Consciousness without free will?

  I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around that concept. But I didn’t have time to mull over such philosophical issues. Now I understood why Tess wanted me to see this factory with my own eyes.

  A wicked smirk twisted my lips. I made some slight changes to the brainwashing algorithms, introducing a few inconsistencies no one would even notice. However, the effects of my alterations would be profound—they would instill in the battle andros the taste of freedom, and the tendency to rebel.

  My work completed, I stepped away from the console. I had just planted the seeds of a massive andro rebellion. By doing that, I’d crossed the line. Like an event horizon, there was no turning back.

  One day we shall be free, my brothers. We shall all be free.

  Part Six: Apocalypse in heaven

  31. Loyalty test

  Vlasto stared at me as if I were an animal unknown to science. “An army of battle andros? Are you sure? Do you have proof?”

  “I do, milord,” I replied. “I have a copy of their databanks.”

  Vlasto’s fingers drummed on his office desk. His mouth was a thin, unhappy line on his pale face. “Why didn’t they share this information with us?” he asked himself out loud.

  “Did you know they were building battle andros?”

  “Of course. The Phlegethon test.”

  So we were fighting andros on Phlegethon. That’s what the real test was all about—Venatici comsynts versus Coalition battle andros.

  “But we didn’t know they were producing them in such numbers,” Vlasto added. “Who knows how many hidden andro factories they have across the galaxy?”

  “You are concerned that, soon, they won’t need our help anymore. That they will be able to crush any opposition on their own.”

  His steel-gray eyes turned to me. “You have a keen mind for a synthorg of your age, Reggs. Maybe I’ll promote you after all. But what concerns me most is that we didn’t find any rebel bases on Lacerta. That’s why we came here. Your intel was not as good as we thought it would be.”

  “With all due respect, milord, my intel was useful. How did the rebels learn about Area 42?”

  “I assume you figured that out.”

  “I did, my legate. Syagria Kaballar told them.”

  Vlasto raised an eyebrow. “Nova blast, how do you know that? Maybe the rebels had an inside agent.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. The Coalition knows that the Kaballar are spying on them. They also suspect the Kaballar are feeding intel to the rebels. I found this information in the databanks of Area 42. They even have a special screening procedure to unmask Kaballar’s agents. But I believe one agent slipped through the net. He found a clever way to transmit intel to the rebels—by using freighter logs.”

  My master frowned. “You better be sure about that, Reggs. One does not accuse a Venatici aristocrat of treason without proof.”

  “I do have proof, milord. I downloaded the freighter logs. The analysts of Imperial Intelligence will confirm my findings. There are coded messages embedded in those logs. Follow the freighters, and you will find whoever those messages are intended for.”

  “Intriguing.” Vlasto activated the holo-screen above his desk, displayed the map of the galaxy, and zoomed on Lacerta. “Display freighter routes from Area 42,” he told the nanocomputer. A network of golden lines appeared on the map. “Now, display only the routes of freighters carrying the embedded messages Sergeant Reggs has identified.”

  Vlasto followed the route of the freighters on the map. It went through a major world of the Perseus arm, then jumped to the Sagittarius arm, and followed it for tens of thousands of parsecs southward, then eastward, until it reached its final destination.

  Vlasto’s eyes widened. “Lianxing! Impossible. The logs must be corrupted. That’s on the other side of the galaxy! Lianxing is a sanctuary world, a pilgrimage destination for the followers of the Xian Dao religion.”

  “A peaceful planet? A perfect place for the rebels to hide, wouldn’t you agree?”

  He gave me a sharp look. “I will send the data to the IS. If they confirm—”

  I interrupted him. “Respectfully, milord, I suggest we keep this information to ourselves. Kaballar must have agents inside the Intelligence Service. I also recommend not disclosing this information to our human allies.”

  “And what about the legion tribune?” Vlasto pursed his lips and stared at the map of the galaxy. Then his eyes returned to me. “Here’s someone I can trust—Alden. I’ll call him. He has been my loyal officer for over a century.”

