Hold him accountable, but do not endanger the catalyst reaction rods. That is strong leverage.
Enzo grimaced. The past few weeks in Russia had showed that if there was one thing Vinnick could beat him at again and again, it was duplicitous diplomacy. It was time Enzo stopped playing this game and leveled the playing field. There was more than one way to play at diplomacy.
It had always been his experience that if you removed someone’s choices, they would more often than not do what they were ordered. In the case of Gates, Enzo planned to do just that. Show authority, and the followers would be more than happy to just follow.
He looked at Gates. “Commander, have your security forces arrest the Epsilons.”
Gates blanched, and his security forces balked at the command. However, before he could respond, Enzo had turned to the Adonis Vessel. “Sergii, my son. You have a choice now: whether you wish to be a Genjix or dead. You are an Adonis Vessel, and I understand your loyalty to Vinnick, regardless of how misplaced it is. You are also an asset to the Holy Ones and the Genjix. Do not make the mistake of following a vessel and not the Holy One. Flua is still yours if you wish, but you must follow the true Genjix.”
Sergii was not a fool; all Adonises were highly-educated and trained. He understood the situation before him. It didn’t matter that Sergii and Enzo were approximately the same age, for Enzo to have a Holy One and Sergii to still be waiting for that blessing placed them worlds apart. Enzo read the man’s eyes and forced his hands to stay relaxed by his sides. He just had to trust that either Sergii would make the right choice, or Enzo would outdraw him. In either case, Enzo depended on the Adonis’s desperation for a long-overdue blessing. Enzo offered it to him now. Surely that was more valuable than clinging to an out-of-favor human.
“Father,” Sergii struggled to choke the words out as he fell to a knee. “There is no need for more conflict. I can handle the Epsilons.”
This is a dangerous proposition. Sergii with Flua makes him Vinnick’s true heir and a strong threat to your supremacy on the Council.
“Even if I am the one to offer it to him?”
You legitimize him.
“Prove your loyalty,” Enzo said. He took a step back as Vinnick’s heir, now Enzo’s lapdog, waved his hands at the Epsilons.
“We are all Genjix and serve the Holy Ones,” he said. “Lay down your arms. Boris, Vadim, Yegor, put your rifles down.”
The one called Yegor, a gruff long-bearded soldier, scowled. “He was like a father to you, traitor.” He aimed his rifle at Sergii. The Adonis dodged the shot, but it was too late. All hell broke loose, because Enzo’s agents opened fire. The rest of the Epsilons fired back. A three-way firefight broke out. All the while, Sergii tried in vain to reestablish the peace. Enzo pulled out his pistol and shot him in the back.
“Problem solved. Wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
Find Vinnick and finish this. We have a new world to birth.
Word spread quickly as the security forces and the Epsilons turned on each other. Small firefights broke out in the hallways and rooms. Enzo’s units joined forces and swept through the vast segmented base that was spread out along the lake floor like a spider web. It was tedious and slow work, but he didn’t mind. In the end, wiping out all the Epsilons was the right decision, regardless of the body count. The Epsilons were loyal to Vinnick first and the Genjix second, so they were useless to him.
The final surrender came six hours later in the medical module of the haven. The twenty remaining Epsilons had erected barricades and dared Enzo and his men to attack their fortification. At first, they had tried to send an envoy, offering fairly generous terms just for those twenty souls to walk out of the room. All they wanted was their freedom to walk away from the Genjix and a transport under their own control to go wherever they wished.
Enzo had considered just jettisoning the entire module off the base. Instead, he shot the envoy and sent in the entire haven’s security force. It was a bloody massacre. He had thought the Epsilons would surrender after they ran out of bullets, but to their credit, they armed themselves with their bayonets and dared Enzo to send in more men. He was more than happy to oblige.
In the end, the twenty Epsilons took out three times their number before finally succumbing to the haven’s security. Fortunately, it was isolated to the medical module. Enzo walked around the ruins of the medical bay after it was all over. It would be weeks before this place could be used again. In a module meant to hold thirty people, there was almost three times the number of bodies strewn about. Some of the corpses were piled so high, Enzo had to order them removed before he could continue deeper.
He found what he was looking for in the far back of the bay. Vinnick’s body lay still. By the looks of it, he had taken his own life moments before the medical module fell. Enzo stared at the empty husk that was once his hated enemy. This wrinkled bag of bones and skin was the foil that had delayed the Genjix from achieving their final objectives. Now, he was gone, and all Enzo could think about was next task at hand. For some reason, he thought he would feel something else.
In Vinnick’s still-warm hand was a note addressed to Enzo. He picked it up and unfolded it.
“You might have won, but you will never get Flua, you bastard. May the Holy Ones have mercy on this Earth.”
Enzo growled and crumpled the note in his hands. “He has robbed me of my moment.”
The victory is all that matters.
“It is a Pyrrhic one, nevertheless.”
Enzo turned to Gates. “Clean this mess up.”
Jacob made one pass around the perimeter of the school before he walked inside to the crime scene. He motioned to the Seattle Times press pass when one of the local law enforcement officers stopped him at the front door. Jacob noted the pistol at his side, holstered with the strap locked in place. No armor either. He would be easy to take out.
The officer waved him through, and he joined a gaggle of reporters speaking with the principal and gym teacher of the school regarding the incident that had left a dozen students in the hospital, two of them critically injured. He stood at the back of the group and listened to a retelling of the morning’s events.
Jacob raised his hand when the questions had come to a lull. “Excuse me, Hamilton Foster, Seattle Times,” he said with a Midwestern accent. “Could you tell us about the injuries that the children sustained?”
The principal stepped in front of the gym teacher and read off a list of broken bones, ruptured spleens, and torn joints, emphasizing that all the students were expected to make a full recovery and that the school was taking steps to ensure that something like this would never happen again.
I would be interested in what sort of precautions the human could implement to stop a Hatchery-trained vessel.
If these children were trying to stay under the radar, they were doing a piss-poor job of it. Or maybe that was the point. Who were they trying to alert, though, the Prophus or the Genjix? Which vessel was leaving these breadcrumbs?
By their description, the injuries are consistent with the girl’s style.
“Especially the focal point of her attacks. Solid Sambo techniques.”
Jacob felt his body flex involuntarily. His revenge, long thought completed, was now overdue with interest. Roen Tan’s family would be the perfect form of payment. The itch that he had thought long scratched was now painful, keeping him up at night. Jacob was eager to settle. His grandfather’s soul needed peace.
“Adonis,” another of Jacob’s men called in. “We just received a report over the police band of an assault a few hours ago at the local bus station by a boy fitting the description of our mark.”