The Ascension Myth Box Set

by Ell Leigh Clark

  Giles brightened. “Ah, you’ve spoken to Arlene?”

  The General nodded. “Yes,” he smiled dryly. “She sends her best – and asked when you were going to get around to publishing that paper.”

  Giles blushed, and looked away uncomfortably.

  Lance caught that there was more of a story there, and decided it was something to tease him about later over dinner. He stayed on-task. “She took the girl out on some kind of Estarian Vision Quest. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Giles nodded excitedly. “Ooh. Yes. Yes it does.” He stood up as if he couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. “What she’s probably seen is her shift into the different realms; which makes sense, from her physiology.” He pointed back at the open holoscreens and then started pacing, animating his hands in front of him as he talked.

  “I’m wondering… You’re sure Arlene mentioned she touched the Etheric?”

  Lance nodded. “Yep. It’s the kind of thing one tends to remember.”

  Giles shook his head, a look of amazement on his face. “Well,” he sighed brightly. “Guess I should have a conversation with Arlene,” he decided.

  Lance nodded absently. “Of course. She’s on Gaitune, still. You can connect with her through ADAM.”

  Giles brought his enthused anthropological mystical mind back to Lance, recognizing that he was still perplexed by the details they’d been discussing.

  “You’re worried about what this means for The Empire?” he guessed.

  Lance nodded. “I am. If it’s induced by the pod doc, or by the near-death, then it looks like Bethany Anne, Michael, and the Five aren’t the only ones who will have the advantage of the Etheric.” Lance seemed to pull himself back from his thoughts. “Of course, everything we’ve discussed is classified,” he remarked gruffly, chewing on his cigar.

  Giles nodded. “Of course, sir.”

  Lance stood up and walked over to the drinks tray, topping off his own tumbler, and then reaching for Giles’s, which was almost untouched on the coffee table. He topped his off a little, anyway.

  “Do some digging for me? I want to know everything there is to know - including what the likely causes are, and also if it can be weaponized.”

  Lance turned his attention back to Giles’s face just in time to see him react in pacifist, academic horror at his last word.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, taking another swig of Scotch. “You know that’s exactly the question Bethany Anne would be asking if she were here.”

  Giles lowered his eyes. “Yes, of course.” He took a deep breath and wandered back to the sofa to drink some of his Scotch before Lance would whisk him off to the officers’ mess for dinner.

  “I knew a hundred years of playing in cultural anthropology funded by the Empire was going to require some kind of payback, eventually,” Giles grinned carefully, trying not to spill his Scotch through his smile as he took another sip.

  Lance caught his eye and smiled back, raising his glass. Giles wasn’t positive, but he could have sworn he saw the General wink at him.

  Chapter 15

  On board The Empress, Gaitune-67, Hangar Deck

  Paige and Maya stood in The Empress’s medical bay, watching Pieter and Brock steer Crash into one of the med docks. Thanks to Emma showing them the troop entrance into the ship from the bottom, they didn’t have to try and maneuver him through the narrow passageway and into the upstairs of the craft.

  “How are they going to get him inside?” Maya whispered to Paige as they watched them line him up with the nearest dock.

  Sean overheard them as he strode back in. “We lift the stretcher in, and then deactivate it and leave it there for when we want to help him back out,” he told them.

  Pieter and Brock heard, and set about doing just that.

  As they were lifting him in, Molly and Joel wandered in. Molly’s eyes were red and puffy, and Joel’s t-shirt was wet on the shoulder. It was clear to Paige that he had been taking care of her, and rather than make a thing of her crying, she just waved and smiled a little.

  Molly waved back before heading over to the med dock to see Crash. “How’s he doing?” she asked Sean.

  Crash had been lowered into the coffin-like dock, and Sean pressed a few buttons on the holo panel. “How about we ask Emma what her diagnosis is?”

  Molly nodded and watched as the field powered up and started scanning the body inside.

  Emma’s voice came from the dock panel. “Crash is operating within acceptable parameters: heart rate, normal for resting; blood pressure normal; brain activity… compromised; slight concussion, and a lack of consciousness. One laceration, one inch long; slight swelling around the brain. Implementing brain-swell-reduction and repair.

  The plane of light that had been scanning Crash’s body swept deftly up to his head, and started moving slowly around the affected area. It glided slowly back and forth along a section marked between his nose and eyes – back and forth, back and forth.

  Paige whispered to Maya. “It looks like it’s 3D-printing his brain back together.”

  Maya nodded without taking her eyes from the pod.

  Joel noticed that Molly was holding her breath as she watched.

  Was this what it was like when I was in the pod doc?

  Not really. I mean, I can’t tell because I was inside you, but from the repair that I noticed, it wasn’t in one area at a time – it was more an all-over, gradual improvement. But that was different technology, that tapped into your DNA. I suspect here we’re looking at some form of growth stimulation.

  Hmm. I’d be interested to find out more about it. Can you find out from Emma later?

  Sure. Us AIs love to have a chinwag over interesting topics.

  You’re kidding?

  No. I’m serious. It’s nice to have friends of my own species.

