Messiah

  Energy weapons cut across the blackness of its skin, absorbed into the alien ship. Missiles fired at it failed to lock on properly, exploding fore or aft, or tumbling down into the mountains.

  The one-sided dogfight followed the ship along the spine of the mountains, until it passed by the mountain outpost of Bleek Munitions. As the ship passed over the camouflaged outpost, two shadows separated from the speeding ship, so small that none of the trailing fighters spared them any attention as they plummeted into the side of the mountain.

  The black ship made an impossible right-angle turn and accelerated toward Proudhon. Below it, black shadows melted into the snow below Bleek’s hidden outpost. The shadows rolled uphill, gathering mass from the snow-pack and the rock beneath, coalescing into two humanoid figures.

  When Rebecca had knees again, they felt a little weak. The hyperawareness she’d gained as Adam’s disciple had not gone away, even if the scope was more limited now, and she had viscerally lived through Toni’s chaotic descent into Bakunin’s atmosphere. And even though their jump to the surface wasn’t any different than multiple prior descents she had made as part of Adam’s host, this had been the first time as an individual. Her brain, rewired and distributed it might be, still had a lifetime of training that what she had just done was supposed to be fatal.

  But she and Shane had managed to reassemble themselves in front of Jonah Dacham’s goal, the mountain facilities that had—long ago—housed his own company during the Confederacy’s assault on Bakunin. Here they could find passage into the mountain’s complex set of chambers, and find the Protean barrier, and possibly have a chance of disabling it.

  The pair of them walked past the edge of the holographic projection that masked the site from outside observers. On the other side they were greeted by twenty soldiers from the PDC, braced, weapons leveled at them.

  The hostile fighter escort broke off from the dropship as they entered Proudhon’s immediate airspace. True to the colonel’s word, they had safe passage once they got within range to communicate. The ship set down in the midst of a half-abandoned spaceport, and once it touched ground, the black second skin withdrew and faded, leaving the smoldering remains of an unflyable aircraft.

  Mallory was first to disembark.

  He walked out into blazing daylight, on to the surface of Bakunin, and into a surreal negative reflection of the first time he had come here, nine months ago. Then, it had been night, and he couldn’t see the city for the landing lights. Today, Kropotkin shone down oppressively on a bleached-white skyline that looked like the bones of some giant creature sinking into the desert.

  Before it was all lights, and movement, and noise... now the silence was as stifling as the heat. The few aircars he did see moving didn’t feel like the lifeblood of a bustling city, they felt more like flies buzzing around a corpse.

  The cluster of white towers marking the center of Proudhon were marred by soot and fire damage, and one ended slightly short of the others, the roofline ragged and black. He felt as if he was looking at a ruin.

  There was another stark contrast to his prior arrival. The last time he arrived, which could have been to this same LZ, he hadn’t been challenged. The anarchic flow of immigrants was allowed to mix into Proudhon without any obvious intervention by any authority. He had walked straight from the air lock into the city proper without so much as filling out a form.

  This day, fifteen soldiers stood between him and the concourse, about fifty meters away, wearing uniforms that seemed slight modifications of the jumpsuit Parvi had worn when he had first met her.

  He stood at a safe distance and made no sudden moves. Behind him, he heard the Valentines deboard the ship after him.

  He called to the soldiers, “My name’s Father Francis Xavier Mallory. Colonel Bartholomew invited me.”

  The soldiers split into two groups flanking an aisle to the concourse. One of them stepped forward and waved at Mallory. “Follow me,” he said.

  The three of them stepped forward to follow the soldier into the concourse. Mallory spared a glance back at the dropship.

  It was never going anywhere again. The rear engine housings had collapsed in on themselves, and were still steaming. Half the skin of the ship looked as if it had peeled away.

  Inside the concourse, he faced more wholesale changes. It was a different place than the one that greeted him last time, but it was obviously part of the same complex, the black granite floor with the accent of stainless steel was familiar. But it wasn’t spotless. Trash had gathered in the corners, and the surface was dull, scuffed, and stained.

  There was no surging crowd. The halls were mostly empty except for a few military personnel and the occasional guard. Above them, the crystal skylight that had once shown an enhanced view of the sky above was a flat dark gray. And the few terminal kiosks they passed all seemed to be dead.

  The three of them were led through the concourse, to a near-abandoned subway, where a single train car took them into the center of Proudhon. As they rode on in silence, Mallory said a short prayer for the people who used to inhabit this city.

  The train came to a stop in a vast station lined with marble and neoclassical columns. Advertising holos were inset into the walls, but all showed a graphic logo for the Proudhon Spaceport Development Corporation. He didn’t read all of the flashing text, but what he did read was enough:

  “Order will be restored, with your cooperation.”

  “Serve public safety, report suspicious activity.”

  “PSDC: Order, Security, Strength.”

  In nine months, Bakunin’s anarchy had slid into fascism.

  He expected to be led into one of the central towers above them. Instead, their military escort led them through two checkpoints down into a utilitarian sublevel. It gave Mallory another strong feeling of déjà vu. The corridors they walked down mirrored the subbasement at St. Marbury University, where he used to teach. He had only visited those maintenance levels once, when Cardinal Jacob Anderson had recruited him.

