“Kids are just adults waiting to happen. Fight the Swarm, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  “What are the Swarm?”

  “The assholes who are gonna snuff out pretenders like you, Ismail. You people got no cudfrucking idea what’s coming. And shit, you’re gonna be on the front lines. You’ll wish you were back on G’hladi setting traps for a red wolf.

  “Two points, and then I’m done. One, you’re soft. The whole damn lot of you. I got no idea why Shin thought you were the best he could do. Used to be, when he hired killers to do his nasty bits, they had job experience. Second, I’m not here to protect Shin and Amayas. I don’t do guard duty. I’m here to be your commanding officer. I’ve been talking to you lot for the past week to find out what’s happening inside those foggy skulls. I heard too much wind blowing for my taste. Shin will make it official tomorrow. Then you’re mine. Questions?”

  Instead of questions, they met Royal with smiles of disbelief and disdain. These men were lumber thick, which made for great statues or a defensive gauntlet. They were much too settled into a passive routine to take on an offensive.

  They’ll never be as good as the Talons, he thought, but any command is better than none.

  “You have no honor,” Ismail said. “You spy on us all this time. We will not follow such a man.”

  Royal cracked his knuckles.

  “Everyone agree with the red wolf?” Timid nods followed. “Fair enough. If I proved I was worthy of that fucking tattoo on Ismail’s skull, would you follow me?”

  A slower response produced similar nods. Even a few murmurs.

  “Guess I’ve got some proving to do.” He threw on his shirt and started toward Ismail. “You’re right. My lips move too much. I just wanted to push a few buttons, see what you had in there.”

  “You implied I was coward.”

  “Nope. Never used that word. Didn’t imply it, either. I showed the men you’re a fraud. But don’t worry. You got company. I’ll sort them out, too.”

  His move was nothing fancy, but it was fast. He leaped at Ismail, grabbed the man by his left shoulder, and flung him headlong into the shaved stone wall. Ismail stumbled backward, shaken.

  Royal drove him forward. And again. And again.

  The wall did not give, but Ismail’s skull did. He and the wolf were a mangled, unrecognizable mess when Royal dropped him.

  Royal took a deep, cleansing breath and faced his unit.

  “If you say you’re a wolf, be a fucking wolf. Otherwise, I got no time for your shit. You wanna survive what’s coming? Listen to me. We start tomorrow.” He walked through the crowd. “Night, guys.”

  Royal wondered whether Ismail really had been among Shin’s favorites. Odd choice. He wouldn’t have made much of a soldier.

  5

  R OYAL TOOK COMMAND of the unit without so much as a hint of resistance. Shin did wish the matter had been resolved without staining the wall in blood and bone chips, but otherwise showed no interest in Ismail. Amayas voiced surprise at how long Royal waited before making his move.

  “You read it in the mirrors, didn’t you?” Royal said.

  “Yes, but only after I assumed you’d kill one of them to establish your credentials.”

  “It’s gonna be more of the same if they don’t fall in line.”

  Shin held a tea cup with white-gloved fingers.

  “When you speak to the men, pass along that warning. No more unscheduled executions. If you don’t mind, Royal.”

  “No worries. I’ll be sure to ask permission next time.”

  “Our situation is delicate,” Amayas said. “The remaining twenty-five guards were hand selected for special attributes. They are not so easily replaced, Royal.”

  He chuckled. “Oh. You had a criteria? Damned if I could see it.”

  “These men are more than loners and outcasts. Shin vetted every candidate using a Splinter and lengthy interrogation. These men do not have counterparts across the divide.”

  His stomach tightened.

  “They aren’t immortal. Why does lack of counterparts matter?”

  “As you proved, Royal, a human without a genetic equivalent in the other eight universes can become one with a Splinter, choose a destination, and travel to it.”

  “It was a one-way trip to Swarm country. You thinking of sending these guys to the same fate?”

  “No. But we will need to test the viability of tethered travel, within the Alpha universe and across the divides.”

