No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three (41 page)

W
hen Kavanaugh woke, Raena was sitting up at her desk, eating the meal Mykah sent in for her earlier. She had gotten herself dressed. Her color seemed normal now. Her blackened eye had faded toward green and come open a slit.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“You’re the best doctor I’ve ever had.” The return of her sense of humor let him know that the crisis had passed.

“Maybe the most hands-on,” he teased.

“Mykah commed back about ten minutes ago,” she said. “We’re coming up on the Templar tombworld.”

“Should I hustle?” Kavanaugh asked.

“You’ve got time,” she told him.

“Come out with me,” he suggested. “The Templars would like to get to know their savior.”

“I didn’t save them,” Raena pointed out. “You and Mykah and Gisela did. Jim did.”

“You bought us the time,” he answered. “They were prisoners, too, facing vivisection so the Thallians could create the plague. They understand that you sacrificed yourself so we could rescue them.”

She put her fork down and twisted to face him. “I’m not a hero, Tarik. I don’t want anyone to treat me like one.”

“Understood. But Mykah and the kids will worry about you, if you don’t come out.” He grinned at her. “You don’t want everyone else busting in here the way I did.”

“You’re right about that.” She gave him a smile in return before concentrating on her cold food.

He got up to dress.

*   *   *

Raena limped out as far as the lounge. Mykah helped her get strapped into the crash webbing. His eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

“It’s okay,” she promised. “I’m healing.”

Jim strapped himself in beside her. Once he was settled, Raena gave him the photo of Eilif that she’d found in Revan’s coat. “This was in her cabin,” Raena said, “when I took it apart to build the cell. Revan treasured it. I like it because she looks so happy. I thought you would want it.”

“Thank you.”

Mykah strapped himself in on the other side of her. Once he was settled, he reached out to take her hand. “We’re ready,” he called up to the cockpit.

“Okay,” Gisela said. “We’re broadcasting the new message from the queen. Here’s hoping it will get us through their security net.”

*   *   *

Whatever the Queen said to them, the Templars guarding the tombs let the
Veracity
land on the tombworld. One of the queen’s female attendants was a time engineer. She crawled out of the
Veracity
to examine the time machine, to make certain it really would allow the
Veracity
to go home.

While she was busy, Raena went to speak with the queen.

The Templar Queen bent forward to caress Raena’s bruised face with her antennae. Raena stood straight and still, enduring it. The Templar had no eyes that she could see, only the hypnotic swirl of colors that was its face.

Over Vezali’s translator, the Queen said, “Mykah Chen told us that you distracted the Thallians’ security while the crew of
Veracity
rescued us.”

“We are a team,” Raena said.

“And we will be forever grateful to you. But one thing confuses us.”

“Tell me.”

“The one who calls himself the Templar Master? How did he survive the plague that killed everyone else?”

“He said his people shut him in one of the Templar tombs to wait until the Thallians were gone.”

“This is what confuses us. Jimi Thallian survives.”

“Jimi Thallian is a hero.”

The queen did not deny it. “Jimi Thallian says this plague was keyed to the Templar.”

“Yes.”

“He says that the plague died out when the Templar died out.”

“Jim would understand that better than I do,” Raena admitted.

“But the Templar Master did not die out. And it is not our way to imprison our own people,” the queen said. Raena waited for the translator to catch up with the maelstrom of colors flashing and flaring across her face. “We think this Templar is a coward who fled from the past and, when he found himself alone, plotted revenge.”

Raena nodded. “He could have sent us to rescue Templars from the past, but he didn’t. He sent us to unleash a plague to destroy humanity.”

“We have seen the message that he wanted you to transmit. If he was not a criminal before, he is a criminal now,” the queen said. “The answer to insanity is not more madness. The answer to genocide is not more genocide.”

“What do your people do to their criminals?” Raena asked.

“Kill them.”

She had expected that. “How?”

“No,” the queen said. “The answer is when.”

*   *   *

Once the Templars’ time machine was ready, Kavanaugh backed the
Veracity
into the mountain. This time he set down before the ship lost power. Everything went black momentarily, before chugging to life once more.

When Kavanaugh pulled them out of the mountain into the gritty wind, the
Veracity
’s scanners showed no other life on the planet. The ships full of androids orbited overhead. The Queen hailed them before they could communicate with their master.

Raena watched the energy signatures coming off the ships, waiting to see if their guns heated up. They didn’t.

“What does that mean?” Mykah asked.

“She must know what to say to them,” Raena said. “Call Coni. See if the Templar Master will let you talk to her.”

*   *   *

The Templar Queen and the Master kept in constant communication as the
Veracity
returned to Drusingyi. Raena didn’t know what they were saying to each other—Vezali’s translator couldn’t keep up—but she suspected at least one of them spoke of love.

Mykah did connect with Coni—and was able to confirm that she wasn’t an android. She said the grays had started a countdown when the
Veracity
went into the time machine, but almost no time had passed before it came back out. For the time being, the hostages were being treated like guests.

