20 - Four-Minute Warnings
Kivi's Wake
Udeav Minor
Colonial Space
Minutes to contact
Seven fightercraft broke into a wide, boomerang-like arc as they crept out of the gravity well of the pale cerulean rock they called home.
Given their current headings, they'd drift out of formation before the next minute was through; all carried out exactly as rehearsed in their plan.
White tick marks faded away on Béa's eyepiece indicating that she was clear of any stellar obstruction. She indexed her slip drive into its lowest setting. As the quark field generator spooled up behind her, she took final notes of the other craft in her wing.
Four Invader mark-fours, two Invader mark-threes, and her own ex-Cornerian AL4 fuelled and armed to the max in their final mission under Ketumat's flag. Béa had even instructed her crews to carry several weeks of rations in their vessels, should they need to coldwarp out of the system to safer hideaways.
The protection and armament on the Béa's missile-bearing I-3's were vast, but only if the more-maneuverable I-4's could successfully defend them. Conversely, the I-4's could hold their own against just about anything modern they'd encounter, though only if the latter was suppressed with missiles; and those ran out quickly.
The protection and armament on the Béa's missile-bearing I-3's were vast, but only if the more-maneuverable I-4's could successfully defend them. Conversely, the I-4's could hold their own against just about anything modern they'd encounter, though only if the latter was suppressed with missiles; and those ran out quickly.
Against drones, it wouldn't be much of a problem, Béa reckoned. Her flight would be able to lob missiles from a safe distance and punch a way to the gate's charge battery. The only hangup in the plan assumed, rather riskily, that the feds had ripped out their meager complement of F2C; something they had all but telegraphed in the past few months.
This left Béa's own ship, the AL4; a sentimentally maintained Lylat Wars relic riding in the center of the splitting formation. By contrast with the others, it was completely outmatched by just about anything they would encounter.
Besides being three decades older than its pilot, it was an Army Bottlenose, no less. A veteran of the Katinian defense during the Lylat Wars, so she'd been told by those with grayer hairs and vaster knowledge. With every eyeball-shaker sortie the craft endured, it grew closer to being permanently entombed in Kivi's scrap jungle.
Béa rubbed the faded, cracking plastic dashboard. She'd tried to cherish as much time with the hull as possible, but she could only paint cherry-red lacquer over the years of terrestrial corrosion for so much longer before the floor dropped out from her. And, there weren't any museums that would take her.
The experienced privateer in Béa knew that her final plan was their most logical course of action, but found an additional sensation she hadn't even looked for: Hope. There was a warmth in her chest she hadn't feel emanate for some time. Progress. The idea of her goals-in-reach occurred to her for the first time in years. Today it would be Ketumat's glory, but beyond the warp out, whatever flag they flew next was entirely up to her.
Bèa grinned. True, untethered freedom.
She depressed her comms toggle and opened her team's private channel, unsure of what to say. This was unlike Béa. A rousing speech was never far behind. It was a reflex for her, the words to inspire or terrify flowed freely. But, this time? Silence. The channel squawked close after a few seconds.
The Akita leaned back, flexed her hands above her head, stretching her fingers apart. She felt another novel conflict in her chest.
There's no chance the rest will work the way Timoteus thinks it will, she thought to herself. We don't know how many drones those Centers have ready, and we know that their gate probably has enough point-defense to stop every missile we have. Not to mention, that damned a-grav well if we're too slow to push through.
Béa's flight was fully laden with every missile, torpedo and rocket they'd been able to scrounge up; mostly post-war Macbeth vintage. Luckily for her and her crew, Macbeth's arms dealers were fairly liberal in their background checks and their flight often targeted their convoys to more notorious elements out in the colonies. In essence, the pariah planet self-funded their own victimization.
Peering out of her canopy, she studied the full missile racks on one of her disappearing I-3's. Androsses' longest lasting machinery. She rechecked the dangerous math she'd been calculating for days. Two missile trucks. Twenty-six shots per. Four Escorts. Two shots each.
And then there's me. Béa thought. The fuckwit in command. One ancient, unguided torpedo on terminal glide.
With a few taps on her display, she toggled through her prismatic targeting lens and found what she was looking for. Manual bomb-drop; a two-thousand year-old fallback. It never hurts to be prepared.
Their agreement was solid and simple. A Single warhead on their reactor battery would do the trick. The whole complex was big enough to require heavy-hauling and complex enough to require engineers from Lylat. At least six-months without gate travel, guaranteed. The logic was sound, Timoteus wanted to force a major repair before any more mercenaries set up shop in-system. This would give him the precious time he needed to mold his environment.
To get there, her flight had planned to hit the drone bays first. The seasoned pirates all agreed this would likely partially fail, but would pay dividends even if they only prevented one wing of drones from launching. Her crew was prepared and they'd rehearsed the plan exhaustively the previous two days.
Her trust in her crew restored her confidence. And, besides, the pirate thought to herself. A failed attempt was still in line with the agreement.
Truth be told; Béa was free either way.
Her drive spooler indicated itself 'ready' in a green triangle on her eyepiece.
Without doubt, she engaged her comms again.
"Listen up, I know it's tempting, but if they manage to launch any fighters after our first pass just get out," She reiterated. "We can't fight those fookers toe-to-toe. Don't even try it. We hit the target hard, as specified, and bounce."
