We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Relentless Legion, the third installment in J.S. Dewes’s science fiction series The Divide, out from Tor Books on November 12th. (If you’re new to the series, you can find excerpts from the first book in the series here!)
The Sentinels have rallied under the leadership of Adequin Rake, and Cavalon Mercer has uncovered the horrifying genetic solution his grandfather is about to unleash on the unsuspecting outer colonies.
Both Rake and Cavalon race against time to save the universe once again. They’ll need every resource, every ally who might answer the call.
It might not be enough.
Chapter One
“Just fucking shoot me.” Cavalon braced himself, fists clenched.
Owen stood a few meters away, sweat beading on her forehead as she sighted down the barrel of a heavy plasma rifle. Her light brown cheeks ruddied as her brow furrowed.
Cavalon thwacked the rough-hewn carapace covering his chest. The armor gave off a dull metallic twang. “Come on,” he grunted. “Right in the heart. Do it.”
Owen’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “… No?” she squeaked.
Cavalon set his jaw, injecting as much threat and determination into his tone as he could muster. “Do I need to make it an order, Circitor?”
Owen’s brow flattened and she exhaled an exasperated sigh.
Cavalon shrugged it off—he’d learned to ignore those looks of disgusted disappointment years ago. “Shoot. Me,” he insisted. “Now.”
Owen’s aim dropped along with her shoulder. “Void,” she swore, brandishing the long side of the rifle. “This is a fucking Epoch 850. You’re three goddamn meters from me!”
“Fine. You can step back to four.”
Her narrow jaw tightened as she let out a warning growl. “This is self-destructive, even for you. Can’t you just put the armor on a damn dummy or something?”
Cavalon glowered. “The ablative and compaction properties are biometrically activated—we’ve been working on this for a month, you should know this by now!”
“No, I shouldn’t!” she shouted back. “I know you’re under the impression I exist solely to act as your lab monkey, but I have an entire actual job—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved her off. “Miss Important Right-Hand to the famous Mesa Darox. Are you going to shoot me or not?”
“It’s getting really fucking tempting.”
“Nooope,” a low voice drawled, pulling Cavalon’s and Owen’s gazes to the small lab’s entrance. Puck stood in the open doorway, his coltish frame radiating weary exasperation. He crossed his long arms, shaved copper head drifting back and forth languidly as if on a pendulum. “Nope, nope, nope.”
Cavalon frowned. “You don’t even—”
“Nope!” Puck stepped inside, jutting an accusatory finger at him. “I don’t care what your excuse is. No one’s shooting anyone wearing alien armor we found lying around in an abandoned Cathian fortress”—he held up a hand to stave off Cavalon’s protest—“whether or not you’ve ‘finally adapted it for human physiology.’ We have way too few hands to start using people as guinea pigs—especially our lead animus.”
Cavalon grimaced out a soft hiss and mumbled, “Don’t let your girlfriend hear you say that.”
Puck’s jaw flexed. “Co-lead animus. Whatever. Do you really want me to have to tell her you’ve crossed the line into R&D? Again?”
Cavalon huffed. “I never agreed to that line.”
“Back to work,” Puck demanded, then pointed a stiff finger at the ceiling. “Your lab, if you recall, is up ten flights. Remember the conclave later—1700, do not be late.” His gaze shifted to Owen. “Please return that to the armory, Circitor. No live weapons in the labs.”
“Aye, sir.” Owen nodded. “Right away. Apologies.”
Puck left a lingering haze of irritation in his wake as he vanished into the corridor.
Cavalon sighed. “I remember when I used to like him.”
Owen snorted. “Shut up. You love him.”
“All this power’s gone to his head.”
“Someone had to step up after…” Owen’s gaze dropped as she set the rifle on the counter.
Cavalon scratched the overgrown stubble on his chin, masking a frown while he crossed to the workbench near her. He knew all too well why she’d been hesitant to finish that sentence—too afraid she’d send him into a spiral at the mere mention of their former centurion, however oblique.
She wasn’t wrong. Considering the magnitude of the secrets kept from him about Jackin’s involvement with his grandparents, he should be furious. But after what Jackin did to save Rake—to save them all… Cavalon had no room for resentment. Only guilt.
He clamped his eyes shut and tried not to think about what his grandfather might be doing to Jackin right now. If he was even still alive.
The thin black nexus band on Cavalon’s wrist vibrated—a pulsing blue dot indicating a supervisor summons. He ignored it.
He unclipped the webbed harness securing the alien armor to his torso and slid his arms free. The chestplate shifted in his hands as it returned to its default form, a shape more closely resembling the contours of a tall, svelte Cathian.
He dropped the armor onto the workbench beside Owen’s rifle, rolling his neck and leaning both hands on the counter. A phantom pain pulsed in his left hand and he tightened a fist, the rickety joints of his “temporary” prosthesis buzzing softly as the mechanical fingers closed.
He bit back a wince, a familiar itch scraping up the nerves of his arm to the back of his skull. He wrung his other hand around the raw connection point on his left forearm, where the microprocessor resided just under the skin, the angry, red inflammation hidden under the long sleeve of his navy blue shirt.
