Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) (11 page)

“We also have new orders. All surviving ships are to move to Pendar. We will meet with back up forces and repair crews there.”

“Why Pendar?”

“The orders were not detailed ma’am. Perhaps this encounter was not the only one.”

“Thank you Commander, I want a full report as soon as possible, after you rest.” Rebecca sent Matthews away, trying not to think about the
Shanghai
or the
Beijing’s
losses. She was dead sure she wasn’t ready for another battle in Pendar either.

It is over, no matter how costly.
She rolled slowly to her right, facing the wall as much as her pain allowed.
It is over
. Rebecca seized her pillow and cried for the lives she’d sent to their deaths. She cried for the body bags stacked at the end of the medical storage bay. She cried for Lieutenant Junior Grade Jessica, trying to remember the young girl’s lively face before her demise.

And she cried for Francis. She cried for all the times she’d had with him and for all that she wouldn’t have.

***

“I feel like I can sleep for a week.”

“I know what you mean, Commander.”

“Lieutenant Jong, you have the bridge. I will be in my quarters if you need me.”

“Yes, Commander Matthews.”

Matthews smiled at Lieutenant Jong and left the bridge. His legs ached all over and he suspected he was running a fever. He thought of going back to the med bay but quickly waved away the idea. With the current number of wounded, the medical personnel had their hands tied. He was tired, that’s all.

Matthews couldn’t help but notice the damage the
Deviator
sustained. He had to change his way back to his quarters more than a few times because of a blocked corridor or a hull breach. The following days would be all about repairing the ship and as the newly assigned executive officer, it would be his responsibility to oversee the process. Something he wasn’t looking forward to.

“Here we are,” he mumbled, rubbing his chest. He didn’t realize he had a bruise there before and it hurt. “Nothing a good, long sleep can’t handle.”

The tired commander arrived at his quarters and reached for the keypad but stopped short.

“Now, what is this?” Matthews raised his fingers to look closer. Something sticky, like glue, was all over his hand. “Great.” He tried to see where the substance had come from. “Well, whatever you are, you will have to wait.” The thing was working and Matthews had more pressing matters to attend to.
Like a rest.
The keypad could be repaired after the
real
damage was taken care of.

He entered his quarters and unbuttoned his uniform, easing his tensed neck muscles. He made his way to the small liquor cabinet near the window and prepared himself a shot of scotch. He couldn’t help but smile. These small luxuries came with being a commanding officer and he was starting to like it, albeit his promotion was very new and under dire circumstances.

He raised his glass and looked out at the stars. “May you rest in peace, Commander Francis Leclair.” He hit the bottom of the glass but a clinking sound caught his attention before he could pour another round.

He looked around and listened.
There, again.
It came from the bedroom. Matthews sighed and put down his glass.

Chapter FOURTEEN

PRISON

His room was dark and cold. Corners of the stone walls were covered in mold spreading all the way up to the ceiling. The air was heavy in the block, making it hard to breathe. “Better a chilly draft than a hot one.” Ray tried to relax his cramped shoulders.

He was still recovering from his wounds and the conditions were far from ideal but it was better than he’d hoped for when they first brought him here. Except for the bell that chimed every few hours, announcing
something
. “Well, clean sheets. Soft bed,” he murmured, “
almost
like home.”

The Children had arrested him after his confession to the guard captain. It had felt right at the time and he still didn’t regret it. The guards had released Brother Cavil when they realized he was a priest of the Light and Ray hadn’t seen him since. Ray now “rested” in a guest room obviously converted from a prison cell. His
cell
had bars that looked old,
very old,
but the gate was unlocked. Ray would stay in his quarters until the Bunarian government decided his fate. “All right, it’s a prison.”

Ray tried to guess the time without success. He sat on his bed and looked at the carvings on the wall instead. They were all worn out and looked as if no one had stayed here for some time. The ones he could see went on for several lines. “I hope those are days and not years.”

He wondered about the fates of his cell’s earlier residents. He wondered about his fate, whether he would be keeping a calendar this long for himself. He’d been alone for four days—
five, maybe
—except for the guards waiting outside his room, and in Ray’s book, stones had better conversation. In all his time here, he hadn’t heard the men say a single word. Not to him, not to each other.
A stool outside the bars for visitors, not that I expect many. A bed, a room full of moist and two guards carved out of stone. And the bucket for my needs. Not bad, like a three star hotel in lower Shanghai.
Brother Cavil had stopped visiting after a while, telling Ray that he needed to discover more about his fate and talk to the Elder Council. Ray didn’t guess it would take this long to talk to these men.

The shadows of his cell—
Room. Cell…All right, this is a cell
—were shattered by a bright light from the end of the hallway, followed by footsteps. It took him awhile to adjust to the gleam before recognizing his savior’s face.

“Brother Cavil.” Ray stood up, wincing with each aching muscle.

“Hello, son. How are you holding up?”

“Peachy. What—” A cough interrupted, one of many spasms he’d had since he’d been thrown in jail. “What’s going on?” His throat burned when he spoke.