Wordlessly, the pirate queen's shipmates began to kern a few degrees further off their assigned bearings. They would cloverleaf off, each taking their own route to the gate.
"Just like we rehearsed. Use the cargoliner wrecks Bearing 70-120 as cover on infil'. Exfil' through the wild routes on Usva."
"That'll leave us exposed for at least a minute, Béa!" One of the pirates belted back. A moment of uncharacteristic doubt from the lower ranks.
"That's only if plan 'A' fails. Use the trade lanes if you need to," Béa reminded him. "Rao Timo insists they won't fire if they believe they could kill civilians."
"And you trust him?" The dissenting voice asked.
"He's right," She answered confidently.
It was what Béa didn't say that bothered them. Timoteus wasn't her problem. His motivations were. Revenge was an attractive prospect to those who didn't care about its consequences. Timoteus' should have known better, Béa reasoned with herself as second-guessed their agreement.
His voice is so smooth. Calming even. A confident man. Accomplished too. The focus in his eyes always looked like it was wholly devoted to you. As if nothing shined brighter than you. He's come so far.
Béa sighed. Realizing, maybe too late, that she herself should have known better. She shook her head, cracked her neck and glanced at her central display. They would be in the concentric ring of Center-monitored space within thirty seconds post-slip.
"It's time to execute," She declared. "Go silent. Gentle wake. Look and act routine. You all know what to do."
All seven ships sped off into independent slipstream, leaving their pilots to a couple minutes of solitary contemplation before they were noticed.
Cornerian Defense Force Gate Command
Udeav System
Colonial Space
Udeav Noon
That ain't right. Not even for today.
Major Keynes flicked through his morning notes as he sat in the red-upholstered captain's seat.
Keynes would happily confess to being an office jockey, but it hadn't always been that way. His instinctual paranoia, for example; a holdover from a bloodier age.
A thinly-built ape born and raised in the rebuilt ashes of Venom's hub-like cities, Major Keynes had enlisted in the conquering Cornerian Navy at the 'perfect' moment. He had the unfortunate distinction of having sewn on the golden crosswing piping of a newly-minted space defense operator just hours before the Aparoids brushed aside the Katinian line.
The simian had barely filled out his issued dress-reds then, the mere sight of which would have been would have made his grandfather's roll in their battlefield graves around Area Six memorial spacelanes. Gods rest their souls. Two wars later, the stinging irony still hadn't faded from Keynes' mind.
All that was over thirty years ago. And, the newer Union blues didn't fit much better on him.
Between then and now, he accepted a commission. Took a couple years off. Happily divorced twice. Rejoined. Earned his way into flight school. He'd even flown rear-detachment F2A's as an aggressor pilot for a few years.
Then? Promoted to the desks. Chained to 'em. Bench warming, soul-crushing, administrative posts for a decade that made colony duty look appealing. Those appeals worked on Keynes, as it happened. A good officer near the end of his career, having enjoyed most of it, but now fervently counting down the days until his pension letter arrived.
He took his first sip of his smoldering, ceramic tower of tea; his second pour of the day. He lowered the cup and rubbed his aching temples as a stress induced migraine rolled over him.
I can't let this go.
A few minutes earlier, he'd been forced to suppress seven microslip-signatures that the station's defensive VI, SARVI, had determined were normal. Forced. The virtual intelligence had muted the alerts, but Major Keynes hadn't let them go from his own search logs yet; an act of biological insolence his digital 'superior' would not forget to report.
The initial alert beacons over the QES station brought him some consternation for the mid morning shift.
Seven stellar objects on the quantum pulse. None were pinging back. They hung a wide arc from the three to nine o'clock horizon at varying vertical entry points. No IFF, too far for RADAR dopp's to return size and activity.
They were tiny: only fifteen to twenty meters dilation from aft to stern. They departed Kivi's shipping lanes, before revving up their slip drives. Microslip, too. The best way to delay quantum scans. Also, too slow for cross-colony movers and too slow for intersystem travel. They weren't drifting close, either; deviating several thousand kilometers apart from each other.
However, it wasn't the origin point that concerned Major Keynes. It was their convergence.
The monkey's tactile fingers swooped through the purple-white hologram; pinching the viewfinder to reposition the digital map.
"Tracers," the ape instructed verbally. The first word he'd uttered in two-hours. The two junior lieutenants by the aft window screen, bored out of their minds, looked at him askew for a few moments. Keynes didn't look back.
SARVI obliged. Seven time-labeled arrow paths traced his hunches' flight path. A spoke-like pattern all pointing to the same destination. Here.
They were going different speeds on different journeys, but they maintained similar paths to different flanks in the gate's restriction zone. Same size. Same time first-observed. Microslip generation. A single wide axis across our weak angle. Not a good look, but not exactly our definition of "hostile intent".
Major Keynes wordlessly tapped his alumniglass screen twice, exhaling in frustration. Reviewing the data again, he had come to the same frustrated conclusion he'd made five minutes ago. It wasn't good enough to be considered proof, but it wasn't bad enough for him to toss it outright.
It looked an awful lot like an 'O'Donnell Petal Dispersion' technique, the elder Space Defender recollected. A bug out technique for marauders, parasites and other such devils.
