by Terry Mixon
While she stood there in a bemused state, Lily gestured for Olivia to get on the diagnostic table. “While we’re at it, we should check you. In fact, I’ll need to check all of the women who lived through the EMP, including myself, though I’m not seeing anyone right now. If it happened to Elise, any of us who are sexually active with members of the opposite sex are at risk until I replace their contraceptive implants.”
Olivia smiled wryly. “That’s what I get for chuckling at Elise’s expense. It’ll serve me right if I have to go back and tell Sean that he’s going to be a father.
“My implant is of Imperial make, though it was built inside the Rebel Empire. I have no idea how that actually compares to what everyone in the New Terran Empire uses, but they’re pretty reliable.”
“I’ll have to do a little research, but I suspect yours is probably more advanced than ours,” Lily said. “Lie back and let me take a look. Before I do that, do you have a preference?”
Olivia shrugged slightly and then lay back. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. Motherhood isn’t something that I’ve considered much. Harrison’s World is an excellent place to raise children unless you’re in political power. Then it becomes dangerous.
“At least, that’s how it used to be. Now that the planet is under new management, I suspect that it’s going to continue to get better. The New Terran Empire is good for us.”
Lily pursed her lips slightly and then shook her head. “Your implant still appears to be functional. We’ll want to replace it on general principles. Or if you and Sean would like to have children, I can remove it and hold off on replacing it until later.”
Olivia shook her head. “We’ve got enough complications as it is. Let’s just replace it.”
The doctor turned and raised an eyebrow at Julia. “Do I need to check you?”
Julia held up two hands as if pushing the doctor away. “Heaven forbid. Mine may or may not be functional, but I’m not sexually active. It’s been years, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. We’ll replace it just to be sure, but I’m not in any danger.”
Lily turned back to Elise. “I’ll do a full diagnostic workup on you as soon as I’m finished with these two. I’ll install a Marine Raider nanogenerator while I’m at it. If you’ll both head to my office, I’ll come and get Julia when I’m done with Olivia. All told, it should only take about half an hour, and then I’ll take care of you.”
Julia took her arm and led her toward Lily’s office.
Once they were inside, the two of them sat down, and Elise put her head in her hands. “This is a lot to take in. I’m happy, but this is just so unexpected.”
“You’re going to be a great mother,” Julia said. “Much better than my mother ever was.”
“I’ve heard stories, so pardon my saying so, but that’s kind of a low bar.”
The two of them laughed, and then Julia squeezed Elise’s hands tightly in hers. “You’re not going to go through this alone. These children are going to have a rampaging herd of godparents.”
“They’re never going to lack for love and attention, that’s for sure,” Elise agreed. “Do you think that you’ll ever be in a position where you’ll want children?”
“If you’d have asked me that a year ago, I’d have said no. Now? It really depends on my universe’s version of Carl Owlet. If I can woo him—politically and romantically—then I’d be happy to have kids.”
The two of them sat in companionable silence. Elise appreciated that, because she had a lot to think about. Even though Jared was going to be happy to hear the news, this was going to be another complication that her husband was going to have to factor into all of the events swirling around them at this critical time.
Talbot pulled a portable light off his belt. One of the benefits of being a marine was always being prepared for unusual situations. He and Carl were descending through what looked like a smooth shaft with no doors.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked his young friend. “What did you do, and where is it taking us?”
“I sent a signal on the same frequency that the oval we were standing on was using. Basically, I pressed the doorbell. I haven’t got the slightest idea where it’s taking us, but this all has to have a purpose. It isn’t a trap. At least I hope not.”
The two of them descended quickly, and though it was hard to make any judgment about how fast they were going, Talbot thought that they’d gone down quite a distance into the plateau before they finally came out into an open area.
His light didn’t come close to illuminating the entire space around them, but it did show the floor below. If they were in a dome, it had to be hundreds of meters across.
Talbot was half afraid that whatever force was moving them would just drop them, but it brought them smoothly down to a spot on the floor with a green oval identical to the one they’d been standing on outside. When he took a few steps forward, he felt nothing inhibiting his movement.
While Carl was turning in one direction, he turned in the other, holding the light high and trying to see if there was anything unusual about the space that they were in. All his light revealed was empty space.
Carl knelt and examined the oval. “Since it’s also an oval, the shape has to have a special meaning to whoever built this place. The area that we’re in looks like it might be a dome, but I’m not going to rule out an oval.”
Talbot considered drawing his pistol, but that seemed ridiculous. If whatever had brought them here had wanted to harm them, it had already had multiple opportunities to do so.
What he could do was take a better look around the area and get a sense of how large it was. He reached into the pouch on his left leg and pulled out four micro drones.
He activated them with a signal from his implants and sent them in all directions to scan and record everything. They were multispectral devices, so they picked up a lot more detail than a person’s eyes. The darkness would only mildly inhibit them.
