part0042

The hangar deck behind him was deserted and still save for the squeak of a few hungry bats. Between the cornea replacement from the damage caused by the emergency transponder, the pain of three cracked ribs stabbing him every time he stretched the wrong way, and the ongoing ringing in his ears, Graves hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he’d been brought here from Olympus Station.

The doctor told him the pain from the eye surgery and the ribs and the hearing damage would get better with time. There was no cure for the nightmares.

Instead of sleeping at night, he walked. He visited the nursery to see Cassie sleeping. He explored the underground tunnel system, surprising the young men and women on guard duty. But most of the time he ended up right here, on the edge of the flight deck, staring up at the star-studded skies.

The official name for the site was New Earth Order Assault Base Twelve, but the residents called it Shangri-La.

Not a bad likeness, Graves reasoned, as he looked out the moonlit valley. Behind him in the tunnels carved out of this mountain were enough weapons of war to start a revolution.

That’s exactly what the Sentinels were planning to do—start a war to take back the future of the human race from SynCorp.

Graves gritted his teeth. In hindsight, everyone should have seen that it would be just a matter of time before the council turned their destructive tendencies on each other. Power was a hungry beast and absolute power was ravenous.

Anthony Taulke was dead and Graves felt the loss of the man. The elder Taulke had his flaws to be sure, but when it came down to it, he cared.

Graves still chose to believe Anthony’s move to place him and Cora on the Council of Corporations was sincere. He was equally sure Anthony had some trick up his sleeve to benefit himself more than others, but that was just his nature. Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.

He felt the burden of Cora’s presence in everything he did. Graves was a father now whether he liked it or not and he had to start thinking like one. That’s what Cora would have wanted.

He decided to call the child Cassie, because in his mind there was no running away from her future. Whatever they had done to the child in utero was done—there would be a time to deal with that. Graves’s responsibility now was to help her grow up as normally as possible and face whatever the future had in store for her.

For now, they would both stay at Shangri-La. Together. That was the most important part.

“I thought I might find you here.” Olga’s voice was scratchy with lack of sleep. She took his arm gently so as not to tweak his ribs. The night air was cool and she moved close to him. “It’ll be light in a few hours. Have you thought about what you’re going to say?”

Cora’s funeral. Graves had asked that her body be put in cold storage until he could decide what to do. He tried to think of what she would want him to do with her remains. Corazon Santos was a woman without a home, he finally decided. Or rather, a woman for whom the world was her home.

A funeral pyre at dawn, Viking style, was Graves’ decision. No one questioned it or even looked at him strangely and the Buddhists among the cadre of rebels here even seemed enthusiastic.

Graves slipped his arm around her waist, ignoring the tweaks of pain from his bound ribs.

Graves nodded. He could see a paleness spreading across the sky behind the mountains on the other side of the deep valley. “She was my friend.”

He squinted at the valley floor. In the daytime he liked to watch the herd of goats play in the sun. Cora would have appreciated their antics. He drew Olga closer and felt her respond.

“No,” he said. “Cora had bigger things on her mind than some broken-down old soldier like me.”

“Stay with me. Fight with us. You and Cassie belong here, Will. It’s what she would have wanted for the child.”

“Every day matters, Will. SynCorp is consolidating their power. They will rape this planet for whatever they want. People, resources, information. There’s nothing the UN or any other government can do. The Sentinels are the resistance.”

“They won’t stop until they have Cassie,” Olga said. “She’s part of their plan and you messed with that plan.”

Someone had managed to find Graves a US Army dress uniform complete with correct rank insignia and all his medals. The size was correct, but the uniform fit loosely. He’d lost weight.

Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he adjusted his tie and smiled wryly. The black eye patch over his damaged eye gave him a rakish look. A US Army pirate. How fitting for a member of a rebel faction out to save the world.

A young woman waited for him at the nursery with Cassie bundled into a ball of blankets. He took the child from her. Cassie was asleep, her tiny lips moving in imaginary feeding. Her features were delicate, her skin a light brown, the same shade as her mother’s. A wisp of dark hair peeked out from under her cap.

The elevator took the three of them from the main personnel deck to the peak of the mountain. When he stepped out of the elevator car, the first rays of the sun were just creeping over the distant mountains and a chill breeze cut through his uniform jacket.

A group of about a hundred people gathered around a tiered pyre of wood and brush. Cora’s body lay on top of the six-foot high structure. She wore a simple, gray dress and her silver hair was braided and looped across her shoulder. She had Graves’s Saint Christopher medal around her neck. In life, her skin had a luminous glow. That was gone now. Her skin was dark and lifeless, more like clay than flesh.

He handed Cassie off to the nurse and stepped to the front of the gathering. His ribs tweaked when he took in a deep breath to speak.

“I didn’t know Corazon Santos long, but I knew her well. Or rather, she knew me well. The first time we met, she told me she had walked a thousand miles to find me. I laughed it off. She told me I would help her save the world. I laughed again.”

Graves broke off, feeling the bite of the chill breeze bring tears to his unprotected eye.

“I’m not laughing today. I mourn for my friend. I mourn for a woman who gave her life for a cause bigger than herself. A cause of human rights and freedom of choice for all people wherever they live in the universe.” He looked over at Cassie and saw the child’s eyes were open, watching him. The golden stare made him catch his breath. She was listening to him, hearing him. It made no sense, but he knew it was happening.

“There is no better example of her selflessness than her last act of saving a child. Cassandra is alive because of Corazon Santos. The child is her legacy—and ours.”

Graves took the burning brand from the hand of a young man in a paramilitary uniform. He wore a patch on his shoulder, a crossed sword and olive branch superimposed over an image of Earth. The sign of the Sentinels.

He thrust the flame deep into the base of the pyre. The dry material caught quickly, consuming loose brush with a crackling roar. The flame burst through the top of the pyre, enveloping Cora’s body in seconds. Graves took a step backwards in the face of the sudden heat.

Cassie let out a piercing wail. The sound gripped Graves’s spine and shook him to the core. The young man next to him let out a grunt and dropped to one knee, his hands pressed against the back of his neck.

“Yeah, just felt a jolt. Right in the back of the neck.” He got to his feet, and when he dropped his hands, Graves saw the young man had a Neo tattoo.

“I think the fire startled her, sir,” said the nurse. She bounced Cassie gently in her arms.