In fairness, SARVI had assessed the anomaly as well. Faster, more efficiently, and with more emphasis on predictive behavior as one would expect from a virtual intelligence. It wasn't 'his' fault. It was the way the machine's algorithm had been trained by the pen-pushers; provide solutions, not problems. SARVI was programmed and learning-reinforced to take instruction from a law enforcement runbook, not a military raider's manual.
And, of course, there were some things you didn't learn in books.
As a result, Ole' Sarv was being less than forthcoming about its results. Though, a quick glance at SARVI's workstation process chart proved it was still running projections behind the scenes.
Screw it. Keynes lowered his mug back on the desk and swiped his display to the central QES board. Tremors of anticipation ensured his foot tapped the no-slip rubber floor mat.
"SARVI!" the good Major finally called out to his digital superior, "I need a range and convergence time. My targets: group kilo, one-through-seven. Give me an average of all computable possibilities."
A five-second silence followed before SARVI's calming digital voice chimed in. "Seven-two-thousand klicks, Major Keynes."
"And?"
"Approximately four minutes on all traced axes."
The Wreath; Percival Powell's Box
Udeav Minor
Colonial Space
Udeavan Noon
Percival grunted as he leaned over the railing on his private, open-air second-story balcony.
From his perch, he'd have a front row seat to the stage before him; a rotating central platform set up for Jonny's big something-or-other.
The aches, pains and clicks in his lower back were starting to get worse, which meant one of those dreadful rain squalls was coming soon. Percy wanted to be out before the crowds swelled for the afterparty, but there was one intangible he needed sorted. And that intangible, seated seventy-or-so meters to his front in an abutting box was late.
Percival Powell was a strongly opinionated man. A gruff, thick-skinned mole made famous for his refusal to separate his piety from his work, nor offer any apology for the means by which he got it done. Predictably, when strong opinions meet a robust financial portfolio, such men could become almost messianic in circles.
And so it was. Beneath the landing Percival stood on, sat many of the old mole's traveling band of disciples. Though, he more correctly viewed them more accurately as a revolving band of sycophantic political lubricants. His false worshippers, all too-willing to step over each other in a frenzied rush to suckle the teat of his providence. A slurry of religion, politics, business, draining directly into Percival's pocket. Sometimes all three at once.
His influence was the stuff of legends. Construction permits past the Katina gate required Percival's sign off to even be discussed, And those that built without it didn't ever feel safe.
Soothsayers, earwigs and gluttons looking for the gift of my attention. He thought disdainfully. They were tools to him, nothing more. A vessel to the God's such as he would need them, despite their uncovered wickedness.
"Call on your secureline, Mr. Powell." A sudden shadow and quivering voice said, Vikr's provided assistant.
"Secure?" The mole ridiculed, waving the aide away. She ran back down the glass staircase as another ran up.
The old mole looked over both shoulders to see his servile driver, Nic. The absolute ninny. The brown labrador rushed over to the old mole, nervously tearing an antiquated short-range communicator from its plastic casing. The dog powered it on as the analogue shortwave crypto enabled.
Secure! Percy harrumphed to himself, snagging the new-used device from his driver's hand. He dispatched Nic with the same dismissive wave he'd sent Armstrong's nagging watchwoman away with.
Across the way, the mole could see his counterpart sitting cross-legged in his own box. Frankly, he was so comically large that there was no way Percival could miss him.
Percy clicked the dial, a physical button, and keyed into the conversation. A shuttering series of clicks let the old man know he'd connected.
"It's time we had a little chat," Percival finally said.
"Like this?" Anders Ljón replied with confusion. "Can't be seen together?"
"Absolutely not."
Ander's laughed, though Percy could see him shift uncomfortably a bit from across the way. Anders was on the first floor of Armstrong's seating area. Noticeably seated far from the good graces of his employers.
"Your reputation precedes you, Reverend," the cat replied.
"And yours revolts me," Percival spat back.
Anders only laughed again, though the smaller animal had all the power in this moment.
"How's Demitrius doing?" Percival asked furtively.
"Mollified."
"What?" Percival balked.
"I have him handled," the lion clarified.
Percival snorted, indicating his doubt.
"I know so," Ander's raged quietly, "He's accepted a guard detail. We still have his confidence."
"Keep it that way," Percival instructed. "We can't have him scaring our backers out on the show floor with sob stories."
Percival didn't see it, but he could feel the inflection point of a stupid animal's idea of a smart move.
"Why should I?" The big cat asked, fulfilling Percival's prediction. "It's all the same for me at this point. I'm sacked by the end of month at the latest. Just in case you forgot our little experience."
"You've given up, already?" Percy balked. "What little faith you have in me."
"'Compare me to the alternative, your holiness," Ander's replied sarcastically. "Not the Almighty.'"
Percival groaned. He has a point.
"That McCloud beast?" Percival asked to clarify Ander's mutterings. "Jonny's new toy?"
"She was mine first!" Anders said harshly, his tone defensive for the first time in their short conversation.
The first time he's reacted normally to any consequences. Percy thought. The first cracks in the ice.
"I had a feeling you didn't like sharing," Percival teased through the transmitter.
"Here's a reality check for you, Preach: we got played by the monkey," Ander's said, cutting off Percival's glibness.
"He's deviated, yes," Percival conceded.
"He's gone," Anders clarified. "It wasn't an act. We're out. The deal's off."
