The Templar caste, like any group whose members were finite, was not without its flaws, disagreements, and occasional corruption and infighting. This time, the templar would rise to the heights of which he knew it was capable, the heights of what Khas intended when he created the Khala. There was one among their number who exemplified all that was right and good with the templar. One whom everyone respected. One who, if he accepted it, would greet the dawn as executor.
And quite possibly, Adun himself was the only one who didn’t know it.
Jake opened his eyes as he heard the slight hissing sound of the door irising open. “A highly successful run,” Rosemary said. “Can you give me a hand with these?”
He turned to see her standing beside the door, behind her another nav frame. She was still in her suit, which was clearly too large for her. At her feet was an opened container filled with a variety of items, none of which Jake recognized and all of which he was glad he had very little to do with. He carefully took the piles of chips, plating, and wires and moved it into the main cabin.
“Not only were we able to ditch the tracking device,” she told him as she emerged from the bulky suit, “it’s now going to lead anyone who’s latched onto its signal on a wild-goose chase. I’ve rigged it to engage from here. We’ll want to beat a quick retreat once I activate it, though, just in case the movement attracts any attention.” She hung up the suit and turned to Jake. “I’m certain that those Wraiths are in the area. Let’s put you to work monitoring Dominion standard com channels while I hook all this stuff up.”
She directed him into a seat and entered a rotational sequence in the com system. “Maybe they’ll give their presence away and allow us to get a fix on their location.” The minutes ticked by as Jake monitored and Rosemary tinkered. Annoyed, Jake finally began to suspect that she had given him this task to keep him out of the way and occupied. Finally, Rosemary emerged, looking grubby and tired. As she took her seat, she said, “So. Hey, Zamara, how do we get to Aiur from here?”
I will require an accurate map of the sector.
“Pull up a map and show her where we are,” Jake said. Rosemary did.
“Zoom out,” Jake said, again speaking for the alien intelligence inside his skull. “Again,” he instructed. And a third time he asked her. She raised a raven brow.
That is sufficient for my needs. I shall enter the coordinates.
…Okay.
Jake leaned forward and relinquished control of his hands and watched, bemused, as they entered a series of digits. How did Zamara know how to program a—of course. Zamara had been linked with R. M. on a very deep level a few hours ago. She’d have the same knowledge the human woman did. Rosemary looked on with interest.
“Well, it’s no day trip. Good thing I scrounged up some extra rations. Okay. We all set?”
Jake and Zamara nodded.
“All right. Getting in was fairly easy. Getting out won’t be. Those Wraiths will scan for power sources and movement inside the debris field, so we need a little diversion. There’s no way they won’t come here looking for us, so we might as well make the most of it. Now. Watch that ship right there.”
Rosemary pointed at a freighter. She lifted a small device and thumbed a button. Sure enough, after a few moments, the freighter powered to life and began to move steadily away from them.
“Nice job, Rosemary,” Jake said.
“Thanks, Professor.”
It was quite possibly the most pleasant exchange the two of them had ever had.
However, the good mood was short-lived. A few moments later, as R. M. was slowly and carefully steering them out of the debris field, she swore under her breath.
“Yep, looks like our decoy’s stirred up a bit of interest. Buckle up, Jake. We might have to make a run for it, and it could get pretty bumpy.”
He sat down at once, strapping himself in, and peered over at the screen. He could see a few blinking red dots, and knew by this point that red signified Dominion.
“You think they’ve found us?”
“Not sure yet.” Both of them watched the screen intently. After a few seconds, the red dots began to converge on the decoy. Jake felt a quick stab of horror, relief, and then fresh worry in rapid succession. Rosemary’s ploy had worked, but pursuit had found them much too quickly for comfort. It wouldn’t take their pursuers long to determine that this was a trick. And then they would start looking around the ruins of this old battlefield to see where the real quarry was.
With perfect calm, Rosemary continued to move the system runner. Jake bit his lip nervously. The Dominion vessels closed in on the decoy freighter.
“Rosemary …” Jake said.
“Not yet,” she murmured. Her face was focused, intent. Jake felt sweat break out beneath his arms.
The red dots stopped moving. The decoy freighter continued on.
“They figured it out,” Rosemary said. She hit something, and the system runner surged forward. The red dots stirred to life and began to close in on them. Jake gripped the metal arms of his chair.
“Now!” Rosemary pressed the button. Space shimmered around them. There were no more small blinking red dots on the screen. Rosemary leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Piece of cake.”
Jake smiled weakly.
“A decoy. I see.”
Valerian’s voice was cold with disapproval, and the woman on the screen looked dreadfully unhappy. He supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised that, once again, the damnably clever Rosemary and Jake had slipped through his fingers. The handful of people set to guard what had essentially disintegrated into a space junkyard were hardly the best and the brightest the Dominion had to offer. He’d never have gotten even this close to finding the two fugitives—or was it three? Should he count the protoss intelligence in Jake’s brain as a separate entity? How unfortunate that he did not know—had it not been for Devon Starke’s knowledge of the tracking code.
“There, uh, is something,” the woman was saying, shuffling papers with a rather frantic air. She was clearly going to do everything she could to make this not seem like the disaster it was.
“Oh?”
She nodded. “Yes. Security did report seeing another ship power up shortly after we caught up with the decoy. Now, Mr. V, you understand that that’s not unusual. The wreckage is tempting to a variety of scroungers and we aren’t sufficiently manned to patrol it as thoroughly as we would like.”
He gave her a smile. “I understand. But please continue.”
She seemed heartened. “Let me send you the documentation we have on it.”
A few second later, Valerian and Starke were watching a poor-quality hologram. They watched in silence as the somewhat battered Wraiths followed the Valkyrie, took a scan, and listened to the two pilots express their annoyance in colorful words at having been tricked. More colorful words ensued as they realized another vessel was moving out of the debris field and into open space. The Wraiths turned to follow, but the system runner they were following had made it to a clear place and had subwarped to who knew where, and who really cared, and it was time for lunch anyway.
“I hope that was helpful, sir.” The woman was slightly pink, realizing, as she knew he had to, that it hardly painted security in a particularly inspirational light.
“It may well be. Thank you.”
Unable to continue smiling