He begged his brain to just accept the stupid thing was real, already. Or for the Corsairs to finally come through on sourcing him a decent one.
Owen cleared her throat pointedly, hoisting herself up to sit on the worktop near him. “Do you think medical has some extra hemostasis cartridges? Like what’s used for clotting?”
Cavalon scratched his jaw. Supply shipments came into the Akhet spaceport multiple times a week these days, and he’d lost track of the ever-expanding warehouse manifest. “Probably. Why?”
“If we pull out the collagen and gelatinize it, it can be used as an—”
“—extracellular matrix over a cotton layer. Void.” He pressed a palm to his forehead. Duh.
“Voila.” Owen flashed a bright smile. “One skin model. Then I can easily pulse in some bios to simulate a human. No live testing required.”
Cavalon shook his head. “How the hell do you even know that?”
She chuffed. “You don’t have a monopoly on pulling random fixes out of your ass.”
He gave her a flat look.
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I dated a Culloden for over three years, remember? Some of the medical BS rubbed off.”
“Ugh. I forgot about that guy.”
She ruffled the back of his overgrown blond hair. “Maybe just ask for help sometimes? We all know you’ve got the biggest brain here, you don’t need to prove it.”
Cavalon dropped his gaze, a hard nodule turning in his stomach. He really didn’t want to think about just how big—or how engineered—that brain of his was. Owen was one of the few people who knew what he really was, but she didn’t know the extent of it. No one did, not really. Even he only knew what his frantic mind managed to absorb while skimming through the maniacal logs in Augustus’s secret in-home cloning lab.
Cavalon was glad the data they’d stolen from the manor only contained information about his grandfather’s other nefarious goings-on. The fewer details he knew about his own clonehood, the better.
Owen leaned a shoulder into him. “Hey, man…” Her voice was all careful consolation, and Cavalon already hated where this was going. “What Centurion Puck was saying… about you working upstairs?”
Cavalon swallowed. “I’ve been up there plenty.”
“But only over third shift?”
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The Relentless Legion
He shrugged, eyeing the Cathian armor. “R&D requires requisitions approximately every five seconds. It’s easier to work here during daylight hours, and up there after.” He didn’t look at her, instead running his fingers over the rough, rimrock crags of the alloy armor.
“Cavalon.”
He shot her a glare. “Owen.”
She sighed and yanked the tie from her braid, combing her fingers through her wavy, dark brown hair. “Not that this ultra-tough, basically weightless armor that forms to your shape isn’t useful, but I think your grandmother could use your genetic engineering smarts about now. The excubitor did label it ‘utmost priority.’”
He chuffed. “Yeah, until a fleet of Guardian Drudgers drops on our heads. Then watch that ‘utmost priority’ shift to this armor real fast.”
Owen frowned as she sectioned out her hair to re-plait. “Any particular reason you’re avoiding Corinne?”
Cavalon rankled at the accusation in her tone. “I’m not.”
“Liar.” Owen’s nexus band vibrated. She retied her braid, then tapped it open. An orange holographic screen expanded over her wrist.
“What is it?” He leaned into her line of sight to peek at the screen. Owen elbowed him in the ribs and he retreated.
“I’m due in TAC-COM,” she said, minimizing the screen. “The remote gate access test for the atlas meshwork is later and we need to prep.”
“That’s today?”
“Yeah.” Owen’s gaze went distant, features pinched.
“Hey, now…” Cavalon pushed up and sat on the counter beside her. “Stop that. Emery will be fine.” He’d tried to sound assuring, but his own worry unavoidably leaked through. He couldn’t help it; he’d worried every time Emery ran off to lead guerrilla attacks on remote Guardian facilities or Mercer Biotech distributors. She was their youngest squad leader by almost a decade, but if Rake trusted she was ready, Cavalon trusted it too.
Owen picked at her nails, not looking remotely convinced by Cavalon’s shoddy pep talk.
He drew in a breath and channeled Rake, mustering up her brazen surety. “Seriously, O,” he went on with far more conviction. “She’ll be all right. It’s not even a raid—just a quick hop through an Arcullian Gate.”
“Sure, if the stupid thing actually works, and it doesn’t accidentally relay them off to some gateless system they can never return from.”
“Between the genius of you, Puck, and Mesa, there’s no question. It’ll pass with flying colors, then Emery’ll be on her way back and ready to make out again in no time.”
The concern smoothed from Owen’s forehead, though it didn’t leave her eyes. “Yeah. You’re right.” She let out a hard-edged sigh. “I guess this is why the Legion discourages emotional entanglements, huh?”
He gave a weak shrug. “Can’t stop yourself from loving someone, whether it’s regulation or not.”
Owen’s light brown skin turned violently crimson. “Love?” she sputtered. Her eyes darted, like she couldn’t find any safe place in the universe to land her gaze. “Void, Mercer—just relax, okay?”
Cavalon laughed. “Please, deny it. It’s hilarious.”
Owen’s lips remained rounded in a constant, open state of refusal, her cheeks still red-hot. She pieced herself back together with clear effort, smoothing her hands down her duty vest. “Well, you suck, and I should probably return that rifle.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cavalon sighed. “Scamper off back to Mesa. Do you need me to write you a hall pass?”