"Watch your words, Ljón," Percival spat. "I was hoping he wouldn't, but I have an escape plan for everything. Nothing that imp has done has changed anything, if you've been paying attention."
"And, here I expected you were in on it," Anders replied in a much more measured tone.
"First, we're still chained together. You know what and whom I am talking about," the mole recollected, knowing the uninterested, oversized nepobaby needed a harsh reminder.
"Second?"
"Your relevance wouldn't last fifteen minutes without my approval, Ljón. Take that either as a threat or a statement of fact. It doesn't make a lickspittle of difference to me."
"As of now," Percival said, changing tones and not taking questions. "We are locked together in a war on two fronts."
"Two?" Anders asked incredulously, "By my count it's three, Jean-Starkly, Vauquelin and now Jonny, all at the same time."
"Demitrius is broken," Percival said, "And, Jonny wouldn't dare fight unless we telegraphed."
"And Vauquelin?"
"No change. Status Quo," Percy simplified for the dull giant.
"Dominos fall, Ljón. The monkey will finish Vauqs. We will then handle the monkey," Percival Powell answered, "Demi will retire and Armstrong will lose his little quorum. Leashed."
"And Jonny. He's hands-off because we know where the bodies are buried," the cat anticipated, half-poorly.
"We made the bodies, you idiot," Percival said, "That's the only reason he included us. He did so as insurance to prevent us from ratting to Demi. To check our ambitions."
Anders was silent for a mere moment.
"And, here I was believing Jonny was too soft to hurt a fly," Ander's remarked appreciably. "Turns out he's just good at getting others to twist the dagger."
Percy could practically smell his gears turning from across the gorge. It wasn't the only thing he noticed. Percy had made a mistake; there was still a young assistant with him. An avian of some variety. A corporate aspirant by the look of her. Percival would solve this the same way he solved most problems.
"Nuclear option," Ander's smarmed, "What's stopping me from ratting you out?"
"If you haven't done it yet, you damn well know the reason," Percival said coldly.
Even Anders, as truly dull as he was, understood: You can't run or hide from Jean-Starkly money. Its sheer inevitability could shade you from the Colonies' many suns. KEI could fight, but there would be a CDF task group chasing them every new morning.
"We need to work different ends than we're used to," the mole marched on.
"What do you propose?"
"Leave McCloud to me," Percy started. "I'll make sure her contract goes up in flames. I'll even leave some table scraps for you."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I've already done it," Percival chuckled. "She does have a weakness in your orbit."
"Caruso?" Ander's knew immediately. "A frame job? I'm not so convinced, preach. Jana would cut her out like a tumor if she needed too. You don't know her like I do."
"You just need to keep Demi close today. Make sure he's comfortable. Sedated. Keep him away from Jonny," Percival instructed.
"Hold on. I never agreed to anything," Ander's said. "Ferall' you know Demitrius might pay very well to learn the truth of his little whore's fate."
So simple. So stupid. So brash. Percival laughed, a grin on his face as he mentally noted Ander's weak abdication; a cornered beast.
"My, my!" Percival said with his trademark backcountry allure. "Big cat out down on the first floor. The one in red, sitting all by his lonesome. He looks like he could be a governor."
The golden lion beamed back into Percival's box, satisfied with the current arrangements. No doubt he'd seek out his own terms. Another problem for another day.
"We can start there. And, just who am I looking back up at?" The lion asked shrewdly, eyeing Percival harshly from across the way.
Percival Powell stood up straight as a cloud moved just the right way from the sky. Another sign of his blessed destiny.
"I don't think a proper title exists for him yet," Percival said, eyes closed.
"I like the way you dream, preach."
"You're going to love the way I deliver, Anders."
Percival hung up, terminating the connection. The mole then held the antiquated device over the railing and released it. Two thousand kilometer drop and a turbine swipe. Problem solved.
Onto the last problem of the day.
Armstrong's girl, a canary fiddled about on her tablet, pretending she was anywhere else but here.
He looked back at Nic, who had just climbed the stairs. A stone faced Percival locked eyes with the labrador and pantomimed a throat slitting movement and eying the poor assistant who was none the wiser.
The Wreath; Central Event Platform
Udeav Minor
Colonial Space
Udeavan Noon
Timoteus leapt off the employee ferry before it came to a complete halt on the platform's edge. The wolf's right foot landed first, as his heels tapped his path toward the direction of Yuki's leave-behind ping.
He raised his left arm, tapped his wrist, and manipulated the yellow-tinged map with his index finger. The location of Yuki's beacon didn't look like a central network hub. But, Yuki wasn't known to make mistakes.
Last check-in was thirty-two minutes. Yuki's done. If Dalia listened to protocol, she's already on a 'borrowed' shuttle or surface patrol craft. In twenty more minutes, she ships off without us. Two scouts short. Just me up top now, and Fitzy on his way to the Butcher. Two different races to the bottom.
Timo couldn't sweat. But if he could, he'd've started an hour ago.
It was nauseating to Timo; his mistakes, impulses and deviations. If any other scout had performed duties this way he would have considered them derelict for lack of conviction. But, their leader? Going rogue? Unforgivable. Timo fumed at himself, now fast-walking through a greenhouse atrium gliding over the sea.
Absorbing his surroundings proved difficult, as the strange details of opulence confused him. His feet didn't clank like they'd had all morning, it was fine hardwood planks and see-through metal up here. The animals at this level didn't even make eye contact with him; as if he was an untouchable.
