The Pontifical Swiss Guard is the oldest and longest operating military unit in the solar system and possibly in the history of mankind. Formed in 1506, their long history was spent in service to the Catholic Church as the bodyguard of the Pope.

Through the years they kept the trappings of their renaissance origins, colorful uniforms, swords, and halberds. Behind the scenes they remained a modern, if small, military force that never wavered from their duty.

It was through sheer luck that they survived the fall of the Italian Vatican. A small contingent of Guardsmen were on Ganymede, escorting Cardinal Rizzo, when Moses disappeared and Earth went silent. When the Colonial Vatican was founded, they continued as they always had, now recruiting Catholics of all nations from across the colonies to their cause.

A visitor to the Vatican will not see what they may have hundreds of years ago. Saint Peter’s Basilica is gone. The Sistine Chapel, ashes, along with so much history and culture.

But a visitor will still see ceremonial guards, in red, blue, and yellow, patrolling the grounds. At their sides will flash the steel of swords and in their eyes a fire as they dutifully continue their ancient traditions.

Patricia Standridge

Vatican City Public Relations

Died 50 AM

Davey sat on the rail of the guest house’s second story balcony. It overlooked one of the busier streets through Vatican City. Beneath him, locals, tourists, and worshipers went about their business on the stone-clad streets. The sun was just beginning its slow rise over the horizon. Dawn would last for a good part of the day here on Ganymede, as the tidally locked moon took its seven-day course around Jupiter. At least you didn’t have to get up early to see it.

“Hey, get down from there! You’ll fall.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Grace. She stood defiantly, hands on her hips, the posture she defaulted to when she was trying to act like a grownup. As if that would intimidate him. “Is Matthew back yet?” he asked.

“No one’s seen him.” She hoisted herself up on the railing beside him.

He shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, maybe we shouldn’t be sitting here.”

She smirked at him and dropped back to the balcony. “Didn’t matter when it was your own stupid neck on the line.”

He begrudgingly swung his legs around and joined her. “It matters when it’s your neck in danger. Someone has to watch out for you.”

Grace rolled her eyes at him and leaned over the balcony. “We should go explore the city later today. When we were kids, this place would have been the jackpot.”

“Tourists with money waiting to be lifted. Tons of food. Yeah, this place would have been a little easier on the street than Blight.” He frowned. “I wonder if anyone is even homeless here. I bet the Church tries to take care of ‘em.”

They reentered the house. The second floor had several spacious quarters and a large living area. The furniture was real wood, instead of the synthetic fiber that most stuff was made from, a luxury Davey had only rarely seen over the course of his life. “I still can’t believe how nice this place is,” he mumbled, sinking into one of the plush couches beside Grace.

Yvonne looked up from her reading. Or had she been napping? No, it was probably too early in the day for that. “That’s because this is a VIP suite,” she said. “I asked the maids about it this morning. Normally this is where heads of state stay when they visit the pope.”

“Scorchers,” Grace said. “No wonder. Guess that explains the staff and the killer breakfast they made down in the kitchen. What did we do to earn this?”

Yvonne folder her hands in her lap. “I could hazard guesses, but they would be only that. Perhaps they thought it a reward for the emancipation of so many slaves.”

Davey sat up a little straighter at the word. He and Grace had only barely escaped ending up on Europa themselves. What was it about that moon that seemed to have its sticky fingers in so many places? It had tried to snare him and his sister. It had nearly sucked up the hundreds in the hold of the Sparrow.

And then there was whatever power it seemed to hold over Matthew. He couldn’t even begin to guess what that was.

The door to Abigail’s room opened, and she stumbled out rubbing her eyes.

“Slept long enough?” Grace asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “What time is it? Feels like the stupid dawn has been coming in my window for two hours.”

“It has. But by the calendar it’s just past noon,” Davey said. “How late were you out?”

Abigail scrunched her face in a frown. “Very. Two things. Is there food and is Matthew around?”

Grace jumped to her feet. “Haha. Do we ever have food! I’ll head down and get the kitchen staff to send something up.”

“Grace, don’t get used to this,” Yvonne shouted after her. “You’ll be back to my cooking soon enough. In answer to your second question, no, Matthew never came in.”

