EVE®: Templar One (50 page)

He opened his eyes and saw an attractive woman staring back at him with a smile.

“You had a scare there,” she said, “but you’re alright now.”

Jonas stepped into view.

“How is he?”

“He’ll be fine,” the woman said.
“That shoulder will be sore for a while, but it’ll heal.”

“Where am I?”
Vince croaked.

“Lorado Station,” Jonas said.
“Nullsec space.”

“The Lai Dai goons can’t get you out here,” the woman said.
“You’ve been unconscious for nearly forty-eight hours.”

“What about Téa…?”
he said.

“She’s being looked after by another doc,” Jonas said.
“She’ll be fine, but she lost the baby.
I’m sorry.”

Considering who the father was, Vince wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“How’d you get us out?”

Jonas blew air out of his mouth slowly.

“Well, the short of it is, Kavon Giles wasn’t a real popular guy,” he said.
“It didn’t cost much to pay some folks to look the other way.”

“Hope you saved some of that cash for me, Joney-boy,” the woman said.
“My services ain’t cheap.”

Vince already assumed that this was a one-way trip.

“Don’t worry, there’s enough left to go around,” Jonas said.
“Vince, this is Doctor Gable Dietrich.
She’ll be taking care of you until you’re ready to join the crew.”

“Hii-i!”
she said, with a sarcastic wave.
The doctor was a tiny thing: Next to Jonas, she was maybe 150 centimeters tall.
Wavy auburn hair fell past her chin, dangling over light green eyes, a supple nose, soft lips, and an irresistible charm.

Then again, he acknowledged this might also be the painkillers talking.

“What crew?”
he asked.

“The crew of the
Retford,
” he said with a wink.
“Your new ship.
Welcome aboard.”

Jonas left.

“So, handsome,” Gable commented, “some ground rules about your stay here: One—when I tell you to do something, you do it.
You’ll heal faster that way.
Two—I don’t ever want to know how you wound up here.
My practice thrives on me not asking patients any more questions than absolutely necessary.
The less I know about
circumstances,
the better.
Three—and this is most important—you have to say something to make me smile every time I see you.
Got it?”

The last rule caught him off guard.

“What?”
he said, unable to help himself grin.

“See?
It works,” she said, flashing a beautiful smile of her own.
“But you’ll have to think of something better next time.”

*   *   *

VINCE, LYING ON THE GROUND
on Pike’s Landing, was marveling at the comfort he found in Gable’s smile, when the Architect spoke again.

You could have achieved harmony with this person,
it said
.
How could you forget her?

The serpent’s angry black eyes returned, and time was slowly accelerating again.
His hand began darting out to meet the threat head on.

Instructor Muros called out from his memory: “Tell me your creed.…”

“I am a Templar,” he had said.
“I am eternally devoted to our faith; I am the holy sword of the righteous, and I will defend Amarr with all my might.”

No,
the Architect said.
Your name is Vince Barabin.

He remembered now.

I shouldn’t know these things,
the Architect said
.
I don’t know who or what you are.
I fear the end has already happened.

Vince’s hand smashed into the creature’s neck as time resumed full speed.

One of its fangs dug deep into his wrist and latched on.
His other hand reflexively drew his combat knife, slashing forward as the reptile attempted to wrap its coils around him.
The knife plunged in deep; the grip on his wrist loosened slightly.
Vince withdrew and slashed again, this time aiming below the jaw.
He connected and pushed the blade all the way through; its body fell away in a flaying death spasm.

The head remained attached to his arm, its angry black eyes gazing at him.

Vince Barabin.

He ripped the creature’s head off.
His Templar anatomy protected him from the venom coursing through his veins.

Lord Victor was screaming on the TACNET, demanding to know why he hadn’t reported the Federation gunships that had overflown his position.

Instead of answering, he keyed the general broadcast channel and said a phrase in a dialect that was thousands of years old.

Only the Templars would understand its meaning.

“Remember that,” he then said, in his usual speech.
“You’re not what they say you are.”

Switching the TACNET off, he reached for a flare.

With the signaling device in one hand and his rifle in the other, he stood up slowly.
The assassin was staring right at him, purposefully making her way up the ridge with a weapon pointed his way.

Vince raised his hands so she could see them clearly.

Then he ignited the flare, holding it as high as he could.

HEIMATAR REGION—HED CONSTELLATION

AMAMAKE SYSTEM—PLANET II: PIKE’S LANDING

CORE FREEDOM COLONY

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE AMARR EMPIRE

“Damn it!”
Lord Victor cursed, speeding past a checkpoint and flooring the accelerator toward the nearest armor hangar.

Every Paladin, from noncommissioned infantry through the entire command hierarchy of the Heimatar Regional Task Force, had heard the words of Templar One.

Victor plugged into the channel directly.

“Those are the words of a traitor!”
he said.
“Remember your creed!
We are brothers in arms and faith!
Let no one break—”

A spectacularly bright flash suddenly lashed out from the sky; for an instant, it transformed the land from night into day.
Victor was utterly blinded; he had the composure to release the accelerator and brake lightly, but he was going too fast, and the vehicle began to drift off the road.

