by Tim C Taylor
Aelingir’s fur shook. “You mean there’s another species who can see through time?”
“Yes. Funny thing, though. Turns out it’s–”
“Us!” Lissa interjected fiercely. “Humans.”
The Wolf… Xin stared at her openly, looking for familiar features but finding none. The way Lissa had spoken to her with such resentment, though. That was very familiar. Xin had only ever met one person who’d felt such jealousy for her, and had done from the day she’d been assigned to Arun’s unit in Novice School and ordered to watch over him. Even as novices, Arun had loved this girl, but he’d been blinded to what was obvious to everyone else by his obsession with Xin. Now Xin began to wonder whether she had been the one blinded by love.
Walking around the table to Lissa’s seat, Xin placed her arms on the front of the Wolf woman’s shoulders and stared into her eyes. They were brown – no tinge of violet – but physical appearances could be changed, and voices altered. “Arun and I knew one human who claimed she was visited by foreknowledge,” she told this woman who went by the name of Lissa. “You could call them visions, if you like, although she always insisted they were not visual. Funnily enough, the Hummers say they experience their foreknowledge the same way. Her name was Springer.”
The Wolf woman who called herself Lissa held herself rigidly. Arun clammed up too. That evidence was circumstantial at best, but the guilty way Aelingir scratched at the fur on her neck put the question beyond doubt. The Jotun was hopeless at keeping secrets, and Aelingir knew Lissa’s.
Xin looked into those scaly whorls around Lissa’s eyes that looked like Celtic knots, and resisted the urge to apply pressure from her thumbs to choke her windpipe.
So this was really Springer. Publicly executed in the Cull, but secretly refashioned and reborn as a Wolf. How many years had she and Arun tried to live apart before fate reconnected them? Knowing these two, they would have left it to the very last moment before the campaign for Earth. Idiots. They were perfect mirrors of each other.
The real world drained away, replaced by the memory of the day she’d left Arun, the yawning emptiness that had haunted her every night since. He could have trusted her. She was his wife, dammit, and he hadn’t thought to share his secret. He’d let her split the fleet to protect a lie. A stinking deceit so flimsy even that drenting Jotun had seen through it. Mader chodding Zagh!
She turned the full glare of her fury on her husband.
He couldn’t meet her gaze, looking down guiltily at the deck, as well he frakking might. And the worst thing of all was that Xin had to be complicit in the same pathetic deceit. She knew Arun. He wouldn’t have set this up just for Springer; he’d have set up an escape line for as many people as he could. Thousands, more, would rely on the secret, at least until he felt strong enough to abandon the pretense.
“This Springer…” Xin said, practically spitting out the name in its owner’s face. “If she truly did see the future, then it didn’t do her much good. She could see her friends and loved ones in the future, but she couldn’t see herself, so she cut herself away from her world, and hid like the selfish coward she was.”
Springer – and there was no longer any doubt in Xin’s mind who Lissa really was – clenched her fists and ground her jaw. That’s right, try coming at me now, bitch. You’ll get a volley of railgun darts through those pretty scales.
But Springer kept her cool. For now. “Maybe she was wrong,” Xin taunted. “All that pain and isolation for nothing. Perhaps Springer was there all the time in those visions, she just didn’t recognize her appearance.”
Aelingir rose to her feet, prompting a half-dozen carbines to be aimed at her heart. Undeterred, the Jotun barred her fangs and hissed at Xin like a faulty pressure valve.
“Act your rank,” the general growled in direct human speech, bypassing her translator. “I believe Springer truly had the curse of foresight, but she is dead. Enough of her. You were describing your ally. Are you telling us there are more foresighted humans like Springer once was?”
