The Splinter Alliance (Beyond the Impossible Book 2), page 25
“Therein lies the problem, RJ. You are confusing this universe, where some small measure of moral decency remains, to the one where you spent six years losing your humanity. You returned from a place where war is the daily dictate, not the occasional collapse of the social and political fabric. I was concerned about you from the first moments of our reunion. The stories you told me, the manner in which you described your transformation with glee, confirmed that the lost young man I once knew was a memory. Your rampage at the wedding, for which I played no small part, cemented my assessment. If I …”
Ryllen grabbed Ham by the arm and squeezed.
“If you thought I was so cudfrucking dangerous, why did you go along with my plan?”
“Your story was compelling. Your evidence overwhelming. And you saved Mi Cha’s life. I owed you the chance to prove me wrong. Then, sure enough, you did. After the wedding, you commanded that room in the Taron estate. You explained it all to the recruits with poise and charisma. You sounded like the RJ I knew before Mangum Island.”
“And now?”
“You’re losing your way. You won’t admit to this, but you know it’s true. RJ, there’s always been something broken inside you. It erupted when you lost Kai, but the underlying problem was there long before. Those stories you told me about your life with Kai?”
“No!” Ryllen laid a hand over his holster. “Not a word about him.”
“I don’t think you realized how obsessed you were with Kai. He took you from the street and taught you how to kill. You loved the art of murder because Kai loved it first. Now, it’s not even an art. It’s just a psychotic means to an end.”
“Is that why you promoted Cando over me?”
“He’s a reasonable man. Even temper. A strong leader.”
“What are you saying, Ham?”
“You and I struck an agreement. I handle logistics, you handle military assignments. In the latter case, you put your team at risk. Cando will make those decisions now. I think it best that you step back from a leadership position.”
“Wait, what? You can’t …”
“Unburden yourself. Your blood is too hot. Use this time to reconsider the way forward. Exeter is lost to us. You are not.”
And yet, the eyes spoke another story.
“I don’t deserve this.” Ryllen pulled away. “You should thank me for everything I’ve done.”
“I do. My concern now is the future. Today’s events have made it much more complicated. I am concerned you will work against our best interests unless you slow down and rediscover the humanity you left behind.”
“Humanity? You’re one to speak. You ran away from the person you really were and tried to be something else. But you were always a Chancellor, even when you paraded around Zozo in that Sak’ne suit. Every Hokki saw through your act.”
“Of course they did. I’m many things, RJ, but a fool is not one. The difference is, they never thought I posed a physical danger.”
“And you think I do?”
“Yes. What you did on the landing bay, I saw in other men during my tours of duty. Young zealots who treated their defeated indigos like playthings became unreliable in combat and psychotic. I’m concerned you might kill anyone who stands between you and Exeter. Anyone.”
There. Ham turned over his cards. Was the play too aggressive?
Ryllen didn’t answer. He backed away toward the door, holding an unshakeable glare that appeared to confirm Ham’s analysis.
“Maybe I’ll kill you first,” Ryllen said.
The door slid open. Ryllen never took his hand off the holster as he walked away.
“I think you’ll try,” Ham whispered.
38
K ARA DIDN’T LIKE RYLLEN’S BODY language when he shoved past her and his Talon brothers. His eyes stared far ahead, his rushed gait like an arrow about to spring from a bow. Yusef called after, inviting him to look at the wonders Hiro Parke found in the ship’s system logs, but Ryllen paid him no mind.
“Have you ever seen him like this before?” She said.
Cando shrugged. “The Colonel has a dark soul. He’s walked on the edge as long as I’ve known him.”
“An apt description,” Yusef said. “Maybe even understated. I think it’s why we looked the other way when he was with X. Kept him grounded. Clear-eyed.”
“Sane,” Cando added.
From what Kara knew of Ryllen’s backstory, she said:
“He doesn’t know how to let go.”