“I do not know, Raymond.” Brother Cavil gave Ray a waterskin he’d brought with him. As Ray gladly let the cold fluid flow down his throat, the old man eyed him worriedly. “I tried to present your plea to the Elders. I told them what we found on the black box footage.”

“Not went well? So, what do they say?”

“Some seem willing to give you a chance to defend yourself,” Brother Cavil said, pulling the visitor stool to rest his body. “But they are wary. There are too many unknowns.”

“I can’t blame them.” Ray closed his eyes and grimaced.

The huge, orange pit sat where once the glamorous city of Bunari had stood. The crater glowed with lava. The fuel the
Canaar
carried had been the real blow. It was a glimpse of the apocalypse and his ship had been the cause. “What a journey this has become,” he whispered.

“They need answers, son.” Brother Cavil’s voice pulled him out of the dark corners of his mind. “They need someone to take the fall. It is a mess.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? What else is there to discuss?”

“A
religious
mess.”

Ray raised a brow.

“This is not a place of the dark ages but most of the civilians saw a blazing comet riding through the sky, destroying their holy temple.” Brother Cavil wiped sweat from his temples. “This is a religious world driven with religious politics. The implications of such an event can easily get out of hand if people start to question their beliefs and their god.”

“They never saw a ship crashing?”

“They never saw
your ship.
The average folk will not question the ship fuel, but the Light and the followers. People died, their sacred symbols razed and the sharks within these walls will surely see this as a chance to remove the Grandmaster and the current council. In his reign, a most sacred symbol is razed to the ground.”

“Politics sucks no matter where you are.” Ray gave an understanding nod and whispered, “My ship, my responsibility.” His eyes were watered and distant. “How…” He couldn’t finish. Suddenly the cell felt a lot smaller and he punched one of the cold metal bars as hard as he could.

“I think you just broke a finger.”

“I don’t care. H-How many?” he asked, trembling. He was soaking with sweat no matter how chilly the jail was.

“Too many, son,” Brother Cavil replied gently.

“Tell me, damn it!”

Brother Cavil gave a tormented sigh. “I have not seen the reports, Raymond.” The priest seemed even older and Ray saw a battered soul, not a crazy one, behind those eyes. Brother Cavil looked in agony, trying to pick his words.

“Just tell it.” Ray intervened.

“The estimation is close to a hundred,” he finished, raising his eyes to meet Ray’s.

“Hundred?”

“Thousand, son. Most have perished the moment your ship hit the towers. I am sorry.”

Brother Cavil’s voice morphed into a lullaby and Ray heard no more words. Brother Cavil’s tired voice echoed in the emptiness of Ray’s heart, slowly dying in the night of his soul.

A hundred thousand people…

Some part of him knew, too, if it hadn’t been for the spaceport’s barrier shield to slow down
Canaar
’s descent, Bunari would be the name of a mass graveyard for some
millions
of people. Still, knowing almost four percent of the capital’s inhabitants had perished because of his failure to do something didn’t help.

“Raymond!”

“I-I’m sorry…” Ray blinked.

“Do not be hard on yourself, son.” Brother Cavil reached for his hand but he himself sounded doubtful. Everything had changed when they’d come back to the City of Light. That tender priest who’d saved Ray was gone, buried deep within his own sorrow. “Light shapes things the way they should be.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Brother Cavil looked at him without saying a word.

“How are you holding up?” Ray at last found the strength to ask. In his selfish sadness, how the old man was coping hadn’t crossed his mind.

“Well, it was not the pilgrimage I had in mind,” the priest said. “And the guards took my tent!” He muttered a few words about the fate of his tent that Ray couldn’t understand.

“Will they do anything?”

Brother Cavil took a deep breath and sighed again, “They will probably burn it.”

“No, I mean to
you,
Brother.” Ray somehow felt relieved to see the crazy man was still somewhere within.

The priest rubbed his temples.

“I pulled you into this mess.” Brother Cavil had harbored the captain of a ship that crashed on top of their capital city and killed a hundred thousand. No matter how things transpired, the old man was on the spot as much as Ray was in the eye of Bunarian law. His savior was free to roam inside the Inquisition Compound and talk to the Government Elders, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also a prisoner.

“I sincerely do not know what they will do to me, Raymond.” Brother Cavil pursed his lips and shrugged, “I am not sure our laws have anything specific written about a ship destroying our cultural monuments and people. My fate, it will be a delicate matter. Do not worry yourself with me now.”

“I’m sorry,” Ray’s shoulders sank. “Maybe I should’ve crashed with my ship.”

“Perhaps, but you did not! And I saved you and that is all there is to it, so stop pitying!” The light from the hallway glistened in the old priest’s reddened, wet eyes. “It is not helping!”

Ray felt slapped. “I-I’m sorry…”

“You already said that, boy.”

The old man didn’t want to linger in grief and Ray had no objection to handling things the priest’s way. He gave a curt nod. The priest was right—his mood wasn’t helping.

