The exiled fleet, p.23
The Exiled Fleet, page 23
She clenched her jaw and hissed out a breath, unable to keep her facade in check. Its talons slid against her raw skin as it yanked up the sleeve of her T-shirt, revealing her bruised bicep, lined with black veins.
“These injuries,” Aros snarled, its voice low and grating, “are from excessive Imprint re-application.”
She bit through the pain, clearing her throat with an effort. “Yeah, thanks. I figured that out a little too late.”
Aros’s grip firmed, and it twisted her arm. Blinding pain obfuscated her senses as its rough grip wrenched against her skin.
Aros leaned into her ear. “Which networks have you been accessing?” it demanded.
Pain ignited her anger, and she bared her teeth, hissing out a response in Viator, “I was fixing their fucking generators!” She selected the most vulgar of Viator expletives she could remember off the top of her head. Aros didn’t seem to care as its hold loosened and it dropped her arm.
It turned her around, pinning her by the neck to the wall. It remained uncomfortably close, near enough its hot breath stung the side of her neck. “What generators?” it asked, but from its calculated tone, it knew exactly what generators.
“At the Divide,” she replied.
“You humans were at the Divide?” it scoffed, spitting out the word for humans like it was an old piece of food that’d been stuck between its teeth.
Adequin grimaced. “We’re Sentinels,” she began, forcing evenness into her tone. “It’s a unit of our armed forces that’s always stationed out there.”
“Sentinels are criminals,” Sanook recited.
She glared past Aros at Sanook. “Yeah, and some are murderous criminals.”
Sanook’s eyes went to slits.
Aros’s top lip curled in a silent snarl. “And what was your crime, Sentinel?”
She swallowed blood-tinged saliva, pinching her lips together in a bitter grimace. “You’d laugh if I told you…”
Aros’s shoulders swelled as its fists balled. Adequin pressed herself against the wall, bracing for impact.
But Aros froze and Sanook suddenly stood up straight. Practically in unison, they lifted a hand to their nexuses on their temples, gazes going distant. A minute passed with nothing but inward stares and the growing stench of Drudger odor in the small, warm cell. She managed to edge a look at Cavalon, who remained cuffed on his knees by the bloodstain Jackin had left behind. His face was a stoic mask of indifference. He was holding it together well, all things considered. Hell, he might be better at this than she was. With Augustus in his life, he’d likely logged more hours being interrogated than any Titan ever had.
Another Drudger marched in, brandishing a biotool in its taloned hand. It passed it off to Sanook, who approached Adequin.
“Rake!” Cavalon shouted a warning, blue eyes round with terror, and his captor shoved him hard enough to send him toppling to the decking.
Her Imprints cut into her skin as she tried to twist away from Sanook and the biotool, sliding against the cold cell wall. “What is that?” she demanded. Strength flooded her muscles, but her bindings proved their worth, and she could do nothing but squirm fruitlessly against the metal restraints. “Wait!”
Sanook ignored her as it injected the cartridge straight into the side of her neck.
She gritted her teeth. A cool wave rolled under her skin as the injection flowed down her neck, blanketing her chest with ice. Her vision spun and she strove to hang on to consciousness.
But the feeling passed moments later, and her sight righted itself, head clearing into sharp focus, heart thudding relentlessly against her ribs. It felt like they’d injected a wave of iced adrenaline.
“Shit…” Cavalon breathed. He’d stopped struggling against his guard and lay stock-still on his side, staring at Adequin’s arms.
She craned her neck to look down. In a slow, downward cascade, her blackened veins grew fainter and fainter. She froze, staring in awe. The bruising remained the same, but the veins had completely disappeared. In a matter of seconds.
What the hell had they given her?
She’d be more worried if she didn’t feel so damn great. It was like a lingering fog had been lifted, one that had been saddling her for weeks. Her muscles felt light but strong, the tight ache gone from her now-loose joints. And her silver and copper Imprints willingly slid all the way to her elbows. It still ached as they shifted across her bruised skin, but they were willing to move past her shoulders again. Maybe she could break out of these cuffs after all.