“I guess he’s not gonna get lost around here,” Abigail said, thoughtfully leaning against a door frame. “If he doesn’t show his face in a couple of hours, I’m going to comm him.”

“Worried about him?” Davey asked, in an attempt to get under her skin.

To his surprise, she took him at face value. “A little bit. He told me quite the story last night. There’s a reason I didn’t make it here till the ugly hours of the morning.”

“So you know what’s going on then?” he pressed, hungry for information.

They were interrupted by Grace coming back up the stairs with a sandwich stacked tall with meat, cheese, and veggies. She presented it to Abigail with a flourish. “Having kitchen staff is amazing.”

“No kidding,” Abigail said. “Is that olive? I could get used to this.”

Yvonne grunted. “I never get this kind of recognition.”

“You never have olives,” she shrugged.

“What about Matthew?” Davey prodded. Abigail had almost made it to the interesting part when Grace interrupted.

Abigail took a big bite of the sandwich and chewed. “I don’t know. I think it’s his story.”

“Not even a hint?”

“Look,” she grumbled. “I’m sure he’ll be back sometime soon from whatever hole he’s crawled into.”

“He was a priest, wasn’t he?”

Everyone turned and looked at Yvonne. Davey frowned. Where would she have gotten an idea like that? He turned it over in his mind a few times seeing if it lined up with anything he knew. It didn’t.

“It’s the only thing that fits the evidence,” Yvonne insisted.

Abigail looked at her sandwich for a moment and then set it down with a sigh. “Yes, fine. That’s it. But the rest of it is his story to tell.”

“I knew it,” Yvonne said.

Davey stared at them dumbfounded. “Like a priest with the funny collar?” As much as he tried to picture it, he just couldn’t see it. He’d seen Matthew wield that gun. No priest ever shot a gun like that.

“Weird, but kind of cool I guess,” Grace said. “We’ve never really known any priests.”

“There was that rabbi down in Blight,” Davey mused. “That’s pretty close, right?”

“You knew a rabbi?” Abigail asked, eyebrow raised.

He nodded. “Yeah, there was a synagogue down in the depths. It was small, but the rabbi would try and feed the street kids a couple times a week. You had to get there early before the stew pot ran out. Except he didn’t have the weird collar. He had that funny little hat thing, so I guess that wasn’t much like a priest.”

Yvonne smiled in amusement. “I think there’s a little more separating Catholic priests and Jewish Rabbis than their traditional attire.”

He felt his face redden and shrugged it off. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know the difference.

“I didn’t know there was a synagogue on Ceres,” Abigail said, taking another bite of her sandwich.

Grace shook her head. “Used to be. It closed before we got picked up and shipped to Titan.”

“And that’s the way of things in the age we live in,” Yvonne said. She glanced at the clock. “We give Matthew two hours and then we comm him.”

The conversation died and Davey slipped back out onto the balcony. He decided against sitting on the railing and, instead, leaned on it, watching the crowds beneath. Stray thoughts wandered around and he tried to make sense of them. Matthew had been a priest?

He was a nice guy, sure. But also kind of sharp around the edges. Someone you were liable to cut yourself on if you weren’t careful.

Maybe that wasn’t always a bad thing.

Grace slugged him in the shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”

“The obvious.”

“Matthew sure did react violently to those slaves.”

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Seemed appropriate to me.”

“I meant more than just the right amount of freak out. I’m worried about him.”

Maybe she was right. Maybe something was up with Matthew. If there was, Davey would be there for him, for whatever that was worth. He owed him that much.

“Me too,” he said.

Matthew had risen early. After Abigail left late in the night to figure out where the rest of the Sparrow crew had gone, he had stayed in the chapel, pacing and praying. Eventually, when exhaustion had taken its toll on him, he laid down on a hard pew and fell asleep.

Now, he was weeding a garden behind the chapel. Tall weeds choked most of the beds and even sprouted from cracks in the sidewalk. Clearly, bishop or cardinal or whatever his rank was these days, Elias had managed to keep the gardeners away from the secluded spot, to the detriment of the garden. Not much different than the old days, but Matthew imagined he needed the help even more now.

