EVE®: Templar One (44 page)

“Alright,” Heth said, as the imagery transformed.

“The villa is there, in the caldera,” she started.
“The Ishukone colony is eighty kilometers away, separated by steep terrain and jungle.
If you think there were assassins on board the dropship you just shot down, they would have had to walk there, hauling lots of kit with them.”

“Which I’m sure we’ll find in the cargo dump,” Heth said.

“Right, but what about this site here?”
she said, pointing to the resort.
It was one hundred kilometers in the other direction.
“A trendy getaway spot also owned by Echelon, with a spaceport equipped to handle heavy dropships ferrying the rich and famous … or a squad of well-trained mercs who could make that hike in twelve more hours than it would take to reach it from the colony.”

Heth remained quiet, holding his stare.

“There must be a radar track of ships in the area,” she continued.
“If there are Ishukone dropships en route to this sector, then there remains the possibility of a contingency plan for whoever sent those assassins.”

“There are several Ishukone-registered dropships en route to Myoklar,” Heth said.
“One is tracking directly toward the resort right now.”

“Well,” Haatakan said, “how thorough did you say your sources were?”

Heth’s expression turned to anger.

“I mean, really,” she continued.
“Given what we’ve just seen, and what we’ll likely find in the jungle, what are the odds this second dropship is just carrying tourists?”

THE FORGE REGION—ETSALA CONSTELLATION

THE VASALA SYSTEM—PLANET V, MOON 15

ISHUKONE CORPORATE FACTORY—TEMPORARY HQ

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CALDARI STATE

“Rali,” Ishukone Watch Commander Boris Iskala said, “we’ve got a situation.”

He had been plugged into his private research neuro-net, using it to focus on optimizing the search pattern of the APEX drones looking for the
Significance.

“One of our dropships was just shot down over Myoklar,” Commander Iskala said.
“The pilot issued a mayday before his signal was jammed.
Armed search-and-rescue teams are en route to look for survivors.”

Rali realized immediately.

“Send in company-size mechanized units and a salvage team,” he said, “with fleet support in orbit.”

Boris was caught flat-footed.

“Sir, the Caldari Navy has ships in the area now as well—”

“
Send them.
”

“Yes, sir,” the commander said.
“Be advised, a confrontation with Heth’s forces is likely.
The State is warning all dropships not to approach the planet.
Any who refuse will be shot down.”

Rali checked the flight log of Ishukone inbound flights.

“I see two of ours heading there,” he said.
“The one that was shot down, and a second—a resupply ferry en route to Echelon Resort?”

That raised an eyebrow.
It was being escorted by two Watch gunships.

Why would a supply ferry heading there need armed escorts?
he asked himself.

Then he saw that the flight log had been electronically forged.

And that the location finder for Mens’s wife and daughter had been switched off.

A sickening wave washed over him.

“Commander,” Rali said.
“Where exactly are Lorin and Amile Reppola?”

LONETREK REGION—KAINOKAI CONSTELLATION

THE TSUKURAS SYSTEM—FINAL APPROACH TO MYOKLAR

“Ladies, we’re about to de-orbit,” Lieutenant Kaylyn Linden announced.
“For your protection, please fasten your safety harnesses.”

Amile Reppola had never taken hers off.
And Lorin Reppola was very drunk now.

Lieutenant Linden switched off the video feed.
It was too difficult to watch.
They’d be on the ground in a few minutes, and she felt like she needed a shower.
There were so many things wrong with this scenario that she felt filthy.

The cockpit was filled by the greenish-blue gem of Myoklar.
The approach was lined up; they’d be hitting the atmosphere in just a few seconds.

“Vanguard One, this is Hawkeye,” the radio erupted.
“Abort your descent.
Repeat: Abort your descent!”

A Caldari Navy frigate warped in from ten kilometers out.

“All dropships have been warned to stay away from Myoklar!”
the radio screamed.
“Abort, abort, abort!”

Before she could comprehend what was happening, antimatter slugs vaporized the gunships on either side of her.
She was confused: No hostile ships were registering on her scanner.
Just a Caldari Navy frigate, which didn’t have any reason to fire on her.

Her last thoughts were of her brother Trevor, and of Amile Reppola, brave girl that she was, who had the smarts to strap herself in properly.

GEMINATE REGION—F-ZNNG CONSTELLATION

SYSTEM UBX-CC—THE MJOLNIR NEBULA

INSORUM PRODUCTION FACTORY

The comms traffic in the Tsukuras system had gone off the charts.
It was like watching the seismograph of a temblor in real time—a flurry of tremors leading to the big shock that changed the landscape forever.

VILAMO was attempting to penetrate the encryption but had no luck.
It continued feverishly trying to do so.

Mila thought to reach out to Rali to see if he knew what was happening, then thought better of it.
He would be too busy.

Same with Mens.

She had an awful feeling that something terrible had just happened.

GENESIS REGION—EVE CONSTELLATION

THE NEW EDEN SYSTEM

I’ll be damned,
Mens thought.
Haatakan was right.

