Chapter 9

“I was hoping you’d say that,” the woman told him, studying his face with a gaze that betrayed her age.

“But then you went and threw that spear at me before I even had a chance to introduce myself,” she continued, patting the bloodied rip in the abdominal region of her jumpsuit for effect. The skin visible through the hole in her clothing was white and unbroken. “That kind of threw me off for a bit. I couldn’t be sure if you had gone into hiding on moral grounds or if you had truly gone rogue, so we had our little friendly scuffle.”

“I’m Ellie, by the way. Ellie McBrian,” she said, introducing herself.

Lami didn’t take her outstretched hand.

“I’ve left the Sunguard,” he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

“Yes,” she said with a mischievous smile, “but did you tell them that?”

He stared at her, dumbfounded.

“I’ve severed my hyperspace connection to Europa,” he explained.

“I know you did,” Special Agent McBrian replied. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while, and that was… unusual.”

“And so they sent you to hunt me down,” Lami said with a sigh. “Well, here I am.”

The woman laughed, a clear, bright sound that echoed across the buildings surrounding the plaza.

“You still think the Sunguard sent me?” she asked rhetorically. “They don’t care that you severed the connection. I’m here of my own accord.”

She took a step forward. With her face now only half a meter from his, she probed his eyes with hers, then continued, “You’ve got to realize your own importance, Myan. You’re a Sunguard Special Agent! You have practically unlimited authority and operate with virtually no accountability. The Sunguard has complete trust in you because of what you are—your loyalty is literally in your genes. They know you cannot fail the Terran Federation, and they’re right about that—just not in the way they think.”

He didn’t need this woman to tell him that, Lami thought. He was fully aware of the genetic loyalty the Sunguard had imbued him with.

“You may think you made some kind of grand gesture when you severed your connection to the Sunguard, but they didn’t care about that in the slightest,” she explained, after a short pause to let what she had previously said sink in. “To them, that was the action of a Sunguard Special Agent, doing what Special Agents do. If you severed the connection, it was because you felt doing so was in the best interest of the Federation. No one would even think of questioning that choice. They trust you implicitly.”

“You’re saying General Dumas hasn’t noticed I’ve been gone for five months?” Lami asked with a scoff.

“Of course he’s noticed,” Special Agent McBrian replied. “He just doesn’t question it. You’re his superior. The Terran Federation might be a democracy, but the Sunguard isn’t, of course. You don’t gain his rank in the military by questioning your superiors. You either support them, even if you don’t agree with them, or you’re off looking for a new job.”

Shocked by the realization that the Sunguard hadn’t even noticed he had gone rogue, it took him a few seconds to pick up on something potentially even more important in what she had just said.

It wasn’t the phrasing of it—that could have just been an expression. But the intonation, the feeling she conveyed when she said it, made Lami catch his breath once he realized the implication.

The Terran Federation might be a democracy…

Might.

He had known since he was five days old that it was not, though he had never dared to admit it in full to anyone. But here she was, another Sunguard Special Agent, standing right in front of him and seemingly expressing the same doubts about the path the Federation had taken that he himself had.

She saw in his eyes that he had finally understood.

“Yes,” Ellie said. “You are literally incapable of failing the Terran Federation. But that doesn’t mean the Federation can’t still fail you.”

“You’ve felt it, haven’t you?” she continued. “That beckoning voice calling you from the depths of your soul, whispering this is wrong. Telling you to take a stand for what you know is right, no matter what power or authority tells you.”

He had, since the day he had followed his first orders and opened fire on the civilians in Fotar-mer District on Jerr. In the aftermath, that still voice had taught him, with impeccable clarity, the difference between right and wrong. In silence, it had screamed at him that he had failed his ultimate purpose as a Special Agent. Unable to understand it, he had convinced himself he was somehow faulty.

“You know, we have a name for that voice,” Ellie said. There was a sparkle in her eyes when she continued, “It’s your conscience. Don’t ignore it.”

Myan knew. He had always known he had a conscience. He had just always assumed it was an aberration, a flaw in his design, one he was the only Sunguard Special Agent to have. And now, here was this other woman, talking to him about it as if she knew exactly what he was feeling.

“You have one too, ma’am?” he asked, the shock still evident in his voice.

Ellie laughed.

“Everyone has one!” she told him. “Oh, you’re still so young, Myan. Every human has a conscience. Every biot, every biological—we all have them. It’s just that the biologicals tend to suppress that voice as they grow older. As children, they know right from wrong with the same clarity we have. A child doesn’t care about race or status. We’re the same, but for us, that clarity doesn’t change with time. As biotic Special Agents, we are genetically incapable of that kind of corruption. In that sense, you could say we stay children for our entire lives.”

Ellie winked at him. “I’m four centuries old, by the way,” she added, just to give him a bit of context before continuing.

“I’m aware, ma’am,” he said, nodding. Even though he had never met the other Special Agent before, he certainly had heard of her. Her background was, shall we say, unique.

“You’re not the only Special Agent with a conscience, Myan. You have one. I have one. Every Special Agent has one. It’s what makes us who we are. It’s not a flaw in our design—it’s our very reason for existing. Even when the Terran Federation strays from its path, we can not. After all, our loyalty to its founding ideals is literally in our genes.”

She looked at him to make sure he understood. Myan wasn’t sure he did, but what she said resonated with him like nothing he had ever heard before.