After four hours of work, it began to look almost respectable again. Matthew looked the opposite by that time, streaked with dirt and sweat. He stood to his feet, feeling a sudden complaint in his back. “That’s new,” he grumbled under his breath as he stretched his spine.

“You’ll find that gets worse with each passing year.”

Matthew turned to see the bishop entering the garden, and he was struck again by how old he was. Surely he was in his eighties. “I’m starting to think you should let the gardeners do their job.”

Bishop Elias looked around the newly weeded beds and at the heap of pulled weeds. “Yes, perhaps I should. It’s overdue, but it’s hard to see yourself as too old to do the things you once did. Perhaps I’m further into the autumn than I’m willing to admit. I will speak to the gardeners. It will be more peaceful to enjoy the garden than maintain it.” He sat on a concrete bench and gestured for Matthew to join him.

Matthew obeyed sheepishly, trying to make sense out of the mess of thoughts brewing in his thick skull. His past had caught up with him at last, try as he might to escape it. And yet here he was in the place he had begun.

“We assumed you dead, of course,” the bishop began, “ten years ago, when Villa María fell. We chalked you up as another casualty of the Slaver’s Moon.”

“May as well have died,” Matthew said. “It’s been a long trail since then.”

“I imagine. It’s good to know that you’ve been left unchanged by your ordeals.”

Matthew coughed a bitter laugh. “I don’t think you know me anymore. I’m a freelancer. A mercenary.”

“And yet you seem to have collected lost souls around yourself again. You cannot help but be a shepherd,” Bishop Elias said, eyes twinkling. “And once I knew what I was looking for, it was easy to find your past deeds. It seems you are always at war with the worst parts of mankind. Cartels, syndicates, slavers. The news archives are filled with stories of a freelancer who protects the weak. All over the colonies for the last decade.”

“It’s not all been honorable,” Matthew said. There were more than a few jobs he was ashamed he’d been a part of. “Sometimes, I was just a gun for hire.”

“And yet God used Samson to kill the enemies of his people by the thousands. There is a time and a place for everything under the sun.”

Matthew turned an eye to the old man in surprise. “I’ve got to go back to Villa María. I can’t…” he trailed off as his words failed him. After all the years of trying not to think about the town and its people, it crowded out all else.

“There will be few of your own people left, I’m afraid. The town has grown nearly five-fold in the last decade as the slavers have brought in more labor.”

“How would you know that?” he asked, frowning.

Bishop Elias shrugged his shoulders innocently. “The Vatican is not without assets on Europa. We watch what we cannot influence. We get our food from there, to our great shame. The least we can do is monitor and pray.”

Matthew stood and began to pace the garden. “Would those assets be any assistance if one were planning an expedition to Europa?”

“Most certainly. Eyes in the sky and a few agents on the ground. I must warn you, though, that it is not the policy of the Vatican to endorse actions that may lead to the shedding of blood.”

That was a problem. The Sparrow wasn’t going to be enough to get the job done. There was no way he was going to be able to shove that many people into his ship, even with standing room only.

“I do have one suggestion,” Bishop Elias said softly, “that may be of assistance. The Swiss Guard has some measure of independence. If they were to offer assistance, there is little the Church could do to stop them. I suggest you speak to Commandant Ortega. He grew up on Europa and may be sympathetic to your cause.”

That was what he needed. A few men and some equipment. His mind began racing over the possibilities. He’d need to track down this Commandant and see just what he was able to provide. A thought crossed his mind, and he turned back to the bishop. “Why are you helping me then, if it’s against policy?”

“Do you know who Zerai Deres was?”

This threw Matthew off. “It’s the Callistan colony you’re from. I didn’t know it was named after someone.”

“I’m not surprised. Zerai Deres was just a young man who lived centuries ago. Eritrean by descent, though my people’s ancient homeland of Ethiopia also claimed him as one of their own heroes.”

“What did he do?”