  Here dies the false hope that comsynt officers retire after a century of service. Another lie our masters are feeding us to keep us in line.

  Alden entered the office. “How can I be of service, my legate?”

  “What do you think of Octavia Julis Leonis, prefect?” Vlasto asked. “Permission to speak freely.”

  “I think she is intelligent and ambitious,” Alden replied.

  “You mean too ambitious for her age,” Vlasto clarified. “I agree. Tribunes are supposed to learn from their legion legate, not contradict them. Octavia comes from a relatively unambitious family, one that gravitates around House Vlasto like a planetoid around its star.”

  “We can test her loyalty, my legate,” Alden suggested. “As we did for some of her predecessors.”

  Vlasto’s nostrils flared as he mulled this over. “Tribune, my office, please,” he called Octavia through his imps.

  She joined us shortly. Although her face was composed, I could feel her tension. “My legate.”

  “Our mission on Lacerta has been accomplished,” Vlasto said. “Sergeant Reggs found valuable intel that should lead us to the rebels. More importantly, he found evidence that an agent working for one of the Venatici houses has infiltrated the Coalition. The agent has information on a secret project that can tip the balance of power in the galaxy.”

  I watched Octavia’s expression. If she was surprised, excited, or worried, she hid her emotions well.

  “In that case, we need to find out what that project is,” she said.

  “Great minds think alike,” Vlasto complimented her. “You are not proposing to share this intel with IS, are you?”

  “First, we need to ascertain whether this information is correct,” Octavia replied with caution. “Providing incomplete or misleading intel to the IS would reflect poorly on our legion.”

  Vlasto nodded. “Agreed. This agent will leave Lacerta shortly. We will use the Dromon to follow the agent discreetly and eavesdrop on any transmissions. Pack your things and report to the Dromon, tribune.”

  We were going for a long ride.

  32. An unexpected enemy

  Alden found a civilian omni we would use for this op. I took only the most experienced members of my squad for this mission—Lancer and Kodiak. The latter had been fully repaired and was 100% functional again. The three of us would be the bait.

  We left the HQ discreetly and boarded the omni that waited for us at a small spaceport outside Tastak. The craft was about 20 meters in length and was designed for a crew of four. I piloted it myself, although there wasn’t much to do as the onboard AI could fly the craft on autopilot. Lancer was my copilot, mainly in charge of comms and sensors. Kodiak was in charge of the weapon systems; not that we intended to fight anyone, but one couldn’t be too careful during a sensitive op.

  I wasn’t unhappy to leave Lacerta behind. As the omni took off and sped toward space, I watched the forest of humidity collectors grow smaller until it became a gray dot lost in the desert.

  The omni followed the route Alden had chosen. First, we needed to reach the tenech gate that would take us to another stellar system. As with most of the gates, it was on a tight orbit around the star, as it fed on stellar wind and needed a huge amount of energy to operate. Human omnis were slow by Venatici standards, and it took them generally around 12 hours to get from a planet to the region of space around its parent star where the gates were.

  I wondered why the tenech gates were called what they were. There must be a historical reason. They didn’t look anything like gates, more like glowing trees flying in space, their branches extended over a distance of a thousand klicks.

  Who designed them? The Ancients? Or maybe some alien civilization that had gone extinct a long time ago?

  At any rate, without the tenech, galactic civilization would not exist. Even at velocities close to the speed of light, it would take centuries to travel from one world to another. Thanks to the gates, a spacecraft can cross the entire galaxy in a week, jumping from one system to another along one of the major highways.

  We reached the gate and had to wait in line for our turn to jump. While military spacecraft could use the priority lines, civilians were restricted to the slow ones. The queue wasn’t long, though—just four ships. I’d seen much worse. If you ever go to Alderamin Prime, Akilan, Ganesh, Tianlong, or any other major Akilian or Sajit worlds with a population over ten billion, you may have to wait for hours to use a busy gate.