With a turn of its hand, Aros gave a silent instruction. The Drudger guarding Cavalon yanked him to his feet. Sanook grabbed Adequin by the back of the neck and shoved her out into the hall. They stepped into formation with a handful of other Drudger guards, Aros at the lead. She forced a look back to ensure Cavalon followed behind.
“Where are we going?” Cavalon squeaked out as the procession pressed forward.
Adequin repeated the question in Viator.
Aros glared back at them, letting out a short hiss. “The sovereign awaits.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Apparently the sovereign did not await, because the decadent room their interrogators dropped them off at was devoid of any kind of greeting party.
Adequin eyed Cavalon as they waited, cuffed and on their knees at the foot of a terraced dais. At the top, a long bench was backed by a wooden panel, carved with a mazelike design and framed with a border of triangles.
Three pairs of statuesque Drudgers guarded each of the exits—one at the top of the dais and two along the arcing wall behind them. Each stood armed with an etched bronze shock staff, clad in metal armor that seemed more ornamental than practical, with sculpted edges and a geometric design flash-printed into the metal.
Adequin kept her gaze focused on the nearest pair of guards, while her mind’s eye plagued her with echoes of Jackin’s pained cries. She could still feel the heat of his fresh blood on her fingertips, now dried and crusted under her fingernails.
She drew in a breath through clenched teeth, forcing the memories aside. Jackin had been wounded, she couldn’t change that. She needed to concentrate on what she still might be able to fix.
She’d have to find some way to come to terms with the sovereign, which wasn’t an easy feat when Drudgers were involved. Drudger penance tended toward one of two styles: outright execution or indentured servitude. They didn’t generally take well to payoffs, even if she had something to barter, which she definitely didn’t. It’d be a lot easier to strategize if she knew what the hell they wanted from them.
Cavalon unsubtly cleared his throat. “Uh, Rake…” He kept his chin straight and spoke without moving his lips. “What’s going on?”
Adequin cast a furtive glance at the guards behind them. “Their sovereign has requested an audience,” she whispered.
His eyes darted, though his expression remained placid. “What the hell is a sovereign?”
“It’s a shitty translation. The word means more like … an orienteer, kind of. Like a societal helmsman.”
“Explain?” he squeaked.
“It was a Viator thing,” she explained, “a title that shifted between them fluidly based on the primary needs of the unit—military or civilian. It was their way of maintaining some semblance of leadership in an otherwise flat society.”
Cavalon sighed. “Right. Because they didn’t segregate.”
She gave a shallow nod. It was a structure that required a great deal of faith in one’s species. That kind of unmitigated trust was something humanity had yet to scratch the surface of. By their very nature, she wasn’t sure they were capable of it.
“But if they don’t segregate,” Cavalon whispered, “how do they justify having something called a sovereign?”
She shook her head. “Again, it’s a misnomer, but we were taught to translate it to that. It’s not what you’re thinking—sovereigns were only seen as leaders because the others agreed it was so. They helped determine the will of their people to guide the group. The others respected them as an overseer, but if the sovereign fell short or their needs changed, they just picked a new one.”
“And everyone was okay with that?”
She shrugged. “It worked for them for thousands of years. Drudgers don’t usually adopt it, though it’s not unheard of.”
Cavalon’s jaw flexed, sweat slicking his blond hair to his forehead. Adequin could sense the anxiety rolling off him in waves, but he kept his chin up, shoulders back, chest out, and did a surprisingly good job of keeping it in check.
Adequin’s knees had just begun to ache from prolonged kneeling when the entrance at the top of the dais slid open.
Two Drudgers marched in, the first carrying a bladed staff, the other a short plasma rifle. They both wore gunmetal gray armor similar to the guards, but with more decorative flourishes and a muted-teal cloth tabard that hung off either hip.
