“Nine teams worth of Harbingers,” Vala said. At the feast, it had seemed like more.
“And that’s counting Harbinger One,” Ramses added.
Vala, sitting at the desk in an alcove by her bed, looked out the nearest window in her pavilion, worried over what enemy might assail them next.
“We can’t survive another assault,” said Red Ten.
Vala tapped her fingers on her desk, then looked at the captains gathered around her sitting room. “We have the contingent of Sentinels. Have they returned from their long-range patrols yet?”
“No,” Black Fountain said plainly.
“I almost think we need to send out a search party,” said Ramses.
Hikikomori Ronin, still stiff from floating in space after the Surge vaporized his jumpship, leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “We could start at the coordinates where their signal stopped.”
“I will go myself if we have no team to spare,” said Black Fountain.
She hated to send her most stalwart commander away, but he had a point. “Take one other Harbinger with you. Anyone of your…” She couldn’t explain her sudden thought, or understand why it came to her, but it felt right. “Take Haruspex of Harbinger One.”
All three heads nodded.
“Watch her closely. Take her into danger if you come across any. Give me an assessment of how she operates.”
“It might help if I knew what you’re searching for?”
Vala looked at the faces of the other captains. They all seemed curious as well.
“I know very little about Harbinger One,” she said. “Solomon was so well respected then that no one questioned his reforming the team from newly kindled foundlings.”
“No one questioned him on anything until he began researching the Tangents,” said Paragus. “Funny that.”
“Even when he alone survived the attack on the Brethren,” said Ronin.
“My team and the 79th were there for backup,” Ramses interjected. “I wrote the report given to the Quorum and Central Command, and believe me, young captain, it was questioned most thoroughly. The reason no one bothered poor Solomon is because we all saw how shook up he was.”
“After assaulting one of the Onslaught,” said Paragus, “who could blame him?”
“Assaulted,” said Black Fountain, “and slew.”
“And it was Solomon’s mission plan,” said Paragus.
They were all silent for a moment. The memory of losing the most celebrated team to the Surge hot hard after having lost so much young light so recently.
“I wonder,” said Vala, “if Solomon chose the current members for a specific task, and as we are fighting the Surge…” She let her voice trail off.
Black Fountain, standing in her dining room, shook his thinking head. “No. Not for the Surge. He learned how to kill them and what it would cost. The Harbinger One we have today was born to battle Ulro.”
“Then we certainly must analyze them,” said Paragus. “With your permission, Vala, I’d like to share in their assessment.”
“You all will, Paragus. I’d like for you to spend time with Aster. She’s quiet, but I sense a great depth of intellect in her. Ramses, Revol could be your long-lost son, the way you two make light of even grievous things. Take him under your wing. Ronin, befriend Eukary. She suffers from some unknown hurt that seems to have been truly awful. I’ve always known you to be intuitive. Use that intuition to help her and be gentle. Ishtar… She I think I’ll have mentor some younger fighters.”
“And you’ll whip their captain into shape?” asked Ramses.
“I’ll have him regret his hiatus from reason. And we’ll have our elite team in the finest shape they’ve been in.”
“And hopefully we’ll understand the transformation they’ve gone through,” said Paragus. “Their radiance is… changed. Stronger, but wild. Catalyst, Eukary and Forge may seem useless to us now, but if we can help them regain stability, we could all become much more effective against our enemies.”
“But can we reclaim those soldiers we’ve lost?” Vala asked no one.
“We have those Anunnaki,” Ramses replied. “But our brothers and sisters scattered by the Surge, who’s to say?”
“They were not scattered,” said Paragus. “They were drawn from their bodies. Siphoned into those masses to be tortured.”
The room fell silent after Paragus’s frightful words. In time, Vala rose.
“We have work to do,” she said.
The other captains rose, bowed and left, except for Ramses.
“I have a question I didn’t want to ask in front of the others.”
Vala sighed, having several guesses what it might be. “Go on.”
“Shouldn’t we just pack up and look for Albion?”
She sighed again, deeper this time. “Maybe. But maybe not. Believe me, Ramses, the Surge frightened me. When Orak fled, I felt relieved that we were given a chance. And when Revol’s plan worked against the kzin, I felt triumphant. Now, I feel like we’re standing on the razor’s edge, and no matter which way we lean, we’re going to bleed.”