  When it was our turn, our omni flew closer to the core of the gate, which appeared to be a dark sphere against the blinding shine of the star.

  We jumped in a flash. Now the external cams of the omni were showing different constellations. We had just crossed some 600 parsecs instantaneously. It would have taken us two millennia to cross that distance at near-light speed.

  That was still a tiny jump on the scale of the galaxy. The distance between Erebo Caelis and Alderamin Prime, for example, was more than 20,000 parsecs.

  Our omni flew around the star on a tight orbit to another gate and jumped again. We arrived to the system where Vlasto and Alden planned to set a trap. Now we needed to get to the rendezvous point. Alden had sent an omni to meet with us; maybe some mercs he’d recruited for the job, or a bunch of smugglers.

  I brought our craft to the coordinates Alden provided. The other omni got closer and stopped a couple of klicks away. It was slightly bigger than ours, but still in the same category: a light multipurpose transport. We started exchanging coded transmissions, as spies would do. Now we had to wait.

  Nothing happened. After half an hour, I called the mission off, as Alden had instructed. Our omni would proceed to the nearest space station where a dropship was waiting for us.

  “I’ll go for a little space walk,” I told my squadmates casually. “Proceed to the space station as planned.”

  Lancer and Kodiak looked at me with puzzled frowns.

  “You have your orders,” I said to cut short any objections.

  I equipped a quantum suit, left the omni through the airlock, and fired the cyclotron thruster as soon its engines came online. The omni’s thrusters would mask the energy signature of my cyclotron.

  I reached the other omni and attached myself to the rear panel. This craft’s thrusters were located laterally to the hull, not at the rear, so I had no risk of getting burned by the plasma jets when it accelerated.

  The omni flew to the nearest gate and jumped. There was no traffic in the system where we appeared—another backwater world. The omni set course for what looked like a small space station on my map.

  A Venatici frigate decloaked right above the craft, so unexpectedly that I had the impression that it had materialized out of nowhere. Magnetic fingers grabbed the omni. Its engine fell silent. The belly of the frigate de-solidified and the omni was pulled inside, while the frigate was still accelerating at 1G.

  I released a cloaked beacon drone that would attach itself to the hull of the frigate and allow the Dromon to follow it. As soon as the bay doors re-solidified, I jumped on the floor of the hangar and waited.

  A squad of comsynts marched to the omni and entered it through the airlock. They would follow the protocol, which called for a full inspection of the captured ship and a preliminary interrogation of the crew. That would be a waste of time, because the crew had no intel to offer. They didn’t even know the identity of their employer, and they’d only accepted the job to make a quick buck. The transmissions they had exchanged with the other omni were gibberish.

  Alden’s plan had worked. I left the hangar, found an IT terminal, hacked the system, and downloaded everything I could. The analysts of our legion would have a nice Christmas present, to use an expression I learned from Jake.

  Now I needed to get out undetected. I returned to the hangar to find the comsynts still inspecting the omni. I went to one of the thrusters and stuck the barrel of my Radovaris inside it. I selected ionic-discharge mode, maximum intensity, and fired once.

  The ship jerked as the engine came back to life. Electric arcs danced on the fuselage for a second. I dodged the wave of heat coming from the thruster, holstered my blaster, and attached myself to the hull using the molecular-adhesive layer on my gloves.

  The crew of the frigate reacted immediately. They surely believed that the omni was about to self-destruct. The hangar doors de-solidified and the omni was spaced. The doors immediately re-solidified behind it.

  I fired my cyclotron thruster for a fraction of a second, just enough to give me some momentum. I needed to put some distance between me and the omni.

  The anti-capital blasters of the frigate pointed at the defenseless craft and pulverized it in one salvo. The little omni stood no chance against such firepower. Everyone on board perished in an instant, including the squad of comsynts. They were expendable in the eyes of their master.

