Co, Jasper and Sisi waited by the gangplank in their Zhou Guard uniforms, standing in formation around a black, metal coffin. The coffin looked like a normal metal box. Decorative cloth and padding concealed the tools and detachable parts they would need for this mission.

“Alright, stick with the plan,” Jasper cautioned. “Co, be ready to blast our way through if I give the signal, but not before. I’ll be as gruff as can be to get us in quicker.”

“Got it,” Co said, jealously eyeing the neutron bomb detonator Jasper carried. “If you get killed, I’ll flip the switch.”

Jasper tucked the cylindrical detonator into his pocket, making sure the safety lid was firmly attached. “Thank you for that reassurance.”

“I can blow something up, too,” Sisi offered.

“Sisi, remember the plan?”

“I do.” Sisi frowned.

“And what was it?”

“I’m not supposed to talk until I resuscitate Natalya.”

“Good plan,” Co noted.

“Where’s your penguin?” Jasper asked.

“This mission’s much too dangerous for Pili. He’s safe in my quarters,” Sisi answered.

“Too bad. He’d make a great grenade,” Co noted.

“He would not! His mass would make for a very inefficient ballistic projectile, thank you very much.”

The second the gangplank hit the ground, they wheeled the coffin onto the landing zone. The blue-uniformed Planetary Defense soldiers surrounding the ship cocked their heads at the sight. No doubt the crew’s all-black Zhou Guard uniforms, high-collared shirts with armored chest plates and carbon-fiber-armored caps, gave the soldiers pause. Co had her normal weapon, while Jasper carried Natalya’s carbine. Sisi had attached carbon plates to her welpro to disguise it as a Zhou Guard rifle.

Co’s glare, and massive gun, probably added to the illusion of authority as she flashed a datasheet at the closest Planetary Defense officer.

“Excuse me. Hey, where are you—” a man with the rank of captain emblazoned on his blue shoulder said.

Jasper stopped him before the captain could finish his command, saying, “Are you the officer in charge here?”

“Yes. Who are—”

“You have delayed a shipment that is on direct order from the Zhou. Where is your transport?”

“My…”

“Your troop carrier.”

“Over there,” the captain said, pointing at what looked like a cargo container with engines.

“Then you will pilot us to the Zhou. You and you alone, Captain,” Jasper ordered.

“But I have no record—”

“You see the datasheet? You see what this is?”

“But there’s no record of—” the captain tried to say.

“That’s for me to worry about. You see it’s bound for the Zhou, do you not?” Jasper asked.

“Yes, but—”

“Then take us there, and I may forget to report this insult to Qin.”

The captain gulped. He looked at the datasheet marked with the Traitor of Farbind’s name. Finally, he nodded. The coffin still needed approval by the Zhou Guard themselves, so the captain showed Jasper the way to the transport.

The captain piloted the transport with all the enthusiasm of someone eager to pass off a problem to someone else. He didn’t say a word, just flew the transport through a secure path, passing civilian cars and flying transports that crowded the skies of the smog-laden city.

He had to request clearance to enter the Zhou, and when the datasheet codes Jasper showed him signaled an all-clear, the captain guided them to the center of the capital. Ptolemy’s contacts, bribes, and false information were thus far working.

The smog cleared like a parting curtain, enormous shield generators protecting the leadership from the filth they led. The shields were strong enough to keep the pollution out, but thin enough to allow ships through. The transport flew along the narrow pathways, keeping slow so as not to disturb the sensibilities of the affluent who lived and worked in the low, glass-lined homes and offices.

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The gigantic Zhou itself loomed ahead, and when they reached the gates, the captain signaled their arrival.

“Thank you, Captain,” Jasper said. “You will wait here.”

“What?” the captain asked.

“I could shoot him,” Co suggested.

“What!”

“Secrecy is a necessity to this shipment,” Jasper explained, quickly recovering from Co breaking character. “But the captain knows this, right? He can keep silent and stay here waiting for us.”

The captain broke into a sweat, droplets flying off his forehead as he nodded enthusiastically.

“Good,” Jasper said. “Let’s get this off-loaded.”

The gates were the only way in or out of the Zhou, and Jasper’s datasheet allowed the crack of corruption to be exploited. They certainly would have been discovered if they’d tried to enter through the main doors, but since they were going through the maintenance entrance, and had a designated arrival of a person who was supposedly already inside, they were ushered through the gates without hesitation. And since a scan of the coffin revealed no explosives, beyond the ones the Zhou Guard accompanying it carried, no questions were asked as the transport came to a landing in front of the maintenance entrance.

Two guards dressed in the same black uniforms Jasper, Sisi, and Co wore stood at attention beside a trio of black hoppers and a blaster turret. The greatest of monuments required the greatest of defenses, it seemed, and the Zhou Guards demanded Jasper open the coffin.

