance
is quite advanced.
That is fortunate.”

“What do you want?”
I asked.

“To answer some long-standing questions,” he said.
“Doctor, you must first understand that I no longer exist.
You are speaking with a construct of my recorded consciousness, wrapped in an AI that behaves how I would act based on the memories of my life.
Before my physical destruction, I performed this action as a contingency for failing to intercept you.”

“Failing?”
I asked, standing up cautiously.
“I’d say you rather succeeded.”

“I failed to stop you from delivering your Sleeper research to Empress Jamyl,” the ghost said.
“There is no reason to take your life now.
All that remains is the hope you can see reason and that your conscience compels you to rethink your actions.”

“Reason?
What business do you have in my affairs?”

“The question you should be asking is what business you have in ours.”

*   *   *

BY THE TIME THE EMPYREAN WAR
began, the Jovians had all but disappeared from modern affairs.
The reclusive race was the most technologically advanced in New Eden, and rumors about the full extent of their capabilities were elevated to myth among the lesser nations vying for military supremacy.
Years ago, the Jove were peacemakers, active in politics and assisting in the creation of CONCORD.
But their collaboration vanished with news that the Jove were suffering from an incurable disease only their heavily modified genetics was vulnerable to.
They allegedly retreated to their homeworlds, isolating themselves from the rest of the cluster.
No one knows what exactly has happened to them since.
There were very few people alive who had ever seen a Jove in the flesh, even before their withdrawal, and their memory was beginning to morph into fable.

I considered these facts while following the apparition of Grious to the research quarters of the
Significance,
past inoperable drones slumped over like corpses.
Amarr shared a special history with the Jove nation.
The Empire once made the mistake of attempting to conquer them, and failed in such catastrophic fashion that it inspired revolts among enslaved races, most notably the Minmatar.

“The Jovian Directorate assigned me to investigate the activities of Falek Grange,” Grious said.
Even through the haze of the projection, those jet-black eyes were deeply haunting.
“Tracking him led us to you.
Your obsession with our technology—and the lengths you would go to recover it—became a topic of concern.”

“So you were spying,” I said.
“Are your masters worried about Amarr’s strength again?”

Grious straightened his posture.

“If we thought your expeditions for Jovian relics served purely historical research, we would not take action.
But the use of our weapon technology against the Elders gave us cause to reconsider.”

“I don’t see how collecting relics of an
extinct
civilization matters to you,” I said.

“Doctor, I may not feel emotions, but I still recognize insults when I hear them.
If I were you, I would consider attempts to provoke me unwise.”

“Point taken.
Now what do you want?”

“Falek Grange was obsessed with Vak’Atioth,” Grious said, running a translucent hand over the gurney where I had dissected dozens of Sleepers.
“Did he ever speak with you about it?”

“No, but I knew he had an academic interest in all things Jove,” I answered truthfully.

“Falek led numerous expeditions to Atioth in search of our artifacts,” Grious said.
“Yet he kept his discoveries there hidden from you.
Do you know why?”

“I’m … sure he had good reason to.”

“He hid them because he knew you were an atheist.”

I unwittingly flinched.

“Lord Grange and I had our differences, but there was nothing that could come between us and serving our Empress.”

Grious began pacing as he spoke.

“We have always been astounded at the power of myth.
As a culture, we have our regrets, but one benefit of ridding ourselves of emotion was that it removed all susceptibility to religion from our genes.”

“And made yourselves dead to the universe in the process,” I sneered.
“Hardly what I’d call a fair trade.”

“Falek was consumed with your faith and of Sarum’s role in it,” Grious continued.
“He reverse-engineered our technology so he could use it to project her as a goddess.”

“What technology?”
I scoffed.
“Lord Grange didn’t have the resources to work with Jovian tech.
And he couldn’t possibly consult anyone else but me without risk of exposing her survival!”