But as the door slid shut behind them, Adequin froze. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her instincts seizing her muscles with a panic she didn’t know the source of. She strove to keep from fidgeting against her bindings. Something was wrong.
Her eyes drew to the two newcomers. They were too tall, too thin, and the pieces of carapace visible under their armor lacked the metallic sheen of the guards. The taller one with the rifle came to a stop in front of the bench. It stared down at her and Cavalon with two sets of glossy black eyes.
Adequin’s breath scratched against the back of her throat. Not two Drudgers. Two Viators.
The shorter one with the staff stepped forward, pausing at the edge of the dais. Warmth swelled in Adequin’s cheeks.
She’d recognize that Viator anywhere, with their weathered, slate-gray carapace, stippled with stark flecks of maroon. Pleated skin creased their forehead as they stared with some manner of curiosity.
It was the face that’d haunted her dreams for five years. She could practically smell the dank mustiness of the cave walls in Paxus as her mind pulled forth memories she’d been trying so hard to forget.
Adequin looked from the breeder to the other Viator, a guard of some sort, who stayed back beside the throne-like bench, rifle clutched in both taloned hands. They stood half a head taller than the breeder, with deep, charcoal-black skin that conveyed an age of at least eighty—sixty or so by human standards. The narrow skin folds on the guard’s face tightened in what could have been mistaken for a scowl. But she’d never been very good at reading Viator expressions.
She knew that face as well—the one from the recording they’d found aboard the Synthesis. The one giving instructions to the Drudgers they’d killed. The one who’d set them on a course to restarting dark energy generators.
Her mind warred with it, just as it had when they’d first seen the recording. And she didn’t want to believe it any more now than she did then. But she couldn’t ignore it this time; this time it was staring her straight in the face. Literally.
The breeder’s gaze drifted over Adequin with an evaluative steadiness. A pattern of dark steel and bronze Imprint tattoos ran up the hardened shell of their left arm. Their trimmed talons clicked as they reaffirmed their grip on the staff, Imprints remaining static.
That the Imprints didn’t move seemed an item worthy of note, and Adequin focused on that minor detail to keep her panic in check.
Cavalon let out a gritty squeak, then whispered, “Rake, are they…?”
With an effort, Adequin cleared her throat. “Yeah.”
Cavalon’s composed facade melted, and he slunk back, shoulders and chin dropping as he sat back on his feet.
Adequin flexed her jaw, a knot of sympathy twisting in her gut. He’d never been in the same room as a Viator before, probably never even in the same galactic sector as one. The engagements of the Resurgence War had been confined to the Outer Core—occasionally leaking into the fringes of the Perimeter Veil and the Lateral Reach. But the Legion had ensured it’d never gotten remotely close to the Core.
The pleated skin of the breeder’s forehead flattened, and they made a diffident hand motion.
To Adequin’s right, one of the Drudger guards marched toward them, armor clanking in the otherwise silent room. Cavalon flinched as it passed behind him, but it continued on to Adequin.
Its taloned fingertips scraped against her wrapped forearms as it grabbed at her wrists. Seconds later, the cuffs fell away with a clatter. Adequin’s panic-stiffened muscles kept her frozen in place, and she peripherally eyed the guard as it returned to its spot beside the door.
The breeder’s gaze tilted. Two of their four black eyes blinked. “Stand,” they said in Viator, and if Adequin didn’t know better, she’d say their tone conveyed invitation much more than instruction.
Did she know better?
They’d never been taught to read Viator emotional cues—mostly it’d been implied Viators had no emotions other than scalding indifference or outright hostility. But she’d watched enough recon footage and spied on enough conversations to have intuited a few things. Yet she still didn’t know if she could fully trust her instincts.
Adequin bit back a groan and with an effort, got up off her aching knees. She rubbed at where the bindings had chafed her wrists as she straightened to her full height. Though the shot they’d given had invigorated her, her insides still ached from … whatever means had brought them here, and she still felt a little like she’d been chewed up and spat back out.