“Springer was a mutant freak, gene-spliced with Hummer pseudo-DNA. I always presumed she was a one-off, a tool manufactured for a Hummer plan. As with all offshoots of the White Knights, Hummer genetic material is so transmorphic that it will bind with anything, but it still needs a framework to plug into. A Hummer could bond with the remnants of yesterday’s dinner you left on your plate, but it couldn’t give whatever disgusting life form resulted the ability to peer through the veil of time. But Springer could, because we humans all possess the latent architecture to see beyond conventional space-time. And not just humans. Kurlei have it too. The White Knights produced the Hummers through controlled mutation of this latent ability in their own kind. I think the humans I have encountered used technology to achieve the same ends.”
“These humans,” said Aelingir, “are they the Amilx?”
Arun interrupted. “There will be time to talk on such matters. Right now, I want assets. Your forces, Xin. Tech. Ships. Troops. Allies of the kind who can project force here and now in the Solar System. I want us to figure out how we’re going to dust Tawfiq and kick the New Order off the Earth. I expect your new human allies to help.”
“Allies? There is but one man. He calls himself Greyhart, and he is as human as Marines such as you and I are compared to the baseline natives of Earth. More so. I think he is an example of what humans will evolve into.”
“Is he here now?”
“Maybe. He comes and goes at his whim. Mostly goes. What you need to know is that Greyhart is generous with knowledge and equipment when it suits his agenda. He is the reason we are here to save your ass.”
“How convenient.”
“We’re talking not just seeing the future. We’re using time travel in both directions, and anyone with such power can shape the universe for their convenience. There is no longer such a thing as coincidence. I don’t like the smug veck and I sure as hell don’t trust him. Since the moment we met, every time I utter a word, a little voice in my head tells me that I’m just a puppet reading from a frakking script.”
“If he is human,” said Aelingir, “then he can’t want your species to be wiped out. He must want the New Order defeated.”
“We are all of us reluctant allies in this,” said Arun. “How big is your fleet?”
“I have two time-capable ships: New Frontier, which we are aboard now, and Expansion. Both are destroyer size and with a complement of 400 Marines in total, with dropships and enough equipment for three heavy-weapons squads.”
Arun shook his head, incredulous. “Is that it? One understrength battalion?”
“The rest of my forces are decades away.”
“Your two ships – their propulsion is conventional?”
“Same as your Legion tech, but add in time jumps and they’re effectively FTL capable. We don’t actually travel faster than light, but say you want to make a journey that takes twenty years, all you need to do is first wind the clock back twenty years and then start your journey early. Twenty years early.”
“And to an outside observer,” said Springer, “your journey appears instantaneous.”
Xin shrugged. “It’s not so very different from the momentum dumps that connect your X-Boats to the Klein-Manifold Region. Tricks like pulling 60-gees while tucking into a hearty lunch washed down with sweet tea appear to break the laws of nature. They don’t. They only seem to when you don’t get to see the big picture.”
“And the artificial gravity?” asked Arun.
She rolled her eyes theatrically – and noted the smile that brought to Arun’s lips. “That’s just Greyhart showing off, though these Navy types are so used to it now, they would mutiny rather than serve aboard a ship that couldn’t host a weekly bowling night.”
“We need each other,” said Arun. “We need your time-ships to outflank Tawfiq, and you need our numbers.”
“And Greyhart needs us both,” said Xin.
“We’ll deal with him later.”<
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“I’ve told you enough,” she said. “As you’re fond of saying, Arun, there’s a war on. So if we’ve established at least that we’re on the same side for the time being, let’s hook in Indiya and your field commanders. I expect she’ll be worrying about you.”
“No,” said Aelingir. “You need to understand that the human Legionaries have been infiltrated by the New Order. It acts like a surveillance nanovirus that hides in the bloodstream, but we cannot isolate the infection. However it works, our security is badly compromised. Tawfiq hears everything, and our infected personnel acting as traitors are unaware they are the security leak.”
Grace looked horrified. “You’re saying every human we meet is a potential carrier? Even my father?”
“Afraid so,” Arun admitted. “I have frequent blood transfusions and every test the Khallene techs can think of, but it’s possible. If I’ve passed it on to you, then I’m sorry.”