“The very quality that will drive a soldier mad.”
Those last words came from Ham, who listened from behind. Kara saw defeat in those shaded eyes.
“We may continue,” the Admiral said.
Cando waved Ham over.
“Before we go back in, look at what Hiro found. It’s incredible.”
The floating windows dumped piles of data – most in the form of lists, standard dates, and times.
“It’s the Alliance,” Hiro said. “All of it. Every name, every planet, every cell. At first glance, I’d say there must be half a million people here. Each cell has a hierarchy and a timetable.”
“For what?”
“Meetings and trade routes, primarily. We know where they are and how to find them.”
“And why might these have been so easily accessible?”
Cando nodded. “Overconfidence. They assumed Scylla was secure, and they probably don’t care who knows about the Alliance so long as they can have Aeterna.”
“This tracks with Siobhan Morrow’s statement.”
Po Wynn and Hoshi Negani, who were assigned to C&C to assist Hiro, watched on in silence. Seeing her follow Hokkis spurred Kara’s next question:
“There’s a list of names for Hokkaido? Everyone involved?”
“Sure,” Hiro said. “I’ll throw open a window if you’d like to inspect. It’s right h…”
Ham intervened. “Not now. We’ll have time to dive into the weeds. Knowing the names at this stage will set the table for good chatter but won’t help us solve our immediate challenges. Yes?”
Kara thought better of objecting. If she demanded to review the list now, Ham might exclude her from the meeting. She earned her place in the inner circle.
“Continue the work, Hiro,” Ham said. “Transfer the data to my Tachtron reader. I’ll review it at first opportunity.”
“Will do, Admiral.”
Inside the solarium, Kara and the two Talons waited for Ham to begin. He rubbed circles on the table as he gathered his thoughts.
“We have several pressing concerns,” he said. “Do we leave this ship disabled? Do we destroy it? Do we assess the damage and take the time to make repairs? How do we dispose of the dead with respect? How do we handle the prisoners? Do we proceed to Aeterna, especially in light of our new intel? Do we reach out instead to Alliance leaders on the ten affiliated worlds?”
“None have easy answers,” Cando said, eliciting nods from Kara and Yusef. “Where do you propose we start?”
“With another question more pressing than any. Does Ryllen Jee pose a threat to our mission and our lives?”
The Talons looked at each other as if they heard a bad joke. Kara wasn’t surprised in the least.
“Admiral, the Colonel … he lives on the edge, but he always has,” Cando said. “He’s in a dark place now, but he’ll come through it.”
“I hope you’re right, Cando, but evidence suggests otherwise.”
“What evidence?”
“I knew there would come a time when we would need RJ at his worst in order for us to succeed. But I did not anticipate our current circumstance. First, a warning: What I say must never leave this room. Some of this, Kara may already know or suspect. Some of it, he might have told the Talons but slanted the tale to his advantage.”
Cando put the brakes on Ham’s monologue.
“Admiral, with all respect, if we are going to discuss the Colonel, he deserves to be here. He should be able to defend himself against any accusations. He’s …”
“If he demands rebuttal before the team, I’ll allow it. But each of us has a particular bias regarding RJ. You are too quick to disregard his excesses. I encouraged them for far too long. Kara watched him execute members of her family and her intended’s family. We are not dealing with a well individual, and I believe he has firmly planted one foot in the abyss. So please, hear me out.
“I am, to a great extent, responsible for what he has become. He arrived at my doorstep the day after the love of his life was killed and he learned of his immortality. Over the next thirteen months, I tried to shepherd him through the grief and rage. I’ll admit to developing a fondness for him. I’ll never have children, but I fancied him a son of sorts. Out of that fondness came a type of blindness. I thought if I enabled his quest for revenge, he would tire of it and move on with his life. But he couldn’t let go.
“He stalked and murdered seven men and celebrated each death. He was, by anyone’s rational definition, a serial killer. Yet he was also charismatic, humorous, and infinitely clever. So, I justified his path. I kept him close, knowing he might assist in my own plans.
