Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (50 page)

Amirah marched to the control panel at the foot of the bed and switched off the field. When the light bars died, Baruch gave her a grateful look and sat on the edge of the bed. He gathered his wife in his arms and Amirah heard him softly murmur, “Carey. It’s Jeremiei. I’m here. I love you, Carey.”

Amirah turned away. Tahn had clenched his bound hands into fists. She could sense his frantic need to see Halloway himself. Grief ravaged his blue-violet eyes.

The door at the far end of the room burst open and four Giclasian guards flooded out. They quickly took in Baruch and the doused light cage, Tahn and his predicament, and brusquely inquired, “Why are you delaying? Magistrate Slothen is already in the temporary headquarters waiting for you!”

“We’re on our way, Sergeant. Just give us a few more moments, then we’ll—”

“The Magistrates want you there
now,
Captain. Slothen ordered us to bring you immediately and to help your team escort their prisoners to the main probe room where Master Mastema is waiting.”

“All right, Sergeant,” she said through a tense exhalation.

Tahn flinched visibly. Almost in slow-motion he sank back against the wall. Two of the Giclasians moved forward and herded the Gamant prisoners and her security team together; they pushed them through the door. Amirah caught the anguished look on Tahn’s face as he cast one last glance at Halloway. Then he vanished into the next corridor.

The other two Giclasians whirled up to the bed. One of them kept a gun on Baruch while the other forcibly disentangled the Underground commander’s arms from around Halloway and jerked him to his feet. For a moment, Amirah thought Baruch might lash out—but he willfully commanded his muscles to relax and tramped for the door.

One guard, a corporal, stayed with Amirah, standing silently, waiting. She stared again at Halloway who had fallen into a heap like a black crumpled scarf, her head at an awkward angle. Had she been conscious, it would have hurt. Amirah’s hand ached as she straightened the woman’s head and reached down to switch on the light cage again.

“Come on, Captain,” Jason said. “We’d better be going.”

She backed away from the bed. The guard followed.

She and Jason hurried to the next intersection of hallways. On her right, a long rectangular portal sat in front of a series of raised seats which looked down into a probe room. Mikael and Sybil, Ari and Yosef, were already locked into chairs and had probe units ominously secured over their heads. Baruch stood rigidly, studying the rifles aimed at his chest. A short distance away, Tahn struggled against two guards who tried to strong-arm him into a chair.

Barely visible on the far side of the room, Magistrate Mastema lay propped on his gurney. His eyes were wild. He held the necklace up to the lustreglobes, examining it as though terrified.

“Turn left,” the Giclasian corporal commanded.

Amirah dragged her eyes away from the haunting scene and numbly proceeded down the corridor. But she couldn’t get the image of Tahn’s twisted face out of her mind. Maybe she should have pulled her pistol then? But there were so many guards.

Violent emotions threatened to rise. Amirah quickly walked forward, trying to still her panting lungs.
Soon,
she promised.
I just need to get an idea of what’s happening on Palaia now. What the military set-up is.
At the end of the hall, five guards milled outside a broad open doorway. She and Jason walked between them and into the midst of Slothen and a frantic group of ten military advisers. An oval table stretched the length of the small room. Governor Ornias paced before a screen that took up one entire wall. Battle scenes blazed across the monitor. Dressed in a heavily tasseled general’s uniform, he smiled at her condescendingly.

“Good evening, Captain,” he greeted. His sandy hair and perfectly braided beard looked incongruous against the chaotic violence of the screen. He came over to her.

Amirah backed away from his scent. He smelled sweet, like a meadow of flowers. This was no soldier. This was a prissy politician. “How the hell did you get to Palaia, Governor?”

“Not ‘Governor’ anymore, Captain,” he corrected. “Now it’s ‘General Ornias.’ I’m your commanding officer on Palaia.”

She laughed disparagingly. “Then I’d better get back to my ship soon or you’ll be filing charges of insubordination against me.” She gestured to the screen to change the subject. “Where is that happening?”

“On Satellite 4. I’m afraid the Gamants went wild when they saw your shuttle descending. They’re throwing themselves at the landing field in wave after wave. We’re slaughtering them by the hundreds, of course.”

