The Last Human Business

Chapter 12 : Betrayal in the Palace

The dust of the Black Desert was still settled in the deep crevices of Ethan’s tactical suit as the Kaledonian Sky-Lift hissed upward toward the pinnacle of the Sun-Spire. Beside him, Lyra was staring at her reflection in the obsidian walls, her fingers twitching near her data pad. She looked like she’d seen the end of the world and was still waiting for the credits to roll.

Outside the panoramic windows, the capital city was putting on a hell of a show. Banners the color of spilled gold draped from every basalt balcony. The bells of the Great Cathedral were pealing—a heavy, rhythmic iron thrum that Ethan knew was meant to drown out the sound of commoner dissent. To the people below, the Deva had returned from a holy pilgrimage.

"Place is way too loud for a quiet homecoming," Ethan remarked, his eyes scanning the docking bay they were approaching. His HUD was silent, but his gut—the organic part of him that five thousand years of ice couldn't kill—was screaming ambush.

"It’s a victory parade, Ethan," Lyra said, though she didn't sound convinced. "You found the lost korvet. In their eyes, you’ve brought back the scepter of God."

"I brought back a ship full of ghosts and a journal that says my life is a lie, Lyra. Let's not get it twisted."

The lift doors chimed and slid open. Instead of a modest priest-escort, a double-column of Vanguard stood at attention, their ornate bronze plate gleaming under the artificial suns. At the end of the line was Commander Kael, but something was different. The red plume was missing from his helmet, and he stood five paces back from his usual spot, flanked by two soldiers who looked more like jailers than subordinates.

"Welcome back, Sergeant," Kael said. His voice was clipped, devoid of its usual grit. He wouldn't meet Ethan’s eyes.

"Commander," Ethan acknowledged, walking toward him with a slow, predatory stride. He stopped inches from Kael’s chest. "You lose a bet? You’re looking a little light on the accessories."

"Post-mission reassignment," Kael muttered, his jaw tight enough to crack bone. "Orders of the High Council. Security protocols have been... 'tightened' during your absence. Hand over any relics or data drives to the quartermaster. Now."

Ethan looked at the soldiers behind Kael. They weren't just Vanguard. Their armor had subtle black engravings—the mark of the Arch-Priest’s personal inquisitors. These guys didn't take orders from the military; they took them from the bank.

"I don't think so, Kael," Ethan said. "The stuff I found is way above your pay grade. Where’s Valerius?"

"The Arch-Priest is waiting for you in the Solaris Chamber. Alone." Kael finally looked up, a split-second flash of warning in his eyes. "Be smart, Ethan. The winds shifted while you were in the sand."

"I’ve always been a fan of the wind," Ethan said, patting Kael’s shoulder—a subtle signal of acknowledgment. "Lyra, go to the Archives. Log the topographic data. Stay in the public zones. Don't go back to the sub-levels."

Lyra looked at Kael, then back to Ethan, her face pale. "Ethan, maybe I should come with—"

"Go," Ethan commanded, the voice of a Master Sergeant brooking no argument.

He watched her go, shadowed by four guards who clearly weren't there for her protection. Once she was around the corner, Ethan turned and followed the remaining Inquisitors toward the Solaris Chamber—the most fortified room in the Spire, built into the very core of the ancient mountain the city occupied.

The chamber doors were a masterpiece of overkill: six feet of solid reinforced steel etched with religious nonsense about the first fire. They hissed open, and the scent of ozone hit Ethan immediately. This wasn't just a boardroom; it was an active energy-well.

Valerius was standing by the central pedestal, holding a holographic projector that was casting the blueprint of Ethan’s cryo-pod. Standing next to him was a man Ethan recognized all too well from the desert—Zarek, the Black Nebula's regional director, looking entirely too comfortable for someone whose mercenaries had just been liquidated.

"I see the negotiations went well," Ethan said, the heavy doors thudding shut behind him with an ominous magnetic seal. "Since when does a Priest of Caledonia break bread with the galaxy’s biggest organ-legger?"

Valerius turned, his face lit by the pale blue light of the hologram. He didn't look like a fanatic anymore; he looked like a CEO at the end of a fiscal quarter. "Efficiency, Ethan. A virtue you lectured me on. The Nebula has the industrial capacity that Caledonia lacks. Why dig for relics when we can build our own?"

"With my blood," Ethan guessed.

"Don't sound so offended, Ethan," Zarek stepped forward, his suit of fine, synthetic silk shimmering. "The Federation offered us pennies for your 'preservation'. But Valerius here? He understands the market. The galaxy is starving for a superior soldier. They don't want a saint to worship; they want a tank they can mass-produce."

Ethan took a step toward the center of the room. He felt the faint pull of a magnetic dampening field—the same tech they used in high-sec prisons to disable neural-interfaced weaponry. They were clever. They’d spent his absence preparing his grave.

"You really think you can control a line of soldiers with my DNA, Zarek?" Ethan laughed, a short, dark sound. "I’m not a Master Sergeant because of my genes. I’m one because I lived through a hundred wars you wouldn't survive the first five minutes of. You’re building paper tigers."