Every corner of Timo's mind knew passing through this beautified greenspace was to be his last moment of serenity, but Timoteus hoped he'd live long enough to see Rao Zeouna's final revenge.
The automatic doors swung open. The striding wolf exited the serene platform, greeted by a cacophony of cheers and applause. Armstrong Vikr, a tempting target on a rotating stage no more than fifty meters away. He had concluded remarks early and was announcing the next circus clown in his act.
"-A true visionary. My partner. My friend: Jonathan Huynh," The stag's words reverberated. The steady roar of applause erupted again.
Timo turned down a staircase leading to the Yuki's access-point, and suddenly it all felt very off. Light mocha tones on wood. vine decorations. Reserved. Official business only.
This is a private meeting space. He thought, pulse rocketing. Don't have time to play nice. Get in. Plug in. Then pull Fitzy out.
As Timo's panicked thoughts swirled and scraped about in his head, a guest stumbled into him. He turned, not seeing who had plowed into him at first.
Two giggles were his first indication to look down. Two boys. Only toddlers. A center had brought his kids to the colonies. Timo went near catatonic for a moment. He froze, watching them blankly as they apologized politely and skipped away. A waste of lives. Timo gulped. Centers or not, they deserved better. Timo lamented privately, regretting what resistance had reduced him to. Maybe it didn't matter, it was too late now.
We need the first strike to be devastating. We need it to paralyze Vikr. We need it to drive a wedge between them and the central systems. To captivate an audience. We're out of options. We need to win to survive. The logical justifications flowed freely through his mind, but the emotional ones were held under lock and key.
We need it. Don't we?
Timo knew what he was, and he'd learned to plan countermeasures for his own oversensitive moral compass long ago.
Forty-eight-thousand kilometers across the Udeav system, Timo's countermeasure was going to strike whether the wolf had the stomach to act or not. Timo had seen to it; dangling the carrot of freedom she'd long desired.
Timo trusted Béa implicitly, even accounting for the fact that his own judgment was clouded. A heart full of tenderness, a soft-spot. Béa was fearless, furious, and ready. Their mutual compromise worked two-ways, however. Timoteus knew he had Béa's hard-earned trust, but the inverse effect was also true. She could get passionate, something he was beginning to understand he loved.
He had arrived. A blacked out conference center at the furthest edge of the westernmost platform he could reach, a pink circlet of illuminated alumniglass surrounding the framing.'
The pendulum of fate had already begun swinging, and Timo had sealed his own fate long before he swiped his hand on the door reader. His mind went gray; thinking about it didn't matter anymore. Instead, the same words of affirmation Timo had always heard when he faced certain death rose to the top of his thoughts.
For Sophi.
The same three-syllables. Always, everytime he faced death. Ever since he left the shivering shell of that terrified little boy back in his father's mine. He wasn't strong enough to help her then, a fact he had slowly learned to forgive himself for. But, Timoteus would make sure her name would be echoed throughout time.
For Sophi.
He passed through the threshold, and the doors slid shut behind him.
Peaceful. The glass cage's antechamber was mostly blacked out. The window's electrochromic glaze was solidified, plunging the space into an opaque, inky-black dungeon.
Accompanied by the soothing sounds of a trickling fountain, Rao Timoteus snuck past the barren greeting table, noticing the only natural lighting in the space emitted back from Timo's entrance, a pinkish hue. There was an unnatural light, however, a rice paper box chandelier hung high over a tea table. A cast-iron kyusu sat on the table as steam spiraled gracefully to the ceiling.
A black cat was leaning silently against the closest corner to Timo's right. The reflective glint in her eye was the only reason Timo had seen her.
"Yuki? Why are you still here?" Timoteus asked harshly.
Yuki averted her shame-ridden eyes away from her Rao and faced another standing silently to Timo's front.
"Please. Sit with me," a man's voice spoke pleasantly.
A ferret emerged from the darkness. Warm goldenflax eyes. A slim frame that stood even above Timo's height. He was shrouded in bespoke, textured linens fit and finished for a king. He sat cross-legged on the floor cushion before them.
"Sit. While the tea is still warm."
Demitrius Jean-Starky, Timoteus recognized immediately. The name stung him as he saw the same shrewdness in his gaze. A man not worthy to live, father to the most incredible anomaly of a woman he'd ever met.
The turncoat stepped behind the wolf: Yuki now blocked his only exit.
Simultaneously, to the wolf's left, he sensed another body encroaching his space. A canid. Timo knew from the armor's red glint that this dog was KEI. The mercenary stood just behind the now captive Ketumati.
"What is this?" Timo asked, looking between the three incredulously.
"Rao Timoteus," the ferret spoke warmly, "You look tired."
The silver-tongued mustela looked harshly at the KEI hunter to Timo's left. Visceral anger, disgust even.
"Look!" Demitrius barked at the dog adorned in red plate. "Look at what you've been fighting so hard against."
The well-dressed mustela shifted his attention to Timo's right shoulder, to Yuki. His eyes were much softer when they settled in Timo's.
"He's just a boy," the ferret said melancholically.
With haste, Yuki drew an expensive looking pistol; a sparkling new Ostrava. Thin Calibre Ballistic. Integrally suppressed. She planted the barrel against the back of the KEI Hunter's cranium and pulled the trigger.