  That was almost a year ago . . .

  They walked into a large room that had been retrofitted to serve as a communications center. Disassembled shelves and other debris had been piled along one naked concrete wall, while the other had been lined with comm consoles manned by a host of young, earnest, and very tired-looking personnel. They were led past the impromptu command center, stepping over power cables, toward a smaller room in the back that was guarded by a pair of serious looking men holding rifles at parade rest.

  The one on the right acknowledged them and typed something on a keypad, and the door slid open. From inside, he heard a voice, “Come in, Father Mallory.”

  Mallory walked into the room and Colonel Bartholomew stood and smiled. “Thank you. We need help.”

  “I have limited help to offer,” Mallory said. “I’m hoping you can provide some last-ditch defense on the surface.” I’m hoping for a miracle.

  “But your presence is helpful by itself. We had an attempted coup here, and the result destroyed our chain of command. The PDC has degenerated into autonomous units. Worse, in the chaos, the details of what our leadership knew about you and the fighting in the outer system leaked out. It damaged Proudhon’s credibility.”

  Mallory’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t know?”

  “The blockade was, is, on information as well as physical traffic.”

  “God help us all,” Mallory whispered.

  “But because of that leaked information, they know who you are. A message from you and we can unify our forces again under a single command.”

  “Colonel,” one of the Valentines told him, “we already have a second wave of Adam’s forces taching into the system. There are only limited forces left in the system to combat him. We may be seeing an invasion within an hour.”

  Colonel Bartholomew stared at Mallory with an uncomfortable intensity. “We better get moving.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Souls

  “You cann
ot argue with high explosives.”

  —The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

  “In a war of religion, it is more important to crush the enemy’s God than the enemy himself.”

  —BORIS KALECSKY

  (2103-2200)

  Date: 2526.8.13 (Standard) 7.2 AU from Bakunin-BD+50°1725

  The eighteenth ship from the Prophet’s Sword was the first to tach into the system and not be greeted by a swarm of self-directed mines. None were left to greet it. The Adam who dwelled aboard it perceived the still-boiling plasma that was all that remained of seventeen sister ships and the carrier that berthed them.

  Even though He had foreseen the possibility of what had happened, it did not diminish His rage. This cursed place would be scoured of every scrap of life. He would walk the planet and personally tear the souls from the people who had so conspired against Him.

  He pushed his awareness out, to see what forces were arrayed against Him, and He saw less than five hundred ships. As a force, they were barely relevant. He also perceived the mark of the Proteans on Bakunin’s largest moon, and He deduced that they were responsible for the plasma cloud his ship drifted through.

  As the twentieth ship tached into the system, Adam began planning how He would punish those who defied Him.

  Date: 2526.8.13 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725

  “Where the hell is he?” Parvi said.

  “Hm?” Flynn said, not taking his eyes off the chessboard. He finally moved his king’s pawn and gave his hand over to Tetsami for her response.

  “Lubikov? Where is he?”

  Flynn watched his hand reach out and take his pawn. “Your turn, sonny.” Instead of responding to the gambit, he leaned back and looked at Parvi, who sat on the edge of the couch staring at the door. “You were enjoying his little interrogations?”

  Parvi turned and looked at him. “That bastard is the only conduit of information we have.”

  “Information he wants us to have,” Flynn said. “We have no way to know if he’s just making stuff up.”

  Parvi shook her head.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Flynn said, “you’re why we made it as far as we did.”

  “I just wish I—” She was interrupted by a large muffled bang that resonated through the walls of the suite. “What the hell?”

  More muffled bangs and rattles. And Parvi slowly stood up, shaking her head. “Gunshots?”

  “Maybe it’s something else . . .”

  Flynn realized that it wasn’t something else once the alarms began blaring. “Gram, I think our game’s done.”

  “No shit, sonny.”

  Parvi backed to the wall next to the door to the suite. Flynn grunted, clutching his still-healing gut as he stood and mirrored her position on the other side of the door. “Okay, you’re the mercenary. We’re unarmed and injured, what do you expect us to do?”

  “If one person comes—” She hesitated a moment, and while the contrast of her white hair made her skin appear darker than it actually was, Flynn thought it went a bit ashen as she spoke. She stared at the floor a moment. “One person alone, I’ll distract them and you overpower them, get their weapon.”

  “Okay.” The sirens still blared, and the sounds of gunfire and people shouting were coming closer. Flynn looked around for something that could be a weapon. He grabbed a nearby endtable, flipped it upside down, and kicked one of the metal legs until it broke free. For a few long seconds he held his stomach, staring at the ground.

  Kicking is a bad thing. Got to remember that.

  “You want me to do this?”

  “I got it, Gram.”

  He reached down, making a point to bend with his knees, and picked up the metal table leg. The improvised club was disappointingly light, and Flynn wondered if using it would be any more effective than tackling someone unarmed.

  “More than one,” Parvi said, “or someone in powered armor, we surrender.”

