Authors: Tony Gonzales
Lord Victor narrowed his eyes at him
“Do not return from there until I say so,” he said.
“Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
PURE BLIND REGION—MDM8-J CONSTELLATION
SYSTEM 5ZXX-K—PLANET V, MOON 17
MORDU’S LEGION HQ STATION
The Moros-class dreadnought was a bulbous monstrosity codesigned by the Federation Navy, Roden Shipyards, and CreoDron.
Her first trials began shortly after the first Caldari-Gallente War; since then she had become a staple of the Federation’s ability to project interregional power.
Like most dreadnoughts, she was able to field large numbers of troops and armor to mount siege operations, and more important, fire gigantic railguns that could pummel the surface of worlds from orbit.
Korvin Lears had seen dozens of these magnificent capital ships up close, participated in ops to support them, and even piloted a few during his service with the Federation Navy.
But this was the first time he’d ever seen one in Mordu’s Legion colors.
“Magnificent, isn’t she?”
Mordu asked.
He wore no hat this time, and his implants showed prominently along the sides of his scalp and behind the ears.
“She might be my favorite ship here.”
“Did you build it,” Korvin asked, “or steal it?”
“A little of both, actually,” Mordu answered, resting his hands on the rail.
“I salvaged it.”
“Really?”
“June twenty-ninth, the year YC 111,” Mordu said.
“Capsuleer alliances vying for control of the space we’re in right now clashed in systems just a few jumps from here.
At the time, it was recorded as the largest capital-ship engagement in New Eden’s history.
When it was over, more than two hundred wrecks littered the space of Pure Blind.”
“The Northern Coalition,” Korvin said.
“I remember this.”
“This Moros was one of the more intact casualties,” Mordu said, as a frown took shape on his brow.
“She once had a crew of forty-eight hundred souls.
It’s amazing how little these immortals think of the lives they drag through the mud for their own ambitions.”
Korvin noted the irony, as Mordu’s neuro-interface socket was plainly visible on his neck.
“I had it towed back here,” he continued, “at considerable expense, mind you.
That graveyard was a gold mine for salvagers.
But I wasn’t in it for the money.
Instead, I was intrigued by the prospect of restoring it.”
He began walking along the corridor, scrutinizing the work still being performed on the mammoth vessel.
At least a dozen service barges and drones were positioned around its hull, and streams of torch-weld sparks were creating a spectacular light show in the hangar.
“This ship is the memento of a catastrophe whose memory I want to keep alive,” Mordu said.
“A souvenir, of sorts.
And, I enjoy tinkering with things.”
“Of course,” Korvin said.
“Is she the only dreadnought in your fleet?”
“Hardly,” Mordu said with a wink.
“But she’s special in more ways than one.
For example, I may have cut some corners in her reconstruction.”
“Hence, why I’m the one flying it,” Korvin said.
“How many corners—”
“Your pod might be, how should I say?… a cheap imitation,” Mordu said.
“Should you perish, all the data since your last checkpoint as a Federation Navy officer might not be transmitted.”
The last time Korvin had a clone snapshot taken for any reason was more than six months ago.
Hence, every moment of his life since then would be lost if the pod didn’t function properly.
That
, Korvin thought,
was a fucked-up thing to do to an immortal.
“You don’t want to trust me, that’s fine,” he fumed.
“But you should be smart enough to know I can’t betray—”
“Please,” Mordu said, motioning for silence.
“Given the circumstances, I
know
you’re going to give this your best shot.”
“Yeah, well, don’t you worry, Mordu,” Korvin said, shaking his head.
“You’ll get what you want out of this.”
Mordu looked him square in the eyes and smiled.
“Concierge,” he called out.
“Whiskey, please.
The fifty-year-old.”
“Yes, sir,” a sultry voice called out, though Korvin had no idea from where.
“Do you know why I like you?”
Mordu asked.
“I can’t even imagine.”
“Because you would be doing this whether I had a leash on your life or not.”
A provocatively dressed waitress with long legs and a billion-credit smile appeared from out of nowhere with amber-colored spirits in two crystal glasses.
Setting the bottle on the rail, she served Korvin with her lips pursed open just enough to make him sweat, and then she walked away, disappearing around the bend in the corridor.
Despite its imposing size and purpose, the deck was eerily devoid of people.
It resembled more of a posh lounge than a military outpost.
Korvin remembered the Navy treating its pilots well, but this was ridiculous.
“I volunteered,” he said, inhaling the beverage’s rich aroma.
“What’s your point?”
“You have a hero complex,” Mordu said, taking a sip.
“It’s not my style to flatter, but your service record is exemplary.
Yet you’re an outcast to your peers.
Why?”
Korvin took a sip of his own.
At first, it bit into his sinuses, then settled into a smooth, warming sensation.
“You should know the answer to that.”
“But your name was cleared,” Mordu said, referring to the extensive and humiliating Federation investigation against him and his parents for their relationship with Admiral Alexander Noir.
“I suppose people still believe what they want to.
I’ll tell you what: You perform your role in this craziness with the same valor that your record shows, and I’ll help you uncover the truth.”