Ramses nodded, and the gesture comforted Vala immensely. Of all her fellow soldiers, his support meant the most to her.
“This is one of those times,” he said, “when you have to look to principle, not outcome.”
“Yes. And the principle I see, is that our enemy needs the device on this planet, and so we must keep it from him, obeying our general’s orders til the last.”
Ramses gave her a sad smile. “We never had a general before. We’ve always been teams of special operators. More a club than an army. Now we have a commander in chief, and we’re fighting enemies that can simply take us away. There’s no protocol for what we’re dealing with.”
She shook her head. “No. There’s not. We’re explorers forging new paths.”
He laughed. “Lucky us.”
The day saw a great deal of activity. They did their best to establish patrols and sensor sweeps, using their limited resources as efficiently as possible. The Surge were difficult to scan for, and often came unsuspected unless specifically watched for. But there was no sign of either Orak’s forces or his kzinti allies, save for a few light patrols on long range scans. Vala felt relieved at least for that. What weighed her heart down, though, was the dwindled number of her forces. Somehow there had seemed to be more of them at their victory feast. Perhaps ot was because they were celebrating, not struggling to make do.
Seeing the members of Harbinger One was a mixed bag. Catalyst raved incoherently, so she decided to wait another day before devoting much time to him. Ronin sat patiently by Eukary’s bed, holding her hand while she wept. Forge said nothing, but tinkered with the vehicle he was making for that strange apparition they’d captured and brought with them. It worried Vala to think of what their guest from Ulro might be planning, and she found it difficult to trust the creature as they did.
But the others gave her hope. Haruspex was delighted to go with Black Fountain on his patrol, and Revol followed Ramses with dedicated zeal. The other two girls were timid and sad, but they proved capable at any task given them, and when they finished their duty shifts for the day, they comforted their disabled comrades.
All save Haruspex, who came back alone.
“We found them,” she told Vala. “They’re all deactivated. They looked like they were hurrying to come back, and something shut them down.”
“Where’s Fountain?”
“He wanted to stay with them. He didn’t say why.”
“He’s difficult to fathom at times. But he always acts with purpose. You’re relieved for the night. Good work, Haruspex.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
Vala watched the girl. She went to her partner first thing, kissed him, then went to the showers.
Vala looked at her hand and made a fist, watching her fingers curl and feeling the power inside her body. She could send a blast of microwaves and fry enemy electronics, but she could not stop her body from perspiring, or her skin from bearing scars, though from death itself her radiance had purchased her more times than she could count.
She lifted her forearm and punched Black Fountain’s personal comm code into her vam.
“Report,” she said when she had acknowledged her call.
“They are here, but they are asleep.”
“Any indication what caused them to power down?”
“Samhadi.”
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Vala shook her head. “I don’t understand.
“Neither do I.”
“Can they project that far? Our scans indicate Albion is near Bindhu Prime.”
“They cannot.”
“So they were recalled to Samhadi, couldn’t make it, but are shut down regardless. Stay with them, Fountain.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
She called Ramses next. “We need to transport the Sentinels back to base.”
He was quiet for a moment before responding. “Believe it or not, I think we have a way.”
Minutes later, Ramses and Revol approached her, followed by a floating metal orb with a single glowing eye.
“Is this our refugee?” Vala asked.
The orb dipped half a foot, then bounced back up. “Netzah Ben Yamin, your Ladyship.”
She returned the robot’s bow. “A pleasure, Netzah Ben Yamin. My name is Vala. You may may call me Colonel, or just Ma’am, if you prefer.”
“And you may call me Netz, Ma’am.”
Vala looked at her soldiers. “So how are we going to move the Sentinels?”
Netz glowed, wrapped a beam of light around the rifle on Revol’s backpack, then lifted it into the air.
“She can point and shoot too,” Revol said. Though he wore his skullfort, Vala sensed his grin.
“Sentinels are very heavy,” Vala warned. “Even the smaller ones.”
Netz returned Revol’s rifle. “Forge is quite ingenious. I should be able to transport three of them at a time. I realize there are many of them, so with your permission, ma’am, I’d like to begin now.”
Vala nodded. “There’s no time to waste. Ramses, arrange for supplementary transport. I don’t want to leave our metal cousins out there in the cold any longer.”