One of the APEX probes had found something.
Or rather, something had found it: The message was a celestial grid coordinate.
One dead-reckoning warp plot and he’d be within one hundred klicks of the
Significance.

There was nothing else in the message.

He thought Rali would have contacted him by now to celebrate or to offer some advice.
No doubt he was seeing this data as well.

But he didn’t.
And Mens still wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when he warped there.

Or what he had paid to find it.

PART V

CROSSFIRE

30

THE AMARR-MINMATAR FRONT

YC 112 (23349 AD)

A soldier knelt among a squad of fellow Paladins gathered around their captain, who was briefing them about the enemy they might encounter on an upcoming patrol.
They were located on a world along the Minmatar border, or perhaps even behind it.
The attentive soldier was a seasoned warrior, well liked and trusted, who always supported everyone around him even at the worst of times.

As the briefing ended and the squad readied their weapons to venture into danger, the soldier was pulled aside by the captain and informed he would not be accompanying them.
Instead, he was ordered to board an idling vehicle that had arrived unexpectedly.

“Special orders,” he was told.
Directly from the Ministry of War, issued on behalf of the Holy Empress herself.

And so it went for thousands of others who were about to become Templars, including a surprising number of those recently “retired” from military service.

Most had no living family members and considered their commitment to faith “higher than average.”

They were brought to military outposts and briefed in groups of four.
After being informed of their opportunity to serve Amarr as immortal Templars, they were left to choose their fate
together.
The decision would have to be unanimous: If there was even one dissenter, none would be admitted nor asked again.
If they agreed, they would begin their training as a unit immediately.

In ten thousand recruits, there were almost no dissenters.

With their commitment sealed, the volunteers were briefed on the surgical procedure to convert them from mortal to something more than human.
No mention was made about the origins of the clone technology they would eventually inhabit, after their original flesh and blood fell to the dust from whence it came.

As the soldiers underwent their transformation, the Imperial Navy continued harvesting Sleeper implants by the thousands, relentlessly scouring wormhole space for more relics.
Under the tightest possible security, stockpiles of the precious technology were amassed at the industrial biofoundries where the clones were to be manufactured.
If all went according to plan, they would be operating at full capacity within a week.

Lord Victor Eliade considered the pace of these events, marveling at what Core Freedom had become.
The conquered space elevator facilitated a drastic reinvention of the colony practically overnight: Paladins and defensive armaments were firmly dug into positions formerly occupied by the Valklears.
The air defense grid and Cloudburst kinetic shielding system had been restored.
Power generation throughout the colony was operating at near peak efficiency.
Damage to civilian structures was being repaired quickly; the old, neglected Minmatar architecture was gradually being replaced by the golden brilliance of Amarr design.

It was all possible because of the Templars.
Everything that Lord Falek Grange had fought so hard for was finally taking place.

But these weren’t the perfect soldiers he had envisioned.
Just as one Templar among the thirteen prototypes failed outright, a second’s downfall seemed imminent.

Nevertheless, it was sacrilege to think of these concerns purely in terms of numbers.
On Lord Victor’s datapad was fresh imagery from the biofoundries, where he saw row upon row of freshly harvested Sleeper implants waiting to be installed in clones.
This was not the time for doubt or hesitation.

For divinity guides our hand,
he reminded himself.
What else but faith could take us this far?

THE FORGE REGION—ETSALA CONSTELLATION

THE VASALA SYSTEM—PLANET V, MOON 15

ISHUKONE CORPORATE FACTORY—TEMPORARY HQ

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CALDARI STATE

Mens sat directly across from his daughter’s ICU bed, focusing only on her.

There were other people in the room with them, but they seemed distant and utterly irrelevant.
Random snippets of conversation penetrated the haze, but Mens couldn’t bring himself to absorb it all at once.

“
…
Watch personnel are securing the crash site.…”

The machines keeping her alive were too numerous to let him get any closer.
Physical contact was out of the question.

“… teams have made heavy contact with Templis Dragonaur mercenaries…”

Fragments of the disintegrating gunship had punctured her life pod, causing an explosive decompression of air pressure inside.
Amile had been vented directly to space for almost ninety seconds before an Ishukone Watch cruiser could recover the pod.

“… We have taken, and inflicted, casualties.…”

Doctors had informed him that the force of the ejection had broken most of the bones in her body.
This was not due to mechanical failure on the gunship’s part but the fact that antimatter rounds were still slamming into the craft as she ejected.
The forces at play during the event were catastrophic.

“… Provists aren’t on the surface, nor any Caldari Navy troops.…”

She was unconscious before the pod was vented.
This, the doctors believe, probably saved her life.
Had she attempted to hold her breath—a natural panic-reaction to sudden vacuum exposure—her lungs and thorax would have overexpanded due to excessively high intrapulmonic pressure, ripping her lung tissue and capillaries apart.

“… Bad weather at the crash site is helping by slowing their advance.…”

Of all the things she might have died from, an air embolism would have been the cruelest fate.
There would have been no way to find the blockage in time.