And then he laughed at himself. He was a Marine Raider. He had ocular implants. One of these days, he’d actually remember that he had capabilities beyond those of a regular marine.
He switched his eyes to multispectral mode and could see that they were in a significantly larger area than he’d anticipated. His implants sent out a low-powered scanner signal to allow him to see in all environments, but the multispectral illumination used by the drones provided plenty of light.
“The space we’re in looks like it’s an oval shape,” he confirmed. “I thought it was a couple of hundred meters across, but the drones are helping me get a better look at what’s around us. I think this cavern might be five hundred meters or so across. If the ratio holds with what we’re standing on, that means that it’s probably seven hundred and fifty or eight hundred meters long. The ceiling is about two hundred meters above us.”
“I’ve really got to see about getting some of those ocular implants,” Carl complained. “It’s annoying not being able to see the important things. You can keep all the rest of the Marine Raider stuff, but those enhanced eyes would be damned useful.”
“Talk to Lily. I’m sure she can get you set up. Thus far, I’m not seeing any exits. The walls appear to be natural stone, not that green stuff.”
“Are we in the exact center of the cavern?” Carl asked.
Talbot did some mental calculation and shook his head. “No, we’re about fifty meters away from the center. You think that’s where we should go?”
“It can’t hurt.”
Talbot knew that wasn’t true. The alien structure didn’t seem innately hostile, but if one didn’t understand what one was working with, there was always a danger.
The two of them walked to the center of the open area, and Carl slapped Talbot on the shoulder and pointed. “A smaller oval. This one’s about a meter across and a meter and a half long. If it works like the one upstairs, it’ll be transmitting a signal that I can detect and mimic to activate it.”
He stopped just o
utside the oval and gave Talbot his full attention. “Do you think that I should? It might be dangerous.”
“We’re going to have to take a chance and see what it does, but let’s see if I can get a signal out first. I’m not very hopeful, because everyone outside has undoubtedly been trying to get ahold of us this entire time, but if we don’t at least try, we won’t know.”
Talbot interfaced with his implants and tried to send a signal to Jake Peters. As he’d expected, there was no indication that the man had heard him.
Still, he sent an update of everything that they’d seen to this point just in case the others could hear him. He indicated that they planned on trying to come back out shortly and not to do anything hasty. And by hasty, he meant using plasma weapons to try to blow a hole in the side of the obelisk.
Marines would be marines after all.
While he’d been doing that, Carl had stepped into the center of the smaller oval and had his instrumentation out. “There’s a signal, just like I expected. I’m mirroring it now.”
For a few moments, nothing seemed to happen, and then the entire cavern lit up. Above them and off to their left, a light pulsed in the air, seemingly from nothing.
From it, strands of bright color that spanned the spectrum shot out a short distance to other lights that then appeared, and then even more strands and lights appeared. There were also a lesser number of longer lines that seemingly went out at random.
Over the course of about twenty-five seconds, the lights went all the way out to the walls. It was impossible to see what was going on deeper into whatever they were looking at because it looked like a writhing mass of worms. There was no sense or form that he could detect other than a wild twisting of colored lines.
“Oh my God,” Carl muttered. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“If you mean this wild mishmash of colors and sparks of light, sure.”
Carl waved his hand dismissively. “Look at the overall shape of it. That’s a galaxy. Odds are, it’s the Milky Way. Based on the very first couple of points that had lines coming out of them, I think those sparks are star systems, and the lines might represent flip points.”
His friend turned to him, his face a mask of awe. “Talbot, whoever these aliens were, I think they might’ve mapped the flip point network for our entire galaxy.”
7
Jared got word about what had happened to Talbot and Carl just a few minutes after they’d taken off. He considered turning around but doubted that his presence would make a difference one way or the other. Kelsey concurred.
If anyone could find a way back out of the obelisk, it was Carl. After all, he’d figured out how to get out of the Omega station when everyone else had thought escape was impossible. The man was a genius with hidden reserves of resourcefulness that it never paid to discount.
And Talbot was more than capable of protecting them from any dangers they might run into. He was a Marine Raider and had all his gear, minus powered armor. They’d be fine.
He turned his focus to the problem at hand. It looked as if a massive force was trying to breach the flip point leading toward Twilight River. Could the Clans do that, and how did it affect his mission?
In a way, the sheer firepower in play made Jared feel small. When they’d left Avalon, he’d thought his fleet was powerful, but in comparison to what he saw now, it was just a drop in the bucket. If he was right, this was the primary strike force that the Clans had fielded. The rest of the war against the Rebel Empire was a diversion.
Both the AIs and the Clans had significantly more ships at their disposal than he’d imagined possible. There was no chance he’d be able to use his fleet to influence this battle, even if he was inclined to do so. Worse, he’d be unable to overwhelm whatever defenses the master AI had at its disposal at Twilight River.
