PART FOUR

> “Equality and justice cannot exist until everybody is born with the same powers.”

- Unyat

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The holographic recording glowed with eerie, flickering color. Combined with the content, it gave Ariock the impression that he was watching a scene from a horror film.

There were so many victims.

A city’s worth. An entire metropolis that Ariock had failed to protect. The Torth Empire apparently believed this was how to wage war. Torture millions of innocent people to death. String them up on metal crosses, the way Ariock had once suffered.

The Torth were purposely reminding him of the power they had once wielded over him.

Power they still thought they were entitled to.

Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and rain began to pour down. Since the Dragon Tower aerie was open to the air, the echoes of thunder were loud. Ariock didn’t care.

“Which Torth did this?” Ariock demanded. “Was it the ones in Telemetry City?”

He was going to bring devastation to that stronghold. The Torth who remained on the planet Nuss apparently believed they were safe, surrounded by pink inhibitor gas emitters. Idiots. Ariock had been gentle with them, trying to give each garrison a chance to kneel and peacefully surrender. If the Torth leadership didn’t want his gentle treatment? Fine.

He would appease their craving for violence and hammer them to death.

“I would assume so,” Garrett said.

“This looks like a trap.” Thomas paused the holograph so that it froze in motion. Rows of crucified victims paused in death throes. A few of them looked like they were still alive.

“I don’t think so.” Garrett sounded the way Ariock felt—outraged. “This is the same sort of crap the Torth have been pulling for months. They’ve notched it up a level, but I don’t see a trap. I see reckless Torth hubris.”

“They notched it up several levels.” Thomas pointed to the frozen holograph. “The nussian who recorded and sent this footage characterizes the scene as ‘bait,’ and I happen to agree. This is designed. It’s architected to make us angry.”

Fleet captain Fayfer looked inquisitive, clicking her beak. Ariock had imported a few key battle leaders as soon as he had received Thomas’s demand for an emergency meeting. His best leaders were already preparing troops for teleportation, having heard the news.

“I have a squadron of healers ready.” Jinishta stood with her arms folded across her purple mantle. Like Garrett, she was already dressed for combat. Spears poked up from the quiver on her back. “Ariock, my family are among the victims.” She gave him a pleading look. “They’re your family, too.”

Ariock had all but forgotten that he had distant family members among the Alashani. Quite a few of them had survived the destruction of the Torth Homeworld. It must seem as if he was purposely ignoring them, like a newly raised king trying to bury his commoner roots.

Was he failing them?

Just like he had failed his mother?

And his father?

“My sister lives in Tempest Arena,” Jinishta clarified. “Daichalsa. Remember her? And her husband and children. I’m so worried.”

Ariock remembered that warm, welcoming, plump Alashani from a party in the cave city of Hufti. Jinishta’s sister. Hadn’t her kids sang for him?

They had.

Because Ariock was part of their family, too. What did the genetic distance matter? Jinishta and her family were Ariock’s only surviving relatives, aside from Garrett.

“If there is any chance to save them…” Jinishta’s voice was hoarse with hope. “Please. They may still be alive.”

Tears shimmered in her luminous eyes. She was desperate to get going.

“All right.” Ariock prepared to put himself into the clairvoyant trance, to teleport her best warriors to that desert on Nuss. There was no time to waste.

“Can we stop and think about this for a minute?” Thomas was pleading. “This is a departure from what the Torth have done in the past. There’s several aspects to this situation I don’t like. That’s why I wanted to meet with you first.”

“What do you see, Thomas?” Evenjos asked with polite decorum.

“The Torth chose a defensible location,” Thomas said. “It’s sandwiched between two garrisons which they now have total control over. They have unchallenged supply lines to that area.”

“Eh, they’re not well-supplied.” Garrett sounded dismissive. “Trust me. I check the Megacosm every day, and I know what they have in that region. It’s nothing special. A few bombs, okay, but nothing we can’t handle.”

“They know you spy,” Thomas pointed out. “They’re not going to chat about secret plans or secret weapons in the public sphere.”

Ariock knew that was a valid point. It had been months since Garrett had scraped anything like crucial military intelligence from the Megacosm. Garrett had failed to anticipate this mass crucifixion, for instance.

“The common Red Ranks still have dumbass chitchats,” Garrett said. “So I know enough. Haven’t we conquered enough sketchy garrisons on Nuss? They’ve mostly evacuated the planet.”

Thomas tightened his mouth, no doubt nettled by Garrett’s condescending tone.