The galaxy did not seem to have been ruined. Jim pointed out that he’d known the city had been attacked during the War. He just hadn’t known when. He didn’t discount Raena’s theory that the
Veracity
’s attack had pushed the Thallians into making the plague, but his answer echoed what she’d said to him about Jonan: “They may have been broken, but they chose to do evil.”

This time, when they returned to the Thallian homeworld, they took the
Veracity
into Drusingyi’s ocean. The android-crewed ships served as an honor guard, fighting off the leviathans who took interest in them. When they parked in the newly built hangar outside the cloning lab, the Templar Master came to meet them.

Inside the
Veracity
’s hatch, the queen called, “Mykah Chen.”

Mykah stepped up to her and put his hand on her carapace. She touched his face with her antenna.

“Please take back your translation device. I do not want it to be damaged.”

Mykah gently unwound it from her. While he was holding it, her voice sounded in his head. “Thank you for all your assistance.”

“My pleasure.”

Gisela keyed open the hatch and the
Veracity
’s crew went out first. They walked down the ramp and moved aside, so the Templars could follow. The Queen came last. Her face was aglow with shades of yellow and pale green.

The Templar Master rushed toward her, trundling over his androids, knocking them aside like broken toys.

Vezali glided over to join the rest of the crew. She took the translator from Mykah, said, “You’ll thank me for this,” and shut the device off.

Raena grinned. “Good. We did not want to hear whatever they’re going to say to each other.”

The Queen reared up on her hindmost legs. The Templar Master rose up to meet her, but she easily knocked him onto his back and began to take her pleasure from him.

“Um,” Mykah said.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Raena asked.

“There are kids present.”

She laughed. “It’s all natural, right? This is how the Templars return to the universe.”

“Do we have to watch?” Kavanaugh asked, wincing.

“You don’t,” Raena told them. “She wanted me to stay.”

So Mykah and the others went off to find Coni and Haoun. All throughout the cloning dome, androids were frozen in strange postures. Something about their master’s distraction had disrupted their autonomy.

“We should deactivate them now, while they can’t fight back,” Jim suggested.

“I’ll help,” Gisela said.

Mykah left the others to it. The present was not going to feel saved to him until he held Coni in his arms.

*   *   *

Once the Queen finished with the Templar Master, each of her attendants had a go at him. Raena used the time to behead the androids in the hangar. She took special pleasure in taking the Raena decoy apart.

She stacked the android heads in the airlock and let them get washed out into the ocean. She wasn’t sure if the water would corrode them, but at least some of the heads were eaten by the leviathans swimming outside the dome. That made her smile.

Finally, the Templars finished breeding. Raena came to look at the Master, lying on his back, his legs moving lazily in the air. He paid no attention to her as she moved up behind his head. She placed her Stinger against his face and fired.

The colors on his face flared angry orange and painful red. Raena carved across them and closed her eyes. Killing a Templar was just as awful as Mykah warned her it would be.

When at last the job was done, the female Templars fell upon his body and began to feast.

*   *   *

Haoun met her when she walked alone out of the hangar. He didn’t say anything, simply gathered her close in his arms and held her. Raena had never been so relieved to be held before.

When at last he let her go, he handed her a green and gold scarf folded in the shape of a bird. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you, Haoun.” She unwrapped the scarf, then held it against his scales to admire the color. She wound it around her throat. “But I’m not home yet,” she said. “We need to take Kavanaugh and the kids back to Ariel. I expect we’ve got a wedding to attend. Once the
Veracity
is in space after that, I’ll feel I’ve come home.”

“That may be a while yet,” Haoun warned. “Mykah has plans to announce the return of the Templars to the galaxy.”

Raena heaved a mock sigh. “I suppose we’ll have to be media heroes again.”

Haoun laughed at her and took her hand. “We’ve got some time to kill before that happens.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks one last time to Martha Allard and Mason Jones, who kept my head above water as this book expanded from a rough outline to the novel you hold in your hands. Their encouragement and careful eyes kept me plowing forward. I’ve never written so hard or so fast and I couldn’t have done it without their help.

Thanks to Brian, Kelly, and Paul, fellow members of The Chowder Society, who have stoked my love for science fiction ever since I met them decades ago.

Thanks to Dana Fredsti for the marvelous blurb and being such an inspiration. Thanks to Borderlands Bookstore for their support throughout my writing career. Thanks to Emerian Rich, Anya Martin, SL Schmitz, Kate Jonez, John Palisano, and all my other fellow writers who helped me spread the word about this trilogy.

Thanks to Cody Tilson for the spectacular cover image.

A special shout-out to Nick and the crew of San Francisco’s Mercury Cafe, where I’ve spent many, many hours reading, writing, and editing. The title of this book comes from a song Nick was playing one morning while I was writing.

Thanks also to Jason Katzman and Cory Allyn for being patient as I wrestled this book into submission and to Martin Cahill, who encouraged all my crazy promotional ideas.

Finally, thanks to my champion, editor Jeremy Lassen. This book would not have been written without his encouragement, inspiration, and tough love.