The Bishop smiled. “Not much in the end. He lived in the time that the Italian dictator, Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia. For a time Zerai worked as a translator in Rome. Shortly before returning home, he visited the Monument to the Lion of Judah, a statue pilfered from his homeland. There he protested the government that had mistreated his people. Authorities tried to subdue him, but he drew a scimitar. In the ensuing scuffle, he injured a few Italian officers before being shot. Zerai Deres would spend the rest of his short life in prison. After his death, he became something of a folk hero, a legend even, and his story was aggrandized far beyond his simple act of protest. Most of the stories told about him aren’t true. Instead, he was just a man who could not ignore the conscience God gave him.”

“We named the colony after him, in the hopes that our children will remember that the solar system still needs good men to stand up and do the right thing. I know you, Matthew Cole, and if you feel that you must take up the jawbone, then I will trust your judgment.”

Matthew looked at his dirty clothes and brushed himself off subconsciously. The mud stains remained. Like the guilt of past failures, they weren’t so easy to be rid of. “I don’t think it’s such a high calling. Maybe I just want to have a good night’s sleep for the first time in my adult life.”

Bishop Elias scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Then maybe Jonah would have been a better analogy. Perhaps it’s time you stop running and go to Nineveh.”

“I’ll try not to curse at God when he makes good on his promises.” He looked at his old friend and nodded. “Thank you.”

“I’ve done very little. I’m just an old man that orders around students. I don’t even get the pleasure of teaching classes these days. You’ve been given the strength to change the world in which we live.” He stood and grasped Matthew’s arm. “Go with my blessing, Matthew. May you right many evils.”

A lump caught in Matthew’s throat and he gave a terse nod before turning away. His road was clear, and it inevitably led back to Villa María. His tentative steps on Io all those years ago had only been the first on a circular path.

Now he just had to make good on it.

“Commandant Ortega, there’s a visitor here to see you,” his secretary said over the intercom.

Julian Ortega glanced at the schedule on his desk to make sure he hadn’t forgotten something important. “I don’t believe I have anything scheduled? Who is it?”

“Matthew Cole. He’s the captain of the ship that brought in the slaves yesterday.”

“Hmphhh. Send him in, I guess.”

“Yes, sir.”

Couldn’t hurt. Ortega hadn’t been part of the initial group of guards on the scene, but he’d been dealing with the aftermath of paperwork ever since. Getting a chance to see the troublemaker might be cathartic. He straightened his uniform out of habit.

The door opened and a tall man wearing a poncho and campero walked in. Ortega stood to greet him and offered him a hand. “Commandant Julian Ortega. You showed up under rather unusual circumstances last night.”

Cole shook his hand. “I apologize. My crew and I were put in a rather precarious position. We had people on board that needed help, and we came to the place best suited.”

“I see.” He looked up at Cole’s hat. “Looks like you should have known better than to accept a shipping job to Europa.”

The man’s jaw clenched for a moment. Good. He was furious about it.

“I trusted my broker. A mistake, in this case, that he and I are going to have a talk about when the time comes. I trust the people on board have been well taken care of?”

“I’m only loosely involved. Others are still trying to figure out exactly where everyone goes. It’s going to take some time to get that sorted, and a few will be in the hospital for another couple of days. They’ll all be home within a few weeks.” He glanced at the list of names on his tablet. “Thankfully everyone gets a happy ending this time. Most other shipments aren’t so lucky.”

And neither were the locals so lucky. It had been many years since he’d heard from any of his remaining family in Nuevo Lima. But time marched on and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

His eyes refocused on Cole. “Was there something specific you needed from me?”

“That depends, I guess. Did you read up on me, by any chance?”

“It crossed my desk this morning. Used to be a priest. Presumed dead when the cartels came into town.”

“I’m going back,” Cole said.

“What?”

“I’m going back to my town, and I’m taking my people, and anyone else held in slavery, away from there.”

“So you have a death wish. Admirable goal. It’s a hopeless mission.”

“If I go alone, yes. But not with help. I’ve heard the Swiss Guard operates independently from the Vatican.”

So that’s where he was going. “I don’t think there’s much I can do to assist you, Mr. Cole, much as I wish I could. If I had enough forces at my disposal, I’d wipe that moon clean of slavers and start over. I don’t. There’s just a few hundred of us in the Guard, and we’ve a job to do. Protect the papacy, like we have for nearly eight-hundred years.”