Owen snorted. “I’m good. Thanks for the pep talk, bud.” She leaned over and planted a sloppy kiss on his stubbled cheek.
“Void—” he cursed, shoving her away.
“Biotech,” she reminded, pointing upward. Then her voice perked up, and in a bright, calculated tone like the narrator of a kids’ serial, she added, “Remember, young man: You are smart, valued, and worthy, and you can do anything you put your mind to.” She patted him on the head, then vaulted off the counter before he could punch her shoulder. She grabbed the rifle and trotted out the door, waving coyly behind her.
Cavalon scowled as he wiped her spit from his cheek with the back of his prosthesis. He stared down at the moisture beading on the too-smooth skin, a few shades paler than even his own extremely pale complexion.
His nexus buzzed with another blue dot. Corinne again.
This was her fourth summons. If he didn’t head up there soon, the system would dock him for non-responsiveness during duty hours. Which was bullshit. At times like this he wished Mesa had never unearthed that damn Cathian fortress AI. Sure, it helped them run a tight ship and had taken the burden of dovetailing the Sentinel and Cathian networks off Puck’s and Owen’s shoulders, but it also spied on them every second of every day.
Still, he hesitated. Though Corinne had broken it down into a series of deceptively simple checkboxes, the sheer magnitude of their objective continued to overwhelm him: synthesize a counter-agent for Augustus’s mutagen-targeting bioweapon. Complicated couldn’t begin to describe it.
The lack of hard data didn’t help. All they really knew was that it was activated by the mutagen floating around in half the population’s DNA—the result of a Viator bioattack almost five hundred years ago. It ravaged humanity with infertility, cancer, all manner of illnesses, and sent their population into a slow, irrevocable decline. The thing Augustus was trying so hard to “correct” with all his inhumane laws and discrimination and bullshit. The purported “justification” for his eugenics and homicidal behavior.
Cavalon and Corinne only had fragments of datasets on the weapon, stitched together by their collective assumptions based on ample—regrettable—firsthand knowledge of Augustus’s diabolical mind. Flimsy scaffolding at best, but it was all they had. Hence the reason Cavalon had been avoiding Biotech like the plague.
And sure. Fine. Maybe Owen was right. Maybe he was avoiding Corinne too.
Tempting as it’d been to just wipe the slate clean and start over when they’d reunited four months ago, maybe he hadn’t been able to forgive her for abandoning him as a child to be raised by a sociopath. Yes, her life had been at risk, and yes, Augustus may have been able to deploy his bioweapon a decade earlier if she hadn’t left and taken her brain and research with her. But that didn’t erase his trauma.
Over the months, he’d daydreamed about what it would’ve been like if she’d taken him with her. If instead of growing up in that strangling, bereft manor back on Elyseia, he would’ve grown up here on Akhet with her instead.
For years, it would’ve been just the two of them. Summers full of hot breezes and sunburns, cooler winters spent surveying the weatherworn bones of ancient Cathian outposts and settlements. Over stormy evenings, she’d share stories about her son—his father—and her own family in the time “before.” Before their migration, before Akhet, before Augustus’s obsession relocated them to this dusty, magical, windswept place they loved.
After a few years, others would join them—first dozens, eventually hundreds. Child-Cavalon and the other uprooted children would chase each other through the crop fields and up to the plateau overlooking their valley. On rainy winter afternoons they’d sneak down into the dark basement of the Cathian fortress to be archeologists and anthropologists and monster hunters.
As a teenager, he’d learn about agriculture and mechanics and civic duty so he could grow up and contribute to his community while having no need to rely on anyone except himself so it’d never matter if someone left him.
He lived in those dreams most days. After the chaos of the last year, he had to, just to stay afloat. He’d go about his duties on autopilot while he imagined himself a native Akhetian, one of two founding members.
He knew it was dangerous to dwell on what could have been, that it was a surefire way to never heal. But he couldn’t help himself.
“CJ…”
Cavalon blinked free of his reverie. His grandmother stood in the doorway.
The lab’s soft overhead lights warmed her ivory skin, gray hair drawn up into a neat chignon, ice blue eyes steadfast despite the weary creases at the corners. He’d always thought he looked quite a bit like her, but… well, now he knew that to be mere coincidence.
The sleeves of her long white lab coat were pushed up, revealing the trail of gold and bronze Imprint squares along her right arm, a match to his own. She stood straight but not stiff, narrow shoulders drawn back, chin lifted—the same intimidating yet gentle way she always did.
Cavalon hopped down from sitting on the worktop, lips parting to give the canned apology she was probably sick of hearing. But he hesitated.
She held her hands before her, rubbing her fingertips alternately as if rolling a tiny ball of clay. A tic that meant there was a problem she couldn’t reason her way out of.
Voice wary, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
She spoke each word with deep consideration. “I need you to look at something.”
Heat scratched under Cavalon’s collar. He really didn’t like the “I have universe-altering news” quality to her tone. Something told him his R&D vacation was over.
