Warden: A Novel (31 page)

Best to keep this out of sight,
he thought to himself.

Just in case the Collective picks today to start searching beyond the city walls.

Barent shut the snowcraft down and jumped out to pull the door closed behind him, noticing the change in temperature immediately. The much warmer air inside the building threatened to overtake his senses with thick odors of oil and old machinery.

Tana would love it in here…despite the smell. This place is downright balmy compared to what she’s used to.

Barent knew the breakdown facility had been excavated out of the frozen ground to provide a stable work area for the prisoners—a productive workspace, isolated from the rugged environment of the planet. As its name implied, the factory had been used to breakdown and repurpose the parts of the ship no longer needed after the long journey from Earth—along with the host of other fabrication necessary to transform the
Le’sant
from a starfaring vessel, into a habitable city.

Construction of the facility had begun soon after touchdown. And once completed, the builders tapped into nearby thermal vents to power all of the manufacturing equipment they’d carried with them on the
Le’sant
. Then they started to build out the city in earnest.

The versatile operation had been designed to smelt and reshape locally mined minerals—in addition to the raw materials transported on the ship; to forge whatever was needed to expand the colony’s infrastructure as the population grew. But Barent hadn’t lived long enough to witness any actual mining take place on Torvus. And from what he’d seen and learned so far, he doubted it ever had.

He approached the elevators for a ride down to the facility proper, but it was glaringly obvious from their condition that they no longer worked—and probably hadn’t for some time. So Barent strode over to the wide access stairwell just to the right of the lifts and cautiously began his descent. It didn’t take long to notice that the further down he went, the hotter it became.

Oh, yes. Tana would definitely love it here.

As he made his way down the darkened stairwell, Barent listened for sounds and watched for any movement, searching for evidence of occupancy. But other than the occasional plop of dripping fluid, probably melted snow seeping in through the dilapidated structure’s roof, it was absolutely still inside the facility.

It was that total silence that first raised Barent’s suspicions. And then his acute senses, honed over years of incessant combat, alerted him to a tiny hint of movement on a landing far below him. Barent pulled out both pistols and kept moving downward.

Someone is in here.

As he drew closer to the landing, the wall on the right side of the stairwell disappeared, opening up to a massive room beyond. Barent couldn’t discern any detail through the near pitch-blackness enveloping him, but his other senses suggested an enormous open space.

He’d seen the breakdown facility as it existed long ago, and remembered it being vast even then, but Barent suspected that the factory had grown even larger as he slept.

“Stop right there, Sergeant Barent.”

Barent used the man’s voice to train his pistols on the speaker, but he held his fire.

“Who are you?” Barent demanded.

“We’ve spoken before, Sergeant. My name is Dura. Now please, come the rest of the way down to the landing…and do it slowly. I should warn you that there are several weapons trained on your chest as we speak. Please don’t do anything foolish.”

Barent looked down and counted six red pinpoints of light decorating his torso. They bobbled a bit as he moved around, but each held true. He also caught the occasional flashes of their long trails, leading back to different locations spaced around the floor of the facility.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he said to Dura.

When Barent got close to the landing he saw another set of steps branching off to the right, descending at a gradual angle to the factory floor. The last traces of light from the room above disappeared entirely, and as Barent’s eyes adjusted, he noticed several dark figures crouched on the lower set of stairs.

He saw the rifles pointing up at him as well.

Barent carefully holstered his own weapons and stopped in front of the solitary figure waiting for him on the landing. He observed that one of the man’s arms was hanging loosely in a sling.

“The Collective?” Barent asked.

“Yes,” Sergeant Dura replied. “So let’s just say that we have every reason to be cautious. Which is why we need to take the steps we’re taking now. I apologize in advance.”

“What
steps
?” Barent asked, his voice growing cold.

“You won’t be harmed, Sergeant Barent. I assure you.”

Barent leaned in close enough to see Dura’s face clearly, and more importantly, for Dura to see his. “And I assure
you,
Sergeant, that if you try, I won’t be the only one harmed.”

Dura’s serious veneer cracked and a thin smile slipped through. “I do believe that, sir. Vane!” he called out.