Korvin remembered the last time he’d seen his old mentor alive, and how his words had driven a stake through his heart.
It wasn’t the same man, and everyone knew it.
“I’d known Admiral Noir for more than a century before he died,” Mordu continued.
“We may have had our differences, but he was no murderer.”
Korvin downed the rest in a single gulp.
“If you want help restoring the honor of his good name, count me in,” Mordu said.
“I have a score to settle with the Broker as well.”
That earned Mordu a sharp look.
“You know for sure it was him?”
Korvin asked.
“I have a good feeling,” Mordu said.
“But that time will come.
We have a job to do first.”
“Right.”
“I need to learn more about this hero complex,” Mordu said.
“When Heth invaded Luminaire, yours was one of the first Federation ships to respond.
You tried to warn people on the surface of Caldari Prime and flew your interceptor directly into a pack of invading dropships.
If that isn’t heroic—”
“I’m immortal,” Korvin snapped.
“You have to actually risk something to become a hero.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I don’t know.
Why are you asking me this?”
Mordu leaned in closer.
“Because I’m wondering if true selflessness exists anymore,” he said.
“I send a lot of people to die in wars, but ultimately it’s
they who send themselves.
There’s no conscription here.
No marching orders.
Mercenaries are with us on their own accord.
And knowing they’re doing this for the right reasons makes
my
pain just a little more bearable.
So tell me, Captain Lears: What is it that always makes you take the higher path?”
Korvin tried to match the intensity of Mordu’s relentless stare, to reach for an answer he wasn’t even sure was the right one.
“I had a brother once,” he started, grabbing the bottle and refilling his own glass.
“An older brother.
He was my hero.
Everything he did, I did.
I practically idolized him.
He was an immensely gifted, talented person.
He could have written his ticket to do anything, become anyone.”
Down the vintage drink went, incinerating the lining of his throat.
He coughed once, then continued.
“But then he started hanging out with some shady types.
Began messing around with drugs.
Started doing things that were out of character.
One day he came home with some crazy, repulsive-looking augmentations, and then things just blew up between him and my family.
After that, he stopped coming home for good.”
Korvin went to pour himself another, but Mordu reached out and stopped him.
“A few years later, they found him in a ditch,” Korvin said, releasing his grip on the bottle.
“Police said he got caught in the crossfire of some Serpentis turf fight.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Mordu, who appeared more fascinated than sympathetic.
“I had a thousand chances to speak up, warn him, do something,” Korvin said, as the liquor’s potency caught up with him.
“I didn’t, because I was afraid to.
He was six years older than me, but I heard this voice in me that screamed he was on a bad path.
I was the wiser one.
But I didn’t do anything.
And then my ‘hero’ died.”
Korvin got right in Mordu’s face.
“So you want to know why I do it?”
he said.
“Why I always open my mouth and take the higher ground?
Because the fucking voices in my head tell me to.
”
Korvin slammed his glass on the railing and began walking away.
“Tell that to Captain Varitec and the
Morse
crew,” he called out.
“I’m sure they’ll like me even more.”
Mordu stared at Korvin’s back for a moment, then typed a subtle note into his datapad.
“I
love
you!”
he suddenly called out.
“You’re
exactly
my kind of crazy!”
DOMAIN REGION—YEKTI CONSTELLATION
THE NIARJA SYSTEM—AMARR-CALDARI BORDER
KAAPUTENEN STARGATE
Entombed in the viscous grave of his starship capsule, Mens Reppola took note of the ship’s surroundings, panning the camera drones out for maximum optical coverage.
The stargate was shimmering in gold—literally, a twenty-four-karat sheen coating a surface area greater than several thousand square meters.
The ship he was flying—an Amarr-designed Providence-class freighter—was, like the epic stargate floating before him, also coated in the precious metal.
So too was every station in the empire, and almost every cathedral across a civilization that claimed thousands of systems.
Who else but the Amarr are even capable of such arrogance?
Mens thought.
To know this civilization was to understand that the church’s influence here was immutable and omnipresent.
If Mens were capable of judging them dispassionately, he might marvel—if not allow himself to be dumbstruck—at the sheer magnificence of their devotion to the idea of God.
Stargates, in and of themselves, were unfathomably complex machines.
For those nations that could afford to build them, it was enough just to create one that worked, let alone devote so much attention to aesthetics.
Amarr engineers, drawing on millennia of Athran architectural influence, had turned it into a timeless artistic masterpiece.
It seemed fitting that they controlled the system of humanity’s origin and the EVE Gate itself.
Mens tensed up as a pair of Imperial Navy frigates approached, cruising along the length of his ship.
No doubt they were passively scanning his cargo, which—despite Rali’s assurances to the contrary—Mens was convinced would lead to his interdiction.
Instead, they flew away, gingerly moving on to the next ship that blinked into local timespace through the gate.
“Are you through yet?”
Rali asked unexpectedly.
“What happened to keeping quiet?”
Mens growled.
His friend had warned him not to communicate once he reached Amarr space.
“Oh, I was kidding about that,” Rali said.
“Why?
Nervous?”