Chapter Fourteen
When James comes to, he finds himself back in the little cave where the mining crew made camp the previous night. A throbbing pain is pushing at the backs of his eyes and his mouth tastes like it's full of cotton. Feeling terribly hungover, James pushes himself upright and tries to make sense of what's going on. Somebody is shouting.
"We're with the Blue Suns, you idiots! We're all being tracked, they'll find you and skin you alive!"
"Shut her up." James swings his head around, wincing at the spike of pain the motion brings. The speaker is a human, a man of moderate height wearing blue and gold armor. The armor looks ancient, and it's been covered in many coats of chipped and faded paint. The man's command is carried out instantly as another man, this one in shiny black armor, drives his knee into Jocelyn's stomach. She sinks to the ground, gasping for breath, and the man in blue and gold turns back to Rogers. "Can you walk?" he asks, his voice sounding harsh and grating through his helmet's filters.
James looks around again, feeling as if there's a heavy blanket smothering his thoughts. Who are these people? What am I doing here? Most of the ground crew seems to be present, with only McCormick absent. They are clustered close together, watching the armored men silently. The strangers bear no insignia or marking that James recognizes, and he counts two humans and a turian. He realizes belatedly that all of the strangers are holding assault weapons. Pirates? Mercenaries?
"He's injured," says Zael, his voice weak and fearful. "He's still in shock. I don't think he can. …"
In one fluid motion, the man in blue and gold charges his rifle, swings it down, and fires a single shot directly between Rogers's eyes. The sickening, meaty sound takes a moment to penetrate the fluff in James's head. Did he just kill Rogers? he thinks hazily.
The rest of the crew shrinks back from the scene of sudden violence, stunned into a horrified silence. The man in the blue and gold looks up, showing no emotion for the man he's just killed. "How's the biotic?"
The man in black armor strides across the cave and leans toward James, peering into his visor. "He's upright, probably still not fully conscious. Should we wait?"
Blue-and-gold shakes his head. "No, he'll be fine. Let's get out of here, this place gives me shivers."
"He's not a biotic," pipes up Zael. "You've got the wrong-"
"No talking," says Blue-And-Gold. He motions with the barrel of his rifle. "Everyone line up. We're heading back up."
James looks around for a moment, wondering where the biotic the man mentioned is, but then he gives up and falls into line behind the others. On the walk back up the tunnel he stumbles several times, the frustrating, half-asleep feeling making it hard to keep his balance on the uneven ground. Each time he falls one of the armored strangers appears at his elbow, helping him back to his feet with a gentleness that's at odds with the brutal murder he's just witnessed. James contents himself with following the crew and waiting for later for things to make sense. With his head spinning and an assault rifle digging into the small of his back, he has little choice.
They're shepherded out into the light and James squints, blinking rapidly as the brightness floods his eyes. Its a sweet relief after the oppressive, stifling dark of the mine, and even though the light is grimy and tainted by soot, James feels his spirits lift a little.
The ache in his head is gradually receding, and with it James can feel the fog lifting from his mind. He looks around again with newly sharpened senses, trying to piece together some sort of coherent explanation for the last thirty minutes. Or was it longer? Was I out for hours, or minutes? The mining crew is still being led by the human in the blue and gold armor. Behind them follow the human in black and the turian in grey. There's something familiar about the turian, but James can't quite place it. Up ahead their camp lies gutted, hoses and power couplings lying across the ground like limp grey snakes. The stubby nose of a short-range shuttle pokes out from behind the remains of the storage tent, and it's there that James spots McCormick, on his knees in the dust and ash, flanked by two more armored figures. James counts no more than these five attackers, but there's no question of fighting back. The strangers are heavily armed and armoured, and doubts that his mining drill would do him any good as a weapon, even if he could free it from his back in time. The crew's only proper weapon, the mech Elmer, has been left behind at the bottom of the mine. Any thoughts of fighting are hypothetical at best, suicidal at worst. After the strangers' treatment of Rogers, James has no doubt as to what the punishment will be for disobedience. Still, he finds himself confused. If they're pirates, why didn't they just kill us and take our equipment? They're not Blue Suns, they're treating Tyler like the rest of us. A rival mercenary group then?
