Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) (20 page)

Sullivan made a motion for Colonel Orion to approach, “The colonel will show you to your quarters. I hope you’ll find them adequate.”

Orion smiled and gave a short bow as he came near, “Good to see you again, Miss Aurora. If you’ll follow me...”

The colonel started to walk away from the main structure of the basilica to one of the buildings that embraced the colonnade, and Liz made to follow.

“Just one more thing, Elizabeth,” Sullivan stopped her.

“Yes?”

The emperor stepped up and whispered threateningly, “If you breathe a word of this conversation to anyone, not only will I make sure you never see your family again, but I will make it my life’s mission to break down that barrier and burn all of Domination Crisis Eleven to the ground. Is that clear?”

“Crystal, sir,” Liz replied, jaw set in anger.

“Excellent,” Sullivan brightened. “Then welcome to Rome, Chief of Command.”

16

301’
S FIST CONNECTED AGAIN
with the bag, the force of his combined blows finally bringing out a soreness in his arms. A distant throb also nagged him from his forehead, the lingering effects of where his head had been stitched up when they returned from the Tower. Still, he didn’t stop. It was good to keep moving, to be taking some sort of action. If he slowed down, even for a moment, he might go insane with the thoughts competing for his attention. As the greatest mystery of his life continued to emerge before his eyes, it gave birth to new questions—new fears.

He had all but given up hope that he would ever discover the truth about his parents or the circumstances that brought him to the Capital Orphanage of Alexandria. Most of the children there were orphans almost from birth and wouldn’t have known their real parents if they walked up to them on the street. He had accepted this reality at a young age and resolved never to look back, refusing to wallow in a past he could not change.

But the past had found him nonetheless, and now it threatened to swallow him. Whether he wanted to embrace it or not, the fact remained that he was the son of Jonathan Charity. Despite his wishful doubts and thin excuses, he couldn’t deny it any longer.

He burned your mother alive
.

301 punched the bag a little harder, embracing the pain as it spread up his arms and to his shoulders. Since leaving the Communications Tower he couldn’t get the vision of the flames out of his head. He felt the sadness…tasted the despair…and grasped at a memory so horrible he almost wanted it to stay forgotten. It was not the fire that hurt him the most. It was the eyes, green pools of anguish that seared his soul more than fire ever could.

And he had spent his life serving the man responsible.

“You know, if you don’t get any sleep you’re not going to be any use on the battlefield.”

301 only paused long enough to acknowledge Derek’s presence, and then returned to his fight, “Didn’t expect to see you for a while.”

Derek gave him a wide berth until he reached the opposite side of the punching bag, and then he began to approach, “I didn’t expect to be here, either.”

“So why are you?”

“Better than sulking in my room, with nothing but my anger for company,” he said with a sly grin. “Besides, I think I finally understand why you did it.”

301 landed an extra hard punch on the bag just as Derek took hold of it from the other side, “Somehow I doubt that.”

“I know what it is like to fear the past, Captain…to feel like no matter what you do you can never escape it. Sometimes, for a moment, it can even make you forget who you are.”

Silence descended suddenly as 301 stopped punching and straightened, avoiding Derek’s eyes as he attempted to catch his breath. The complaint in his muscles intensified to a burning ache, and his body longed for the relief of his bed. But he had known this conversation with Derek was coming, and he couldn’t walk away now.

“I’m not sure what you think you know, Derek, but—”

“I know what Liz said on the
Infallible
,” he interrupted. “That she helped you set Grace Sawyer free from the palace. I get it, Captain. You fell in love with her. I’m guessing you didn’t know who she really was the majority of the time she was with you. But you found out from Wayne Collins, didn’t you? That’s why you killed him, to protect her identity. Still, you knew that eventually her secret would be discovered, and so you conspired with Liz to set her free. How am I doing so far?”

301 crossed his arms and set his jaw. He figured it would only be a matter of time before someone put the pieces together. The only question was what Derek would do now. Would he turn 301 in, or keep quiet about the entire affair? Somehow he doubted his partner would be
that
understanding.

Derek nodded, taking 301’s silence for admission, “Do you know how many soldiers died in that Crippler explosion, Captain?”

His frown deepened, “That was not my doing. I asked for a distraction, not a disaster.”

“But you don’t regret it,” Derek said. “Just like you don’t regret freeing her, or pulling a gun on me tonight.”

301 sighed. There was no point in lying. “No, I don’t.”

“Because you feel trapped by your choice,” Derek said. “You chose to love her, to betray everything that you are to save her, and to go against that choice means that you have to admit you made a mistake. So you stay the course, and continue to protect her no matter what the cost. Even from me. But unfortunately you
have
made a mistake, Captain. She is not who you think she is.”

“I wasn’t aware you had spent much time with her.”

Derek sidestepped the bag and came closer to 301, expression grim, “I don’t have to. I have known plenty like her. Their every move is designed to manipulate, to deceive you into serving their cause. And when they’re done with you, they will cut you loose to fend for yourself. She doesn’t care about you, Captain. She only cares about what you can
do
for her.”

“That’s a big leap for a man who grew up in halls lined with gold. You know nothing about the Wilderness—or its people.”

