PILLARS OF LIGHT AND FIRE: THE COMPLETE SERIES, page 137
Juno and the operations team chattered in the background. Arthur lost himself in the moment of flying, this incredibly impossible ability to have nothing between him and the ground but a k-suit. The ground rushed up at him. He shifted the channel flow, his body flipped, and he landed with just a puff of dirt, the Crown Guard all around him. He kicked a rock with his toe. His first flight had gone well. Don’t get too happy with yourself. The white poncho settled around his shoulders, drifting in the hot breeze. All of them wore ponchos here—they were faceless and nearly gender neutral at first sight.
“Five clicks out,” Ed reported.
“Kai,” Arthur called, tilting his head back. He heard the rumble of tank treads well before he saw them. Kai kept her helmet on. Sam, Lamar, and Ed shot into the blue sky and vanished.
Whorls of dust blew away from them as Kai’s arm came up, ringed fingers splayed. “Incoming artillery,” Kai growled as tank shells fell around them.
“Let’s give them a hand,” Arthur said, throwing his white poncho back and raising his arm. White Hilt blazed, and he pulled until he was infused with energy, every molecule vibrating to a high-excitation state. Shells stopped short, fell, exploded, pulsing the world around them with light. Through the flashes and flares, Arthur saw the armored division approaching, blasts puffing from their barrels. The onslaught continued for minutes. The ground around them bounced and shook with explosions and impacts.
Then it was over. Smoke swirled beyond Kai’s shield. The world had been hammered and pulverized into pocked dry earth and embers. When the tank division was less than a mile away, Arthur lowered White Hilt, the tip close to the ground. The lead tank, driving hard on the road, jerked to a halt less than a hundred yards away.
“All right,” Arthur said, and heard Kai panting in his ears. She lowered her arm. “All comms, Pri.”
“You got it. Juno translating.”
“No need,” Arthur said. “The general of your army,” he said in Turkish.
The lead tank adjusted its turret. Arthur knew it had been at the limit of its close-range support. That was just for show. No one with half a brain would use a tank round on a human target.
“I would discuss terms with your general,” Arthur continued.
The tanks didn’t move.
“Shall I find him in the strategic command at Gelibolu?”
“Radio message traffic,” Prianna said. “He’s on his way.”
Fifteen minutes later, a car wove through the armored battalion. A bald, bearded man in desert fatigues stepped out of the car. “I am General Badon.”
“I am Arthur MacGabran,” Arthur said, retracting his helmet so the man could see his face. He released White Hilt and relaxed his hand.
“You wish to discuss terms?” the general said cautiously, politely.
“The terms are these: You may go home. There will be no incursion, no occupation.”
The general smiled behind his beard, but his eyes were flinty, wary. He’d seen augments before. “What do you have? There are only a handful of you.”
“Your tanks aren’t going into Syria. Your army will not invade.”
“I don’t need tanks. My numbers will overwhelm you. You do not kill. You are Kin. Too peaceful.”
“Gentle is the hand that raises the fist. Reluctant is the strike that lays the enemy low,” Arthur replied. “I can’t make you turn back by force. I won’t be able to stop you from making it to Syria. But I can promise one thing: none of your army will survive. I will dismantle all of your divisions. There will be no survivors. Your country will be exposed on its southern border to incursions of its own. The Kin haven’t raised a hand against you, that is true, but you think that there is a code that prevents us from taking military action? There is nothing but my word, and I can rescind my word.”
The general shook his head. “The invasion’s already started. You’re too late.”
“Ed,” Arthur subvocalized.
A body fell before the general, startling him with the sound of meat striking soft earth. He cursed and stared at the uniform.
“Special forces. Or one of them. They’re gone already. We told your government that we would take steps. I am no nation. I am Kin. Would you like the rest of your vanguard dropped as well?”
The general’s eyes narrowed as they returned Arthur’s boring gaze. Arthur rubbed his fingertips, wondering how many waveblade strokes it would take him to cut the man down.
“I will not surrender my army,” he said after a time, in English.
“I didn’t ask you to surrender. Simply to return home to your country. If you trust the Kin, we will watch and warn your border patrols and keep airstrikes from hitting your homes.”
The general smiled, his crow’s feet etched deeply. “You are the devil’s feather, my friend. What do I tell my superiors?”
“Whatever you wish, General Badon.”
“I’m not an unreasonable man, but there are others who would not be as reasonable.”
Arthur waited. The man wanted to save face in some way.
“I need some way, some show of force…”
“I could destroy your tank division or render it inoperable without ever harming a person.” Arthur waved a hand. “I could sweep this entire area clear with god strikes. There would be nothing left, human, plant, or animal. I would prefer if it were painless. Bloodless, even.”
The general pointed a toe at the broken body. “Bloodless?”
“The vanguard isn’t really a part of your army corps, though they are coordinated from the same command structure.” Arthur stepped across the pounded earth. “How much ordnance did you use? Ten percent, and you didn’t make a scratch on two of us. Would you like to see what two Kin can do to your entire armored division?”
“You could kill me,” the general suggested.
“Yes,” Arthur said.