  They stood there, the air thick with tension and the sound of fighting. The siren blared constantly, setting Flynn’s nerves on edge. Then the sounds of fighting retreated.

  After about fifteen minutes, all that was left was the sound of the siren. He had the realization that they might not be a priority for either attackers or defenders. Flynn stared across at Parvi and said, “What if nobody comes?”

  She didn’t answer.

  When the door opened, it was without any sound as preamble, and it startled him so badly that he almost dropped his makeshift club. He took a step back as a single elderly figure walked into the room. He took one look at the bald scalp dotted with tattoos, and his club slid from his fingers to clatter on the ground.

  Alexander Shane looked at both of them in turn and said, “Flynn Jorgenson, Vijayanagara Parvi? I think you may want to come with me.”

  Flynn followed Shane into the hallway, followed by Parvi. In the back of his mind he heard Tetsami. “Where the hell did he come from?”

  Outside, in the hallway, Flynn smelled, faintly, the odor of overheated metal; a weapon discharge, but distant. Not from Shane; he was unarmed.

  Nor from the soldier whose unconscious form lay crumpled on the floor of the corridor across the hall from their suite. Flynn knew the smell didn’t originate with that man, because the unconscious man’s weapon was in discreet disassembled pieces scattered on the floor around him.

  “You recovered rather quickly,” Parvi said as Flynn remembered the tach-comm on Salmagundi, the Protean disarming its opponents and repairing the damaged tiger.

  “I had help,” Shane told her. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

  “Why should I trust you?” Parvi asked.

  “We’re on the same side.”

  “I’m not even sure who you are.”

  Flynn looked up at Shane and said, “You’re with Proteus now, aren’t you?”

  Parvi turned to look at Flynn, “What the hell are you talking about? The Proteans were wiped off this planet centuries ago.”

  “They came back,” Shane said.

  “Nickolai!”

  Kugara screamed at the tiger as he walked toward the monk’s barrier. She started to run toward him, to grab him, drag him away from the twisting chaos that barrier had become. Something hit her blind in the back, and her muscles went to jelly. She twisted on her wounded foot, and the dagger of pain through her leg made her topple.

  As she fell, she saw writhing black tentacles whip by Nickolai, as if he approached the maw of a giant mutant anemone. For some reason, it made her think of the Protean on Salmagundi.

  She slammed to the ground as one of the barrier’s tentacles whipped by where she had stood. She heard the others scrambling away from her. They hadn’t moved far enough away from the thing. She heard yells, and someone, probably Dörner, called her name.

  A length of pure blackness the thickness of her torso slammed into the ground a meter in front of her face. The sound of the impact rang in her ears. She looked up at the thing as the tentacle in front of her withdrew; she watched it rise up and readied to dodge one way or another.

  Out of the corner of her eye she still saw Nickolai.

  The black tentacle started down, and she rolled away, focusing on where Nickolai was. Somehow he had made it to the original surface of Lazarus’ barrier without being grabbed or crushed. In fact, the writhing tentacles seemed to spread apart for the advancing tiger, giving Nickolai a clear path inward.

  The tentacle she had dodged slammed into the ground next to her.

  Another came slamming down on her and she attempted to dodge again, rolling away too slowly. She saw the black silhouette eclipsing the artificial galaxy above her.

  Before it hit her, it vanished.

  She blinked, her body too tense to breathe and unwilling to relax. But it was gone. Not only the tentacle above her, but also the sound of the others whipping and cracking through the air. She pushed herself upright and saw that Nickolai was gone, too.

  The barrier had resumed its original form, a blank,
black hemisphere, completely inert.

  She stared at it and whispered, “Nickolai?”

  Kugara was certain that the attack had ceased as soon as Nickolai had crossed the threshold. But she didn’t know if it meant he was alive or dead. But now that she stared at the black hemisphere, she couldn’t help but picture Nickolai’s eyes, and the Protean.

  The Protean had sent them here.

  What if the barrier hadn’t been left by the Dolbrians?

  What if the Protean had given Nickolai more than a new set of eyes?

  “Damnation and Taxes!”

  She turned around at the sound of Lubikov’s voice. He stood about twenty meters away from her, underlit by a flashlight lying on the ground. Next to the flashlight was the other soldier who had accompanied them down here.

  Half of him, anyway—the barrier’s attack had bisected the man’s torso, clean through the layers of armor. Kugara tensed immediately because there was no sign of the dead man’s rifle.

  She looked around for the others and saw Brody and Dörner, but no sign of Brother Lazarus.

  Shane led Flynn and Parvi down through several levels of the Bleek Munitions outpost. By the time they had descended three levels, the alarms had silenced themselves. All the way down, Flynn saw evidence of the Protean attack; barriers dismantled, weapons disassembled, mercenary soldiers collapsed on the ground.

  How did Alexander Shane, of all people, become part of this?

  When they reached the lowest level, where the walls became polished stone and the conduits for power and data were exposed, one person was left conscious to greet them.

  Parvi stopped, staring at the woman, and said, “You?”

  The short redhead shrugged her shoulders and said, “ Me.”

  “You know her?” Flynn asked.