A Warden perched on the stairs below lowered his rifle, and one of the red dots disappeared from Barent’s chest. The man smoothly slung the weapon across his back, and then withdrew a small box from one of his pockets, stepping up to Barent.

“Please bare your arm, sir.”

Barent stared at the Warden for a moment, and then he threw back his cloak and rolled up one of his sleeves.

“So… What’s this, then?”

“A blood test,” Dura explained. “It measures the amount of climate treatment remaining in your system. It will tell us definitively if you are who you claim to be. DNA might be faked—it’s difficult, but not impossible—but the treatment the First Ones received decays at a precise rate, dissipating through succeeding generations in a well-documented progression. The effect can’t be duplicated or disguised, and it will date you exactly.”

“Then by all means,” Barent said. “Go right ahead.”

Dura nodded. “Proceed, Corporal Vane.”

Vane took a small circular object from the box and placed it on Barent’s skin. A blue light at the center of coin-sized disk flashed once, and Barent felt a tiny puncture. Then Vane removed the disk and placed it back inside the square housing.

“That’s it?” Barent asked.

“That’s it,” Dura replied. “Now we check the results.”

Eight different colored lights lit up on the front of the box and began blinking in a steady, flowing pattern—moving left to right in a straight line across the tiny machine’s surface. The pace continued to increase until the lights finally exploded into broken patterns of varying intensity and hue.

And then it was done.

When the lights stopped flashing, each remained brightly lit, forming a long and unbroken white line. Barent watched Vane’s eyebrows rise, and then the Warden rotated the device so he could share the results with Sergeant Dura, prompting a similar expression from his superior.

“Stand down!” Dura called out loudly. “Lights up!”

Barent squinted as the overhead lights sputtered on, illuminating a cavernous room that was nearly twice as large as he remembered. Dozens of Wardens were cautiously stepping out from behind the bulky machinery scattered all around the space—abandoning cover, and lowering their weapons. Then they all began moving toward the stairs.

“Forgive me, Sergeant Barent,” Dura said sincerely. “We had to be certain.”

“There is nothing to forgive, Sergeant. I would have done the same thing in your position. And drop the sir, we’re both sergeants.”

“We may share the same rank, sir, but we are far from equals.”

“We are Wardens, Sergeant Dura. We are equals.”

“On that, I agree. But still…you are the Great Betrayer, and I—”

Barent chuckled, interrupting Dura and prompting a curious look from the man.

“Did I say something funny, sir?”

Sergeant Dura wore a pained expression on his face, as if fearing he’d committed some offense.

“No, no. Not at all. Forgive me, Sergeant. It’s just that, being here now…among Wardens, and hearing that
title
again. Well, it reminded me of how I’d gotten it in the first place.”

“I assumed the people gave it to you,” Dura replied.

“Actually, Sergeant Dura, it was quite the opposite. That name was given to me by my enemies. They believed the prisoners worshiped me as some kind of savior—for betraying my station, and siding with them—so the
loyal
guards thought calling me the Great Betrayer might prove an effective insult, a way to cheapen me in the eyes of the people.”

Barent smiled as recollections from those days drifted into his mind. The memories were still fresh, although the events contained in them had happened ages ago. “They’d meant for the title to be derogatory, Sergeant Dura. Like some kind of a joke.”

“And how did that
insult
work out for them?” Dura asked, already knowing the answer.

“We won the war,” Barent replied smartly. “So I’d like to think I got the last laugh.”

“Indeed, sir.”

Sergeant Dura looked out at the Wardens gathered on the factory floor, and he met their gazes head-on, watching as their attention shifted back and forth between Barent and himself. Their eyes lingered on Barent, however, bordering on outright stares, and it was obvious that there was only one question on their minds.

Only one question that mattered, anyway.

“It is really him,” Dura announced loudly, trying to stifle his own excitement as he spoke to his troops. “The Great Betrayer has returned.” Then Dura took a few steps back, leaving Barent alone at the railing. “Tell us what your plans are to defeat the Collective, Sergeant Barent. I promise you that the Wardens will see them carried out.”