The gun fired, leaving only a small entry hole. Ninety-decibels. No shields, no armor, no mess.
The canine went slack to the floor, thudding violently and rolling over on his side as he began to expire.
Timo kicked his seat back and shot up, in the process of drawing his own concealed piece. He whipped it upward and aimed it directly at the seated royalty in front of him.
Too slow.
He didn't have time to ventilate the ferret's head. His morale collapsed as he felt the warm barrel of Yuki's gun poke against his own cranium.
"Don't!" Yuki barked at her Rao; her leader.
"Don't," she begged again, a much calmer act of insubordination this time. "Please."
It was over. In a solitary, crushing moment, Timo knew it had all been for nothing. That he'd been an utter failure from the very beginning. He'd led his best into a trap. A veil of hopelessness overtook Timo. It appeared that Ketumat was doomed before the opening shots of this new war were even fired. Even Béa might die because of him.
He hinged the pistol forward in his index finger, dropping it to the floor as he death glared back at his former comrade.
Then the tears rolled down. They chiseled their way down the thick, gray-clumped forests amidst his face.
"In your pocket," the golden-eyed ferret asked brusquely. "Do you have it?"
Timoteus' datadrive. He knew everything.
The wolf cautiously reached for his leftmost vest pocket; the one containing a stass-grenade he'd pilfered from a security office earlier that morning.
"The other pocket, Timoteus!" The wolf froze as Yuki's gun dug further into the back of his head, the polished edges of the suppressor glided smoothly against his fur.
"What have you done?" Timo finally asked her.
"Yuki's not done anything wrong," Demitrius Jean-Starkly, the second most powerful man in the colonies declared.
He stood again, waltzing over the KEI Hunter's still-writhing corpse. Demitrius approached the two animals before him, and with the back of his hand, gently lifted the business end of Yuki's pistol up and away from Timoteus' head.
"And, neither have you," he said, perplexingly.
Jean-Starkly placed his hand on Timoteus' shoulder. The wolf shuddered at his touch.
Timo collapsed on to his knees in silence as the breath left his lungs. Demi returned to his seat. The rich-scent of oolong tea continued to steam upward, to neither of their satisfaction.
Rao Timoteus didn't say a thing as he wept silently in nebulous shame.
"This nightmare," the ferret started, lifting the kyusu and pouring tea into the duo of cups.
"The heavy toll it's taking on you," Ariane's father assessed, correctly. "Your pupils have been dilated all morning. Distress hormones emitting higher through each identity gate you didn't see. You should have been caught a dozen times over."
"In fifteen minutes you might not feel so confident!" Timo snapped impulsively.
Demitrius, with two hands calmly nestled around his gold-veined kintsugi cup, lifted it to his face and took his first sip.
"Four," he said, not looking up. "Four minutes. If your watch is right. Your friends respected your wishes. They're already well on their way out."
Timo blinked. It just about was.
"Don't worry," Demitrius said in a vain attempt to reassure his guest. "You didn't slip up, I only knew where to look.
"What now?" Timo asked, a defeated young man, drying tears that emerged around his muzzle. There was no space left to bargain.
Demitrius took another long sip before replying.
"We finish our work."
Rao Timoteus straightened up. A cosmic shift had occurred, it seemed. The abacus of risk shifted, though the grieving wolf felt no better off.
"Ours?" Timo asked.
Timo resigned himself to a brief rolling laugh; a situationally deranged coping mechanism for the ferret's deceit.
"You wrote Zeouna's notes," the young Rao pieced together, now fully in disbelief. "You left it all for us. The blueprints, the shift schedules. All of it."
"Aster did all the work." Demitrius said, shaking his head as he said a name Timo had never had heard. "I made the choice. One too late for Ariane. Too late to help Zeouna. I wasn't ready to accept the truth. By the time I found my courage, I knew I would be talking to you."
"Is this why they killed Ari?" Timo asked while pointing to the now permanently stilled KEI Hunter. It had been a genuine question, one without agenda or tradecraft assigned to it.
"I killed her," the ferret lamented. It was a confession laden of nauseous guilt. "I killed them both. The worlds I built. The ones that trap you. It's my fault, boy."
"I thought a heavy hand was needed," he continued. "An insurance policy, should anything happen. Deterrence. KEI was my idea. I brought them in. To protect Ariane through the terror of their repercussions. The idea that if she received so much as a bruise, I could blot you out with a single word."
Timo leaned in as his brow raised, "You didn't think they'd turned on you"
"I thought I was above it. But, I started something. An industry. And, like all industries-"
"-You get competition," Timo interrupted. "You think KEI took an undertable offer?"
A primal anger shone in Mustela's eyes as the elder Jean-Starkly leaned in. "I think they smell blood in the water," the mustela muttered. "All of them. Someone wants me out. They wanted my stake, or they wanted the vacuum I would leave behind."
"They bet that you'd be broken," Timo said, nodding his head.
"I am broken," Demitrius Jean-Starkly admitted. "But, I'm not letting go."
"Who did this?" Timo asked." "Ander's Ljón?" Timoteus asked pointedly.
The Lion's name cut Demitrius to the core. "I knew Anders Ljón was not what they said he was. I thought I'd calculated his reputation for valuing results above all. I knew all about the blood on his hands. I'd hoped that the shroud of his terror would keep things in order."