“That’s a risk we’ll take,” said Xin. “But unlikely. We suspected the existence of such an infection before I… split from your faction. We took steps to purge ourselves. Nonetheless, I agree with General Aelingir. It’s best for now if we keep quiet about your survival and the presence of New Frontier and Expansion. We need to meet with Indiya in secret, face to face.”
“Agreed,” said Arun, gesturing to Springer to help him onto his wheelchair. “Let’s go find Indiya.”
Grace joined her father on the other side of the table. The poor dear looked uncharacteristically awkward, wanting to assist Arun into his chair, but Springer wasn’t offering to share her task. Typical!
“I’ll take them across in Karypsic,” Grace announced. “And I’ll go alone. They won’t see it as a threat if it’s just me.”
Xin nodded her assent.
“Shouldn’t you give her an escort?” Arun queried.
“No need,” said Xin proudly. “She can take care of herself.”
“And she speaks for you?”
“No, she speaks for herself,” snapped Grace.
Arun looked at Grace, but she smiled sweetly. Dear Arun. He had a lot to learn about his daughter.
“I’m a civilian,” Xin explained. “Your daughter commands our military forces.”
“Grace? But she’s–”
“She’s impressive, yes. Or were you going to say young? Arun, she’s no younger than we were when we’d kicked off our war of liberation. General McEwan, meet General Lee-McEwan.”
“I…” He looked momentarily flummoxed. “I forget how young we were.” He raised his hand and Grace shook it. “We’ve a lot of catching up to do. But first, we need to brief each other on…” His eyes blanked and then he looked back at Xin. “Wait, you’re a civilian? President Lee?” He rolled that title around his tongue. “I thought that was just a new rank you’d dreamed up to outrank generals.”
“Of course I’m a civilian. What did you think I was? A dictator? Everyone in the Far Reach Fleet was given an equally weighted vote. Yes, I was elected. Damn right I was. You should try it sometime, General. Or do they call you supreme commander these days?”
Xin allowed herself a little smile of triumph, because for once in his life, Arun McEwan had no answer.
— Chapter 05 —
Arun McEwan
Aboard Karypsic bound for main Legion fleet
A thousand questions blazed in Arun’s mind on the flight back to the Legion fleet around Mars. Who the frakk was this Greyhart for starters? The only evidence for his existence was Xin’s explanation that he was behind the teleport, artificial gravity, and the time travel that Arun was already having to wrap his mind around as a practical means of waging war.
But Xin had a habit of stretching words to suit her means. Greyhart could be a fabrication. For that matter, Majanita and those Littorane guards could all be dead, the husks of their bodies kept alive by an alien parasite consuming their flesh from within that would soon metamorphose into void moths and flutter along the cold plasma streams between the stars.
One explanation sounded more ridiculous than the other, but both fit the facts, and to be honest, one was scarcely less plausible than the other.
And what of Grace? Biologically, she was in her early twenties, and there was no doubting the fierce intelligence and the even fiercer will that burned within that young body. Xin had always possessed an aura that seared so brightly that any lesser people caught in her penumbra had been dimmed to subservience, but their daughter’s charisma was so intense that even Arun was feeling bludgeoned just by sitting near her in the flight deck of this vessel she called Karypsic, which looked to Arun like a heavily armed dropship.
As they headed away from the natural shield of Venus, Grace’s hands danced over the flight controls with the surety of experience, while still following the discipline of making verbal checks with her AI co-pilot. But Grace as commander of an entire fleet when there were other officers with command experience? Was that another of Xin’s tricks, sending Grace over with the Hotchelpis survivors as a spy who could bypass his suspicion?
A punch to his shoulder brought him out of his head.
“I don’t have to be a Kurlei to know what you’re thinking,” said Springer, strapping herself back into the seat beside him. “The European pocket is shrinking every day. Tawfiq has reinforcements steaming in from out-system, and we failed to get the Hardit craft through the barrier to Indiya. We’re too badly beaten to win this without taking some big chances. Remember, you trusted Xin enough to stay married to her for decades.”