Barent observed unchecked adoration on the face of every Warden present; it was as if history itself had come alive and granted them their most fervent wish. But as uncomfortable as it made him feel personally, Sergeant Barent understood the power of it all.

And it was a power he intended to wield.

As he pondered his words, Barent also considered their delivery. He knew that often one needed to speak like a scholar to get a point across, and his treatises were proof he possessed that skill, but there were other occasions where the no-nonsense language of a soldier served you best.

Like today.

“Fellow Wardens. I can’t pretend that my return is part of some grand scheme—a plan set in motion years ago to help Le’sant—because it’s not. It was an accident, plain and simple. But I am
here
now, and the city is in a desperate state. I assure you, each and every one of you, that with your help, I will do something about that.”

Barent saw smiles blossom on the faces of many of the Wardens. And on others, he noted the lust for action.

“The Collective has twisted the freedoms we won five centuries ago to serve their own needs—without any care or compassion for the people of Le’sant. Since my return, I’ve witnessed first-hand the abject poverty that exists in the city. And I’ve spent enough time in the Outland to understand just how badly things have become. The rich exploit the poor. The powerful prey on the weak. People…
children
, die from lack of resources. And in every segment of society—without exception—the Collective plots behind the scenes to keep this corrupt system in place.

“As Wardens, I don’t doubt your courage and strength. I know full well that you will help me defeat the Collective and rescue the city from this madness. Nor do I doubt your loyalty or commitment to the people of Le’sant. Major Kline demonstrated that determination by freeing me from my tomb beneath the city. And I witnessed the Collective murder him for his efforts.”

Barent clenched the railing hard and glanced down, drawing a deep breath in an attempt to calm his anger. When he looked back up again, he scanned the faces in the crowd. He saw pain there, to be sure. But it was pushed down deep, hidden behind thousand-yard stares that were crying out for vengeance.

“They lied to us about his death,” Sergeant Dura said. “And then sent commandos to kill us as we slept. What you see here is all that is left of the Wardens.”

“Then it will be enough,” Barent stated boldly, raising his voice louder so the Wardens could hear the confidence in it.

“And let me tell you the truth about Major Kline’s death: those cowards slaughtered him in the street. I was able to kill his assassins, but I was too late…”

Barent’s eyes narrowed as his voice trailed off; his expression turned severe. He never knew the man personally, but the memory of Kline’s murder infuriated him. Barent felt responsible somehow, because it had happened during a mission to free
him
. He slammed his fists down hard on the railing and glared out at the Wardens. They saw Barent’s fury, but understood that it wasn’t directed at them.

“I was too late to save Major Kline,” he said. “But it’s not too late to save the people of Le’sant. We
will
deliver them from the Collective, I promise you that. And I’ve come here today to confer with Sergeant Dura about the best way to get it done.” Then Barent leaned out over the rail slightly, heightening the expectation of the crowd. “And let me make you another promise,” he said. “As Wardens, we
will
have our revenge. For Major Kline’s murder; for the betrayal of ideals the First Ones fought and died for during the Pardon War; and for the deaths of your own brethren, struck down in their beds. The Collective will pay for each of these atrocities in full measure, until
they
are the ones left dying in the streets. I swear it.”

An eruption of sound followed Barent’s final words as the Wardens began cheering loudly, raising their rifles high above their heads in celebration. His speech had struck home, and they were ready for action now…eager for it.

Barent’s promise of revenge brought the raid on the armory to the forefront of Sergeant Dura’s mind—the memory of his own pledge to avenge Kina’s death. The emotions from that tragic night wouldn’t be denied, and Dura abandoned all pretense of detachment, joining in with the other Wardens to yell just as loudly.

Sergeant Barent felt the power of the moment, and it reminded him of camaraderie shared between other soldiers, now long dead. These were good troops, he knew. And though they’d suffered through much, they were ready to fight. Any doubts they may have harbored about taking on a much stronger enemy were now gone, despite what the Collective had done to their ranks. And the specter of futility dogging them ever since the purge first began—the feeling that death was an unwavering and inevitable outcome to all of this—had disappeared entirely.