She watched a group of fifteen people running insanely as two fighters dropped from the fiery heavens. Purple beams lanced out, exploding the ground and scattering their bodies like limp rag dolls. The military advisers in the room cheered triumphantly.

Slothen cut the com aura and waved a hand at her dismissively. “Captain Jossel, Magistrate Mastema apparently turned the probes up too high. He would like you to go to the probe room. Cole Tahn is dead and Mastema—”

A wretched cry escaped her throat. She ran with all her might. Jason’s steps echoed behind her.

Emon waited until the last moment, then waved his troops forward. They flooded out of the rents in the substructure’s fabric and ran through the sunset-painted hills around the spaceport.

“You saw the triangular shuttle!” he screamed. “It’s the sign! We have to hurry!”

People rushed out behind him. On the opposite side of the port, Emon saw Sicarrii’s soldiers leaking from the lattice, crawling over the surface like scampering ants.

They all rushed the photon fence.

And a spray of Magisterial fighters dove out of the heavens.

Purple beams panned the fence, killing fifty in a single sweep. Emon’s heart lurched when he saw Sicarrii fall in a mound of blue shirt and blood.
Oh, no. No. No!
Some of Sicarrii’s people broke and ran, racing back toward the lattice.

As the fighters swung around, Emon screamed in rage and terror at the remaining forces. “Get down! Focus your rifles on the same spot! We have to knock a hole in that fence or we’ll never get through!”

He hit the dirt on his stomach and aimed. He heard others slap the ground around him and in a few seconds their combined fire caused the fence to flare like molten gold. As the fighters plunged down toward them, a wave of Giclasian soldiers ran across the landing field.

Emon and his troops kept firing. The wall overloaded and an entire section vanished. Emon scrambled up and shouted, “We have to capture the ships! Hurry! We have to capture the ships and get to the other satellites to load up people!”

A jubilant cheer tore the hot air as men, women, and children raced for the hole. The Giclasians hit the ground across the field and opened fire, but the onslaught of humanity kept going. Screaming, rushing, firing blindly at anything that moved in the compound.

Emon looked up just before he leapt for the hole. Despite the fact that sunset blazed like a marmalade wave through the lemon skies, a deep pitch blackness blotted the east, devouring the horizon.

CHAPTER 52

Rudy Kopal sat on the edge of the command chair of the
Hammadi.
He’d already sweated so much that his vacuum suit itched. His helmet sat on the floor beside him. Brown curls hung limply around his dirty face. They’d been working madly to patch the
Hammadi
back together over the past few hours. And now, as the ship hurtled through the yellow and purple flames of vault exit, he prayed she’d stay together in the attack. In front of him, his two chief officers licked their lips nervously. Marji Boyle, short with black hair and a triangular face, slouched wearily over the navigation console. Luther Calvin sat in front of the com console with a disheartened expression on his face. A skinny man with brown hair and a beak nose, he seemed to epitomize everything the crew felt: weary beyond exhaustion, desperate, afraid to hope, but willing to fight anyway.

The ship lurched slightly when they exited vault and Rudy called, “Get your helmets on, people. We don’t know what we’re going to be up against.”

The clacking of helmets being fastened down clattered across the bridge. The
Orphica
streaked like lightning in front of them, diving for Palaia Station. Starsails and freighters emerged in a shotgun spray of light. They painted a hopscotch weave across the blackness of space. The vessels quickly veered, swinging around to form up into flanking position behind the
Hammadi
and the
Orphica,
awaiting further instructions about their place in the maneuver.

Rudy scrutinized the array of battle cruisers around Palaia. A black pit opened in his soul.
Twenty?
He’d been expecting a dozen….

“Captain!”
Boyle cried.
“They’re forming up!”

“The cruisers around Palaia separated into five groups and swung wide, coming back around to reconfigure into flying wedges.

“How long to range, Boyle?”

“Sixty seconds, sir.”

“Inform the commanders of the starsails to provide enfilading fire. Tell the freighters to fan out and cover the sails for as long as they can. Tell Captain Wells we’ll lead the first pass.” Rudy lightly pounded a fist into his knee. “And tell her—tell her good luck.”

Rome. Cathedral of the Dawn Batmen, Annum 5384.