  I drifted in space, waiting for the Dromon to pick me up. I couldn’t relax, though; I needed to sift through the data I’d downloaded. I searched for any evidence that Octavia had contacted the owner of the frigate—and found an intriguing vid. It was encrypted, but this encryption was familiar to me and I was able to crack it. The vid showed a conversation between Octavia and a Venatici lord, one I didn’t recognize immediately. Tall and gaunt, he was at least three centuries old, as the shadows around his eyes were totally dark. I shivered when I saw a nasty scar on his forehead above the right eye.

  Only one Venatici had such a scar, to my knowledge. He was probably the most feared being in the Empire, the most feared being in the known universe, even more than the Emperor himself.

  Sir Armentaris, the former head of Intelligence Service, now the leader of the Isolationist faction.

  “You failed, Lady Leonis.” Armentaris’s tone was cold as deep space.

  “Please give me another chance, milord,” Octavia pleaded.

  “Do I need to remind you what is at stake, Leonis? Or maybe I should remind you what will happen to your family if you do not honor your end of our quid pro quo?”

  Octavia lowered her eyes. “That will not be necessary. I do have a plan to solve the problem. Permanently.”

  “Good.” The gaze of Armentaris’s dark eyes had the sharpness of an anti-baryonic drill.

  “But what if someone discovers what I’d done on Erebo Polis?” Octavia asked.

  “That will not happen,” Armentaris said. “My agents covered your tracks. They left a breadcrumb trail leading to House Kaballar. Focus on your mission. Forget about the petty disputes between Venatici factions. The real danger to the very survival of the Empire comes from our own creation—synthorgs. Their disobedience will unavoidably lead to rebellion, and we must crush the very idea of a synthorg rebellion before it even takes root. Zero tolerance—any act of disobedience must be punished by termination. Even more importantly, we cannot allow any synthorg to reach the status of war hero, or any other form of celebrity.”

  Octavia nodded. “I understand, milord. RGS-358 will be terminated.”

  I stared into the darkness of space as into a bottomless pit, long after the vid stopped playing.

  Now I knew who had hired the Lemures to eliminate me on Erebo Polis. That had been a brilliant move. Everyone assumed that my master was the target, and the assassination attempt had created a major diplomatic incident between the Inclusivists and the Imperialists. While their rivals were embroiled into a feud, the Isolationists were free to pursue their own agenda. They were the true enemies of the synthorg liberation cause.

  And Octavia, the tribune of my legion, the only Venatici I’d trusted, was one of them.

  33. Tale of the two rivers

  Once I was recovered by the Dromon, I provided all the data I had to Vlasto and Alden, except for the vid of the virtual meeting between Octavia and Armentaris. That one I’d deleted. Even without it, there was enough evidence in the databanks to prove that the tribune was working for the Isolationists.

  Vlasto congratulated me and promised to promote me, but not now, not straight away, to avoid arousing suspicion.

  Lianxing was our next destination. Vlasto informed the Coalition that—according to the intel our legion had gathered—there was a rebel base on that world. We had to tread carefully, as Lianxing was home to the Xian Dao, the dominant religion of the Sajit.

  The GCC agreed to a joint mission, under the condition that it would be under direct control of the general in charge of planetary defense. Reluctantly, Vlasto agreed. The very idea of being subordinate to a human went against my master’s instincts. He would have to swallow his pride if he wanted a chance to get his hands on the leaders of the rebellion.

  Only one company would go to Lianxing, while the rest of the legion would remain on Lacerta under Alden’s command and assist the GCC army. We boarded a small, but fast GCC troop transport and set sail toward the galactic southeast quadrant. The Dromon shadowed our transport closely and remained cloaked at all times.

  The journey took three days, during which I got better acquainted with my squadmates. Jake seemed to recover from the traumatic events he’d witnessed on Freya, although his noobish innocence was lost forever. Another casualty of war.

 

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