Duran Cross - Raddocks Horizon

Rennin glances at Antares then looks to Caufmann. “Why did…” he starts, unsure what his question is.

“We weren’t reinforced. We had to make do with what we had. I was brought dead androids, and I made them live again. Can you picture it?”

Rennin shakes his head slowly. “No, sir.”

“I think the worst of it was when the Jupiter Sieges ended. Watching maimed troops survive the last battle just to succumb to their injuries,” he says holding his hands up in front of Rennin. “They survived the war but they didn’t survive me.”

Antares huffs out an artificial laugh. “Decora, you… blamed yourself for every death we suffered. It’s… quite enough.”

“What did you think you were doing running at three Suvaco units like that?” Caufmann yells wheeling around to face her. “There are too few of us left to throw our lives away!”

Antares is still smiling but her eyes are wet and closed. “I’m so tired. I don’t want to fight anymore. My husband—” she chokes up slightly, “my… Forgal was everything I fought for. He fought to free us, Nexarien, and I fought to free him. From them and from himself. He wasn’t strong enough to fight on his own. None of us were. But through our slaughter of the humanists we learned that carnage can’t free us. Of all of us, I pity Saifer the most. Even more than I do you.”

Caufmann shakes his head, “Saifer? Why?”

“He knew more than anyone that something was wrong with our existence. He threw himself into the frontlines as if fuelling the rage would make him whole. Zillah followed. The two of them butchered thousands but their madness only grew. I didn’t think either of them would ever come back but sooner or later the fighting, the killing, the murder, has to stop. Like all things living, rage withers and dies.

“Saifer had nothing. Now he, himself, is nothing. He died without purpose and without value, in himself or anything. He represents the true tragedy of all of us.”

Rennin feels a light stab of anger in his throat. He feels affronted and takes incident with her words. To him, Saifer Veidan was the best he’d ever seen. He was strong, brave, and protected his troops whether human or android. He finds it difficult to swallow that Antares would dismiss him so easily. Though he can’t deny the truth in her words.

Caufmann can’t bring himself to cry. He would never cry and right now he envies Antares bitterly. He will never feel value as she does for anyone. The closest he’s come is a creature branded an abomination by most that is now dismembering contaminants far and wide across the city.

The doctor reaches into his pocket and pulls out the envelope containing the picture of the very much alive Forgal Lauros. Part of him doesn’t want to show her now that she’s chosen to die. He wishes he had found the time before she made her dash into an impossible fight, only to be cut down by friendly fire, of all things.

Maybe it would have given you hope.

“I can save your life if I get you to the lab. Your tomb will repair some of the damage and keep you alive well and truly long enough for me to get a proper surgery organised. But if I move you, it might kill you.”

“I’ve already told you, Nex, I want to… stay here. No more surgery. I don’t want to live as this thing anymore.”

Caufmann’s hand is trembling as he fumbles with the envelope and removes the creased picture of her husband. “I don’t even know if I should show you this. It could mean any number of things,” he says holding up the photo.

Her glazed, wet eyes, stare at it for a moment and it doesn’t seem to register but suddenly she holds her breath. Her eyes sharpen in an instant and focus intently. She looks to Caufmann, “He…”

“Yes,” he nods. “When I told you he was dead, I was absolutely sure he was. When I received this picture,” he says not glancing at Rennin. “I didn’t know… how to tell you. I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t.”

“He’s still a slave.”

Caufmann blinks. “Perhaps. He could have been repurposed. Or it could be even worse.”

Antares spears the doctor with a piercing glare despite her condition. “He’s not a traitor. He doesn’t know how to be.”

She reaches for the picture and Caufmann passes it to her. She stares at it for a long moment even though the image is permanently written into her mind. Antares scans over it again and again, especially the face, trying to read his eyes. After being silent for a long while she drops the picture on the floor.

“He doesn’t know who he is,” she says wearily but her eyes remain focussed. “All right, Nexarien, take me to the lab. I’m going to burn Iyatoya base off the surface of the moon.”

Caufmann turns to Rennin. “Do you think Dead Star can still fly?”

Rennin nods. “There was nothing wrong with it, we just couldn’t risk flying after Desolator fired at us.”

Caufmann nods to himself. “We can’t bring it here or we’ll cause a mad riot to board it. Get a few people to help us take Antares to it. Leave Drej here, the fact a HolinMech is stationed here is helping morale enormously. Pick just two because they’ll be leaving Raddocks Horizon with you after we get Antares to the lab.”

“With me ? You’re not coming?”

“No. I received an encrypted communication from Doctor Roths. The HolinMech Warrior squadron has been called and they’ll be sent here. She was to report to Iyatoya but she and Rethrin went to take command of the medical pavilion outside the city. They were afraid of the immune being used as test subjects. Rightly so,” his eyes turn distant. “I would have.”

“Why pick only two others? Many of us thought we were all leaving.”

“The smaller the team, the greater the chance of passing unnoticed. You also have all the tactical data and information that those outside need to know.”

The two Rennin picked to leave with him were an obvious choice. Caufmann knew who’d he’d pick, and that’s why he suggested just two. Mia and Drake. He did so predictably. Caufmann still feels glad when he thinks of Rennin flying off on silent mode towards the borders of Raddocks Horizon. The gravity repulsor technology in the gunship could run so close to silent it’s almost inaudible. Though, the engineers haven’t worked out a way to make it very fast just yet. It’s good for patrols, but not tactical engagements. And unfortunately, silent running does not equate with invisibility to lidar scans.

A saved life. A definite saved life. Finally.

William Caufmann is walking around in the basement of the half destroyed Godyssey Laboratory. He’s activated the defence turrets around the complex and has kept his movements quiet. It is a massive risk returning here but Prototype doesn’t seem to be keeping an eye on it at the moment. Caufmann wonders if Prototype thinks he died when Desolator opened fire. Or perhaps since the city has fallen he’s no longer a threat to the progenitor-class. Or maybe it died after Del very nearly tore it to pieces.

First thing’s first.

Antares is entombed once more, though this time in Saifer Veidan’s pod since it’s never been used. Caufmann decides that his own tomb being empty doesn’t sit well with him. If another agent enters the lab and finds the CryoZaiyon Tomb it’ll stand out plain as day that there’s nothing in Nexarien Decora’s pillar.

He moves up the corridor to Room V, where the last three members of the CryoGen Team are kept. Timothy Fowl, Warwick Balkan and Jonathon Holin.

Caufmann needs a body for his pod. It doesn’t have to be an android, just something with organic life signs. John Holin is the man for the job, he surmises. The man that designed and built the first HolinMech systems. The man who sold the soul of CryoGen Industries to the venomous claws of Godyssey.