  “Whoa, Mr. Inventor. You brought up that term the day I came to this rock. Not a word since.”

  “You’ll be hearing much more soon. I’m close to aligning the necessary elements. Though the future is still muddy, all signs point to this strategy as a key to victory. From a military standpoint, it will give us the opportunity to strike the enemy in unpredictable fashion.”

  “I assume you’ll be looking for more where they came from?”

  “We have a plan. Yes.”

  Shin finished his tea.

  “My data says less than ten percent of humanity lacks a counterpart. I tested hundreds before settling on these men. Those most likely to qualify tend to fall among the lower classes. The poor, the desperate, the failures.”

  “Why?”

  “Those who fared poorly in the Alpha universe are less likely to have genetic equivalents who survived elsewhere. Causality favors the privileged. We’ve heard of no Alliance members lacking counterparts.”

  “Ah. The elite. Yep. Those assholes do know how to survive. Must be true everywhere.”

  Shin uncrossed his legs and rose from his chair.

  “I don’t wish to argue, Royal. And most certainty, I have no wish to engage in debates about social hierarchy. Excuse me, Amayas. I should update the men on the change of command. They’ll no doubt appreciate taking orders from a champion of the downtrodden.”

  Royal waited until Shin left. He brushed off the sarcasm.

  “Look, Amayas. I like comfy shit same as the next guy. But most of the folks I’ve known that live the high life? Assholes. Or worse. One day I should tell you about my so-called mother. She was an ice cold, sharp-toothed Kohlna.”

  “I’ve no doubt she played a small role in the creature you became. But the past is a weight we cannot afford to bear. Push it aside. Focus on what lies ahead. The new armor will be ready for testing in thirty days. I need you to master the mirrors within forty. We’ll begin the first trials of tethered travel at that time.”

  “That’s a specific timeline. What do you see in the mirrors?”

  “An opportunity to make a critical maneuver. Have you ever traveled to Euphrates?”

  “Nope.”

  Amayas looked away with a wistful grin.

  “Hmm. Tell me. What will you need to train your unit?”

  “More than you’ll give, I’d bet.”

  “Make no assumptions. I know what’s required.”

  Royal did not hold back. He insisted on taking the men off-world. He needed to push them to the extreme, allowing the savage to emerge. That wouldn’t happen under the suppressive continuum. Amayas did not object. Royal asked for combat holosims. Amayas had an old program – Unification Guard mode, not up to Talon standards, but good enough for now. Royal intended to add extensive modifications to include Swarm combat tactics.

  “An ambitious plan,” Amayas said. “You’ll have to schedule carefully around your own training with the mirrors as well as Shin and myself. We have a considerable agenda. The Alliance will step out of the shadows in seventy-six standard days.”

  “Not much time, but I assume you’ve seen it happen.”

  “It’s not a fixed point yet. Certain factors may undermine it.”

  “I’ll make damn sure I’m not one of them. So, here’s how I want to start my command. I hope you’ll oblige.”

  Amayas listened with a bemused expression as Royal made his unusual pitch. The Inventor chuckled under his breath.

  “You’ll make an impression, but they won’t take you up on it.”

  “I beg to differ. Watch me.”

  “I’d like to, but I haven’t walked through the mirrors today. I need to feel the shifting winds of the future.”

  One hour later, Royal stood with his twenty-five men aboard Shin’s favorite cruiser, Ferris. The ship hovered fifty kilometers outside the continuum. Royal did not say a word during the short trip but watched for their changing temperament as the bubble’s effects wore off. Indeed, they were looser, their eyes more menacing, their many questions hanging behind their lips. Unlike the Talons, they did not come as ready-made barbarians already versed in the tenets of war. They were Royal’s clay. He loved it.

  He started with a wry smile.

  “I’m a fun guy, when you get to know me.” He dropped the smile as quickly. “Most of the day, I’m a piece of shit. Ask Ismail. Or not. There are two times I come up aces. When I’m killing the enemy, and when I’m teaching you how to kill them. Effective today, that’s my cudfrucking job. After we’re done here, you will address me as General. You will follow my orders without question or hesitation. If you have other plans, like going over my head to Shin or Amayas? Let’s put it this way: I held back with Ismail.