The entire crowd of white-robed devotees went silent when the elderly Patriarch hobbled into the arched cathedral. The old man clutched his precious book to his breast and looked around a little wistfully at the enormous size of the gathering. For twenty-five years the Church had supported and encouraged his odd scientific pursuits; he’d eaten its food, relied on its equipment and funding, warmed his hands by the fires his assigned monks had built to keep him from catching a chill. Not a man or woman there didn’t love the wrinkled elder with all his or her might.

The Patriarch heaved a sigh and moved slowly down the aisle, heading toward the altar. The assembly rose to their feet with a shout that echoed through the church like the roar of a hundred lions.

The Patriarch smiled in embarrassment and forced his aged legs to climb the steps to the altar. When he stood at the top, he took his book in both hands and lifted it over his gray head.

In a voice thick with devotion and gratitude, he shouted, “Eppur si muove!”

CHAPTER 53

Breathing hard, Amirah ran around the corner and halted in front of the rectangular window overlooking the probe room. Mastema and his two guards hurried out of the room and pressed their faces against the window. The Master Magistrate screamed, “Bring him back! You fools! He can’t die! Not yet.
He can’t!”

Inside, a Giclasian and a human lifted Tahn out of the chair and hurried him to a gurney. His muscular body had gone slack, legs and arms flopping unknowingly.

“Colonel Creighton!” Mastema raged.
“If Tahn dies
—”

“What happened?” Amirah shouted.

It was then that Amirah recognized Creighton. A qualm of horror rose. She could still hear his professional, cool voice narrating the atrocities on Tikkun. He’d gained weight and his hair and pointed beard had gone whiter since then, but his eyes still gleamed with that inhuman light.

“Captain?” Mastema questioned. “Tahn called for you just before. …”

Amirah shouldered by him and bashed the entry patch. She rushed inside just as Creighton moved a spiderlike revitalization machine over Tahn and hooked it up. She stood helplessly. Cole’s blue-violet eyes were half-open, pupils dilated and fixed. Even in—in … death, his gaze hurled bitter accusations at her. Creighton and Mundus scurried around, whispering urgently, snapping commands back and forth. Jason quietly edged up beside her, his eyes darted, going over Baruch and the other Gamants under the probes, then shifted to the Magisterial personnel.

He whispered with near telepathic quiet, “Five of them, Captain. Only Mastema’s two guards are armed.”

Amirah’s chest constricted as a hot rush of adrenaline fired her body.
Now!
her mind screamed.
It’s your best chance!
But she hesitated and glared at Creighton, “What happened, Doctor?”

Creighton checked her captain’s bars and squinted as though annoyed, “Surely you saw the fighting outside, Captain. Master Mastema wanted us to gain information as quickly as possible. Tahn wasn’t being cooperative. Mastema turned the probes up to their highest intensity.”

“What!
No human can withstand that level! It’s reserved for aliens with a much different brain structure.” Her knees shook.
Oh, Cole, forgive me….
“Did you damage his personality centers?”

“What does it matter?” Creighton casually replied as he attached a series of revitalization stimulators to Tahn’s brain. “Slothen only cares about gaining information on Underground activities, Captain. Once we have that, the Magistrate has already ordered Tahn’s tissue to be used as research fodder—if he lives.”

Amirah stiffened her knees. They planned on keeping Tahn alive as long as possible? On methodically draining him of every shred of data, then using him for experiments?
Just like the old woman with the tattoo …and everyone else in that hideous room.

She checked the status of Baruch and the other Gamants. Each writhed beneath the probes. Funk whimpered softly. On the screens over their heads bits and pieces of memories replayed. Amirah’s soul withered. Baruch’s memories were of Halloway. He went over and over the first moment he’d seen her on Palaia. Even as an outsider, Amirah could sense his terror. Sybil dreamed of a little boy in a white robe playing in the hot desert sun. Mikael and Yosef, oddly, were dreaming of each other a long time ago in a stark room aboard a cruiser. The
Hoyerl

She glanced back at Cole. His fingers twitched beneath the revitalization stimulation. His pale face had contorted, as though he knew what was happening and was fighting it.

“Captain Jossel?” Mastema’s scratchy voice penetrated the room. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Her nerves hummed so tightly, she could barely force her feet as far as the doorway. Jason stayed close to Tahn. “What is it, Magistrate?”