Netz dipped again, then hurried away, Revol close behind.
“How are you getting on?” she asked Ramses.
“He’s a good lad. I fear I don’t have much to teach him, but he’s determined to learn from me all the same.”
“He just doesn’t strike me as a killer.”
Ramses chuckled. “He strikes me as the sort who always surprises you.”
“He certainly surprised the kzinti.”
Ramses nodded with a bright smile. “And how’s their captain?”
“I’m om my way to see him now.”
“Good, good. I’ll leave you to it, and I’ll go get some sort of cart rigged up for the Sentinels.”
“Just make sure they’re treated with dignity.”
And with a bow he was off, leaving Vala alone with her chore.
Catalyst was calm, but when he looked her in the eye it seemed he saw someone (or some thing) other than a fellow Harbinger.
“At ease, Captain,” she said. To her surprise the command seemed to have an effect. His wild eyes calmed a little, and he laid his head down on his pillow, releasing some of the tension in his clenched fists.
Haruspex, Ishtar and Aster all came in then, followed by Ronin, a bowl of steaming soup in each hand.
“Here, Euk,” he said, handing one of the bowls to Eukary. The girl ate the soup, but her eyes looked dumbly into nowhere.
Vala stepped away from Catalyst’s bed and watched the others. Solomon’s progeny had a beauty to them she found fascinating. It was not the aesthetic sort of beauty, like what Ronin or Niche had, but the beauty of a rockface weathered by ages, or the beauty in the eyes of an old woman who’d born many children.
Aster, a gawky, wiry thing, her beauty was in the way her fingers, long and thin, hung gently from their bony knuckles while caressing Catalyst's hair, or when she held Eukary’s hand. At all other times, her fingers looked strong, ready to grip the handguard of a rifle, or the scales of a knife. This too was lovely to Vala.
And she saw a madness in the dark eyes of Ishtar, a distance in the eyes of Forge, and knowing in the eyes of Haruspex.
In time Vala went to them, sitting on the other side of Catalyst. “Captain, your team needs you.”
“It’s true,” said Aster, stroking his thick black hair. “We’re lost without you, Cap.”
“Eukary…” he whispered. “She can… lead…”
“She’s suffering, Cap,” said Haruspex.
Vala looked at Eukary. Her ebon brow was beaded with sweat, and her bright eyes shot small flames. Forge, as stout a warrior as Vala had ever seen, hovered over her, and he looked broken; a castle wall blasted by mangonels.
“Revol can lead…”
“No Cap,” Haruspex insisted. “Reev’s doing his best, but he needs you as much as the rest of us. You’re the one Sensus trained. He had faith in you, and so do we.”
His eyes closed and he grimaced, wincing with great pain. “No, Ru. I’m…”
“About to get a demerit,” said Vala. “You have one hour to report to me in full battle dress, ready for duty. Am I clear, Captain.”
And Vala admired the man for the effort it took him to salute her. And she admired him all the more when he arrived outside her tent in his armor, swept back skullfort under his left arm.
“Come in, Captain.” She gestured for him to enter.
He stood in the archway between her sitting room and kitchen.
Vala took a seat in her sitting room. “Do I need to make it an order?”
Catalyst reluctantly sat down, holding his skullfort on his lap. His brow glistened.
“I need to understand the nature of your team’s malady, Captain.”
“Our radiance has…” his voice drifted off into a monosyllabic stutter.
Vala went to her kitchen and searched inside her sideboard. She had less than half a bottle of brandy, along with a few weaker spirits. She poured him a stout cup of brandy, which he sipped at nervously, slowly regaining his composure.
“We’ve lost control of our radiance. It surges constantly, expressing itself in ways we’re unfamiliar with. And our memories… While in Ulro, we experience consciousness in a dreamlike state. We were our bodies’ selves, only as children. Eukary had it worst.”
“She seems to have been violated. Even if the memory is not truly hers, such a material imprint would be traumatizing. I’ll accord her all the patience I can.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” He finished his brandy.
“I can’t do the same for you, Captain. I need you to walk this off.”
“Of course, Ma’am. I’m ready for duty.”
“Good. Now explain that severed head to me. What is it, and why did Orak flee when you presented it to him?”
Catalyst shivered, then glanced at his empty cup.