  “But like I said, I’m a fun guy. A sporting fella. So I’m gonna give you a chance to get your blood all hot and bothered. One chance to make me pay for what I did to Ismail.”

  He reached behind his back and retrieved a small laser pistol. He set it on the deck and kicked it over to the men.

  “Whoever wants it, you get one free shot. Kill me.”

  They looked at each other like he was nuts, exactly as predicted.

  No one picked up the gun.

  “It’s not a trick. You assholes can fire a pistol, and not a damn one of you thinks I’m qualified to be your commander. Show a little spine, you dumbasses. Grab it and kill me.”

  A Mauri stepped forward, arguably the most towering of the lot. Brown skin, short braids, with tender eyes. He grabbed the pistol but did not aim.

  “I know what you are,” the Mauri said.

  “You think?”

  “You are with the special ones that cannot die.”

  “Oh, I assure you I can die.”

  “You will return from the dead.”

  “Aeternan,” another man mumbled.

  “Nope. Not one of them.”

  The Mauri lifted the weapon.

  “If you are not Aeternan, then you are trying to trick us.”

  “I just want you to be a fucking man and shoot me in the heart because I’m a piece of shit who deserves it.”

  “You have your own room. You’re different. You’re immortal.”

  “Be a man. Find out.”

  He carried the weapon in his hand like a longtime acquaintance. Unlike Ismail, this Mauri had killed before. It explained why he chose the weapon when no one else did.

  “How long will you be dead?”

  Royal didn’t expect that question. The Mauri was planning ahead. Good. These men weren’t entirely without foresight.

  “If there are snacks onboard, you can have a light one. Sit, relax, share a couple of quick stories. I’ll be back around then. Don’t sit and stare. It’d be like watching a pot boil. Seems to take long …”

  The Mauri fired. The blast caught Royal beneath his heart.

  The last seconds before death always hurt. But that was the beauty of a clean death: The nastiness disappeared into the abyss.

  When Royal finished his regeneration, he heard the sounds of a violent argument before he opened his eyes. He sat up to discover that everyone took his advice. No one watched him. Instead, the men focused on four Mauris who appeared on the verge of fisticuffs.

  The argument seemed incoherent, and Royal did not like playing catchup. He helped himself to his feet until someone bothered to notice. First, there were gasps, followed by curses Royal never heard before. Then the Mauri executioner, who still clung to the pistol, set the weapon on the deck.

  “So,” Royal announced. “What have we learned today?”

  He turned to the Mauri, who lowered his head.

  Royal broke the silence.

  “We learned that at least one of you is a man. When you got a free shot to kill somebody who damn well deserves it, take the shot. Second thing we learned: I’m immortal. I get a second chance. And a fourteenth chance. And a thirtieth chance. But you? You die one time. And trust me on this: You don’t wanna know what comes after.

  “There’s a war headed our way. You fine specimens are gonna stand at the front line. It’s called a vanguard. I’m gonna teach you how to survive. May be a couple of you assholes will show enough spine to be my lieutenants. Don’t count on it, though. I got standards. I’d rather kill a man than promote him to a rank he doesn’t deserve. That being said, stand at attention.”

  It wasn’t quick or pretty, but they got there. Royal shouted.

  “What’s my name?”

  “General. Sir. General.”

  Another mixed bag. This time, Royal was having nothing of it.

  “You’ll say it together, and like you damn well mean it. What is my fucking name?”

  “General! General!”

  He felt a cozy warmth all over.

  “Nice.”

  For the next thirty days, Royal worked his soldiers to the limits of their durability. These men might have been large physical specimens, but they spent too much idle time inside the continuum. He restricted basic combat training to shipboard sessions before devastating his troops with hours-long romps in heavy gear through the remote, blistering hot chaparral of central Pinochet, a six-hour Worm jump from The Hold. He took great pleasure in shouting, especially within inches of a man’s face.