With an acrid bitterness snaking its way through his stomach, Cavalon gave a curt nod. He shouldered into his double-breasted duty vest, strapping it closed as he followed Corinne up to the twelfth floor.
A single inhale of the air in Biotech, and Cavalon wanted to vanish into the labyrinthian corridors of the fortress and never return.
The ammonia stench of electrophoresis mixed with stale rubber gloves reminded him of his tenure at Altum Institute while earning his doctorate in genetic engineering. Augustus had forced it on him, though he’d breezed through the program in less than three years. Now he knew why it’d all come so naturally. Augustus had engineered him that way.
Cavalon brushed aside his brain’s insistence on reliving past trauma and stepped into the Biotech hub: a plain, well-lit room lined with organized workbenches and inlaid terminals. On the inner wall, a dozen secure doorways led to the actual laboratories— research areas and clean rooms outfitted for various niche purposes.
At the far end of the hub, Corinne’s cadre of lab technicians huddled at their workstations, each wearing the same pressed, bright white lab coat as his grandmother.
Cavalon reflexively tugged at the hem of his wrinkled Legion duty vest, glancing down at his borderline vagrant appearance. No matter how little sleep Corinne got, she always looked exceedingly put-together, and her devoted lab techs followed suit. Unlike Cavalon, with his five-day stubble, “I’ll get to it next week he said two months ago” haircut, and grease-stained trousers because he forgot to pick up his laundry. Again.
Cavalon sniffed in a hard breath. He’d give himself until he turned thirty to get his shit together. He had fourteen whole months. He could do it.
Corinne situated on the stool in front of her primary terminal and beckoned him over. He followed, willfully ignoring the blatant “how nice of you to show up” side-eye glowers of the techs.
Cavalon stood over Corinne’s shoulder, catching a waft of her light, sweet scent of overmilked coffee, one that stirred memories of being eleven and grass-stained and not yet fully acquainted with loss. Maybe that was why he kept avoiding Biotech. Her smell reminded him of her disappearance, undermining the Akhetian childhood he’d fabricated.
Corinne expanded a holographic document over the flat terminal glass. She said nothing—an expected lack of preamble with consultations like this. She wanted to ensure he drew his own, unbiased conclusions.
He scanned the report, absorbing the dry account line by line along with the supporting charts and graphs. He reached past her to scroll farther down. Blinked. Scrolled back up. Read it all again.
He didn’t know why he bothered. He had an eidetic memory; the conclusion was already burned into his brain.
As if by instinct, Corinne ceded her seat, moving aside as Cavalon stepped to the terminal and ran a search. It returned a single file, which he expanded side by side with Corinne’s report. His eyes darted between the two.
Still hunched at the screen, he muttered, “They’re… isomorphic?”
Corinne breathed out a soft, almost whimpering sigh.
He looked at her, then back at the screen, then back at her. She didn’t respond, hand pitched over her eyes as she pressed a headache from her temples with her thumb and middle finger.
Cavalon scrubbed a hand over his mouth. An all-too-familiar spiraling, sinking feeling soured in the pit of his stomach.
“So, you…” Corinne’s gaze drifted to the lab techs on the other side of the room. She angled her back to them, facing Cavalon squarely as she whispered, “…concur?”
He could only nod.
It’d taken them months to parse the data they’d stolen from Mercer Manor with Corinne’s knowledge of the bioweapon prior to her disappearance with the initial research over fifteen years ago. Now those results were staring them in the face. And they were so, so bad.
Bile rose to the back of his throat and he felt briefly unmoored. He looked to Corinne as an anchor, but found nothing except the same wild, bone-deep fear he felt. It physically hurt to see the ineradicable dread in her expression.
Corinne’s frail voice crowded in around his anxiety spiral. “We wanted an answer,” she said, tone soft, flat. “Now we have it.”
Cavalon pushed a hand through his unkempt hair. Yeah. They sure did.
The answer being that there was no answer. No way to forestall the bioweapon, no inoculation or treatment that could prevent or correct the targeted unspooling of someone’s DNA.
Which meant only one solution remained: to address the root of the issue. To create a situation in which there was nothing for the bioweapon to target. That singular, elusive task the Mercer line had dedicated their lives to for nearly five hundred years and that yet continued to defy them. Curing the Viator mutagen.
Cavalon drew in a slow breath to a count of four. He tried to clear the thickness from his throat, but his voice still came out fractured. “What are we gonna do?” he croaked.
Corinne broke from her languor. Her gaze cleared as she refocused, chin lifting in an infectious, regal manner that reminded him of innumerable tedious Allied Monarchies formal dinners.
“The only thing we can,” she replied evenly. “We cure it.”
Chapter Two
Adequin stared out the panoptic dome of the starfighter’s cockpit. The tawny dust of Akhet’s southern hemisphere trailed beneath her, her blistering velocity evident only by the alerts smattering the console and her quickening pulse.
Beyond the arching rim of the planet stretched a star-strewn backdrop. Even after four months, she hadn’t grown used to seeing stars in more than one direction.
A warning on the black-glass dash lit with a cautionary yellow. The heat sink meter climbed steadily from severe to critical.