The man didn’t stop. “It’s a small town. Less than three thousand slaves, so no more than two hundred cartel enforcers.”

Ortega gave the man a long hard stare. He was serious, wasn’t he? “That’s still a suicide mission.”

“Is it? I bet any of your men are worth two dozen cartel thugs. They aren’t known for being well trained. And one of my crewmen is worth three or four times that.”

“Flattery aside, I think you might be stretching that last a bit far.”

“Ever heard of the Shield Maiden of Mars?”

He hesitated. He had actually heard a few stories of an armored woman taking out whole gangs with her bare hands. And the file on Cole had been impressive too. With a good plan, a dozen or so special forces… Salt flats! Was he actually thinking seriously about this? His eyes flicked back to Cole. The man had a smile that said he knew what had just happened.

“Tell you what, Mr. Cole. How about I pull intel from satellites on this Villa María and send it to you. I don’t have high hopes, but if you can look it over and put together a plan that doesn’t involve us getting ourselves and hundreds of civilians killed, come back to me. No promises, but I’ll look at it.”

“That’s more generous than I could have hoped for,” Cole said and tipped his hat to leave. “You’ll hear from me in the next forty-eight hours.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Ortega cautioned as the gaucho left his office. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he repeated to himself. A hollow feeling had worked its way into his heart. Like an old wound opened, Europa was on his mind. How many years had it been since he left? Twenty-three now? It was a damn crime what had happened there. What was still happening there.

His hand trembled as he called up his monitor and began looking for the satellite data he’d promised Cole. Maybe the man had some tricks up his sleeve. Maybe he was a tactical genius.

Ortega hoped so.

He’d give anything for a chance to make a difference on the Slaver’s Moon, and he knew of a dozen good men who would join him without a second’s hesitation. Vaguely, he was aware he had flipped his position entirely in the last ten minutes.

Whether in a lust for justice or vengeance, he wasn’t sure.

He honestly didn’t care.

The afternoon wore on. Abigail had long ago lost her patience waiting on Matthew. It made things worse that the kids were starting to pester her with questions he deserved a chance to answer himself.

Twenty minutes before Yvonne’s scheduled ultimatum, she decided that time was up and got out her comm.

A comm chirped in the stairwell.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Matthew grumbled as he finished the flight of stairs. He looked around the living area and whistled. “Ritzy.” Then he pointed a finger at Davey and Grace. “Don’t get used to this.”

“Too late,” Yvonne said. “Grace is already addicted to kitchen service and has been ordering snacks at least once an hour.”

Grace stuck her tongue out at Yvonne, then surprised Abigail by walking over to Matthew and hugging him. “We were worried about you,” she said, her voice muffled in his chest.

He awkwardly ran a hand over the back of her head, and Abigail smiled at his clumsy show of affection. It was good for both of them. Grace had received far too little, and Matthew had probably given far too little. “I’m okay. Just had some thinking to do.”

“Did you figure anything out?” Davey asked.

Matthew looked each of them in the eye. Abigail gave him a subtle nod of encouragement when he got to her. It’s okay, she thought at him. You don’t have to hide anything from us anymore.

“Let’s sit,” he said. “it’s going to be a rather long explanation.”

“Were you really a priest?” Grace asked.

Matthew glanced sharply at Abigail. She shrugged her huge shoulders in an exaggerated gesture. “Yvonne figured it out. I wasn’t going to lie.”

He nodded and set into the story. It took a couple hours for him to recount it with the barrage of questions they sent his way. Davey and Grace had to have a lot of the Catholic particulars explained to them.

Hearing it a second time didn’t make it any less heartbreaking for Abigail. She knew what it was like to turn your back on your previous life, to walk away from everything and start over.

“That certainly brings a lot of things into focus,” Yvonne said quietly. “We were going to find out eventually, you know. You could have told us. You should have told us.”

Matthew refused to make eye contact. “If anyone isn’t comfortable with anything I revealed, I’ll take you to any port in the solar system. You don’t have to stay under a captain that pretends to be things he’s not.”