“And they’ve surrounded the planet with empty cargo carriers,” Garrett went on. “Don’t you think that’s a sign that they’re ready to surrender Nuss completely to us? This—” he gestured at the frozen recording, where pain-wracked bodies hung from metal crosses in an otherworldly desert— “is a goodbye taunt. They’re just being assholes.”

Weptolyso rumbled in solidarity. “Exactly. This atrocity is the act of cowards who are backed into a corner.”

“I don’t like how bold this is,” Thomas insisted. He looked directly at Ariock and said, “To me, it looks like the Torth want you to go charging in there without a second thought.”

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As if Ariock was nothing but a stupid, mindless killing machine.

That was how the Torth used to view him. Was that how Thomas saw him, as well?

Garrett rolled his eyes. “Ariock isn’t an idiot. He’s in full armor, and he knows how to be wary.” The old man tugged his mustache. “And if there’s anything unexpected? I’ll be there. Don’t worry. I will keep my eyes open.”

Ariock was grateful for that.

Sure, he was angered, but was he angry at the Torth? Or at himself?

He needed to be a better messiah. He should have strengthened his military presence in vulnerable border cities like Tempest Arena. And failing that? He should have evacuated his entire freed population on Nuss to Umdalkdul or Reject-20. Why had he thought he could protect so much faraway territory?

Because Garrett said he could.

Because Thomas advised it.

Perhaps their advice was solid. Planetary evacuations were no easy matter. Ariock still had nightmarish flashbacks to his frantic evacuation of the Torth Homeworld, when he had edged past his limit of strength. That effort had drained him to the point of death. And that had been before the Torth invented the gaseous inhibitor.

Ariock could teleport armies on a daily basis, but armies numbered in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of millions. And strict discipline made a difference. With military units, he did not need to deal with disorderly chaos or stragglers.

If Ariock risked evacuating his population on Nuss all at once, the Torth would know, and they would then take advantage of his weakened state. While he struggled with mass teleportations, Torth champions might pop into Freedomland and elsewhere, perhaps even Earth. That was a risk both Thomas and Garrett advised against.

How many of his citizens had gotten crucified because of that decision?

Ariock was disgusted with himself. He gazed at the frozen image of people hanging from metal crosses, and he knew that those people should have had a chance. Like he’d had.

They should have been rescued. Like he had been.

“The Torth have very few Rosies left on Nuss,” Garrett said. “We’ve zombified so many of them, the smart ones fled.”

So the Torth on Nuss were relatively unprotected.

They were vulnerable.

Just like Ariock’s people had been.

“If the Torth do have secret new weapons in development,” Thomas said, “this is when they’d deploy them. They would pretend to look weak and lame, just to sucker us in.”

“They’re not pretending.” Garrett stamped his staff for emphasis. “They’ve been evacuating Nuss for the past few weeks. Their heavy hitters are gone. All that’s left are Red Ranks, and I’m sure they’re ready to flee at the drop of a hat.”

For half a year, Ariock had fretted about new strategies and new weapons from the Torth Empire. In all that time, it seemed the galactic empire had only invented one new thing: the gaseous inhibitor. And their only strategy was terrorism.

No genius plans, just sadistic cruelty. That was the Torth way.

The little ummin captain, Fayfer, gasped. She was playing the holograph recording from her own control sleeve, and she stared at it with horror. “Some of the victims are still alive.”

Ariock glanced at the projected holograph. Mouths were open. They were screaming or moaning from torment.

“We must rescue them.” Jinishta’s tone held urgency. “Ariock, some of the victims are warriors. We need every warrior!”

That was indisputable. There were so few warriors left, half the population of Freedomland had learned the names of every single one of them. Street performers reenacted their heroic deeds on a daily basis.

“You need to be cautious!” Thomas was insistent. “I think the Torth left people alive on purpose. This is bait.”

Ariock, Garrett, and Evenjos looked at Thomas with frustration or consternation. So did Jinishta, Weptolyso, and fleet captain Fayfer. Rain dripped off the eaves. Didn’t Thomas realize that torture victims were dying while he repeated needless warnings?

Thomas seemed completely unconcerned about the victims.

In fact, he had shown no surprise when Fayfer pointed out that many victims might still be alive. He had known there were survivors writhing on crosses in an alien desert. Of course he had known. Knowledge was his thing.

And instead of informing Ariock, he had called a time-wasting meeting.

Apparently, Thomas’s concern was all for his assets: his battle leaders. Like Ariock.