James is still too confused to be afraid. His memory of the incident in the cave is starting to piece itself back together, but the only explanation is one that seems completely impossible. In any case, even though the man in the black armor has just murdered the first mate, James reminds himself that Jocelyn herself was willing to do the same, and McCormick was willing to let her. He remembers the old saying, repeated by a few old woman in the town where he grew up, and wonders if this is the frying pan or the fire, and which would be worse.
The man in the gold and blue has stopped the procession near the center of the crater. He slings his long rifle over his shoulder and begins striding down the line of miners. James is struck again by the ancient make of the man's armor. The suit looks as if it might date back to the first contact wars, with all the inefficient blockiness and exposed tubing of the early human expansions. The helmet itself is fearsome, an antique war mask of a thing, with two staring owl's eyes and an oversized mouthpiece that looks like the muzzle of some vicious animal.
The man passes by each miner in turn, the darkened eyepieces of his helmet staring inscrutably at each of them. Finally he reaches the end of the line and begins to speak, his voice deep and slightly distorted by his helmet's filter. "Your starship has been confiscated. Your captain has been executed. He was restrained within the airlock, where he read a confession for our cameras. The airlock was then depressurized, and your captain's fluids were expelled through his eyes and ears as his internal organs imploded. His corpse was jettisoned and has likely disintegrated in the exosphere by now. A video of the execution has been sent to all major ports and news networks, as well as posted to the extranet, if any of you should doubt my word."
The man strides slowly up the line again, staring each miner in the face as he passes by. The muted tread of his boots on the ashy ground is the only sound in the crater. Thump. Thump. "Perhaps you are wondering who I am," continues the armored man. "I am called Joseph Lightbringer. I am both death and life. I am both light and dark. To you, I can be either. Your captain made his choice. You, however, have yet to make yours."
Joseph has reached the end of the line once again. He turns to face them, clasping his gauntleted hands behind his back."I will speak with you later on the subject of choice. Until then, you will remain silent and do as commanded, and no harm will come to you. We are not pirates. We have not come to loot and rape, nor to kill without discretion. Nevertheless, consider your life a privilege. Insubordination will not be tolerated." With that final dire warning the speech is over and James finds himself being herded into the little shuttle with the rest of the miners, his head swimming with more questions than before.
…
Kal'Reegar awakes to a tapping sound. Wake is perhaps the wrong word, for the cold and dreamlike state he has been inhabiting is not quite sleep. Time flows differently down here in the brig. Something about the dripping pipes and chilly, dim light cause the minutes and hours to bend and flow in strange, alien ways, and Kal has no idea how long he's been trapped here. A day, half a day, a week perhaps.
Consciousness has come and gone, the dream and the waking blending and fading together until it has all become one: not real, not imagined, but something in between. Faces and voices pay their visits, old faces, some of them long dead. Old sergeants, old friends, old enemies: they drift before Kal's glazed eyes, their voices muted and senseless. These apparitions are the least troubling. The dreams are far worse.
Only one dream visits Kal in the brig. It always starts the same, with swaying trees, a shimmering moon, and the scent of pine needles. Kal is back on the unnamed forest planet, back in the place that a part of him still calls home. No suit binds him, no glass covers his face. Instead he runs free, grass and dirt and wind tingling against his skin. There is an alien power in his muscles and his heart beats hard and quick, pumping fire through his veins.
The scientists did this to you, he reminds himself. They put this fire in your body, made you able to survive the open air. They made you into this beast. These are not your claws or teeth, this is not your home. But in the dream it is hard to think. In the dream Kal cannot remember the masked men, or the beatings, or the horrible pain of the needle and its venom. In the dream there is only the forest and the moon and beautiful freedom. This part is familiar; it has returned to him almost every night since the changing.
And then the dream changes. The forest is gone, and the ground beneath Kal's bare feet is snow. The field extends all around him, pure white in all directions. Smoke rises far off in the distance.
Kal.