“Two days before I met Kara Syung, I made RJ a promise if he joined me in a scheme. I promised him a man named Shin Wain, the one who ordered the ambush which killed his love. I made a promise I doubted I could keep, but he accepted.”
Ham sighed as he stared as Kara. His shoulders slumped.
“The night we met at Mal’s Drop was staged. The attack on our third floor room was predesigned. There was a glitch. RJ being shot was not part of the scheme, but it had the happy fortune of establishing the stakes of our mission. You intensified your search and initiated a meeting with High Cannon Collective. Those steps were critical. They set everything in motion.”
She felt like a fool.
Of course. It should have been obvious.
Chi-Qua warned her: Don’t go near Ham Cortez again.
Why didn’t she make the connection as soon as Ryllen re-entered her life?
“You’re a bastard.”
“On most days. Yes.”
“Why?”
“I could tell you it was because I knew something was afoot. That it might involve the Chancellors. That I was concerned for my simple but comfortable life in Zozo. And an apology? At this stage, we’re mired too deep. Here is what I know: Everything that happened thereafter: Mangum Island, the Splinter, RJ’s disappearance, his six years fighting a war, his love for Exeter, his return, your wedding, our escape from Y-14 … it began with a promise to give him Shin Wain.
“Now, what does he have? Not Shin Wain. Not Exeter Woolsey. And little chance of finding either. RJ uses obsession to preserve his sanity. If he does not have someone to fixate upon, he loses himself. This psychosis overwhelms him. Such an individual does not distinguish between friend or foe when his rage tells him to kill.”
Ham continued to amaze her at every turn. A master of language, he admitted to his own reprehensible deeds but managed to sweep them away with a more significant pronouncement about Ryllen. No wonder the Chancellors held sway across the Collectorate for so long. Their own foul deeds washed clean before anyone had the time to take a closer look.
“So, just for the record,” she said, “you’re warning us about a monster you created.”
“I am.” He eyed the Talons. “I’m sure you consider this to be alarmist, and I hope it is. I don’t wish to create division among the Talons. Nor do I ask you to take action; only to consider remedies. I must also tell you this: I am investigating another suspicion regarding RJ. I still lack the evidence, but I expect it to arrive shortly. If I’m correct, we will have a very different conversation.”
Kara used the ensuing silence to ask herself once again: Why did I throw in with these people?
“Ham,” she said, “you want us to take no action against a man you have just described as psychotic. So, he’s to walk freely about the ship while we handle all these other matters? Do we hope he’ll fish for his sanity and regain his old form before he hurts anyone?”
“Do you have a remedy, Kara?”
“Lock him up.”
Yusef objected. “I don’t think humiliating the Colonel will help.”
“Not to mention,” Cando said, “the devastation this will cause our team. Not only does every Talon owe their life to him, but many of the Hokki volunteers admire the Colonel for his work with Green Sun. Locking him away for anything less than proof of treason will do irreparable harm to our crew.”
“Agreed,” Ham said. “It’s why I did not strip him of his title. I think our best way forward is to address the other issues on our plate and make sure to occupy RJ with important tasks.”
What was she supposed to say? Ham couldn’t shake his “fondness” for RJ despite making an eloquent case that their resident immortal had lost his mind and was a threat to everyone? That his proposal was a half-measure certain to backfire?
This was Hamilton Cortez, the Chancellor with all the answers who studied every permutation. The man who served the Unification Guard and understood the shorthand of men like Cando and Yusef. On this matter, she would be outvoted three to one.
She buried the knot in her stomach and mustered a modicum of professionalism as they dove into the other pressing matters. As Cando noted earlier, no question had an easy answer. They tried their best, debating for an hour and resolving all but the most important question: Save Scylla or abandon it. That decision would come down to her team’s findings when they reported to engineering to study the array.