“… No question that these are Heth’s people…”

Her body was completely cyanotic when they found her.
Deep puncture wounds were apparent on her left side, where the breach was.
Ishukone Watch physicians had to stabilize her inside the damaged life pod, directly in the cargo bay, before she could be moved to intensive care.

She died twice along the way.
Both times, they were able to restart her heart.

“… We recovered a tactical nuclear weapon from the wreckage.…”

Lorin’s life pod had ejected in time and was recovered.

She was not inside.

“… Mordu is frantically trying to reach you…”

Her body was never found.
Neither was that of her dropship’s pilot, nor those of the two gunship escorts.

“… Please say something.…”

Amile’s left arm and leg had to be amputated.
Doctors gave her one chance in six to survive.
They said her will to live was remarkable.

“… I am so sorry.…”

Mens snapped out of his haze as the irrelevant people left the room.
Someone began sobbing nearby.
It was Rali.

“They were my responsibility,” he said.

Mens tried to answer, but a coarse wheeze came out of his throat instead.

“I let them slip right through,” Rali said.
“There is no excuse.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mens managed.

“It
is
my fault,” Rali protested.
“I should have seen this.…”

“Don’t,” Mens growled.
“Save the grief for later.
Right now, you need to figure out how to make this
worth
it.
Understand?”

Rali was shocked.

“Haatakan was right,” Mens said.
“That bitch.
About the
Significance.
About everything.
She was fucking
right!
”

He looked over at Rali, who was trying to compose himself.

“The technology is real,” Mens said, rubbing his eyes.
He was glowing in the fresh skin of a new clone, but his eyes were bloodshot and sullen.
“Amarr has immortal soldiers.
They’re building an army of them.”

Upon hearing the fate of his family, Mens returned to Caldari space instantly, as only an immortal can—by self-destructing his ship.
The body that left for the New Eden system many hours ago was turned to ash, but he awakened in an Ishukone CRU.

“Marcus Jror—look him up in our archives,” Mens said.
“One of Amarr’s brightest scientists.
He was aboard the
Significance.
Told me that prototypes had already deployed.”

Slowly, Rali stood up.

“I know where to find them,” Mens said, wiping tears away with a forearm.
“We’re going to take one.
You’re going to reverse-engineer it.
And then we’re going to burn the whole State down.”

Rali’s jaw was wide open.

“But how?”
he asked.
“Even with an intact live specimen—”

“I don’t care how,” Mens said.
“You’ll find a way.”

“Will I?”
Rali said.
“This isn’t my—”

“Marcus told me they’re on Pike’s Landing,” Mens interrupted.
“Amamake system.
We’re going after them.”

“Mens, consider what you’re asking—” Rali pleaded.

“I’m not asking,” Mens said.
“We’re doing it.”

“That planet was just taken by the Amarr Empire—”

“How do you think they did it?”
Mens growled.
“Three years of war and a handful of immortal soldiers knock it down in minutes.”

“You’d be attacking a Caldari ally in the Empyrean War!”
Rali protested.

“Ishukone doesn’t
have
any allies,” Mens said.
“It’s not our goddamn war—remember?”

“Think about what you’re saying,” Rali pleaded.
“We can’t deal with both Heth and the Amarrians!”

“We’re immortal,” Mens said.
“What do we care?”

“What about everyone else who isn’t?”
Rali nearly shouted.
“You’re not yourself.
This is just too much to process.”

Mens stood and took his friend forcefully by the shoulders.

“Heth knows we tried to kill him!
” he thundered.
“
The diplomacy is
over
!”

“You don’t know that!”
Rali protested.
“He sent in
Dragonaurs,
not government troops.
That means he’s not sure what he’ll find in the jungle or that he was confident with the intel that tipped him off!”

Mens let him go.

“He can distance himself from all of it,” Rali continued.
“Even what happened to Lorin and Amile.
That was no Navy ship that shot them down.”

“What?”

“Also Dragonaurs,” Rali said.
“Using a stolen Navy IDENT.
The pilot of Lorin’s ship wouldn’t have realized until it was too late.”

Mens closed his eyes.

“Heth just murdered half my family,” he said.
“Are you seriously suggesting that we exercise
restraint
?”

Rali threw his hands up.

“I don’t know what to suggest,” he said, slumping back into the chair.
“But declaring war on the Amarr Empire isn’t what I had in mind.”

Mens grabbed a chair and raised it over his head.
Moving to smash it on the ground, he stopped himself, mindful that his daughter was still struggling for her life just a few meters away.

Trembling, he gently set the chair back onto the floor.

“I have nothing left,” he said.
“I’m done acting like a fucking coward.”

“You’re no coward,” Rali said.
“Quite the contrary.”

“I haven’t done anything to prove I’m not,” he interrupted.
“Not yet.”

Rali looked at him.

“This is probably my last call as Chief Executive Officer, so listen carefully,” Mens said.
“I want you to ready our fleet.
Emergency deployment orders.
Mobilize like we’re being invaded.
I don’t care how much noise it makes.
I don’t care who asks what we’re doing.
We are going to Pike’s Landing.
And we are bringing hell with us.”