“I managed to learn bits and pieces about your situation,” Brother Cavil continued. “They are not willing to let you go, but they are also unsure about what to do with you,” he said grimly. “They are afraid of the consequences if they execute you,” the old man said, taking a kumat
from his pocket and biting it nervously.

“Exe—”Another cough spasm hit Ray’s body, bending him into a crouch until he managed to fix his breath in a rhythm. The eyeball-shaped kumat right in front of him wasn’t helping, and Ray had to close his eyes to calm down.

“Seven of the thirteen Elders have voted for you to be executed publicly,” Brother Cavil explained, taking another bite of his fruit. “The vote is enough to carry the motion, but Grand Master Ellok overruled the decision.”

“Why?”

Brother Cavil knit his brows hard, trying to find an answer. “Perhaps he believed your plea,” he said, shrugging again, “or it may be something else.”

“Why am I being executed? I turned myself in to tell what happened! The truth!” Ray felt dizzy trying to swallow what Brother Cavil had said. He only realized he was squeezing the metal bars when he felt the blood slipping through his palms. He stared at the pool of red forming beneath his feet.

“You crashed your ship on top of a city, son.” Brother Cavil threw the remains of his fruit to the nearby bucket inside the cell. “And on top of the most sacred symbol of this planet.”

“But you saw the footage! There was nothing I could do!”
I should’ve tried harder.

“Me seeing the footage does not mean anything before the eyes of the Light,” Brother Cavil said. “And the truth is a tool in the hands of power when necessary. Neither you nor I have that power here. The Elders are the voice of the Light and Grandmaster Ellok is the law bringer. You are on Bunari and no matter how foolish it may seem, it is the Bunarian law that will decide your fate.”

“All right, they will hang me,” said Ray, giving himself over to indifference.

“I believe they can also leave you deep in the jungle naked and let nature deal with you.” Brother Cavil took out another kumat from one of his pockets and took a bite.

“That’s the exile option? I don’t remember you saying it was naked.”

“The idea is to let the Light decide your fate and before the Light, we are all naked.”

Ray wanted to shake the old man until he came back to dire reality. “Why are they keeping me alive?” he managed to ask instead, through gritted teeth.

“I just told you. It is about letting nature decide your fate as it is the vessel of Light.”

“Why are they keeping me alive
now
?”

“Ah, it is something to do with your Consortium,” Brother Cavil answered. “They sent someone called
an agent
to handle your situation. Raymond,” the man continued, now focused on the pieces of kumat on his robe. “The flight recorders have been sealed until this agent arrives,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes, still looking at his clothing.

“An agent?”

“An agent,” Brother Cavil repeated, preoccupied.

“But, why would they send an agent!”

“How in the dark depths of the abyss should I know, it is your Consortium!” Brother Cavil threw the half-eaten kumat to the floor for emphasis and his eyes widened when he realized what he’d done. “That was my last kumat!”

Ray stepped back and focused on why the Consortium would care about the captain of a regular freighter under contract who crashed onto some remote planet? Yes, there were casualties and tons of political delicacies to figure out but
it was Bunari
. No one cared about Bunari back on Earth. It was a remote, small planet pretty much closed to the outside world. Consortium sold them fuel and supplies in small volumes, they paid in precious stones but the amount wasn’t high. Bunari didn’t have any power against the Consortium. Ray suspected half of Consortium’s board of directors didn’t know whether Bunari was a planet or a fish.
“Something’s amiss. It would be easier for them to go with the execution,” Ray finally concluded.

“It is the logical course,” the priest nodded.

“You support my death!”

“I did not say that,” Brother Cavil snorted.

Ray looked at Brother Cavil in shock.

“Close your mouth, there are flies here,” the old man said. “Whatever this
agent
means, Raymond, it is the only thing keeping you alive for the time being. I will return when I find more. Your story has too many unknowns. And you are a terrible storyteller. My father always told me how stories should be told. He—”

“But you know it’s all true!”

“I am not in the Elder Council, Raymond!”

Ray realized he’d pushed too hard. “T-Thank you, Brother, I know you’re trying. I’m in your debt again.”

“Do not make a habit of it, boy.” Brother Cavil leaned forward to meet Ray’s eyes, his stare hard. “And do not thank me yet. The Grandmaster said this agent of yours would come within a day, before the evening bell.” That said, the priest stood up and rushed out of the cellblock with purpose, leaving Ray alone with his thoughts.

The final piece of bright daylight left the hallway as the big doors closed behind Brother Cavil. The pale glow of afternoon sun shone faintly through the blurry skylight, but Ray’s cell seemed darker now. He pulled the locket out of his neck and rubbed it tenderly. He felt it might be a good time to say goodbye to Elaine.

Ray smiled, thinking about how his daughter would react to this mess he’d landed in. The smile was bitter. Ray realized he had no idea how Elaine would have reacted.

“I’m sorry kid, I wasn’t even there to see you grow.” He rubbed the locket again. Everything was growing darker.