Abigail laughed out loud, garnering her several bewildered stares and one disapproving one from Yvonne. “Why in the world would we do that? For the longest time, when you freaked out anytime Europa was brought up, I thought you used to be a slaver. This was fabulous news.”

Matthew cocked his head slightly and then shook it sadly. “Guess you didn’t have all that high an opinion of me.”

“Oh, get over it,” she said. “You’ve proved over and over that you’re one of the most decent people left in the human race. A little prickly sometimes, but level-headed where it counts. Every one of us in this room owes you more than we could ever repay.”

“We all know where I would be,” Yvonne said darkly.

Davey only shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

“And as for me,” Abigail continued, “being a part of this crew has been the best thing that’s happened to me in since… Since I left home.” To her annoyance and completely against her will, her eyes stung with tears. “What I’m trying to say is, thank you. Thank you for not getting rid of us.”

Matthew cleared his throat awkwardly, then paused for a moment and looked away. “You may change your mind when you hear what I’ve got planned. I can’t tell any of you to come along with me. This isn’t your fight.”

Yvonne crossed her arms. “You’re going back to Villa María. We’re going with you.”

“There’s no money in this,” he said. “Probably not much hope either.”

“So what?” Davey said. “Abigail just said we owe you. Debts are meant to be paid. Responsibilities kept. If you’ve got to do this, then we’ve got to as well.”

“And I’m not getting left out again either,” Grace said. Her brother suddenly looked at her and frowned. Clearly, he hadn’t been thinking about her until that moment. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she said. “We all went after Yvonne when she was in trouble. How is this different? This time you’re the one that needs us. We’re going together.”

Matthew looked like he was about to protest, but Abigail decided to cut him off. “We’ll talk about the specifics later, but she’s bulletproof, remember? More so than I am. We go as a crew. So what will it be, captain? I’m betting you have a brilliant plan all lined up and ready to go.”

He looked thoughtful for a minute, then nodded. “The beginnings of one.” He walked to the table and set a tablet on it. The rest of them clustered around the small screen and the satellite pictures on it. “It’s going to be nasty and we’ll be heavily outnumbered, even if I talk the Swiss Guard into joining us.”

“The soldiers we saw last night?” Grace asked.

“A few special forces will come in handy,” Abigail admitted. That would make this a little less of a long shot. Are they going to bring the ships to evac people?”

“I’m not assuming any material support from them,” he said. “Transporting people is going to be the biggest problem we have. If it’s just us, there’s no way we can cram two thousand people in the hold.”

Well, that was a problem. Abigail stared at the screen and wracked her brain for a solution.

Yvonne beat them all to it. “Passenger barge.”

Matthew frowned. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said. “They stopped using them when I was a kid. It’s basically a giant cargo module with atmosphere and climate controls. Multileveled. You could pack people in by the hundreds. They weren’t comfortable, but they were the cheapest way to buy passage across the solar system.”

Abigail narrowed her eyes. “If they were so efficient, why did they stop using them?”

“Because everyone hated them, the company that manufactured them went out of business, and they were slowly retired. I’m sure we could find one still functioning somewhere in the Jupiter Neighborhood.”

“We can look into that,” Matthew said, a smile beginning to spread across his face. She saw that all his previous hesitation was gone, replaced with that grim determination she had come to admire. The crisis was past, and now he had set his will to solving a new problem. Maybe they would be able to save his town and the people that he’d once served as priest. It was still weird to think about, that he’d once been a man of the cloth, if one who’s methods were rather unorthodox. She could get used to it, though.

Grace elbowed her metal side. “You’re staring,” she whispered.

Abigail bit her lip and refocused her attention. “Since no one has brought it up, there’s something Grace and Davey found out about the slaves.”

Matthew’s eyes snapped to them. “What are you talking about?”

Davey explained the device they had found the previous evening.

“So we were supposed to find the slaves,” Matthew said quietly.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Yvonne asked.

It was an ominous thought, one that made Abigail distinctly uncomfortable. What did this Whitaker, this Unchained Man, want with Matthew?

“I can’t imagine who else it would be,” he said, “and I certainly can’t imagine why.”

There was little more to say on the topic, and the conversation moved on to other matters, and, in fact, went on long into the night. As a crew, they racked their brains, and each of them made contributions to the growing plan.