Striking a rock embankment, the truck began to flip.
The helpless eternity that passed between the awareness of calamity in progress and its pending consequence was filled with a mental cry of
No-no-no-no!
It flipped once, twice, and then he lost count.
As he was smashed from side to side, Victor knew he had just seen an orbital strike, fired from a Revelations-class dreadnought.

Its placement was in the direction of the Templar CRU farm, five kilometers to the northwest.

The vehicle finally came to rest upside down.

One of Amarr’s greatest immortal Paladins lay battered, bloodied, and ruined inside.
The physical pain was shocking … humbling … something Victor was completely unaccustomed to.

Grand Admiral Sundara’s gentle but forceful voice passed through his ears.

“I’m sorry,” he heard him say, “but I cannot allow this to go on.”

HEIMATAR REGION—HED CONSTELLATION

AMAMAKE SYSTEM—PLANET II: PIKE’S LANDING

THE GFS
PASSAIC
CARRIER GROUP

Admiral Freeman blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“Eagle One, can you confirm sky-fire impact on the colony?”
he asked.

“Confirmed,” the radio said.
“It hit something inside the perimeter.”

Holy shit,
he thought.

“Copy that, Eagle One,” he said.
“Be advised, two unidentified gunships have just entered your sector.
Transferring overwatch to Stalker-Two for coverage.”

“Roger that.
Eagle One out.”

Admiral Freeman manipulated the display layers, extracting the command channel HUD.

“Get me the President, FLASH priority,” he ordered.

“I’m listening, Admiral,” Jacus Roden said.
“Go ahead.”

“The Imperial Navy just bombarded the colony,” Admiral Freeman reported.
“One strike only.”

“What was the target?”
the President asked.

Real-time imagery of the blast site provided by Stalker-Two appeared.

“It looks like the HAZMAT truck farm in the vicinity,” he said.
“Tight beam strike, long exposure.”

“Damage assessment?”

“It’s completely gone,” Admiral Freeman said.
There were thirteen puddles of molten slag among a field of glass where the truck farm once was.
“Vaporized.
No secondary explosions, limited thermal damage to surrounding infrastructure.
Pinpoint strike.”

“I’ve just been informed that Imperial military chatter all the way up the chain of command spiked drastically just a few moments ago,” the President said.
“It seems this was an executive decision.”

Stalker-Two focused its cameras even closer: Armored vehicles were approaching the blast site, stopping a safe distance from the smoldering crater.
Soldiers stepped out with their weapons drawn, as a gunship patrolled overhead.

Are they looking for survivors?
Admiral Freeman thought.
Or making sure there aren’t any?

“Theories, Admiral?”
the President asked.

“They didn’t care if we saw what they hit,” he answered.
“They could have tried to drive us away first.”

“Implies a certain urgency, doesn’t it?”
President Roden mused.

“Like something was down there they don’t want us or anyone else learning about,” the Admiral said.

“Yes,” Jacus said.
“Understanding what made them do this is very much a national security concern of the Gallente Federation.”

“Agreed.”
Admiral Freeman knew what was coming.

“Send in the rest of what you have,” Jacus ordered.
“You know what to look for.
Skirmish them.
Don’t breach the colony perimeter—not yet.”

“Yes, sir, Mr.
President.”

“One more thing,” Jacus added.
“The rules of diplomacy stipulate that I can only offer additional support to cover a retreat.
Be careful.”

Translation: You’re on your own,
Admiral Freeman thought.

“Understood, Mr.
President.”

He keyed a general fleet broadcast.

“Fleet, this is command,” he said.
“We’re sending all remaining ground forces to the surface.
Your deployment trajectories
must track east of the badlands.
We do not have air superiority.
Repeat: red skies west of the badlands—”

“Command, Stalker-Two,” the radio interrupted.
“Republic Fleet bombers just uncloaked near my position—”

There were twelve of them, all vectoring directly toward the same low-orbit Imperial Revelations-class dreadnought that attacked the colony.

By itself, that wasn’t a concern, except that Stalker-Two was within ten kilometers of the same dreadnought when the bombers released their deadly ordnance.
Admiral Freeman watched helplessly as a dozen blossoms of fire engulfed the dreadnought and Stalker-Two disappeared from his display.

There was no time to mourn him, as more than sixty new contacts—all Republic Fleet warships—warped into view at point-blank range to the Imperial ships surrounding the space elevator.

The first artillery shells were slamming into the golden hulls of the Imperial Navy when Eagle One added to the confusion.

“Command, got eyes on two foot mobiles, possible HVIs,” he said.
“You’re not going to believe this, but one just lit off a flare!”

GENESIS REGION—SANCTUM CONSTELLATION

THE YULAI SYSTEM—INNER CIRCLE TRIBUNAL STATION

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CONCORD ASSEMBLY

“Why would they fire at the surface?”
Inner Circle Director Irhes Angireh demanded.
“What did they target?”