Cardenas (Findlay IV), Findlay System, Eriuman Republic.
Sang quickly grew used to hearing soft, easy chatter in Bellona’s suite, once Khalil returned. Because Sang oversaw every aspect of the colony, he knew that Khalil took one of the tiny sitting rooms in the old section as his quarters and he returned to them every night. At most other times, though, Khalil could be found in the center room, applying his ability to think in structures and systems to Bellona’s plans.
Sang was included in the free-flow, long discussions where most of the final decisions were made. He took care of implementing them.
The center room, which had once been devoid of anything useful, became a gathering room. Chairs were grown, a small table appeared. None of them matched. Cushion colors clashed. Yet the chairs were comfortable and the table useful. Possessions littered horizontal surfaces, giving the room an untidy, lived-in appearance. Sang found the clutter odd after the disciplined simplicity of the Cardenas family home, but not unpleasant.
Sang also spent time maintaining the relationship he had built with Connie, as the AI had wanted be called. Bellona called Connie “she” because of the feminine tag, yet Sang could discern no gender in the AI and barely any personality beyond that of an unformed, mostly bewildered child. Previous owners of the yacht had not interfaced with the AI except with direct commands. Connie had been socially retarded when Sang had reached out to the yacht. However, Connie would be instrumental in their plans for Ledan, so Sang liked to keep her placid and happy by off-setting the first tendrils of loneliness she was beginning to experience.
Khalil reviewed the already-made decisions with Sang, too. “Which came first?” he asked Sang. “A convenient desert where a Karassian frigate can be landed, or the lack of satellite coverage except for one that you control?”
Sang shook his head. “I don’t control it. Not yet.”
“Controlling it and limiting it would set off alarm signals, of course.”
“When landing guidance is needed, will be soon enough to sever its strings.”
Khalil pursed his full lips. “The timing will be critical.”
“Every element of this venture is critical. We are heading into the heart of Karassian territory, to an installation that has been raided once already. The Karassians have many faults, yet they are very good at learning from experience. We won’t be able to stroll into the compound the way we did last time.” Sang paused. “My timing will be accurate,” he added.
“If we had not strolled into the compound the first time, there would be no driving force for the second. It is what it is.”
Bellona’s driving force was considerable. “My memories of Ledan are of kinder people, all of them open-hearted, with no agendas and no expectations,” she had explained. “It angers me to think of them being manipulated as they are.”
“They will not be like that once they remember who they are,” Khalil warned her.
“We all are like that, inside.”
“No,” Khalil said firmly. “There are monsters parading as humans. You could dig to their centers and fail to find that core.”
“No one in Ledan is like that,” Bellona said. “Their cores were exposed, there. Enhanced, biobots, cybernetics, freaks all of them, but human, at the base.”
“You trust them,” Sang surmised.
“More than anyone in the known worlds,” Bellona said.
Khalil remained silent. Yet he did not look away. His posture did not shift. He had already accepted this truth, then. He understood his position with a clarity that was rare among humans.
Sang knew Khalil’s complacency wouldn’t last. No one, not even Sang, could live with qualified acceptance in the long term. Belonging was a basic human drive that androids, whose awareness was patterned upon human awareness, and AIs, who aped human consciousness, also shared.
As it turned out, it wasn’t just Khalil who was blasted out of stasis.
* * * * *
The news came from every shaded source Sang had, including Connie, who babbled in panic as she was a Karassian ship in Eriuman space. The satellite also reported high yield news streams, while the data pools within which Sang kept a mental taprod all shivered with the impact.
The known worlds bolted upright, the trivia of the everyday evaporating, as they measured their neighbors, terrified.
Sang absorbed the baseline facts as he ran for Bellona’s quarters. By the time he pushed on the heavy door and stepped inside, he had assembled it into shocking whole.
Bellona and Khalil were talking to Shalev Zeni. Zeni was responsible for the personal combat readiness of everyone who would be going to Kachmar. Her work was made difficult because of the cultural bias of the known worlds: Big ships did the fighting.
Overcoming resistance to learning self-defense was a constant topic with Zeni. Bellona was sanguine, though. “When they face their first test of physical strength and readiness, they will either die, or they will understand. I don’t care which. It is up to them. I, though, intend to survive.”
Bellona trained harder than anyone else in the caverns except for Khalil, who had already faced reality at least once. Her example and Khalil’s did more to motivate everyone else than anything Zeni did.
Sang trained beside both of them. He found it difficult to foresee any occasion when he would need to use the skills, for his role in the venture to retrieve Bellona’s friends was defined and passive. However, he could not eliminate the possibility altogether. There were too many quantum unknowns. So, he trained and was pleased at the progress he made.
Zeni looked up as Sang burst into the gathering room, startled.
Sang breathed heavily. “There is news,” he told the three. “It is…dire.” He looked at Zeni. “Leave us, please.”
Zeni scowled and looked at Bellona. Bellona jerked her head toward the door, making Zeni’s mouth drop open. She got stiffly to her feet and slid past Sang with another heavy glare.
He ignored it and sat where Zeni had been sitting, in the low chair that was difficult to rise from without scrambling. He sat on the edge and realized he had threaded his hands together and was working them. He put the palms on his knees and made them stay still.
“Verified reports have come in from multiple sources,” he told Bellona and Khalil. “The city state of Shavistran and everything in local airspace above it was destroyed by a single strike from an unknown attacker.”
Khalil dropped his head into his hands and bent over his knees. The sound that emerged from him was wordless and pain-filled.