"Tigers are enough when there’s a billion of them," Valerius countered, walking around the pedestal. "The Council has reached a unanimous decision, Ethan. You are too volatile as a living symbol. The 'Deva' will die a martyr’s death in the Great Cathedral tomorrow—a tragic victim of an 'assassin' from the Nebula. It will unify the people, allow me to declare martial law, and in exchange, the Syndicate gets their blueprints."

"A little cliché, Val," Ethan said, testing his weight. He was counting the vents. Six guards in the shadows. All of them carrying sonic-stunners. "I expected something with more flair."

"The classics never fail for a reason," Valerius sighed. "Oh, and Ethan? Don't look for that journal you found in the desert. We’ve already monitored your internal data-storage upload. It’s been purged."

"Purge this," Ethan muttered. He moved.

It was a blur. Ethan lunged for Zarek, planning to use the माफिया as a human shield, but he hit a wall of invisible force halfway there. The room erupted in a high-pitched hum as the kinetic-containment field activated. Ethan slammed against a transparent barrier, falling to one knee as white-hot jolts of energy rippled through the suit’s nanoweave.

"Please," Valerius chuckled. "We built this chamber for Ancient bio-markers. It reacts to your adrenaline levels. The more you fight, the harder it bites."

Ethan stayed down, his chest heaving. The sonic stunners began to hum in the corners of the room, vibrating the marrow in his bones. He looked up, his eyes a cold, killing grey.

"You think this is over because you locked a door?"

"It’s over because we don't need your cooperation anymore," Zarek said, tapping a console. A vial of dark, frozen liquid rose from the pedestal. "You thought we were desperate to find that second pod for the DNA? You think we waited for you to lead us to the ship?"

Ethan stared at the vial. He knew that signature. It was the wine glass from the dinner party. The one he’d shattered when the Nebula had attacked the first time.

"We scraped the glass fragments from the hall, Ethan," Valerius said, his tone dripping with mock pity. "A little mess at the banquet provided all the biological material our 'partners' required. You’ve been redundant for three days."

"Kael told me the winds had shifted," Ethan said through gritted teeth as the kinetic field tightened around his limbs. "He’s still got some spine, it seems. You have to imprison your own General just to keep your deal secret?"

"Kael is a romantic," Valerius spat. "He still believes in the duty. But Kaledonia is a corpse that’s run out of batteries. This deal ensures my place in the next era. You’re just the fertilizer."

Valerius nodded to the inquisitors in the shadows. Four of them stepped out, holding long, metallic needles used for cerebral extraction—a process that left the body alive, but the brain a hollowed-out shell.

"This is going to hurt," Zarek smirked. "But look at it this way—part of you will finally get to conquer the stars, just like you wanted in 2092."

Ethan looked at the needles, then back at the Arch-Priest. The pain from the field was blinding, but a smile—a genuine, terrifying grin—began to spread across his marble-pale face.

"Valerius, you’re a great priest. Really," Ethan panted. "But you’re a terrible student of history. Do you know what the Master Sergeant’s handbook says about a tactical entrapment?"

Valerius frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Section 4, Paragraph 12: 'If you’re caught in a box, you don't look for a key. You just turn the box into a bomb'."

Ethan didn't try to stand. He reached into his own forearm, his fingers digging into the flesh with a wet, sickening tear. Before the Inquisitors could reach him, he pulled a small, jagged piece of indigo crystal—the fuel shard from the Spear of Atlas—from beneath his skin.

He’d hid it in his arm. He knew they’d scan his suit. He knew they’d scan his gear. They didn't think he’d use himself as a smuggler's trunk.

"Hey Valerius," Ethan roared, slamming the shard into the kinetic barrier. "Have you ever seen what happens when high-frequency energy meets an unstable ion-shard from a korvet’s engine?"

The room went from blue to a blinding, roaring white.

"Get him!" Valerius shrieked, shielded by the podium, but it was too late.

The kinetic field didn't just break; it reversed. The dampening energy fed directly into the indigo crystal, turning the containment barrier into a concussive shockwave that blasted the Inquisitors through the stone walls and shattered the obsidian furniture into lethal shrapnel.

Ethan stood in the center of the smoking wreckage, his arm bleeding, his Emerald silks charred. The doors of the chamber groaned as the magnetic seals failed, their circuits fried by the overload.

He walked over to the podium. Valerius was curled in a ball on the floor, trembling. Ethan didn't kill him. He just reached down and grabbed the Arch-Priest by the silk of his neck, hauling him up until their noses touched.

"You really should have kept those neural-cuffs on me, Priest," Ethan whispered. "Because I was actually enjoying being a god."

"The... the Nebula won't... you're a dead man..." Valerius wheezed.

"Maybe. But I’m taking your Spire with me."

Ethan looked at the hallway where alarms were now screaming. "Kael is waiting for a signal. Lyra is smarter than your whole Council combined. And as for my DNA?"

He snatched the vial of blood from the pedestal and crushed it in his bare hand.

"You’re going to have to find another mascot, Valerius. Because the Ancient Human you woke up? He’s in a really bad mood."

Ethan turned toward the open door, his tactical vision already highlighting the path toward the escape vents. The golden palace was burning from the inside, and for the first time in centuries, the Deva wasn't interested in being a savior.

He was a ghost. And he was going to haunt this spire until it fell into the sea.

"Round two, you sons of bitches," Ethan muttered, sprinting into the chaos.