“This isn’t even about you at all.” The general found a boulder to sit on and the two of them conferred. General Badon wasn’t unreasonable, but he knew the game Arthur was playing. This conflict, this region, was being tossed back and forth by international powers like it was in a game of hot potato. It was more complicated than that, but perhaps there was something the Kin could do that the other augments could not. After a few moments, the general raised his hands in surrender to Arthur’s words. He went back to the car and spoke on the radio for a few moments. The armored division turned toward home. The general returned to Arthur’s side to watch them go.
“It will not go well,” the general said.
“No one said peace was easy.”
“It’s never peace here.” Badon studied Arthur with a sideways glance. “Could you really destroy my army?” He stared at the expended ordnance around the duo.
Arthur dug a bullet out of the dirt with his toe. “Worse than Kiev or Tripoli.”
“I remember Tripoli… and Kiev…” The general frowned deeply and stared at Arthur. “What of you? You won’t always be around to do what you wish.”
Arthur nodded. There was nothing to be said on that front. Badon sighed, his eyes alight with the danger ahead of him. “May it be easy,” Arthur said, sitting on the rock the general had vacated earlier.
“May it be easy for you.” The general scratched his head and got back into his car.
Hours later, the Crown Guard, satisfied the rout had been executed, gathered up Arthur and departed. Arthur gave them advice on where to focus their efforts.
Kai floated down. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” Arthur said. “Not much for me to do here. I didn’t want to leave—”
“Time to move on. We need to get back to Qabr. Morgan’s back Earthside, which means you have a lot of work to do.”
“Let’s get going.”
* * *
Anora strolled out with him to the Gryphon. Her black k-suit gleamed like polished ebony in the bright sunshine.
“A moment, please,” Anora said to the four people around Arthur.
Ed opened his mouth, but Kai elbowed him hard in the ribs and the group moved toward the bay entrance.
Anora kissed him and his hands came up automatically to pull her close. He ran his fingers through her hair. When their lips parted, her eyes were bright, like polished nickel. “I’m going back to Avalon now.”
His hands slid down to hers, where he felt the coolness of Khanda in her hand. “You can’t stay?”
Anora shook her head. “The children are there, and as much as I’d love to be here with you, we must continue our work.”
The words were like a knife in his gut.
She played with a lock of his hair, brushing it away from his forehead and touching the circlet. “Is it good?” she said, and he knew she read through the vitals streaming through his k-suit.
“I feel better,” he said, which was true, though not perfectly so. She touched his face, the motes of data flickering in her vision before going blank. “I’ll come see you at Avalon.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said.
Arthur smiled. “I have an idea. Be careful,” he said, leaning in for another kiss. Her arms tightened around him. Don’t let this be the last time, he told himself.
* * *
QABR, LIBYA—
Ed banged Arthur in the shoulder, making him wince and jolting him out of his daydream. Anora’s face vanished. They got out of the Raven, the city gleaming below them. A white ship with red medical markings called a Dove—an iteration of the Raven reconfigured for triage and transport of both medical personnel and injured—circled overhead.
“Tired?” Kai asked.
“I’m fine,” Arthur replied.
“Good, because Morgan is shitting herself. Go see her.”
“She’s not bitching to me already? I got her message when we rendezvoused with the Raven on our way back.”
“She wants to do it in person,” Kai said. “She’s on level forty-seven with Jeri.”
“I can avert a war, but I have do to this too?” Arthur muttered.
* * *
Arthur stared through the glass doors at his half sister Morgan LaFayette, who was gesticulating and screaming at no one in particular. “She seems upset,” he said.
“She’s using French,” Jeri said. “Of course she’s upset. And you get to talk to her.”
“I didn’t piss her off this time,” Arthur said.
Jeri patted his shoulder. “You should, though.”
“What happened?”
Jeri touched the panel and the doors slid open.
Morgan swung to face them, her hand balled into a fist. Her eye flicked to Jeri, who waited outside. With a supreme bout of self-control, Morgan relaxed. Her arm slid down and her features calmed. “You’re late.”
“I was busy averting war. Something you tasked me with yesterday. I’m puzzled, Morgan. I got a message to see you as soon as I returned. Jeri brought me here and you’re upset about something?”
“It’s gone,” Morgan said, unable to keep the exasperation from her voice. “Years of work. Years. Gone.”
“I don’t—”
“Pridwen, Arthur. The suit. Your suit. It’s gone.”
“Didn’t—”
“Yes, I did. It was finished. The last nanotech had been stitched into place and all the testing was complete. It was stored in this.” She motioned to an empty black capsule.
“Did you forget to bring it?” Arthur said, but held up a hand. “That was a joke. You brought it here and, what?”
“I put it here, since I had no reason to expect anyone to steal it within the walls of Perilous.”
“A reasonable assess—”
Morgan went off in a string of French and English phrases, some of which Arthur was sure were made up. When she paused to tuck a loose strand of hair back from her face, he put his hands on her shoulders. “Morg, what happened? Someone—”
“Juno, where’s the suit?” Morgan said.
“Please specify,” Juno said, her voice oddly formal.
“Where’s the Pridwen suit?” Morgan said, staring at Arthur, who thought it best to just let her go. She hadn’t lost her head of steam.