The withered alien fixed her with a penetrating stare. He held up Mikael Calas’ glowing blue necklace. It swung like a pendulum in front of his face. “Do you know what this is? Did Calas tell you after you captured him?”

Amirah frowned at it. Somewhere in the oblivion of her childhood memories, she recalled Sefer speaking of a device like that, but she couldn’t quite grasp the memory. “No.”

Mastema’s lavender eyes widened. “I think it’s the Gehenna gate. It must be. Millions of Gamants have died protecting this, passing it down through the centuries.” He laughed shrilly. “They thought we’d never get our hands on it!”

A sharp gasp sounded from the probe room and Amirah spun so suddenly she stumbled into the door. Creighton and Mundus had shoved Jason back; they hovered over Tahn, talking quickly. Amirah raced up behind them so she could see.

Cole’s face had flushed. He blinked hard. When he finally figured out the nature of the huge machine encasing nun, he let out a muffled cry of rage and began struggling to throw it off. He ripped the monitors from his head and flailed madly at the machine.

“Stop! Stop it!” Creighton demanded, trying to shove Tahn’s hands away from his precious equipment. Tahn slammed him in the face with a hard fist. Creighton shouted in surprise and stumbled backward. “Mundus! Anesthesia!”

Mundus lunged for a syringe. Amirah’s mouth gaped at the haphazard amount, and she grabbed Creighton by the shoulder. She brutally pulled him out of her way and stepped between Tahn and the hurrying Mundus. “Let me talk to him!”

“No. Get back!” Creighton demanded. “He’s dangerous!”

Amirah ignored him and put her shoulder against the revitalization machine. She shoved it off so Tahn could see her face, but he didn’t seem to know her. He continued to slam his fists into the machine. She clasped one of his frantic hands in a strong grip. “Cole! It’s Amirah. Can you hear me? Calm down! You’re all right!”

At the sound of her voice, he turned sharply to look at her. Recognition filled his panicked eyes. He clasped her hand back as hard as he could, and brought it to his chest. Beneath his black uniform, she could feel his heart thumping fiercely. He held onto her like a life raft in a stormy sea.

“You’re all right, Cole,” she soothed. “You’re all right…. How are you feeling?”

He shook his head feebly. His gaze strayed to Creighton and Jason and … to Baruch. As though he’d been jolted with a current, he trembled and clutched her hand so hard it ached. His eyes begged her,
Now, Amirah. Now!

She slowly straightened up and wiped her free hand on her purple pants. A gnashing like tiny teeth began in her chest.

Creighton strode haughtily over to Baruch and began turning up the intensity level on the silver probe unit. Jeremiel went rigid. His fists clenched and unclenched.

“While the Captain is handling Tahn,” Creighton said caustically, “let’s see what information we can gain from Baruch.”

“Should I bring in his wife? She might be useful as leverage,” Mundus suggested.

“Yes, do it.”

Amirah started to object, but Mundus raced out of the room before she could open her mouth. In no time, he was back with two Giclasian technicians and Halloway on a gurney. He pushed her up in front of Baruch. She lay on her side. Auburn hair cascaded over her face. Her chest rose and fell so slowly beneath her black jumpsuit that it was barely noticeable. Creighton walked around and brought out a portable probe unit. Connecting it directly to Baruch’s, he then placed it on Halloway’s head.

Amirah had focused her attention so fully on the doctors’ actions that she barely heard the muffled, enraged voices echoing through the halls outside. “What are you doing, Creighton?”

“Letting Baruch talk to his wife. If he can bring her out of her catatonia, then we can use them against each other.”

Amirah watched in fascinated horror as Creighton went to the control panel on the table behind Jeremiel and stimulated first his mind, then Halloway’s. Halloway’s screen remained blank, but the screen above Jeremiel flared with happy scenes. He and Carey walked hand-in-hand down a dirt pathway shaded by towering cedars. She laughed and he put his arm around her, hugging her close. Shadows mottled their faces.

“Do you ever dream about running away, Carey?”

Amirah could barely stand the look in Halloway’s eyes as she gazed up at her husband—filled with too much longing to be borne. “
No. Not me. You?”

Jeremiel grinned wryly and patted her shoulder.
“Not me. I like constant battles and starvation.”

They shook their heads in unison and laughed.

