The heartless hinds beyo.., p.35
The Heartless Hinds (Beyond the Impossible Book 4),
p.35
Amayas Knight and Shin Wain stood in the open egress and inspected the shadows. The vault would not alight until they stepped onto the smooth platform. Amayas pointed skyward. The starfield was unmatched in its brilliance.
“Do you see their silhouette?” Amayas asked Shin.
His right-hand man sighed.
“My vision is not so precise. Point to them.”
Amayas directed his right hand one o’clock high.
“Now?”
“I sense their presence, but I need time to acclimate to the dark.”
Amayas understood. Shin was deteriorating faster, as expected. Still, he was a good man and loyal. As long as his cognitive functions remained vibrant, the work continued. Royal asked to put down Shin when the fateful day arrived. The issue was personal.
The Inventor made out the silhouettes of Charybdis and Hermes not far from the other warships.
Sleeping. Waiting.
And then there was light. A glow erupted from the nearest gash before either man triggered it. A familiar figure ascended. He levitated for an instant then leaped forward onto the platform.
“He appears eager, Shin. He must have news.”
They stepped onto the glass and glided across.
Royal welcomed them home. Even in the dim light, his ecstatic eyes dazzled like the billions of stars above.
“You’ll be proud of me, Inventor. I found it. The model we’ve been searching for.”
“There are seven million probabilities for this one scenario. Are you certain you discovered it so soon?”
“It’s like you told me from the first. Only a broken mind makes sense of the chaos. They don’t come more broken than mine.”
“Hmm. You’d be surprised, Royal.”
“Give me permission, and I’ll go tonight.”
“Always eager.” He waved off Royal. “Please. We’re tired. Let’s head down and talk more.”
The three leaped atop the glowing vault and descended, the gentle tug of the rock’s core pulling at their feet. The light did not blind, but it resembled that of the midday sun.
“I have to do this before the model shifts,” Royal said. “The variance will take me out of range if I wait. You know how the mirrors work.”
“Better than anyone, Royal. Before I give you permission, we must discuss your failure at Arakaat.”
“What failure? I followed the model. The entire team did. Exeter was exactly where the mirror predicted.”
“Your failure was believing you could shift his allegiance. He is awake now. He sees you for what you are. Soon, he’ll remember the things you did to him during the war.”
“He’s not as weak as he used to be. True. But I wasn’t doing that shit for me. X is in my past. Wasn’t it your dream to have Exeter and me side-by-side as your generals? I tried to make it happen.”
“It was the preferred model, but I was obsessed with the wrong variance. It altered after you crossed the divide together. It’s too late now to know what I missed. You’ll do fine in your own right, so long as you don’t challenge the parameters. Agree, Shin?”
The Hokki crossed his white-gloved hands over his chest.
“I paid a permanent price for challenging the parameters, Royal. You do not wish to do the same.”
“Not a problem. I’ll stay consistent to the model. This one is too important to pass up. It’s the break we’ve been looking for. We’ll have the fleet and the army soon enough. But none of that shit matters a wit if we don’t know where and when to meet him.”
They reached the bottom of the vault.
“How quickly will you reach the target, Royal?”
“Seven minutes.”
“How many will you have to kill?”
“Two hundred and fifteen. The after-reports are consistent. There’s one gunman. It’s me. The mirror hums my name. It’s never wrong when it hums my name.”
“Swarm headquarters will change their timetable if they believe they’ve been compromised. This will adjust the model.”
Royal shrugged.
“That’s perfect for us. The headwinds will do the rest.”
“Hmm. You have all the answers and unlimited energy to boot. I had a brother like you. He also thought he was a great hero.”
“Oh, yeah? What happened to him?”
“The last time I saw him, he was a pile of ash.”
“Damn. Sorry, Amayas.”
“It doesn’t matter now. Royal, you understand what the model tells us? The long-term?”
“Sure.”
“Whichever way this goes, billions of people will die. You will be responsible for a great many.”
“Eh. Better them than us.”
“We can hope.”
“So? Do I have permission?”
“I’ll review the mirrors myself. If I’m satisfied, yes. But please, Royal, if I give permission, you must not forget the central rule.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not harm Bonju Taron. His death will be our own. Everything I have worked for will be lost.”
“Promise, Inventor. Pinkie swear. He’ll never know I was there.”
“Good. See to the miners and report back with their progress. I’ll meet you in an hour.”
Royal offered a one-finger salute and bounded away to the lower vault. He skipped like a boy having the time of his life.
“I hope we made the correct choice,” Shin said. “I’ve known many killers in my life, but none who takes more relish.”
“That, my dearest friend, is why we need him.”
_________________
What happens next? Will the new partnership between the crew of Scylla and the Aeternans succeed? Why did the Inventor steal the warships designed for the Splinter Alliance? What is happening at The Hold? Why must Bonju Taron not be killed? For answers to these questions and more, keep up with the saga as Books 5 through 9 arrive on Amazon every two months until early 2023.
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Frank Kennedy, The Heartless Hinds (Beyond the Impossible Book 4)