“The last known location of Pridwen is aboard the Gryphon,” Juno said.
“No, I brought it here. I opened it here to get it ready here!” Morgan shouted. “Locate Pridwen. And don’t say the damn capsule!” She threw the capsule onto the floor.
Arthur scanned the room and the door. “No forced entry.”
“Which means someone walked in and out with it,” Morgan snapped. “Ellen!”
“Isn’t the case a little—” Arthur made a motion. “Small?”
That earned him another look that suggested he was stupid. He shrugged, inspecting the room. I should be doing something else instead of letting my sister rave—
Ellen Noire, in her beetle-black k-suit with blue flowing water over her left shoulder, entered. Her powerful frame gave her a sense of presence. She toed the discarded capsule on the floor, immediately assessing the situation. “How long does it take for the suit to adhere to its wearer?”
“Good question. From the prototypes we’ve built, it takes an hour to get into the suit the first time, a day for it to adhere and align. Juno, where’s the fucking suit?”
“This is strange,” Juno said. “I’m unable to locate Pridwen.”
Ellen gestured, summoning an AR display between her hands. She gestured as though she’d done this a hundred times. New security systems, new everything, Arthur reminded himself. “I’m scrubbing Perilous feeds, but I’m not finding anything useful.” She frowned. “Are you sure—”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Morgan said.
Ellen smiled. “I’d say it can’t have walked off, but it did… shit.” She waved up the Perilous schematics and reviewed the entrances and exits. Juno was already flagging anything that might be of interest but was unable to find anything significantly out of the ordinary. “Can you make an aerial reconnaissance of the city?” She shifted to drone footage over the city, scanning the flight traffic of Kin and commercial craft alike.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” Morgan asked, coming over to view the data streams. Arthur watched, interested. Who would want a suit? A Centurion or other augment entity?
“Where’s Beckham?” Morgan asked.
“She’s practicing,” Ellen said.
“Not her. Hector.”
Ellen frowned. “They usually practice together unless she’s training Younger…”
Morgan opened her own data stream for Hector’s suit link but found nothing for the last twenty-four hours. “Either he’s not wearing his suit or his link is down. Alone, that doesn’t mean anything, but it could mean…”
“You think he stole—”
“Not him. Her,” Morgan said. She flicked her fingers and found an image of Gal Brand with the readout “LOCATION UNKNOWN.” Ellen’s data feed came up with the same thing: “BRAND, GAL—LOCATION UNKNOWN.”
“That’s strange,” Juno said.
Morgan frowned. “Sure it is.”
Arthur glanced over Ellen’s shoulder. “Could you check something?”
“Sure,” Ellen said.
“Who else has suddenly lost telemetry?” he said.
Ellen pulled up the data. Four names appeared: Beckham, Hector; Brand, Gal; Jones, Percy; Younger, Bora. All within seconds of one another. “Looks like we have ourselves a little heist crew.”
“I don’t give a damn, I want the suit back,” Morgan said.
“That’s all right,” Arthur said. “I’ve got this one. It’ll suffice.”
“No, it won’t,” Morgan said.
“Why not?”
Morgan picked up the capsule and tossed it to Arthur. “Pridwen was built for you. There’s a lot of new technology designed into it—technology we spent a lot of time perfecting, so don’t tell me your k-suit is going to be close to what you need!” Her voice had risen to a shout by the end of her tirade.
“Morgan,” Ellen said in warning. “He didn’t steal it. I’ll make a sweep.” She left.
“Someone did!”
“What was so special about it?” Arthur asked. “I don’t have any data…”
Morgan tapped the circlet on his head. “Between this and the suit, our technology would be able to keep you at peak ability. You could counter anything thrown at you. Anything. The suit enhances you because it’s reading your neural impulses faster than your body can respond. That is, when you’ve been wearing it long enough. Damn!”
Arthur held up a hand. “I’ll get the suit back, Morgan. She’s just borrowing it for now.”
“It’s not a car, Arthur. That suit was specifically and especially made for you.”
“Is there another one in assembly?”
Morgan’s expression relaxed. “That was the only suit. It took a year to complete.”
“I’m sure we’ll get it back.”
“I hope she doesn’t use all of its features.”
“Now it does sound like a car.” Arthur smiled.
“Not everyone likes this,” Morgan said.
Arthur studied her face. She had changed since he’d seen her last. When he was in the Cairn, he’d spent a lot of time thinking about his decision—his promise to her. He’d been betrayed, in a way, by their son, Leto. Her anger was tightly controlled and she had the polish and poise of a professional. A businesswoman. A politician. An aristocrat. She was many things that Arthur wasn’t.
“Something wrong?” Morgan asked, clearly annoyed.
“I’m just wondering if you really had the stomach to see things through,” Arthur asked.
“You’re asking the woman who’s tried to kill you multiple times.”
Arthur smiled, but a question lingered in his mind. A question he couldn’t ignore. “Morgan, I know you’re prescient to some degree. You said so earlier, in CAMLANN.”
A muscle twitched in Morgan’s face.
“Didn’t you see this coming?” Arthur said.