Alarms blared.
She silenced them, drew in a steadying breath, then one-eightied thrust.
Her velocity plummeted, prompting a frantic crimson g-force warning. The rigid contours of the fighter’s seat hugged her form. Copper tinged her saliva as under her suit, her Imprint tattoos slid across her skin, reorienting to shield her from the taut harness straps.
Finally, acceleration bottomed out. She flipped thrust again and slid to resume max velocity, throat crushing hard against her spine as the craft complied.
The fatigued inertia dampeners complained vehemently. She ignored the alert, focusing on the readout as the secondary liquid heat sink mechanism activated. The meter instantly dropped back into a safe margin, but placed yet another demand on the starfighter’s reactor.
The power gauge hiked up past bright red into a brilliant, are-you-trying-to-die magenta. Adequin bit the inside of her cheek, adrenaline burning in her veins.
When the power consumption finally top-lined, the console let out a firm warning tone. A small plus/minus notification lit—the backup capacitor apportioning power. Right on time.
The heat sink meter dipped back to green, the power consumption to yellow, and the slew of silenced warnings disappeared as every system gained just enough leeway to stabilize.
Adequin scanned the dash. The array of holographic flight controls remained steadfast—not a flicker or lag during the cascade of system adjustments. She magnified the diagnostics, confirming her assessment.
She was a little impressed. But only a little.
From a bank of default controls, she thumbed a preset to invert the craft. The black stretch of space beyond the planet darkened as she spun, the distance between pinpricks of light expanding as the stars tapered off. Finally, the aquiline nose of the starfighter angled fully outward. Toward the Divide.
Adequin’s eyes burned as she stared, unblinking, at the meager amount of matter standing between Akhet and the edge of the universe.
The sweat pricking the back of her neck iced over as a familiar, sobering fear rolled through her. With a jittering headshake, she fought back the surge of memories. Of what the Viator sovereign Kaize had told her about this galaxy—the levalaine. The “refuge of this universe.” The only place protected from the collapsing Divide.
Clamping her eyes shut, she leaned against the headrest and forced it all back down, quelling the fear before it spiraled. She couldn’t think about the fact that the Viators were struggling to maintain the network of dark energy generators. Or consider the implications of the phrasing “this universe.” Or that hordes of sentient species were being driven toward them from all corners of the collapsing universe.
She sidelined it all, burying it in the dark place she’d kept it the last four months. Because, like Kaize had said… For now, humanity had their own war to fight.
Under her suit, Adequin’s nexus band buzzed against her wrist. A comms screen materialized on the dash and a congenial, if strained, voice crackled through. “Boss, you read me?”
“Here, Puck,” she replied.
“We’re forty out, sir. Time to come on home.”
She eyed the ship’s chronometer. “On my way.”
Banking left in a tight arc to reorient, she ground her teeth until the stabilizers caught up with her rough handling. Attempting to fatigue the maneuvering thrusters had been the first litmus test she’d put the ship through, but she saw no reason to start going easy on it now. To her pleasure, the craft performed just as admirably as it had the first time.
Adequin returned along her same trajectory, arriving back at the gray-black rectangle of Orbital Defense Command—a boring, blocky thing shaped like the angular hilt of a plasma blade. The small security station was outdated but functional, something Praetor Lugen had quietly repurposed years ago when the Legion had withdrawn from some far-flung outpost in the Drift Belt.
As she approached the station, she reversed thrust until the ship hung in relative suspension. She watched Akhet’s inner moon ascending over the limb of the planet, a small but luminous globe rising through the blue-gray gradient of atmosphere.
She expanded comms. “ODC, this is Rake aboard the Raizer-1.”
“Aye, Excubitor,” the operator responded. “Pro tem transponder accepted and disposed. Looked like you were havin’ fun out there. How’s it handle?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Good to hear, sir. You’re clear for reentry. Proceed to grid Y494 for gate access.”
“Copy 494. Thanks, Ivonne.”
In the span between ODC and the planet, an electric, shimmering silver membrane rippled in every direction, then a square gap materialized. She maneuvered the starfighter through the security gate and descended.
The craft sliced through wispy gray clouds toward the dustbowl surface of Akhet. Gravity dragged her into the stiff contours of the seat, the familiar weight of atmospheric flight settling in. On the dash, the groundside control set took over. She stretched her jaw as pressure built in her eardrums.
As she descended below the cloud cover, she leveled out with the terrain, kicking up a haze of tawny soil and shaking copses of dried-out saltbush. Moisture clacked against the windshield, the first signs of much-needed autumnal rain.
The Cathian stronghold grew on the horizon, a squat half-circle monolith of cracked stone—a crumbling facade over a sturdy metal framework. Outbuildings sat to the east at the foot of a rim of low hills. The multistory modular constructs were arranged in a small grid crossed by dusty gravel streets. The surrounding fields flourished in their pre-harvest state, overt squares of verdant green against an otherwise drought-stricken landscape.
Adequin opened a comms channel. “Transit Command, this is the Raizer-1 returning groundside.”
“ATC reads you, EX,” the transit controller replied.