Kara made one demand: If there was a qualified engineer among the Chancellor survivors, he or she needed to be part of the team.
“They know the engine’s nuances,” she said.
“What if they refuse to help?” Cando asked.
“Valid question. We make it a condition of their survival. They don’t have to know we’re bluffing.”
Cando flexed his unibrow, approving of her cunning.
“We’ll get on it right away,” he said.
When the meeting ended, Kara lagged behind as Cando and Yusef departed. When the door slid shut, she turned to Ham, who remained at the table, studying his tablet. He didn’t look up but said:
“Yes, Kara?”
“Something you said earlier has my mind wandering.”
“Oh?”
“You talked about the chain of events leading to Scylla. You said they began with a promise to Ryllen. Yes?”
“I did. What’s your concern?”
“The entire sequence, to be honest. I was told about the wedding the same evening I met you at Mal’s Drop. We found out during the wedding that Hoija Taron orchestrated the entire affair as a way to trap Ryllen and recover the Splinter. She knew he was coming. Yes? She was working with her counterpart on the other side. Yes?”
“That is the story as I understand it.”
“I asked Ryllen about this. I asked how Hoija could know what was going to happen days before Ryllen crossed the divide.”
“What did he say?”
“Time doesn’t work the same way in every universe.”
“He’s probably right. We think of time as a linear concept, but that’s only because of the construct humans have given it.”
“I understand. But how did they know what I would do? If I changed my mind at any point. If I canceled lunch and didn’t travel with you to Baangarden. If I didn’t find a viable reason to meet with High Cannon. If I didn’t plant your devices correctly. If …”
He set down his tablet.
“Kara, time and ‘if’ are dance partners. What is your question?”
“Would the wedding massacre have happened if I changed my mind even once?”
“I don’t know. You’re asking about causality. Others might call it fate. But I’ll say two things. One, we cannot reverse time. It is done. Stop torturing yourself, Kara. Two, it’s possible the trigger event came not from either of us or RJ. The sequence might have been established much earlier by someone else, here or across the divide. We won’t know answers to these questions until we understand the Splinter and its creator. Yes?”
Kara left the room no less frustrated. Established much earlier by someone else. She thought back to Sanhae, three years ago. There was Lang, two days from his death, whispering those fateful words:
“Kara, they’re going to burn it all.”
39
Eight standard days later
N ORMALCY WAS THE MOST FARFETCHED of dreams. Yet here it was. A routine took hold. Regular meals, a job utilizing her special skills, ample sleep with lessening nightmares, and opportunities for social time. Dare she think this mission had a genuine future? Dare she build relationships with the crew – Hokki and Talon alike? Was smiling allowed? Was laughter appropriate? Oh, how Kara wanted these things. Every time she tried to cross that bridge into normalcy, her mind couldn’t let go of what brought them here. How many people were buried on Hokkaido? How many cast into space?
“Is this what it’s like between battles?” She posed the question to Cando. “Trying to recapture what it means to be human?”
“And preparing for the next battle. Yes.”
They ate alone together in the galley after finishing their shift in Scylla engineering. It was quiet sans the hum of the autochef.
“I realized something when I woke today,” she said. “I haven’t dreamed about my father. He took his own life at my wedding, and I’ve barely thought about him. What does that say about me?”
“Nothing. You’ve been through the most harrowing days of your life. If you try to process it all, you’ll implode.”
“He was my Honorable Father, and I can’t bring myself to grieve.”
Cando grabbed her hand.
“The only people who grieve during war are the ones on the sidelines. Soldiers don’t have the luxury.”
“Hiro said something similar a few days ago. Then he added, ‘This is why many of us hope the fighting never ends.’ What about you, Cando? Do you want the war to end?”
He raised her hand and kissed it.
“I know I want that nice plot of land on Yaniff someday. And I’d love to have someone to share it with. Whether I’ll make it that far is an open question.”