“I wish that were true,” Derek’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “But unfortunately, it isn’t. At the Communications Tower, you asked about my mother.”

301 shifted his feet uncomfortably and began to unwrap the tape around his knuckles, thankful for something to occupy his attention. Since his first visit to the Blaine mansion, he had wondered about the absence of Lady Blaine. Cues from Derek in the early days of their investigation into the benefactors were enough to reveal that his mother had been dead for many years. But beyond that, his partner had not been forthcoming. For him to mention her now…it put him on edge. He didn’t know how many more shocking revelations he could take.

“She was a powerful woman,” Derek said. “Rich. Resourceful. Caring. So when the rebels approached her with their offers of a better world, appealing to her empathy, she believed them. She
joined
them. They lured her in with their promises and used her knowledge and contacts for their own personal gain. But when my mother’s need became dire, when she was caught doing their bidding, they didn’t come to her aid. They’d already gotten all they needed from her. So they let her die, 301. They sacrificed her on the altar of their precious cause and didn’t think twice about it, and I won’t stand by and watch them do the same to you. They are a scourge upon this earth, and the sooner they are purged, the better.”

301 stood for a moment in stunned silence. He had always known something dark lay in Derek’s family history, but never had he imagined something like this. Suddenly Derek’s uncommon enmity toward Silent Thunder made perfect sense. But there was a rather large piece missing from the narrative.

“Who actually killed your mother, Derek?”

His partner’s expression darkened, “I just told you. The rebellion used her, then left her to die.”

“You hold them responsible, I get it,” 301 said. “But that’s not what I’m asking. I want to know who pulled the trigger.”

“Grand Admiral Spradlen carried out the execution personally,” Derek said, though he gave the answer begrudgingly. “Donalson’s predecessor.”

“Yet you blame the rebellion.”

“Spradlen would have been in my sights, too,” he replied, “had he not died soon after. As it is, I have only the ones who claimed to be her friends. The ones who betrayed her.”

Or the ones who gave the order
, 301 thought. Only one man was powerful enough to approve the execution of Walter Blaine’s wife. But he could tell from the smoldering anger in Derek’s eyes that the conversation had already gone further than he wanted it to go. He and Derek were over their rivalry, true, but the man had never exposed his emotions quite like this. Pushing him would not be wise.

“I’m sorry, Derek, I had no idea,” he sighed and shook his head. “But…this is not the same.
She
is not the same.”

“Stop and consider it for a minute,” Derek challenged. “Think on it
hard
. Because if you’re not sure, you may still find her blade in your back before the end.”

Though he despised himself for doing so, 301 paused to consider the merits of Derek’s argument. Was it possible that everything he felt was just a part of some elaborate manipulation, some ploy to gain his trust and use him to bring down the World System? A Specter Captain would be a valuable asset to any resistance movement.

And that’s when he recognized it: he
wanted
Derek to be wrong. He wanted what he was feeling to be real, to taste of new things he had only ever dreamed about. But most of all, he wanted his relationship with Grace to be real. No matter what doubts Derek had cast in his mind, she still stood out as the brightest light, and he would abandon everything—even reason—to believe in that.

Derek took another step closer to him, “Now you know that I understand what it is like to have something in your past that you think defines who you are. For that reason, Captain, I’m going to look the other way with what happened on top of that Tower tonight. But hear me: you are the closest thing to a friend I have ever had, and I want to trust you, but if I find you have been working with our enemies I will have no choice but to bring you down.”

301 knew the look in Derek’s eyes. He might hate doing it, might even regret it afterward, but if forced into a decision between their friendship and his loyalty Derek would choose loyalty every time. That’s just who he was.

That’s who I was, once, too.
But he had changed. It had been a gradual shift, but he could no longer see as many similarities between himself and that proud 1
^st
lieutenant of the Fourteenth Army. That difference was a gulf between himself and his partner, one that would only widen as time went by.

“Anyway,” Derek’s tone lightened. “If you’re trying to clear your head, this is certainly not the way.” He motioned to the punching bag.

“Why is that?”

“Too rhythmic,” Derek replied. “It takes no thought, so your mind is still free to roam while your body does all the work. If you want to get those fears and regrets out of your head, you need to fill it with something else.”

Derek grabbed a sparring stick from the table nearby and tossed it to him. 301 caught the wooden Gladius replica and grinned, “What makes you think this will require any more thought than punching a bag?”

His partner retrieved a second wooden Gladius and stepped into the open space at the center of the floor, “A little full of yourself tonight, Captain. Let’s see if you’re still singing the same tune here in a few minutes.”

301 met him on the sparring floor and raised the Gladius into ready position. They had done this countless times as rivals, but not since their understanding in the Weapons Manufacturing Facility right before Jacob Sawyer was killed. For a moment 301 wondered if it would be different…if he should hold back more than normal.

Then Derek struck, and he realized very quickly that when it came to sparring their friendship had not changed a thing. Derek came at him with every bit as much fury as he had come to expect, and 301 barely managed to counter each blow. His arms were still sore from his overzealous session with the punching bag, and so he was a little slow on the uptake.