“Requesting landing clearance—horizontal this time, if we’ve got an open strip.”
“Copy that, sir. You’re cleared for approach, runway 09.”
She passed over the fortress, then banked west, coming back around in a wide arc to align with the eastern landing strip. Below, the expansive, ground-level spaceport sat ringed by support buildings and small repair hangars.
The computer beeped a request to facilitate, but she dismissed it and maintained manual control. The landing gear squeaked softly against the concrete runway as she brought the craft down.
On the fortress’s southern face, the massive primary hangar doors stood wide open, framed by towering, bladelike aerasteel columns that rose to a peak over the center in an impressive display of classic Cathian architecture. During the Resurgence War, Adequin had come across a handful of ancient Cathian installations, but this outshone them all by an order of magnitude. That it remained upright for nearly three thousand years without intervention spoke to the Cathians’ engineering prowess.
She taxied the starfighter to the subhangar in the farthest back corner of the main hangar. She’d hardly pulled the parking brake before the entrance to the control tower gangway bisected.
Gideon Burr stalked out, gripping a small tablet in one of his fingerless-gloved hands. He thrust it screen-first toward her.
Sighing, she tapped out the power-down sequence. The console screens minimized, and the safety shield let out a soft hiss as it retracted.
She unclipped her harness and hauled herself out and down the debarkation ladder to the dark concrete.
Gideon beelined toward her, his brown, pockmarked skin noticeably flushed. He gave an agitated scratch at the side of his head—shaved to above the ear with the rest of his black hair tied up into a loose bundle of corded locs that would otherwise hang halfway down his back.
Adequin unlatched her helmet and lifted it off, wiping away the wild strands of hair stuck to her cheeks and jaw. “Haptics are a bit sensitive,” she said.
He leveled a flat look at her. “As if you didn’t take it manual.”
“I tried both, thank you very much.” She stepped past him, heading for the pilot ready area along the interior wall of the subhangar. She discarded her helmet on one of the work surfaces.
Gideon trailed her, stocky frame tense. “Well,” he grunted, “that’s because the haptic controls require an acclimation period of four to six hours via sim—a fact you would know had you listened to me for more than twelve seconds before hopping in the damn thing and taking off. Do you have a death wish?”
She met his look evenly and lifted one of her gloved hands, tugging at the end of each finger to loosen the tight fit. “Of all the things in the universe I might be afraid of, flying’s not one of them.” She peeled her gloves free and tossed them beside her helmet.
Gideon growled a sigh. “Yeah, fine. Titan. War hero. I get it.” He spat a scoff. “Void.”
A corner of her mouth lifted as she started unlatching the clasps of her padded flight suit. “You worried about me, Burr?”
“Hard not to be,” he grunted. “You redlined—” He stuck the tablet screen in her face. “Every. Single. Gauge.”
With the gentle press of two fingers, she lowered his wrist along with the tablet, casting him a mellow look that failed to thaw his irritation. “It’s called a trial run for a reason. We need to know they can perform under pressure.”
“No—what your people need is for their commander to not die in a fiery crash.”
“Careful,” she said, tone light. “It almost sounds like you actually give a shit about the Sentinels.”
Gideon exhaled a weary sigh.
Adequin disconnected her suit’s torso harness from the pants, then hauled the armored vest up over her head. Gideon took the weight of the bulky fitting, lifting it the rest of the way off. He maintained his scowl, lips turned down in a half pout as he dumped it on the ready bench. With two terse gestures, he shoved up the sleeves of his lightweight black jacket, embroidered on either shoulder with the Corsairs’ angular diving hawk symbol.
Adequin stepped out of the lower portion of the suit and set it aside as well. The brisk hangar air cooled her sweat-slicked skin, the fabric of the navy, Legion-issue undersuit clinging to her back.
She pushed up her sleeves, reflexively rubbing the light scars puckering the olive skin of her forearms. It’d been months since she’d healed from the Viator infection she’d caught from the neural network machines, and her Imprints had returned to their full power, unhindered and free to move about her skin as they pleased. They’d been unable to heal most of the scarring—or maybe she just didn’t want to erase the reminder.
Gideon cleared his throat. “So…” he began, most of the surliness gone from his demeanor, “can we consider the Raizer thoroughly test-driven?”
“We can,” she conceded.
“Consensus?”
Nodding slowly, she paced to a small cooler inset below the counter and grabbed a bottle of water. “Let’s do it.” She leaned a hip against the worktop and took a long drink before adding, “But can we get those aftermarket lateral thrusters we talked about? The reorient arc is still wider than I’d like. Light-years better than the last one, though.”
Gideon gave a languid nod, gaze focused on his tablet as he stepped to join her. “We can, but it’ll be another… well, a fucking lot.”
“That’s fine.”
He slid her a skeptical look. “Right… I’ll work up a final quote. Considering the quantity, the delivery date may be a ways out. How long are you planning to be here?”
She took another long drink, then set the water bottle down with a wistful sigh. “A while yet,” she admitted, the words sticking in her throat. With their security compromised by Jackin’s… departure, plans to relocate had become a priority. The logistics, however, had proven tremendously challenging, and they were still many months out from making that goal a reality.