  Molly smiled to herself, hugging her arms around her body, comforted that Oz was happy and making actual friends.

  Emma’s voice interrupted over the dock speaker. “Brain repair complete. Shall I wake the subject?”

  Sean pressed a button, and had a quick look at a few charts that Molly couldn’t quite make out from over his shoulder.

  “Yes, please, Emma. Wake Crash up, if you would.”

  Haha. She got rumbled for calling him a ‘subject’! I’m totally LOL-ing over here.

  Oz…

  Molly shook her head, smiling to herself, trying not to look like the crazy person in the room.

  Pieter and Brock were looking hopeful. Almost relieved.

  A moment later, Crash’s breathing became more pronounced, and his eyes flickered, and then opened. He took some proper breaths, and started to look around, bewildered.

  Molly put her hand to her chest and stepped back, breathing deeper herself. In her case, it was from relief.

  Brock moved closer to Crash and put his hand on Crash’s chest. He was talking with him quietly, explaining that he had a fall, and that they were in a medical bay on The Empress.

  Molly backed off a little more and moved toward the door, followed by Joel. The two quietly stepped out into the corridor, leaving the rest of the team to welcome Crash back into the world.

  Molly ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it out of her face and holding her head, as she took a few paces.

  “Hey,” Joel called after her. “You doing okay?” he asked.

  She turned and smiled a brave smile. “Yeah. Glad he’s okay. That was… intense.”

  Joel nodded. “Okay. Let’s get you some food and rack time. And I want to hear more about what happened out there. Something tells me this realm thing hasn’t been resolved, if you rushed back here.”

  Molly bobbed her head from side to side indicating a, ‘yes and no’. She sighed.

  “Yeah. I guess not; but I have made progress.”

  She started telling him about the last two days’ events, as they left the ship and made their way back up to
the safe house.

  Gaitune-67, Base conference room

  Two days later, things seemed to have returned to normal.

  Crash, completely healed, was back to practicing on The Empress with Emma, and everyone else was working on their respective tasks. By the afternoon, Molly had called a team meeting to decide on their plan of action.

  The team was tired from their preparations; Brock seemed to be functioning mostly on mocha, and even Pieter was a little wired, suggesting they’d been burning the midnight oil together to get the tech up to spec.

  Despite Crash’s near miss, he was also looking fatigued – although Oz had reported back to Molly that Emma was implementing a much stricter rest routine for him. Paige and Maya weren’t looking their usual well-manicured selves, and had resorted to walking around the base in sweat gear and overalls, rather than their usual haute couture. Paige had even taken to pulling her hair up to save on maintenance.

  The only ones who truly looked bright-eyed and battle-ready were Jack, Sean, and Joel. Molly suspected that it had something to do with their experience with mission prep, and being able to keep themselves in peak condition in the run up to a mission. Life in the military forces one to be ready for anything, whether it’s moving out at a moment’s notice, or, indeed, sitting around waiting, and then having to move at a moment’s notice.

  Molly had been off mocha for a while now, still unable to keep it down, and, in coming to terms with that, she was finding a new rhythm.

  Molly convened the meeting – her focus on all the moving parts, preventing her from being distracted by the extraneous details of social interaction.

  “Okay, folks, let’s get to it,” she announced, and the hub-bub settled in seconds.

  “The overall picture is this,” she told them. “In less than 48 hours from now, we need to be heading back to the planet, Kurilia. Once there, we will implement our plan to ensure that all secret military capabilities are permanently disabled. This is a precision mission,” she explained.

  She glanced around at the attentive faces of her teammates.

  “Not only that,” she continued, “but Oz’s team will implant the worm that will monitor their whole operation from the moment we leave the planet. Paige’s team will deploy what we’re calling a ‘disclosure campaign’.”

  Molly paused, seeming to speak with Oz for a moment. Then she brought her attention back to the team.

  “I know this last point is a little… unconventional, but, having discussed it with ADAM, we’re looking to try something new; something that will hopefully prevent a backlash down the line. We haven’t got time to go into the whys and wherefores, but, in essence, the Federation is hoping that the Zhyn will eventually become allies. The less we give them to be resentful about, the better. Maya will explain more when we get to this item.”

  Oz, can you pull up the mission summary so everyone can track the key elements?

  On it.

  “Right let’s dig into the details,” she said, indicating to the hologram opening from the center of the table.

  The screen unfolded to reveal a bulleted list of the mission objectives:

  > Disable the secret military bases

  > Deploy software worm to take comms and weapons offline - permanently

  > Deploy media campaign to reveal the secret agenda to the populace

  Sean whistled quietly through his teeth. “That’s a lot to accomplish with just our little team,” he said quietly.

  Molly heard, and nodded. “That’s why we need a super-enhanced cyborg on our side.” There was a chuckle through the room. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen one anywhere?” There was more laughter.

  Joel pushed his chair back and pretended to look under the table. Pieter was laughing silently, and started gently tapping the table in amusement with the flat of his hand. The mood lightened despite the complexity of the mission ahead of them.

  Sean nodded, turning a little pink, and took the shit that was being handed to him.