Halloway’s screen flickered suddenly. Amirah held her breath. Carey’s body flinched. Memories flashed the briefest echo of Jeremiel’s … trees and shadows … flits of conversation. Laughter.

Cole braced himself up on his elbows on his gurney. A terrible fear drenched his face. “No, Carey!” he shouted. “Don’t do it. Don’t come back!”

Amirah went ashen. Did he love her that much? So much that he’d rather she were dead than live through what the future held?

The images on Halloway’s screen grew more coherent, the snatches of scenes longer …
“Do you believe in the coming of the Redeemer, Jeremiel?”
… a stern look from Baruch, uncertain … a river rushing over rocks …
“Yes, I believe.

Amirah tilted her head as the faint sound of voices in the hall outside came closer, like a hum increasing in intensity. Jason gave her look so penetrating, she turned to peer out the window, waiting.

“The fools,” Creighton denounced sharply. “There is no Mashiah. …”

A blast like the fist of God slammed Palaia. Amirah clutched wildly for the door frame, but the force of the shock wave hurled her through the door. Jason crawled for her, pulling her back into the room as medical equipment cascaded to the floor in the observation room outside. The entire station heaved and seemed to list sideways for a horrifying instant. Outside, Giclasian soldiers flooded by, bellowing commands, staggering beneath the vibration that pulsed through Palaia’s bones.

Jason shouted to the forces, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

One of the soldiers yelled,
“It’s the Underground! They’re attacking the station! Get to the subterranean shelters. Hurry! Hurry!”

The station’s alert sirens snapped on, blaring piercingly.

Cole started to laugh hysterically. He rolled to his side and glowered at the doctors. “No Mashiah, eh, Creighton?
That’s the shofar, you sonofabitch!
You hear me?
The savior’s coming!”

Amirah’s vision grew startling clear. Voices whispered in her head. Anxious, terrified,
familiar.
She shook her head violently, trying to quell them. When she looked up, all Amirah could see were Cole’s fiery eyes. Jason was saying something to her, but she couldn’t really hear him. Everything in the room blacked out except Cole’s eyes.
His eyes, they … they looked so much like Grandmama’s when … when …

She fought it down! NO!
NO!

Another blast pounded the station and the lustreglobes flickered. Mundus spun and shrieked, then lunged for the door. Creighton screamed for him to stay, but the ugly Giclasian ran. In the turmoil, Cole dove off his gurney and scrambled on his stomach for Halloway. Mastema’s guards lifted their rifles—

And Amirah rolled to her knees, pulled her pistol, and fired.

The window shattered and spewed glass like twinkling stars over the room. A hideous whine of Giclasian agony rang out. Her next shot cut Creighton in half and sent his lower torso flying against the revitalization machine. Blood spattered Amirah’s uniform and face.

“Amirah, get down!”
Jason screamed. His body hit hers with a jarring force, knocking her sideways as a shot flashed through the room.

Jason’s pistol flared. The blast shuddered the observation room. Amirah scrambled out from under him, her pistol at the ready. From the corner of her vision, she saw Cole brutally shove the probe helmet off Carey’s head. He fleetingly touched her pale cheek before lunging for Baruch’s helmet.

“Jeremiel, get up! Get up!”

Mastema’s remaining guard stumbled through the probe room door, wounded, roaring like an animal, rifle aimed. Amirah’s shot took him squarely in the chest. He toppled backward in a mutilated heap and she caught sight of Mastema’s gumey disappearing around the corner.

“Hurry!”
Jason demanded, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her to her feet. “We’ve
got to get out of here!”

Baruch shook himself out of his daze and immediately grabbed for Halloway, dragging her off her gurney and onto the floor. He gently pulled her against the wall and sprinted for Mikael and Sybil, Ari and Yosef. All four woke shakily.

Another blast rocked the neuro center and Amirah’s eyes widened. “That wasn’t a shot hitting the EM shields,” she whispered. “That was
on
the station!”

In the hallway, Giclasian screams pulsed jaggedly. Amirah shook off Jason’s hand and ran for Tahn where he crouched on the floor. She jammed her extra pistol in his hand and stared him hard in the eyes. “Can you walk?”

His fist went tight around the gun. “Hell, yes.”

Amirah gripped his forearm to help him to his feet. “Then let’s get to the Spires!”