“We’ll take fifty here,” she clarified, “but send the rest to the muster point. They can get freighted directly into the holds of the ships that’ll host them. I’ll have Kaplan send registries.”
Gideon nodded. “You do know how suspicious an order of this size will look, right?”
Adequin frowned, picking at the label of the water bottle. “Can’t you, like, fence them or whatever you do?”
He stopped tapping to stare at her, eyes narrow. “Do you even know how crime works?”
She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “Not really. Whatever— it’ll be fine. Augustus is already well-aware we’re shoring up for a fight, I don’t think it’ll come as any big surprise.”
Gideon’s hedged look didn’t convey a great deal of optimism, but he returned to his tablet input without further comment. In general, Gideon was annoyingly good at the logistics side of things; she’d half a mind to try and steal him from Akemi entirely and hire him as their quartermaster.
Even if he’d be willing—which she doubted—she couldn’t risk endangering their connection to the Corsairs. They relied heavily on them at the moment as their only safe way to interface with the rest of civilization. The Corsairs may legally be Adequin’s, but Akemi could make things difficult if provoked. Headhunting her right hand out from under her could reasonably be considered provoking.
Sliding her hip along the counter, Adequin took a moseying step toward Gideon and cleared her throat. “Speaking of ship deliveries…”
He didn’t even look up as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just hold the hell on and let me finish anonymously ordering you thousands of starfighters first.”
She masked a smile and did her best to wait patiently as he worked. Some days, she was a little proud of how she’d managed to turn the brash, indignant jerk she’d met on the Corinthian into the equivalent of an exhausted personal aide in under four months.
Gideon flicked the tablet into standby mode and slid it into his pocket. He straightened with an effort, then leveled a tolerant but mostly exasperated look at her.
“So…” she began carefully, tone edged with honey. “What do I need to do to get another Wakeless?”
“Void,” he cursed, thick brows furrowing.
“Come on,” she pleaded.
“For starters, the make is Zenith. And you do understand what ‘top-secret illegal prototype’ means, right? They’re kinda bespoke.”
She gave a sulky, exaggerated frown, lower lip edging outward.
He held her gaze obstinately for a few moments, then his jaw loosened, the tightness around his eyes smoothing as his expression faded to grim resignation. “They’re yours to demand,” he sighed.
“Great. Let’s get ten—”
“Ten?” he choked out, brows high. “Void—”
“—though I can make do with three. For now.”
“Even three is a massive ask,” he said, tone gravelly, and a bit regretful.
“I know, but we’re going to need them—you know how outmatched we are. We need every advantage we can get.”
Though the Sentinels’ covert ops program was still very much in its infancy, having access to a contingent of ships with the Wakeless’s capabilities would give those squads a leg up that couldn’t be overstated. Proven in spades four months ago when the covert vessel had snuck them quietly into Elyseian space. Then—despite their massively botched escape from Mercer Manor—effectively kept the others hidden after.
Gideon cast his eyes down, kicking at the concrete with the toe of his boot. “Yeah. I know.”
“You arrived in one, didn’t you?”
He frowned, though the dimples that pitted his cheeks as a result made it not nearly as effective of a pout as he probably would’ve liked. “Yeah,” he conceded.
A smile tugged at her lips. “I’m surprised you didn’t leave it stealthed so I wouldn’t notice.”
His jaw flexed, and he looked thoroughly disappointed in himself for having not thought of that, then grumbled, “Your lackeys would’ve told you about it, anyway.”
“True.” She angled her chin over her shoulder toward the starfighter. “I didn’t get a good look at it, but if you towed the Raizer out with it, then it must be larger than the one we took to Elyseia.”
“It is,” he admitted. “My Larios contact delivered it a couple weeks ago. Still a prototype, but Mk-II. It’s rated for long-haul travel—full mess, rec room, medbay. And the complement is four instead of two. I’ll send you the specs. Primarily minor things, but the big upgrade is what they’re calling a, uh… ‘pocket drive.’”
She lifted a brow.
He shrugged. “I’m not an engine guy, I don’t really get it, but it’s a Saxton-engineered jump drive.”
“A jump drive?” she scoffed. “On a ship that size?”
He nodded, expression tight. “Yeah, not sure how it works. The baseline jump distance is considerably shorter than standard, but the respool time is crazy fast, so it kinda balances out. It’s still rated for Apollo Gates like the original model… so I guess it’d work for those fancy Arcullian Gates too.”
“Well, shit.” Adequin gripped the side of his arm, offering a consoling look. “Sounds like you’ll be going home in the Raizer.”
He frowned.
“I’m kidding.”
A hint of relief snuck in on his grumpiness.
“I’ll have an MP taxi you back,” she corrected. “Because I’m keeping the Raizer too.”
Gideon’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. But when Akemi murders me for not coming back with either of those ships, I want ‘This was Adequin Rake’s fault’ on my tombstone.”
“Done,” she agreed. “Can we commission at least one more Wakeless—sorry, Zenith—by next quarter?”