  Molly continued, still smiling. “We also have lots of other advantages we can leverage. As you’ll see.” She looked pointedly at Sean, wanting to be able to continue with the briefing.

  He had his hands flat on the table in front of him, and, getting the point of her stare, he raised his hands slightly, conceding the floor to her.

  Molly continued. “Okay. Disabling the military capabilities. This has several phases to it. Joel, this is your piece of the op; wanna explain the phases?”

  Joel pushed back his seat and stood up, bringing up a map of the planet, and all the bases that were their targets.

  “Sure,” he said, as he prepared his screens.

  “Our goal,” he told them, “is to take out only the secret military bases. Not the official, legitimate ones.”

  He paused, making sure everyone understood that. Then he continued.

  “At each of the secret bases, we will take out the weapons systems, the communications systems, and their power. Nothing else. We’re trying to do this with minimal casualties, and the last thing we want is to get stuck in a firefight. We want to be in and out.”

  “To that end,” he continued, “let’s look at the potential issues – because there is no getting around having to put boots on the ground, with this one.”

  He put his hands up in front of him, and used the movement to zoom in on the holomap of two targets that were fairly close together. “Oz’s team has got the comms and weapons covered. Most of our ground targets can be addressed using nanodrones, which Oz will also remotely deploy and target. But,” he paused, flicking the map over to another layer, “there are a few targets where we will need to physically deploy charges.”

  He indicated to the two he’d zoomed in on, and then showed them a third on the southern hemisphere. He looked around the room, and then down at Molly sitting on his right-hand side.

  “These are the three targets. Two of them are close to their skylifts. The other one is just over a mile’s hike from the first target.”

  Maya put her hand up. “What are those targets, though?” she asked.

  Joel zoomed in again, showing their outline more clearly. “They’re generators. We know this from Oz’s intel. What we can’t see, is where to blow them up – because they’re shielded with Faraday cages and forcefields. We need to be on the ground to figure it out, and then set the charges in the weak spots. Too much firepower in this area could cause all kinds of destruction. We need to be precise…”

  His voice trailed off as he wondered how much detail to share with them. He shook his head minutely, and decided to move on with the intel they needed to know.

  “On the plus side, Brock has come up with a way to detonate all the charges remotely. So as long as we can get in and out, Oz can take care of the rest.”

  Joel returned to his seat and checked some notes on his holo. “To this end, we’ll deploy two teams. Team one: Sean and Molly. They will take the first two targets. Team two is myself and Jack. We will be dropped on the southern hemisphere skylift to take out the third target. With a bit of luck, we can each get back to our respective skylifts before all hell breaks loose.”

  He looked matter-of-fact, but Paige was paying close attention to his micro expressions. There was something he was concerned about in his last statement. She made a mental note to find out what was bothering him.

  Joel continued with his briefing.

  “This brings us on to Oz’s part of the mission. Oz will be responsible for the detonation – which he’ll hopefully hold off on until we’re back at the top of the skylift, and ready to be extracted. Oz, you want to take the next section?”

  Oz’s voice cracked over the comm system. “Sure. Yes, I’ll be waiting to detonate everything after you’ve been extracted. However, there are other layers of the assault that can’t wait. Pieter, Paige, Maya, and myself have been working on a number of things to take out the various systems. Pieter and I are going to be able to
take out their weapons permanently, by corrupting every last line of code running in those secret bases. Not only that, but we have a fireworks display of technological destruction planned, where we can overheat critical points of hardware, too. There will be nothing left of these bases that they can use.”

  Sean grinned, nodding his head in appreciation of the prospect of technological carnage. Pieter glanced over, his eyes catching the movement, and, despite his fatigue, he grinned back.

  “Then all that leaves is the PR campaign,” Oz added. “Maya?”

  Maya sat up straighter and began to explain her part of the operation.

  “The public communication campaign will be broadcast on all civilian channels, reeducating the population as to what is really happening on their planet. It will expose the secret bases that have been built in contravention to the Jah-Dune Accord. It will also explain why this is a problem, in terms of inter-world affairs, and how their Emperor is effectively putting a target on them by pursuing this aggressive secret-armament strategy.”

  Molly picked up the explanation. “The reason for doing this is to stop the military from hacking straight into civilian resources to try and rearm, and re-engage,” she told them. “If the public is aware of the issue, they will have a revolt on their hands.”

  She got up and started pacing the long side of the conference room.

  “According to ADAM, there is history to suggest that where the government has betrayed the wishes of the people, there have been dire consequences. Fortunately, this means the people will likely be on our side. They want peace, but what is happening right now is that their military is going rogue because they have had so little accountability.”

  Molly glanced back at the bulleted list still on display at the center of the large conference table.

  “Okay. We’ve covered all the main elements. Anything else?”

  Brock waved his hand. “Yeah. I think it’s worth mentioning that we’ve adapted some of the gear to make it less kill-y and more disable-y.”

  Molly nodded. “Yes, of course. Since our aim is only to disable the secret military bases, I felt that some of the weaponry we had for the ground operation was a little… brutal. Brock has been working to adapt some of it.”