He looks down, knowing the source of the voice already. The dream never changes. It is always the same face looking back up at him.
Kal … help …
There is so much blood. No matter how many times the dream comes, it still shocks him. So much … Like a movie camera his eyes lower further, completely out of his control. They come to rest on his outstretched hands, hands contorted and morphed by the curse, horribly disfigured, half quarian and half beast. Jagged claws erupt from fingers of all the wrong sizes, coarse hair covering hands and arms in patches. And over it all, the blood. …
Please … please, Kal …
Kal's eyes are burning, but the beast does not have tear ducts. He can taste the human blood on his tongue, can feel its sour tang in the back of his throat. Why, he sobs, why did I do this? The words won't come out, can't be forced through the beast's misshapen pallet. His eyes raise again, and the fields are stained with red, seeping out in a crimson blossom from the dying body of the man he loves. It spreads impossibly fast, the corruption shooting out in all directions until Kal stands in the middle of a sea of blood. The smell is suffocating and he retches, tasting bile, gasping for breath that won't come.
Kal doesn't know how many times the dream has come, but it never changes. Always the forest, then the field of crimson. Always the same dying pleas, the same blood on his hands and in his teeth. There is no escape.
The tapping comes again.
Kal unfolds himself slowly, his knees crying out and his feet tingling with pins and needles. The damp and cold have worked their way into him and he can feel a deep ache in his joints. He doesn't remember how long he's been curled up like this.
The tapping sound seems to be coming from the far end of Kal's tiny cage. He crawls toward the noise, his legs too unsteady for anything more. There is light coming from the direction of the tapping, but Kal's bleary eyes are having difficulty adjusting.
"Reegar?"
That's my name, Kal realizes. "Hello?" he croaks.
"Kal! It's me!" The voice is a strained whisper, and now Kal can make out a silhouette pressed against the bars of his cage. "It's me!" repeats the voice. "Tannea!"
Kal grabs onto the bars, pulling himself up against them and squinting at the silhouette. "Tannea? How … how long …"
"I'm not sure, but I think it's been a little over a day now! Listen, Kal, we have to get out of here!"
Kal slumps against the bars, his own weight suddenly too much for him. "Keelah, just a day?"
"Yes," says Tannea impatiently. "Come on, Kal, something's happening! We have to get to the other marines."
"Other … other marines?"
"Damn it, Kal!" Tannea squeezes her fingers through the bars, grabbing onto Kal's arm and squeezing fiercely. "Snap out of it! We have to get off this ship, now! The guards are gone, they took the rest of the marines off someplace."
"Not us?"
"No, they were keeping the rest of the crew away from me."
Kal shakes his head, closing his eyes and letting his chin slump down against his chest. Only a day. It felt like years. "We can't," he mumbles. "No way."
"What's the matter with you?" hisses Tannea. "Come on Kal, we have to go now! You still have your knife?"
The words take a moment to work their way through the fog in Kal's head. He reaches down, and is faintly surprised to find that their captors missed the small knife in his boot. He unclips it and draws the small blade out, passing it through the bars to Tannea.
"Good," whispers the sniper. "Great. Give me one minute." Tannea moves away from the bars, and there's a flurry of scraping and banging until something drops to the deck with a loud clang. The door to Tannea's cell creaks open slowly, and then Kal hears her boots scuffle on the deck as she makes her way around. In a moment her visor appears at the door to Kal's cage. "Got it!" she says, brandishing the little knife. "Old locks. Analog. Rusty." She hunches over and begins attacking the padlock on Kal's door.
"I heard them talking," Tannea whispers as she works. "The guards. They said somebody called 'Lightbringer' is bringing reinforcements. Something about a captured mining ship. They're going to move the quarians onto the new ship when it gets here."
"Why?" asks Kal, feeling just barely capable of monosyllables.
"Who knows. Bring us out of system maybe, sell us to slavers or something. The point is, we have to get out of here before that ship arrives." There's a metallic click and the lock falls off the door. Tannea catches it this time, setting it down on the deck much more quietly. "Come on," she says, easing the cell door open. "Let's get you out of there."