“This is a rescue mission.” Ariock stood so straight, his head touched the ceiling. “I’ll be wary. But we aren’t putting this off any longer. Those victims are dying. They need us.”

Jinishta gave a sharp nod of approval. Weptolyso snorted in readiness. Fayfer nodded, and Garrett and Evenjos seemed to be in agreement.

“I’ve already contacted the fleet in CloudShadow MetroHub,” Fayfer said. “They’re on standby.”

“Nethroko is preparing an army,” Weptolyso added.

“And I’m ready to heal survivors.” Ariock nodded to Jinishta. “How many healers can you bring?”

“At least ninety.” Jinishta tapped her supercom. “They are assembling on the flats, and I am sure there will be last minute volunteers.”

Evenjos looked ashamed. Her services might make the difference between life or death for a lot of torture victims.

Thomas floated closer to Ariock. “Will you at least send a few zombies there first?” He looked fraught with worry. “Let’s use them to trigger any potential traps.”

“We don’t have any zombies to send,” Garrett told Thomas, his voice a menacing growl. “Except for the emergency reserve dregs.”

“We can abduct a few Torth from Tempest Arena,” Thomas said hurriedly. “I’ll zombify a bunch right now! As many as you want!”

Ariock stared at his young friend. Sometimes he worried about the toll that absorbing so many Torth minds had on Thomas’s ability to empathize. “There’s no time.” He couldn’t believe he needed to explain something so obvious. “People are dying. We have to save them.”

“Do you have any concrete objections?” Garrett demanded of Thomas. He was already tightening his armor, his helmet cradled in one arm. “If so, speak up.”

“I just…” Thomas looked miserable with uncertainty. It was rare for him to trail off and reconsider his words. “This situation is setting off alarm bells in my mind.”

“Noted,” Garrett said dryly.

“You will advise us from afar, Thomas,” Weptolyso said diplomatically. “I am sure you will help us to avoid danger.”

That was a given. Thanks to the superluminal communications network which Thomas had invented, he was always able to help them change tactics on the fly.

On the far side of the tower, Azhdarchidae landed and wormed his way towards his nest. The beast moved like a dragon, scales glistening from the downpour. Ariock thought he had more trouble fitting through the open archways than he used to.

“How about if you bring me and Azhdarchidae?” Thomas offered suddenly. “I’m training him to be a military asset.”

Ariock considered that. Thomas had proven his worth in battle when Torth invaded the Academy with inhibitor gas.

But now? The boy was useless in a rescue situation. He couldn’t heal injured victims. If a fleet of Torth did show up, they would be in aerial transports, well beyond Thomas’s range. He would just be one more person that needed protection.

Garrett clapped Ariock on the back. He did that because he could not quite reach Ariock’s shoulder. “There’s mobilizing an army,” he said, “and then there’s relocating your entire headquarters. If we were going to do that? We should have done it yesterday.”

“I guess.” Thomas sounded reluctant to concede the point.

“Thomas and I will stay here,” Evenjos said. “If the Torth notice that our leadership team has entirely relocated to Nuss, they will send teleporters into Freedomland.”

To abduct or assassinate people.

Like Vy. And Kessa.

The danger was so obvious and alarming, Ariock hated himself for failing to see it right away. He really needed to get used to the concept of Torth teleporting. Any time he left Freedomland, even for an hour, he needed to leave protection in place for the people he cared about.

“We won’t be gone for long.” Ariock figured that his armies and his aerial fleets were ready. They had better be. “Everyone, get ready—“

“Take Evenjos with you,” Thomas said.

Evenjos recoiled, as if Thomas had suggested throwing her into a gas chamber.

“She’s a powerful healer,” Thomas pointed out. “You need her.”

“That’s a good point.” Garrett hooked his arm around Evenjos. “You won’t have to face danger, but will you come and help us save people?”

Evenjos considered it.

Ariock wondered if she ought to stay behind to protect Freedomland—but she was hardly a protector. Besides, thousands of victims would appreciate a tireless healer. He nodded in approval.

When Evenjos saw that, she seemed to change her mind. “Okay.”

“If you detect any hint of strangeness,” Thomas said hurriedly, “retreat. Please. I know you want to save everyone. But if you fall for a trap, then we’re all screwed.”

Ariock gave him a tolerant nod. Every second of delay meant more deaths.

“Ariock will send any surviving Torth straight to the Mirror Prison,” Garrett promised. “So you can zombify them.”

Ariock gave Thomas his own version of a warning. “Keep the city safe while we’re gone.”

That said, he vanished, taking his top warriors and captains with him.