“You underestimate his abilities—and his trust in your own,” Grious said.
“Your focus was the few Sleeper relics in your care.
While you were preoccupied, Falek discovered the cybernetic technology that we use for mass communications.”

“Oh?”
I folded my hands over my chest.
“Then tell me.”

“Your research discovered that our genetic code was modified to allow for implant installation during fetus gestation,” he said.
“What you don’t know is that we learned to synchronize biotechnology with quantum entanglement.”

Grious must have noticed the blood drain from my face.

“Yes, the same principle that allows synchronous communication among the star systems of New Eden,” he said.
“It is the backbone of capsuleer immortality: instantaneous transmission of brain-state information across light-years to a cloned copy of the pilot.
Yet the fluid router technology your civilization uses to achieve this has so much further to evolve.
We refined it such that entangled nanoscale communication devices could be integrated with cybernetic implants that interface with the cerebral cortex.”

I found myself reaching back for something to rest my weight upon.

“Doctor, you should have seen this,” Grious said, tilting his head to one side.
“You and your Matriarch Citadel colleagues are cerebrally
entangled
with Empress Jamyl.
Her implant is the broadcast source; entangled ‘receivers’ were installed in the recipients.”

The image took a step toward me.

“You were right to doubt that the voice in your head was divinity.”

There were four implants in my brain currently.
Four.

“How could I have possibly been—?”

Grious raised a hand for silence.

“Falek Grange was the most dangerous kind of extremist,” he said.
“He was a highly capable, gifted intellectual.
Everyone aware of the Matriarch Citadel’s existence was augmented with these implants in secret.
No one knew, not even Empress Jamyl.”

“Impossible!”
I declared.
“You can’t tamper with clones.
We would have known!”

“Would you?”
Grious asked, peering closely at me.
“He controlled
everything
at the Citadel.
Aulus Gord, Victor Eliade, you, the Archangel Guardians, and every ranking officer were all handpicked by him.
Every implant recipient held crucial oversight of operations that Falek deemed vital to plot Jamyl Sarum’s rise to power,
and whose existence you were all sworn to keep secret,
” Grious emphasized, folding his arms across his chest.
“You tell me: How did you build the Citadel without anyone in Amarr turning suspicious?”

For more than five hundred years, the Amarr Empire was ruled by Emperor Heideran VII.
His death left the five royal heirs—Kador, Kor-Azor, Ardishapur, Tash-Murkon, and Sarum—to compete for the throne in a ceremony known as the Succession Trials.
When Doriam Kor-Azor was declared the victor and crowned Emperor, we arranged for Heiress Jamyl Sarum to disappear—a plot masterminded entirely by Lord Grange.
Two years later, Emperor Doriam II was assassinated, and Imperial Chamberlain Dochuta Karsoth became the acting regent.
While outwardly declaring he would begin Succession Trials for another emperor, Karsoth had no intention of giving up power.

Lord Grange built the Matriarch Citadel to keep Jamyl Sarum hidden from Karsoth, who would have killed her.
We were all taking a treasonous risk: Serving a defunct Chamberlain
and
the Empress we intended to replace him with.
I lost track of the number of times I had clone-jumped from the Matriarch to the Throne Worlds and back.

In hindsight, it was a miracle our secret lasted as long as it did.

Jump-cloning made the double life possible.
It was a privilege reserved for the immortal: Just enter the chamber and wait as a probe inserts into your neuro-interface socket.
You close your eyes and then awake hundreds of light-years away in an instant, looking at the universe through an exact copy of the body you just left.

Or
thought
you left.

The look of recognition on my face was unmistakable.

“You were Theology Council elites by day, and conspiring rebels by night,” Grious continued.
“Chamberlain Karsoth’s infamous purge of your clones from Empire space played right into Falek’s hands.
Your original selves—not the copies with entangled implants—were all destroyed.
From that moment on, you belonged to Jamyl Sarum.
Falek Grange gave you to her, and by doing so, banished you to this solitary existence—for reasons, I’m sure, that are very personal.”