“We Special Agents are the conscience of the Terran Federation. Just like your conscience tells you right from wrong, we are now the voice that tells the Federation it has strayed from its path. We are the vanguard of humanity. Not the vanguard of mankind, but of compassion, tolerance, kindness, and mercy. Not all of us take the same path, but we are all made the same way. We all share that same devotion.”

Still speechless from the revelation, Myan tried to absorb what the older Special Agent was telling him.

“And that,” Ellie finally said, “is why you must come back.”

“I can’t do that, ma’am,” Myan stated with conviction. “I’m needed here. If I go back, there is nothing to stop the Sunguard from wiping out the Minvali.”

“Yes, there is!” Ellie replied emphatically. “But let’s assume you stay here for the rest of your life. Say, a millennium or ten—I don’t know what your retirement plans are. But anyway, you’re here, and you’re trying to stop the Sunguard exactly… how? You can stop their soldiers, for sure, but what can you do against orbital bombardment? When the War Cruisers show up, you’ll be the only thing left alive in this settlement.”

Myan hadn’t really thought that far. Up until now, his whole plan had hinged on not getting discovered. But if Ellie could find him, so could General Dumas.

“What’s your plan, then?” he asked, slightly annoyed at having been berated like a child by the older Special Agent. “Return to the Sunguard as if nothing has happened, and then what?”

“Exactly,” Ellie said with a grin.

Despite her age, there was a part of her personality that reminded Myan more of a teenage girl than of a seasoned officer. He found her annoying.

“You’ll walk right into General Dumas’ office and tell him the Epsilon Eridani A 1 project is terminated,” she explained, excitement evident in her bright voice. “It’s as simple as that. I know you’re aware of your place in the Sunguard hierarchy—on paper. But you need to really understand what that means. You’re a Sunguard Special Agent. You have authority over every single person in the military. Your decisions are implicitly trusted, and your orders will be carried out without question. If you order the Sunguard to leave this world, the Sunguard will leave this world.”

She was right. He knew all this, of course. The knowledge, and a million other memories, had been imprinted on his mind when he was first taken online. But knowing and understanding were two very different things. Until now, he had not understood.

“If you stay, there’s nothing you can do to help the Minvali in the long run. The only way you can save them is by returning to your duties as a Special Agent,” Ellie concluded.

Myan saw the logic of her argument but didn’t want to admit it. He still held on to the fantasy of a life away from the Terran Federation he had created for himself, and he didn’t want to give it up that easily.

On top of that, he found the woman extremely infuriating…

“Hey,” she said with a laugh, then jabbed him playfully in his ribs with her elbow. “I also make the best Pad Thai you’ve ever had. If you don’t come back, you’ll never know what you’re missing out on!”

Exactly like that, Myan thought. Exactly like that. The woman truly knew how to push his buttons.

He glared at her, trying to convince himself he disliked her. This was no time for jokes.

Still, the logic of her arguments left him no choice. If he stayed, the Sunguard would eventually raze the village from orbit.

“Why can’t you give that order, ma’am?” he questioned, not yet ready to give up completely. The woman had unusual strength. He could easily see her commanding a general—maybe even the High Admiral himself, for that matter. “I could stay here with my people, and you could order the Sunguard to leave this world. You have the same authority as I do.”

She paused for a moment, her teenage-girl persona gone, replaced with the wisdom of a woman who had carried the weight of the Terran Federation on her shoulders for centuries.

“I could,” she admitted reluctantly. “But I want you to see the bigger picture, Myan. This isn’t just about the Minvali. If you decide to stay here, I promise I’ll save them. I can do that for you.”

She paused for a second, but continued before Myan had a chance to thank her.

“But there are hundreds of worlds out there. The Terran Federation is expanding rapidly now. The Minvali won’t be the last race to suddenly find itself within the Federation’s sphere of interest. There will be others in need of our protection. Other Terran colonies, other native tribes. I can’t do it all alone. You’re needed out there, too—not just here among the Minvali.”

“And it’s not just about the Second Expansion,” she explained. “What the Sunguard did here is just a symptom of a deeper rot that’s been creeping into the Terran Federation for centuries. I need you to help me stop that decay, Myan.”

“You and I, we are the watchers on the wall,” Ellie said, fire in her eyes. “We are the wolves guarding the abyss. We stand in the darkness, and we shout, ‘No more!’ I need you with me in this, Myan.”

Once again, she stretched out her hand toward him. This time, Myan took it.

“And by the way,” the red-haired girl said with that mischievous grin of hers, “you’ve got to stop calling me ma’am. I’m not your superior, silly.”

Oh, how he hated that woman, he thought, with a fond smile on his lips.

For Special Agent Myan Lami, life would never be the same again.

He was no longer alone.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading Choices of Steel! What you’ve experienced is just one of many stories set in the expansive Lords of the Stars universe I’ve been developing over the past 30 years. If you enjoyed it, there are many more tales to explore, where familiar characters and locations might reappear, or you could discover new favorites. Exploring the wider Lords of the Stars universe also gives you the joy of connecting the dots and uncovering connections between the stories.

If Choices of Steel is the first story from this universe you’ve read, I think you’ll particularly enjoy Soldiers of Heart and Steel, which serves as a prequel to this story, and Conscience of Steel, which is something of a sequel.

Visit the official Lords of the Stars blog for more information about this hard sci-fi universe: https://lordsofthestars.wordpress.com

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