"Terror? For us?" Timoteus asked furiously. Demitrius nodded.
"I was scared, boy," Demetrius admitted. "I didn't see smoke until their was already a fire."
"When did you call Star Fox?" Timoteus asked, having pieced the final pieces of the puzzle together. Who else could match KEI's presence? The Butcher and his scum twin being here wasn't a coincidence.
Demitrius perked up, having underestimated the young Wolf's fast-moving intellect. "A week ago. I begged for their help to get her back to me."
"Didn't occur to you to reach out to us?!" Timoteus raged, "You really thought we wouldn't have protected her?"
"I didn't trust any of you!" Demitrius resisted. "I couldn't trust Anders, I couldn't trust your factions. I thought I'd never hear from her again if someone found out."
Demitrius buried his hands into his head, "But, ever since that night. The night Ari's trail went too cold. The night before I was told. I knew it was over. KEI summoned me. Surrounded me with their brutes. I sat through every moment of Anders' false search party's plans knowing." Demi cried. "Despite the lies about hostage taking, the thin reports and the dressage; I knew then. I knew she was gone."
"The way Jana McCloud found my baby girl," he said, eyes closed. Trembling. "To be so alone. To know you caused it. I can't explain it. It is worse than death. "
"What kept you from exterminating all of us?" Timo asked.
"They made me look at her," Demitrius said flatly, his soul having still leaked out onto the floor from the corrupting memory that had destroyed him in ways Timoteus could no longer understand. Instantly, the ferret's golden eye's flickered an inconsolable rage Timoteus could. "They took me for a fool! They wanted everyone to believe Zeouna killed her hostage! Or that my petit chèvrefeuille was gutted! Ripped apart in some sort of gang war."
Demitrius marched over to the darkened window, his arms clasped behind his back.
"And then you, my boy," Demitrius said, his focus and poise returning. "There was agreement among me and my new friend. We expected more confusion among your people. Succession is always difficult to manage, but we expected that Ping Xiao, that ruffian from the city, would take over if you had killed them. But, it seems none in Ketumat were confused. And, here you are."
"Your new friend?" Timoteus asked, curiously. "And, how does she have such insight about us."
"Aster. She is divine," Demitrius mused pleasantly, turning his head with his first smile, "She's just a miracle for us."
"I'll admit, it was only a hunch at the time, but it saved your lives as you slept," Demitrius said, walking back to Timoteus, "Your next actions made your innocence much more clear to me."
"Zeouna's alumniglass," Timo said, connecting the dots further.
"It was mine first," he corrected. "My poisoned-apple, my backchannel. My first failure, she'd disabled the tracker a few years ago. But, when you cracked it..."
"...When I rebooted it," Timoteus realized with horror.
"Aster found a way in. I was watching. I was listening. You found the fugitive in one night. Something KEI pretends to be unable to do. You did what all my money, my resources, could not-"
"-Did not," Timo corrected.
"You can accept that fact as a compliment, but also as a reason for my awakening," Demitrius said. "Nevertheless. You and McCloud. Two opposite forces. Independently finding separate ends of the same rope.
"Entre le marteau et l'enclume," Demi said in his elevated tongue, "It means-"
"-'between hammer and anvil'," Timo cut-off. "I get it."
"I gave you the freedom to act," Demitrius said appreciably. "I left you the tools to take anything you wanted. Riches and plunder. Offworld passage. But, you chose revenge."
"I chose survival!" Timoteus yelled. "You think I enjoy mass murder? What do you think was going to happen to me, to everyone I love, if I had waited?!"
Demi inhaled thoughtfully.
"Aster told me you'd choose duty," Demitrius finally. "She said you'd be this bold. Nevertheless. Your freedom to choose what was best for you, and what was best for your people started with a simple keystroke. I was there, Timo. When you completed your first plan, all the way to your last. When you chose a final honor for my daughter. You chose to turn her and Zeouna's death into something more meaningful."
Timo removed the cool metallic cartridge from his pocket, twisted it about in his fingers, and then placed it on the table.
"You chose the exact message I desire so much, my boy. One I could not deliver myself."
"Ari and Zeo. Together," Timo guessed.
Demitrius broke again, tears oscillating between grief and what Timo thought was pride for a split second.
"Blind unity. Zero trust," the father summarized. "You hate me. And, we still ended up here."
Timo's rage boiled over. The compressed dying words of friends played over and over in his mind. All because of this man's industry. Demitrius' implied reign of terror that was made very real to them. Flicks of this man's pen resulting in whole villages razed to the ground.
"This is just revenge," Timo stated plainly, a slight twitch in his jaw. He said it against himself and the demented Jean-Starkly before him.
"More like catharsis," Demi considered.
The word was prettier, but Timo didn't care to know the difference between the two. Instead, the thin strand holding Timo back from making a mistake was severed, sending him into a tirade.
"You stupid fuck! It's convenient! That's what it was!"
"Why didn't you help us before?" He thundered. "Why now?!"
"I don't have an excuse. I-," Jean-Starkly stuttered, slinking into his seat. "I wasn't ready."
"For what!?" Timo balked. "Did you hope I would feel sorry for you? Do you think we give a shit about your grief now?"
"I would never expect you to see me as anything other than what I am," Demitrius said quietly.
"And, when were you prepared to see us as worthy of life?! Did you need a fucking memo?"