He oscillated his head back and forth noncommittally. “I’ll ask. They’re still only going out on lease, but I might be able to convince them to let us jump the queue. How deep are your ‘benefactor’s’ pockets that you can afford all this?”
“Very,” she said. In truth, she had yet to ascertain the full extent of Cavalon’s wealth. It’d already proven more substantial than she’d expected, and he claimed he’d only drawn from a fraction of the “safe” accounts thus far.
Gideon’s eyes flickered with wary hesitation at her vague response.
“Don’t worry,” she added. “You know I don’t need to run your coffers dry to fund my rebellion. I don’t need cash, but I do need the Corsairs’ help facilitating.”
Gideon crossed his arms. “Well, you know you have mine,” he assured. “But I can only do so much to sway Akemi.”
Adequin frowned. “So she’s still not a big supporter of the cause?”
“Routers can’t afford to take moral stances,” he said with a shrug.
She gave a resigned nod. That explained why Jackin hadn’t been well-suited for the family business.
“It’s not even about picking sides,” Gideon admitted. “She’s just worried clients are going to get scared off once they realize what we’re wrapped up in.”
“No one should have any idea what you’re involved in,” Adequin warned. “Not for a long while, at least.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’d hoped the five percent brokerage fee would allay her.”
“It’s helped,” he said, though his look was grim, “but Akemi is, well… bristly, and too proud. Especially when it comes to North.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Sorry—don’t worry about it. Fielding Akemi is my job, not yours. I’m encouraging her to stay focused on day-to-day operations, and she’s happy to leave me to deal with you guys.”
Adequin raised a brow. “She’s fully relegated you to Sentinel duty, huh?”
His cheeks dimpled with the hint of a smile. “Not like I mind all that much. It’s my duty to serve the Tiercel, after all.”
She chuffed, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. “Void. Don’t call me that.”
“I’d be happy not to. Then you wouldn’t be my boss.”
She dropped her hand and met his tranquil gaze. “I’m not,” she affirmed.
With a pointed look, he flicked at the heavy ring on the chain around her neck. “The signet says otherwise.”
Strung on the chain with her dog tags hung a black, hammered metal band. She ran her thumb over the hexagonal face, etched with a stylized diving hawk—talons forward, bladelike wings fanned out behind.
Gideon raised an index finger. “That’s supposed to go here, by the way.”
She lifted the chain and let the weight drop, thudding against her sternum. “Not an overly practical accessory in my line of work.”
“I dunno,” he said with a cursory shrug, “you could probably clock a Drudger pretty good with that thing.”
She scoffed a laugh. “I may technically be the Tiercel,” she relented, “but I’m not taking control of the Corsairs.”
“Yet.” A hint of challenge glinted in his eye—equal parts concern, curiosity, and amusement.
“No ‘yet,’” she insisted, jaw set. “I’m not taking the mantle, and I never will. I can’t run a rebellion and the second-largest smuggling organization in the galaxy.”
“First largest,” Gideon corrected, expression brightening, a smug tilt to his lips. “Quarterly reports came in last week.”
She sighed. “Void. Congrats, I guess.”
He angled his head forward in a perfunctory bow. “Thank you. Shuttling all that expired Legion munitions stock is what finally put us over. Long hauls to the Larios neutralization facility in the Outer Core, plus the hazard markup. Makes for a decent payday.”
“Oh, huh,” she began, tone pitched with wryness. “A legal contract is what put you over, imagine that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Our square side is plenty busy, thank you. Maybe less so since Akemi took over, but it’s not unprecedented. We were near to fifty-fifty back when Abraham ran things.”
Adequin hesitated at the mention of Jackin’s late adoptive father. The one who’d taken him in when his family had been forced to leave the Core over thirty years ago under the Heritage Edict—the first major initiative in Augustus Mercer’s eugenics war.
That displacement had been the reason Jackin had enlisted, the reason he’d blindly followed the Legion for so long, and the reason he was now Augustus’s prisoner. Again. All so he could keep the Sentinels safe a while longer.
Her cheeks heated and she inhaled to a count of four, sweeping away the surge of regret—a maneuver practiced and perfected over the last four months. She couldn’t let herself drown in guilt; she owed Jackin that much, at least.
Her nexus buzzed against her wrist, the trilling sound reverting her attention. She tapped it open.
“—for EX,” Puck’s voice crackled over.
“Here, Puck,” she replied.
“Mayhem Incorporated are on approach to target system, ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Understood. On my way.”
Gideon rubbed his chin slowly, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Mayhem Incorporated?”
Adequin lifted a shoulder. “I let Emery name her squad. Mistakes were made.”
He let out a low, soft rumble of laughter.
“I could use your insight at the conclave later if you’re willing to stick around,” she said.
“I can probably make that work.” He laid a hand on his stomach. “May need a nourishment incentive, though.”
“That can be arranged. I think we’ve got some kind of Artoran fusion on tap today.”
“That’ll do.” He swept a hand toward the exit. “Tiercel precedes.”
Adequin rolled her eyes and led Gideon out of the hangar.
Excerpted from The Relentless Legion, copyright © 2024 by J.S. Dewes.