  Royal slept two, sometimes three hours. His body clock didn’t mind, nor did it hinder his ability to improve efficiency in sessions with Amayas and the mirrors. If anything, the stir of madness and physical exhaustion allowed him to see subsets of the future he previously missed. Amayas said a broken mind fed off the mirrors.

  He made a discovery on the twentieth day which allowed him to double his reads of future subsets and skip to the most critical outcomes of causality. The relevant whispers, as Amayas taught him from the beginning, were the most subtle. He followed instructions to filter for the “instruments of least personality.” In that process, he found a frequency which appeared to tie these whispers together. It was like a background hum detectable only to the most sensitive ears.

  “How did you do it?” Amayas asked in wonder when Royal perused seven hundred thousand subsets in twenty minutes. Half involved Alliance worlds, a record number. Royal explained:

  “Every time my hand approaches a mirror, I know if it will show me relevant futures. I memorized the songs that matter, and those songs are like magnets. If one’s playing in the background of the mirror, my mind is drawn to it. The rest of this forest, I skip over.”

  “Excellent. You’ll soon surpass me. When you latch onto a subset, how quickly do you know which variants to discard?”

  “As long as I follow the song, I skip past all the minor cause and effects. I move directly to the most likely future.”

  “How far ahead do you see fixed points?”

  “Two days. I think.”

  “That’s where you have more work to do. It’s the final leap.”

  “How far ahead should I see them?”

  “Fixed, inviolate futures can extend outward fifteen or twenty days. You might have more luck. Your mind is so chaotic, it sees order within staggering levels of disarray. The likely futures – ones that may yet alter based upon a handful of variants – should round into form several months ahead.”

  The power felt like magic, though Amayas insisted the mirrors were grounded in science and mathematics. The Splinters united time and humanity; the mirrors projected the effect of that union.

  As he built a catalog of near-future history on the ten Alliance worlds, Royal thought to expand his vision. He wanted to peek inside the Chancellor fleet, which Amayas referenced with concern. He wanted to search for Exeter. Was there any future where they might bring Exeter to The Hold? Perhaps he’d put his animus aside and embrace a role as co-general for the great campaign ahead. Mostly, however, Royal felt a tug from beyond the visible starfields. He wanted to know the Swarm timetable for invasion. But would he even know where or when to look? Would spending valuable time across the divide cripple his ability to read the immediate future in the Alpha universe?

  Patience, he told himself. You’re spinning enough plates.

  He had twenty more days to achieve full mastery. He could wait. After day forty, he intended to set his eyes across the divide. There, he’d find the truth inside a whisper with a different intonation.

  On day thirty, two important developments marked a turn in Royal’s life. First, a song of Zwahili Kingdom caught his ear as he passed his hand near a group of octagonal mirrors. He heard familiar voices, saw a familiar ship. He filtered through the subsets, which consisted of variants on the planet and in orbit.

  There they were. Ham Cortez. Kara Syung. His former brothers and sisters: Cando, Yusef, Paul, Hiro, Meena. Others he did not recognize. Their deeds and words raced along slightly different branches toward a more impactful subset. A man, Francois Adobo, wanted power among his tribe. He plotted against Ham. Mutiny was on the table. What would happen next? The larger future remained blurry, most likely a sign of its ever shifting potential. They all agreed on one notion: They were destined for Euphrates. Royal searched for subsets along that destination but heard no song. Yet he knew where to narrow his focus going forward. His future might be tied to theirs after all. Amayas hinted as much when he asked Royal about having ever traveled to Euphrates.

  The mirrors did not allow him to see his own direct future. That knowledge, as Amayas taught him, created too many potential paradoxes. It might alter every future subset moving on a collision course toward his own.

  The second big event of day thirty took place aboard Ferris.

  The twenty-five soldiers of the newly named Splinter Vanguard stood at attention in five columns. They wore the armor Shin provided years ago, though Royal knew that would soon change. Royal stood at the front, facing Amayas and Shin. He sported two new features.