“I’m waiting, Captain.”
He set the cup on the stand next to his chair, dropping his skullfort as he leaned. “Sorry, Ma’am.” He bent down to retrieve his skullfort.
“Captain,” she said, expectantly.
He picked up his skullfort and hurriedly replaced it on his lap, almost dropping it again as he straightened his back. “Forgive me, Ma’am. As I, as I… As I, uhm,” he sniffled, coughed, cleared his throat and wiped his brow, “as I stated, our radiance is out of our control and our minds are being flooded with memories. I saw myself in dreams with the others, as children, and then, when we were enroute to this world, I saw a series of flashes, and somehow I knew what they meant, but I couldn’t quite match all the flashes with their meanings and… I… I, uhm, called to…”
“To whom?”
“Uhm, it, Ma’am.”
“It?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Or they, or us, rather. And they screamed at me. They, or we, rather, wept, then called for help and then I managed to think something back to them, and it’s because I was tethered between the realms, so I could hear from both, and I heard the Ylias screaming from Briah while the Anunnaki warned me that we were now the same as Orak, and so Orak knew how to kill us.”
Vala crossed her legs and folded her hands on her lap. “I had expected a simpler answer.”
“Sorry, Ma’am, but nothing’s simple now.”
“Quite true. So, the Anunnaki warned you that you were now the same as Orak? How so?”
“We can only be destroyed of we’re destroyed in both realms, and as something had killed Orak on Ulro, I knew that he is vulnerable, so I figured we should bring him his head so that he knew that we knew.”
“But he didn’t flee right away.”
“No, Ma’am. His ego wouldn’t allow it. But when he saw that some of us had begun to ascend, and could harm him, he listened to his father’s warning.”
Vala gasped. “That was Haleon’s voice.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“It was dreadful.”
“Quite.”
Vala sat quietly for a moment, contemplating the young captain’s information. “This is good news. Not only is Orak vulnerable, we have an ally in Ulro. What exactly is this ally?”
“Not sure, Ma’am. I really wouldn’t know how to begin to explain it.”
“I understand, Captain. You crossed the threshold to another plain. I can’t even fathom what I’ve seen of that plane here. You’re dismissed for now, Catalyst. Spend some time with your team. Aster would especially enjoy your company. But they all need to see that you’re still their captain.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Thank you, Ma’am.”
Vala had never seen a soldier move so awkwardly as when Catalyst stood and stumbled out of her tent. She watched him from her doorway, leaning against the rigid, plasteel frame, while pity wrestled against impatience in her heart. He was about to enter the med tent when a klaxon rang.
“What is it?” Vala said into her vam, pivoting into her entryway where she kept her rifle and skullfort.
“It’s us!” Revol said over the comms.
“Vala,” boomed Black Fountain’s terrible voice, “come see. It is glorious.”
Vala went to the western front where the klaxon rang. Her radiant eyes saw only the dark, milky gloom of Urthona’s night, so she donned her skullfort and magnified her view. On a far ridge marched rank after rank of tall warriors, their bodies made of muscular hyperfiber fairings over polyadamant chassis. Above them flew a cyan star.
“What am I looking at, Revol?”
“The Sentinels Ma’am. Not sure why or how, but when Netz flew over them they all started waking up.”
Vala hurried towards them, gathering an escort as she strode. When she met with them the Sentinels marched past her as if she were merely an obstruction to be circumvented.
“I need to know what’s happening,” she said to both Revol and Black Fountain at once.
It was Netz who spoke. Her voice was furtive and fearful, but clear and in an earnest tone.
“They have hearts of ohr.”
Vala looked to Revol and Black Fountain, who both shrugged. “What is ohr?” she asked Netz.
Netz was still for a moment, her cyan light flickering. “Ohr is everything. No life would exist without it. You mean, after we... did no one continue Dr. Yamin’s work? Ohr is the very essence of life, the blood and bone of Titans. It is the essence of Ascension and what nearly every intergalactic war has been fought over.”
Vala felt her guts tense. “Give me an answer I can understand.”
Netz hovered helplessly, also turning to both Revol and Black Fountain. But soon they all looked at the great tower they had fought and died to keep from their enemy. The Sentinels were gathering around its base, and a pale blue light spread from the tower to each of them. One by one they dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves before the obelisk.