The breeder descended the dais. They stepped up to her, a good fifteen centimeters taller, and stared her straight in the eye. “Welcome to the Presidian.”
Adequin blinked, stunned into silence.
“I am called Kaize.”
She swallowed over a hard lump. “Rake.”
“Rake.” The single syllable grated its way from the back of Kaize’s throat.
Cavalon exhaled a creaking breath, a barely throttled whimper.
“And this one?” Kaize asked.
“Bray,” Adequin replied, injecting every bit of will she had into keeping her expression unreadable, and the lie hidden from her already-turbulent vitals. “My aide,” she explained, and fully intended to leave it at that. Old war pals or no, there was no way she was going to admit who Cavalon really was.
“The corruption in your arms…” Kaize said, continuing in the Viator tongue. “Have you sensed improvement?”
“Yes,” Adequin replied with a slow nod.
“Adaxorine works swiftly.”
She blinked while she searched her memory for the word. “An antibiotic?”
“Yes. You bore a Viator infection.”
Adequin’s brow creased.
“There are virulent bacterial strains known to thrive in the sealed warmth of our neural network machines,” Kaize explained. “We inoculate our young against them. We have not seen a human case in many cycles, but the symptoms are axiomatic.”
Adequin traced her fingers along her wrapped forearm. “I’d thought my Imprints had turned against me.”
“Much the opposite, legionnaire. They have been quarantining the infection, reducing blood flow to your forearms and cleansing the blood that returns. The bruising and veins on your upper arms are proof of the bacteria beginning to break down those barriers. You would have died had it reached your heart.”
Adequin stared, unblinking, at a loss for words. She dismissed her shock with an effort, then inclined her head slowly. “I suppose I owe you my life, then.”
The thin skin folds on Kaize’s forehead puckered. “And I, you.”
A chill tore down Adequin’s spine. She wondered when they were going to get around to discussing the war-ending, traitor-making elephant in the room.
“Though in a way,” Kaize continued, “I suppose it was more than one life you gave.”
Adequin licked her dry lips, holding Kaize’s inky-black stare for a few long moments.
“This is very much caelestis, is it not, legionnaire?” Kaize said.
Adequin’s mind raced to translate the word, but she was coming up short.
“The will of the universe,” Kaize explained. “To burden us with the same task, then to see that we share oxygen again, after being separated by so many cycles and light-years.”
“Caelestis,” Adequin agreed, the new word strange on her tongue. She assigned the definition to memory, not able to come up with an accurate one-to-one translation. Other than maybe one. But she didn’t believe in fate.
“When we convoked the Fusion,” Kaize said, “we expected to bring aboard the captain of our missing contractors. The summoner is not designed for human physiology. Your Imprints have mitigated damage to you and your aide, but I must apologize for the state of your elder kinsman.”
Adequin let loose a long breath from the confines of her strained chest, unable to do anything but blink at the Viator apologizing to her. She took a second to right herself before responding, though her voice still wavered. “Is he okay?”
“Our technicians are looking into it.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not presently.”
Adequin bit the inside of her cheek and nodded reluctantly.
“May I ask why you have commandeered the Fusion?” Kaize asked.
Adequin gulped. “Your contractors attacked our relay gate and one of our ships. They were … eliminated in the process.”
Kaize rolled their wide head on their thick neck, eyes slitting as they dragged a disdainful look between the four Drudger guards standing post at the doors behind Adequin. “I knew the brutes would find a way to use it maliciously. I apologize for any difficulties they caused you and your kinsmen. Under ideal circumstances, I would have never given them something as powerful as a curanulta.”
“But they needed it as a key into the generators?” Adequin surmised.
Kaize’s chin raised in a nod. “Yes. The dilachia carthen, where you acquired the infection. May I ask which sites you visited?”
“To my knowledge, all of them.”
The larger pair of Kaize’s eyes rounded.
