“They died doing their duty,” said Clarke softly. “Now it’s our duty to make them proud as they watch us, from wherever they are.”
It was his own duty to repeat those words until he was sure they weren’t platitudes, but the absolute truth.
They kept quiet for a while after that as they left the plaque behind and crossed Hawk’s passageways and carpeted corridors. Now and then they passed a group of sailors. Clarke saluted everyone, and they returned the salute. The young sailors’ expressions, when they saw him, ranged from fear and nervousness to admiration.
The very idea made him squirm. He was the opposite of a role model.
“You led them to Sierra’s first victory in a long time,” Navathe told him. “It shouldn’t surprise you that they like you.”
Clarke shook his head and said nothing.
Finally, they reached their destination. The medical bay. Two marines in active powered armor stood to each side of the hatch.
“He’s still here, isn’t he?” Navathe asked.
Clarke nodded. The marines saluted him and then examined his ID and made him enter a bio-locked password.
“Still under medication.”
Dove’s medical personnel still claimed they had no idea how the man had survived such abuse. The bullet that destroyed his shoulder had perforated the artery, but during surgery the medics discovered coagulation coating most of the damage, somehow undeterred by the blood flow.
Clarke and Navathe entered the bay. It was filled half-to-capacity with wounded sailors, most of them from Eagle’s escape capsules, but also with turret-fire survivors. A couple were missing limbs. They’d have to wait until they reached a better medical facility to replace those.
Hirsen slept in the middle of a sea of IVs and monitoring equipment. His body was covered in bandages and casts, his face a bloated mess of purple and red. The man was short and wiry, all skin and tendons with little muscle or fat. A mess of scar tissue covered his body like a grotesque map. Knife wounds, bullet wounds, burns, scratches, plus assorted damage.
“Hard to think he’s the most wanted man in the Edge,” said Clarke. He looked like a guy with terrible luck.
Navathe chuckled. “You haven’t watched the news, have you?”
Clarke raised an eyebrow at her.
“We just got a courier ship from Dione with updates. SA propaganda is calling you the second most wanted in the Edge. Isabella is the first. Hirsen’s in third place. The rest of the positions are taken by the EIF council. Congratulations, Captain, seems like promotions just rain in your general direction.”
“Of course,” Clarke said. He sighed. Of course he was the second most wanted. Isabella Reiner was in his Task Force. Until he reached Independent at least. Then, it was anybody’s guess.
“You think he’s telling the truth, Navathe?” he asked. “In your opinion. About her, I mean.”
“Too young, isn’t she?” Navathe said. They’d both seen her. An Alwinter thug who called herself a ganger, wearing a tasteless miss-match of neon candy colors and her own assortment of scars. She barely left her quarters these days. Didn’t go to the funeral. In a way, it was for the best. Her presence made the sailors nervous.
She makes us all nervous. The mental image of Isabella Reiner, atemporal refugee of the Monsoon, had been shattered by the real woman.
“Yes. The Newgen ship she traveled as a baby matches her paper trail. Somehow.”
“Tal-Kader’s claiming those are forgeries,” Navathe said.
“Of course they are. Hell, I’m not sure if I believe it myself,” Clarke said.
If all those men and women had given their life for a clerical mistake…he didn’t dare follow that train of thought. Not now. Not today.
He went on. “Hirsen gave us a disk before he lost consciousness. Claims it’s from Alwinter’s rebel sources. That may lead to a clue about her…nature, I guess. At first, we thought she may have been subjected to anti-aging procedures as a baby, or genetic manipulation. The disk, however, shows that her ship is as young as she is. Like time paused for either of them until seventeen years ago.”
“Seems like a puzzle for scientists to figure out,” said Navathe.
Clarke nodded. “The EIF is short on those. I think our best shot is to get the disk to one of our Backwater Systems sponsor corporations. Let them have a go at it. The other option is to steal Tal-Kader’s DNA records from Jagal. They won’t get away with claiming those are forgeries.”
“It seems like you’ve got your next mission cut out for you,” Navathe said. “But you don’t seem so sure. What’s worrying you?”
“I…” Clarke couldn’t find the words. He gestured at Hirsen helplessly.
Navathe grinned. “You’re so good at inspirational speeches and terrible at expressing your emotions. Typical. Unless I’ve greatly misjudged you, it’s not Hirsen who worries you, Clarke. You’re worried about Reiner. About what she means for the Edge. And for you. After all, aren’t you now her protector?”
Clarke grimaced. Was he so easy to read?
“I studied Hirsen’s file on her. She’s a wild animal, Navathe,” he said. “Killed her first man when she was eleven. Many more after that. Absolutely no empathy for people outside her tribe. Now that tribe is dead. Where does that leave us? If we keep going as we are, Isabella’s going to get a lot of power and influence over the lives of billions. We…I…could be about to release upon the Edge something far worse than Tal-Kader.”
And with the Mississippi standing watch over Jagal like a match resting over a powder keg, it’d be only a matter of time before planets started dying. Clarke knew he wouldn’t be able to intercept the kinetics forever.
“That’s what you’re thinking, Clarke,” Navathe said, still shaking her head. “How do you feel?”
Clarke studied Hirsen’s broken body before answering. “I’m scared, Navathe. I scare myself. I keep thinking, we should play this hand, go all in. You see…she reminds me of us. Of me. Hell, of the Edge. She’s a survivor. Has been one all her life. What she went through with that adoptive family was…damn. And it didn’t slow her down. And those gangers, her tribe, they gave their life for her, according to Hirsen’s report. That kind of loyalty does not happen by accident. Isaac Reiner dreamed of a free Edge, independent from Earth but united as brothers. He died because of that dream, and we lacked the moral strength to see it through without him. Maybe, just maybe…for better or worse, Isabella Reiner is exactly what the Edge deserves.”
The blip of the medical machines around Hirsen filled the silence between Clarke and Navathe. The woman looked thoughtful, somber, her eyes lost in memories that Clarke couldn’t read.
Finally, she asked, “And what is, exactly, what the Edge deserves?”
Clarke opened his mouth to answer, but a machine warned about a rising heartbeat. Navathe and Clarke turned to face a grimacing Hirsen, gray eyes like a knife’s edge staring at them.
“I can tell you what the Edge deserves,” Hirsen whispered with a rasp. “Restoration. Or conquest. Either is coming, lady. It’s inevitable. And people like the three of us will make them happen.”
34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ISABELLA
Vat-grown eyes had no tear ducts. For most of Lotti’s life, that had been a welcomed advantage, not a curse. Crying was an admission of weakness that could’ve gotten her killed.
But in this ship’s quarters, she could be alone all she wanted. No one to bother her. And now she couldn’t cry.
Without an outlet for her hatred, it was like her blood boiled in her veins.
Droplets of blood fell from her hand onto the gray bed sheets. There had been a mirror in her room, a real one, not a holo. She had smashed it as soon as she got a look at herself, in the middle of all this gray, all alone without her gangers, her candy hair slowly losing its color. A sad visage indeed, like a dead clown.