It would be several hours before the Clan forces reached the flip point leading toward Twilight River. When they did, the battle stations guarding it would be put to the test.
If Jared was right, the Clans were going to run into trouble before they even got there. The AIs liked hiding additional warships in unlikely places, and he had no doubt that the systems surrounding Twilight River were going to have hidden defenses meant to lure the unwary in. The ships that were moving around the system would only be a tithe of what was really waiting for the Clans.
The most significant implication of this particular battle would be tipping the AIs off about the far flip points. They’d have seen where the ships came from, and they’d send forces out to inspect the inexplicable flip point once this was all over. Then they’d know they had to start searching every single system under their control for back doors.
That didn’t necessarily mean that they would find the multiflip points, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Time was running out. If they’d gotten to Twilight River sooner, the master AI would’ve had no idea what was coming. Now, it was going to have an eye peeled for unexpected ships in supposedly safe systems. That made their job a lot harder. Maybe impossible.
As much as he hated to count on it, they were going to need a lot of luck to defeat the master AI.
The New Terran Empire would have to do the same. They had to find every potential incursion point in their space. Yet until they got back home to warn everyone, they wouldn’t know that their supposed border was as porous as Swiss cheese.
The Clans had just proven how that ignorance could be lethal. If they beat the AIs and the Rebel Empire, then they could turn their attention to other issues, like the resistance that the Rebel Empire was meeting near Erorsi. If they did, they knew what they’d have to do to find a way around the flip point jammer, and that would be the end of the New Terran Empire.
The best thing for all of them was to make this mission a massive success and then to get back to the New Terran Empire as soon as possible so that they could plug those holes, but that meant winning this fight, so he’d better focus on the problem at hand.
Fifteen minutes later, their cutter docked with Invincible, and he led Kelsey to the briefing room just off his flag bridge. It was spacious and modern, with plenty of screens to show data if they didn’t want to use their implants.
“Admiral, Highness,” Marcus—the sentient AI that served as his flag captain—said as he entered. “The Clans came in force. They made no effort to hide where they arrived in the system, so if they fail to win, the AIs will have little difficulty localizing the far flip point. They’ve brought approximately five hundred vessels with, I believe, a minimum of one hundred superdreadnoughts.
“They outgun our force by a significant margin. It’s going to be a brutal fight, but I suspect that the master AI’s forces are going to lose.”
“There’s more going on here than meets the eye,” Jared said with a shake of his head as he took his seat. “Keep an eye out for hidden clusters of ships. I believe the master AI will have a strong force of ships somewhere out of sight.”
“My people and I are already doing that, Admiral. It will likely be at least a few hours before they would gain any tactical advantage by coming out of hiding. They’re going to want the invading ships to engage the battle stations before they swoop in to take them from the rear.
“The AI’s forces have to be surprised by how the Clans got into the system. That might mean their reserve force is out of place to respond as they’d like. They couldn’t have known about the existence of the far flip point, so this has to be an unpleasant surprise for them.”
“Put everything we’ve got up on the screens,” Jared ordered. “We need to get a general idea of how this battle is going to play out.”
Marcus threw all the data onto the main screen. The system was laid out in a standard pattern, and the known flip points were represented by blue triangles. The suspected far flip point was an orange blob due to the uncertain nature of its exact location.
The display used Fleet markings for the battle stations and warships. The Rebel Empire forces were marked i
n red, and the Clans were gold.
There were a lot of ships heading deeper into the system, and they looked like they were ignoring the flip point that led away from Twilight River entirely. They were rolling the dice and going for the master AI’s throat.
“I understand that we don’t have any firm readings on the battle stations, but if there aren’t any hidden forces inside the system, do you think the Clans can break through?” Kelsey asked.
“Undoubtedly,” Marcus said evenly. “They’ll take heavy losses, but they’ll get into the next system. We don’t know what forces they’ll find there, but we have to assume that its defensive force is stronger than what we’re seeing here. And that doesn’t consider what’s going to be present at Twilight River itself.”
Kelsey shook her head. “This is too straightforward. The Clans are throwing a lot of force into this fight, but it’s not going to be enough. Since they obviously knew about that far flip point ahead of time, they knew what forces they’d be facing here. They’ll have made decent guesses about what they’re going to find further in.
“While they brought a lot of ships, it’s not sufficient for the task. I realize that our appearance probably kicked them off a little earlier than they’d planned, but if they have no chance of success, why would they make an attempt now?”
Jared had to agree. He wasn’t certain what aces the Clans had up their collective sleeves, but they had to have something. Otherwise, all of this was for nothing.
“How well positioned are our probes to see the upcoming battle?” he asked slowly.
“We have two in position near the target flip point at this time,” Marcus said. “The data they’re sending back is delayed by the requirement to send it via tight beam to the multiflip point. The probe there periodically flips and passes the data to another probe, which does the same in turn. The probe at the end of the chain is in this system and used its FTL com to send data to Persephone.