“Yes, but…” Arun grew some balls. If Springer wasn’t avoiding talk of Xin, he certainly couldn’t. “I know I did.”
Springer shrugged. “So trust her one more time.”
Grace opened a viewscreen that showed the troop compartment. Arun could see Aelingir sitting in silence with her Jotuns. There was enough room for a couple of the big aliens in the flight cabin, but Aelingir had ordered her people to absent themselves so that the humans could bond through ritual sniffing, as she termed it.
His Jotun friend certainly had a special way with words, but she was right that he needed a little time to figure out where he stood with the daughter who had been a talisman of his future with Xin last time he’d seen her, waiting inside her mother for a time when it would be safe to resume her pregnancy to term. Since detaching from New Frontier, though, Grace had been too busy piloting the war boat.
“General Aelingir,” she said, “I am about to engage autopilot. Flight time to Mars will be approximately 63 minutes, though we will be challenged before then. I am transferring ship comms to your station while I concentrate on briefing General McEwan. Please acknowledge.”
The Jotun swiveled the control panel in front of her and tapped at it with her mid-limbs. “I have comm control, pilot.”
Arun winced. None of the Jotuns had acknowledged the ranks and titles assumed by Xin or any of her followers.
Grace showed no signs of noticing when she responded, “Forgive my need to reconfirm your earlier words, General, but I have not had the honor of serving alongside you.”
“You doubt my competence, human?”
“I doubt interspecies communication in general, Jotun. Misunderstandings are commonplace across species boundaries until protocols are agreed, and mutual experience and trust established between individuals. I say again. I do not have the honor of working with you. Please confirm that you have the recognition codes to prevent your Navy comrades blasting us into vapor the moment we are detected.”
“You should remain alert because I want you to give the codes first,” Aelingir replied. “If we’re very lucky, an alert officer will try to shepherd us out of sight as quietly as possible, without the need for any of us to reveal that we did not die when Hotchelpis crashed. If we encounter someone less alert, they are likely to hold fire long enough for me to identify myself.”
“And if we’re unlucky,” Grace added, “they’ll ignore the fact that Karypsic is obviously not a Hardit design and open fi
re anyway. Risk understood, General. The briefing will be an intense mental activity. I am not sure how conscious of outside events I will be. Please stay alert.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Intense activity? What the hell are you planning?” Arun said, as Grace cut the view of the Jotuns and unbuckled herself from her seat.
“It’s quicker to do than to explain.” She walked over to him – even this dropship had artificial gravity – and narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
“I don’t trust your mother.”
“She warned me you could prove dangerously stubborn.”
“What did you expect?” Springer shot at her. “Your mother will want to be in charge as soon as we’ve done with Tawfiq. That much is obvious, but that’s in the future. Arun, Xin hates the New Order every bit as much as we do. Trust Xin’s hatred.”
“You can whisper sweet nothings to your personal aide once we’re through,” Grace told Arun tersely. “First, I need to reprogram the battle computer inside your head. You need to understand the capabilities of my people’s forces, and then you need to tell us what the battle plan should be.”
Arun shook his head. “Indiya is in operational command. That decision is for her. Let’s wait.”
“Admiral Indiya is one of many excellent field commanders at our disposal,” Grace counted. “But we only have access to two leaders with organic battle computers in their heads.”
Two! Arun’s eyes widened, and he saw his daughter in a new light. The smooth skin free from scars and the pull of age, the brightness of eyes hard yet undimmed by the horrors he had witnessed at her age, and the effervescence that bubbled like a mountain spring from every aspect of her: he’d been so mesmerized by her youth that he’d failed to see the suppressed tension that pinched her features. Springer and Indiya had both described the same look about him, and now he could see it around Grace’s eyes. It was as if a bomb in her brain had been held in stasis a tiny fraction of a second after the explosion started, an instant before her skull was going burst to open into a gray-red mist.