"I was misguided." Demi defended, shaking his head, "When you're born like me, you only hear the good. How could I have known? What was I supposed to have done?"
Timo stood and screamed. The wolf's vocal cords strained and contorted, producing a sound that seemed to emanate not from the throat or stomach, but from some darker recess of the soul. It was a banshee's wail, a discordant melody of torment and defiance.
"Anything!"
The wolf smashed the teacup into the pine table with a closed fist, shrieking in pain. A combined symphony of boiling hot tea, ceramic and blood splattered about.
"How many messages did she send you!?" Timo bellowed. "Your own flesh and blood! Your only daughter. How many warnings did you ignore!?"
Demi sat as a silent defendant in his own trial as harsh judgment and spittle rained down on him from Timo's desperate, frenzied accusations.
Timoteus did not halt his verbal assault. "Do you know how much they loved each other? Do you know how impossible that was? How important it was for us to see that life was possible? That any of us had a future."
"And, only now!" Timo rebuked, "Only now do you see it. Because it affected you! What if Ariane was still alive? How much more would you have taken from us? How many more bad harvests would you have allowed? How many more nameless, starving infants did we need to surrender to your 'care?'" Timo asked, knowing the answers would never be satisfying. "How many of my friends needed to die before we got your attention? Is there is a number?"
Demitrius went blank. Already in hell, it seemed. All the articulation in the galaxy couldn't save him. Neither his riches.
"Answer me!"
The mustela's golden eyes suddenly refocused. Older, more deliberate. Designs held in dark mirror to Ariane's pure intentions. There he is. Timo recognized. There's the fight. There's the bastard that killed just about everyone I've ever known.
"I wasn't ready to see it!" The ferret cut. "You don't understand what it's like! It's brain damage, it's the privilege of denial. I didn't think I was responsible for any of it. How could I? I kept myself placated. Others lied to me. I lied to myself. My whole life. So I believed in my own goodness," Demi accepted.
Breakthrough. His shoulders shrugging back into a defeated collapse.
"It was all a lie."
Timo sat back down. Any second, the floor would rumble. Confused guests back on the Wreath's decks would likely shrug it off, but the engineers below deck would know the truth within seconds.
"You're lying now," Timo said. "You knew."
Demitrius didn't say anything more to his defense.
"Maybe so," Demitrius, a man broken long before his daughter's passing, finally admitted. He looked back at Timo, though more hopeful in his gaze. "It won't matter for long. Because of you. You wonderful, necessary, instrument. Ariane is about to become something greater than us both."
Demitrius reached across the table and caressed the metallic obelisk between his own fingers, feeling its weight.
"It will be your victory," he said. "But, I will take your burden."
Timo rejected the premise outright. "Enough!" He blurted. "Now that the hard work is done. We need you. We need your money."
"You think family trees like mine keep it liquid? As if I have a pool of cred sticks in my pool I dive into every morning? The money is trusts. It's in promises. It's in bullshit. It's in apartments we let go half-filled for write-offs. It's jotted down on twenty-year-old napkins in bank vaults rusted shut. Institutions that would go bankrupt if they ever gave up that ghost. No, my boy, you'd get a couple million before some bureaucrat shut off the spigot. Maybe another million before they plugged the trickling leaks."
Demitrius sighed, before elaborating. "My money is watched. It can't fight your war. Your cause would become my cause. A grief-stricken trillionaire. Driven mad by the loss of his only daughter. That's all this would ever be. Just another footnote in my Lylapedia article."
"So what are you offering me then?" Timo asked in frustrated disbelief, "To push a damn button?"
"I am sorry, Timoteus. I am not offering you anything. Gods help me, I've already taken it from you. It's already been done. I am going to be the one who finishes this, Timoteus. And, no one else will ever know."
"Easier for you to have someone kill your own people than to ask them to change," Timoteus insulted. "You're pathetic, Demitrius."
"You won't be killing these people, boy. I will," Demitrius said quietly. "The result is notoriety for you. Your survival."
"I would have been perfectly content to live in peace, if you had just let us!" Timo argued.
Demitrius squinted. "People are paying attention now, boy. All over the systems. Aster and I have made plans for what comes after today."
"And, what comes after?" Timo asked.
The double doors opened behind him, a new set of footfalls on the tatami mat flooring gently tapped closer. Yuki shuffled behind him.
"Your independence," Demitrius said, extending his hand for a final handshake. Timo did not honor it with anything more than a furious stare.
A timer went off. Three trill beeps, alerting them that their time was up. Demitrius' smile disappeared. He placed his hand on Timoteus' shoulder gently and spoke, "It was good to have finally met you, Rao Timoteus. You're everything your people think you are. I just hope you grow to see it too."
"Aster, it's time."
Yuki's breath suddenly poured over on his neck as a stinging pin prick in Timo's upper right shoulder spread like wildfire through his body. Timoteus' muscles went rigid and he jerked his head back as the fiery pain and resulting dullness spread.
Timo felt the pain close in on the center of his chest as his extremities went ice cold. He fell backward on the floor.
In these fleeting moments of consciousness, Timo caught eye of his usual mirage. A purple eye'd angel he'd paradoxically feld he'd known for two decades. Those purple irises stared back down at him. The gray tail flickering gingerly as her teeth shined brightly in a smile.
Timo slept, just as everything went warm.