“As you wish,” Jasper said, lifting the metal box’s lid.

There Natalya lay, pale, and without a pulse. Not unless you looked reeal close.

“As you can see, it is the Traitor of Farbind herself,” said Jasper.

“Why was she removed?” the guard asked.

“She looks still alive,” the other noted.

“That’s why she was removed. Cleaning and retouching. Here, see,” Jasper said, holding up Natalya’s unresponsive hand. “You can scan it, or if you’d like I can cut the hand off, easier that way.”

The first guard chuckled at the joke and said, “No, that’s fine.” He touched a portable scanner to Natalya’s hand. A red beam of light read her fingerprints, and came up with Natalya’s death certificate.

“Looks like her,” the second guard said.

“Your orders are to return her to the monument?”

“They are,” Jasper said, shutting the lid.

The guard waved his scanner at a black, glass sensor node above the door. The door swung inward with a loud clack of opening seals.

“Display is closed right now,” the first guard noted.

“We’ll be out before it opens,” Jasper said, thankful Ptolemy’s information on the monument’s open and closed times was accurate. He motioned for Co and Sisi to follow, and the three pushed the coffin inside the maintenance entrance.

Scanners caught the trio’s movements through the wide, concrete-lined maintenance path. Lights flickered on. Long bulbs of ugly, insect-ridden plastic gave a sickly, yellow hue to the stained ground.

“Don’t think the captain would have liked it if you’d cut off her hand,” Co noted.

“I’d have healed it right after,” Jasper replied.

“Can Prophets do that?” Sisi asked, her eyes wide.

“Sisi, stick to the plan.”

“You’re talking.”

“I know when not to talk.”

“This plan stinks,” Sisi grumbled.

“What was that?”

Sisi made mumbling, humming noises to mock her restricted modes of communication.

“I can shoot her if she makes noise, right?” Co asked.

“But I need to deliver the dose to Natalya!” Sisi said.

Jasper stopped the coffin in front of an intersection and grabbed Sisi, covering her mouth. Two Zhou Guards puffed off vaporizers as they passed the intersection, laughing and patting each other on the back.

One of the guards locked eyes with Co. The two exchanged a cordial nod while Jasper pretended to be helping Sisi with the coffin’s lid.

“If you can really cut off someone’s limb and reattach it, I suggest you try it on Sisi’s mouth,” Co advised.

Sisi clamped her mouth shut and the group continued forward.

They soon reached a gray door marked Hall of Dishonor. Just past the door, golden bulbs replaced the sickly maintenance lighting. The floors were black carpet marked off in golden velvet ropes to indicate the path people were to travel.

Monuments to failures were crowded in this low-ceilinged, angle-walled room, an intentional design meant to give a feeling of claustrophobia. Blue lights at their bases showed the faces and names of each monument. All in grey concrete, they were like gravestones for monsters, roughly assembled and crumbling with disrepair.

Some of the older ones were nothing but piles of rubble, the memory and shame of whomever was dishonored erased from memory by chiseling historians. Some were amorphous bodies standing and looking at nothing. Some looked collapsed beneath the weight of a planet or starship. A concrete woman stood in the center, featureless save for her recognizable hair and height. She held a sledgehammer against a cracked planet, her grey fingers broken where they clutched the handle.

Natalya Frazier, the monument read, a steel coffin entombed beneath the statue.

“Seems like a waste of effort,” Co said.

“The Prophets have a similar tradition. They call it the Pillar of Fools,” Jasper said, opening their coffin.

Sisi went to work immediately, humming as she administered a chemical into Natalya’s neck that would awaken her.

“Just one pillar?” Co asked.

“Just one,” Jasper answered. “A single pillar with all the names of those who sacrificed their lives in the service of what they considered the greater good.”

“Lot of stupid people on that pillar then.”

“Indeed. A lot of great ones, too. They don’t just list the noble, but the ignoble names as well. It’s up to history to decide whether their sacrifice was worthy or not, but it must be assumed that anyone who would die for a cause is a fool. If you begin with that hypothesis, only truly worthy sacrifices will be considered heroic.”

“Good way to trim down the idiots then.”

The dose kicked in, and Natalya blinked her eyes open. She saw Jasper standing over her and smiled, then put her hand to her side when she realized where she was.

“Don’t panic, you’re okay,” Sisi said, helping Natalya out of the coffin. “I kept quiet the whole time, and we made it past these guards and they had hoppers but Co didn’t even try to blow them up and then Jasper wanted to cut off your hand. He didn’t, by the way.”

“Thanks for the update,” Natalya said. “We good?”

Co nodded.

Jasper retrieved his sword from the coffin, where it had been hidden beneath Natalya, and tossed the captain her carbine and the neutron bomb detonator.

“Let’s move,” Natalya said, shaking off the effects of the drugs still exiting her system as she wheeled the coffin to the elevator.