It was crazy, and it might just blow up in their faces. But if they were going to go down in a blaze of glory, this was the way to do it.

Keeping the ship of humanity flying just a little bit longer.

In the end, there was a single problem with their plan that could not be solved. Two days of brainstorming and they were no closer to a solution than when they had started. Matthew even took it to the Swiss Guard Commandant.

“Everything else looks good. It might even work. But you’re right about the flaw.”

“I was hoping you could help with that,” Matthew said. “Maybe you’d have the hardware to make this work.”

Commandant Ortega shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not. And unless we figure out how to ensure the safety of the civilians, the Swiss Guard stays home.”

In desperation, Matthew paid a visit to Bishop Elias’s office.

The old man leaned forward and listened intently. Matthew finished his explanation of the plan and the problem.

“In short, there’s no way to safely transport the citizens of Villa María,” he said. “We’ve located an old passenger barge on Callisto for rent. It’ll pretty well break us, but we can afford it.”

The bishop coughed out a short laugh. “Somehow I don’t think you told them what you would be doing with it.”

“Transporting passengers,” Matthew said, feigning innocence. “No lie from me. Problem is that it’s a bit on the heavy side for the Sparrow. We’ll have to affix it to the bottom of the hull, which means we’ll be landing vertically on the tail. And our acceleration while carrying the thing is going to be somewhere between ponderous and non-existent.”

Bishop Elias picked up a pen and began to click it absentmindedly. “Which means that if there is any pursuit, you will be an easy target. I take it Commandant Ortega had no solution either.”

Matthew shook his head. “He’s got a couple patrol craft that can serve as escort, but there’s no way they’ll be able to screen us from long range fire, and without ample maneuvering or acceleration we won’t be able to avoid it ourselves.”

“That is a problem, indeed.” He closed his eyes and set the pen down. The moment dragged on for an awkward amount of time, and Matthew nearly said something before the bishop opened his eyes. “Meet me in the Chapel at midnight. We will speak no further of this until then.”

Midnight came. Matthew sat on the front pew, hat respectfully in his lap, tapping his foot idly. He had told himself he was going to be disappointed with this meeting, regardless of its clandestine hour. They needed another ship. Something fast and big enough for passengers. He didn’t quite think his old friend could deliver that in a chapel.

A few minutes after midnight, Bishop Elias touched him lightly on the shoulder. “You’ll have to excuse my tardiness. It was more difficult to procure this than I thought it would be.” He sat beside Matthew and set a steel case at their feet.

Matthew eyed the case with curiosity. “Am I supposed to know how this is going to help us?”

“Depends on if you’re the type to believe rumors or not,” the old man said. “It’s a good thing for you that I have had a long and prosperous career filled with promotions. Otherwise, I would not have had access to the needed vault. As it is, I’m going to have to hope and pray that no one with similar authority requires any other trinket from that cache. Otherwise, I will be retiring sooner than planned.”

Matthew’s eyes widened in surprise. “There were always stories at the seminary,” he said, lowering his voice. “Stories about relics. And one in particular.”

“The Church has always loved its relics,” Bishop Elias chuckled. “Most of which were assuredly fake. This, however, is not, and is perhaps a bit more modern.” He reached down and cracked open the case.

Cradled in foam was a metal sphere, smooth and reflective like a mirror, but with intricate lines forming complex geometric patterns across its surface. The bishop lifted it into his lap with a grunt. It must have been heavier than it looked. He pressed the single silver button, and the lines lit with white light.

“If the lights begin to fade, time is running out. If they go out entirely, it will be nearly a week before Svalinn’s Mantle has recharged enough to be useful.” He pressed the button again. The light receded back within the sphere, and he returned it to its carrying case.

They stood. Bishop Elias looked up at Matthew. Tears glimmered in the creases of his eyes and his arms trembled as he pulled Matthew into an embrace. “I will lift you up to the Father in prayer. May he bring you and your flock safely home.”

Matthew returned the embrace. “Thank you,” he whispered.

He knew the risk that his friend had taken to deliver this miracle.

The miracle that would deliver Villa María.