Bellona rested her hand on his shoulder and looked at Sang. “Benjamin Arany was there?” she asked.
Sang nodded. “Shavistran was one of the conjectured locations of Arany’s secret base.” He looked at Khalil, who shuddered. “It is confirmed, now.”
Bellona bit her lip. “More of the Bureau’s manipulations?” She asked the question softly, as if she didn’t want Khalil to hear it.
“A stray satellite outside the blast cone captured the destruction. It was a single source, from high orbit.”
Bellona let out an unsteady breath. “Then the rumors about the Karassian’s city-killer weapon are true.”
“The senior Republic families have all condemned Karassia,” Sang said. “Including your father, in uncharacteristically emotional terms.”
Bellona’s jaw flexed.
“The Homogeny Council of Independence has denied the attack.” Sang grimaced. “They say the weapon was stolen.”
“Stolen?” Bellona looked startled.
Khalil sat up and wiped his face. “Do you believe them?” he asked Sang. His voice was strained.
“I haven’t extrapolated yet. The facts are still assembling.”
“Guess, then,” Khalil insisted.
“It would seem unlikely that a weapon they have been developing for years, if the rumors are true, would be in a location so insecure that someone could steal it, ship it and use it without Karassia crying foul before this moment.”
Khalil nodded and looked at Bellona. “They were involved. Even if their involvement was a matter of turning their backs at the right moment. Yet I know it was more than that. The Homogeny wanted my brother and his fleet destroyed. They were a problem they had no other way to deal with.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Bellona said quickly.
Khalil leapt to his feet. “They destroyed an entire world! Do you know how many people lived in Shavistran? How many families?”
“Even if there had been only one family, one building and one life destroyed, it would still be too many,” Bellona told him, rising to her feet, too. “Although there were far more than that on Shavistran, I know. That is why we cannot assign guilt without being certain. This is such a monstrous act, Khalil. To point at the wrong person and bring upon them the consequences of such an act…it would be just as wrong. We must tread carefully.”
Khalil laughed humorlessly. “Who else could it be? The strongest free-state force, the single group who might have the strength and resources to steal such a weapon away from the Karassians was my brother’s.”
“If that is true, which must be ascertained,” Sang said, “then that leaves only Erium, or the Bureau.”
Bellona drew in a long, steadying breath. “I find it hard to believe that Erium would do such a thing.”
“Now who is abandoning reason?” Khalil said bitterly. He walked from the room, his steps uneven.
Sang watched the door close. “He will reconsider later, when he is calmer,” he told Bellona.
“He’s right,” Bellona said, also studying the closed door. “I don’t know for certain that Erium is not involved. I would just prefer it not be. Find out, Sang. Put every resource on it. We need the truth. All three of us have much riding on the answers you find.”
Sang considered the request dispassionately. “I have no personal stake in it,” he pointed out.
“Erium made you,” Bellona pointed out.
“Erium grew my body. The Bureau developed my awareness. Anything in addition to that is mine alone.”
“I’m glad you have the comfort of believing that,” Bellona told him. “May it serve you well.”
* * * * *
Khalil found equilibrium of a sort. He became convinced that the murder of his brother and his brother’s people were evidence that Bellona was the destined leader of free people everywhere. His conviction seemed to comfort him.
“It must be you,” he told Bellona. “You are the only one left with an outsider’s perspective.”
“I am Eriuman,” Bellona replied. “How does that make me an outsider?”
“You were born Eriuman. Then you were Karassian for ten years. Now, even Erium does not want you.”
Bellona shook her head and refrained from responding. She instead turned her attention to the preparations for the raid. “Now is the perfect time,” she insisted. “The known worlds are reeling. The Homogeny is focused upon everyone else, determined to deflect any and all accusations.”
They immersed themselves in the work of preparations. Sang also spent his spare energy compiling facts about the death of Shavistran as they reached him, slotting them into the slowly emerging picture. There was not yet enough information to see any patterns, although the talk, the accusations, the paranoia and speculation were overwhelming in volume.
On the eve of the raid, Khalil sat in his favorite chair, his hands linked together loosely, his head down. “Have you thought of what you will do once you have freed your people?” he asked Bellona.
“I told you. No. One step at a time.”
“You have yet to avenge Max’s death,” Khalil pointed out.
“How do I do that?” Bellona asked reasonably. “The Bureau is faceless and hidden. They have no homeworld to shoot at. Their tentacles reach across the known worlds. They are everywhere. There is no head to cut off.” She gave him a small smile. “I could kill you right now. You are Bureau—”
“Was.”
“Do they really let go so easily?” she asked gently.
“I have let go. It wasn’t easy, but it was done.”
“Even if you were still theirs, heart and soul, killing you would achieve nothing. Not even vengeance would be satisfied, for vengeance demands hurt and pain. It is impossible to hurt the Bureau. No one, not even you, knows how to make them feel pain or regret.”
“Or do you?” Sang asked.
“If there was a beating heart to the Bureau I would tear it out with my bare hands and give it to you.” Khalil sighed. “Sang has more humanity than they.”
“I have a heart, certainly,” Sang agreed.
Bellona smiled. “We won’t tell anyone, Sang.”
Khalil looked down at his hands, flexing them. “So much injustice, from so many places. There is no direction I can look where I will not see it.”
Bellona picked up his hand. “Look to Ledan, for now. I am.”
His fingers closed over hers.
Sang slid quietly from the room.
The next day, the operation began.