A few minutes later, they identified the cultists’ ship.
“Gemini, cloak us,” Alexis instructed as the ship broke the artificial atmosphere.
Christina watched the small, nondescript cargo ship with disappointment. “I guess they’re not well-funded.”
Alexis turned in her chair. “It works in our favor. The bug had no problem phasing through their shielding. Wherever they go, whoever they speak to, we’ll know all about it.”
Christina grinned. “The advantages of AI, huh?”
“The team wouldn’t be complete without Gemini,” Gabriel agreed with feeling. “You’ll get to meet the rest of the team soon as we get back to Onyx Station. I can’t say your dad is too happy you didn’t tell him where you were going.”
“Neither was Merril when Nathan sent us to find out why his bar was the last place you’d been seen before vanishing,” Alexis added, turning back to the Pod’s controls.
“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” Kai grumbled.
“What did I say?” Christina told him. “We should have checked in before we left the station.”
Kai covered his face with his hands. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting our recon to turn into a bar brawl, followed by a free run through what has to be the largest collection of stolen goods I’ve ever seen.”
Alexis shrugged. “I’ve seen bigger.”
Kai looked at her in disbelief. “I’m here considering how my family is going to take it when Nathan murders me, and all you can think about is comparing dives you’ve visited? What is it with women and their preoccupation with size?”
Christina fixed him with a stern look. “First of all, starting any question with the words ‘what is it with women’ is never going to end well for you. Secondly, the situation with my dad is my fault, and I’ll fix it. I should have told him about you sooner.”
“Yeah, what’s going on there?” Alexis asked as she monitored the limited progress the bug had made into the enemy ship’s systems.
Christina blushed. “I kind of sprang Kai on him. In my defense, this cult thing came out of the blue.”
Kai folded his arms. “I met Nathan and Ecaterina for the first time in their kitchen in the middle of the night.”
Gabriel sucked in a breath. “Rough start, buddy.”
“You’re telling me,” Kai complained. “As if the age gap thing wasn’t enough for him to get over, his first impression of me was thinking I’d broken into his home.”
Christina snickered. “It wasn’t all that bad.” She stopped laughing when she saw Kai wasn’t playing along. “Okay, it was every bit that bad, but come on.” She laid it on thick. “I didn’t know I was serious about you back when I should have told him, and then I just kept putting off breaking it to him.”
Kai relented. “I know you didn’t mean for it to turn out like this. I’ll keep trying with him.”
“What’s the age gap issue?” Gabriel inquired.
“It’s not an issue to me,” Christina replied. “Who cares if we were born a generation apart?”
“Not me,” Gabriel assured her. “Trust me, we know better than most that time is subjective.”
Alexis had to agree. “When you live as long as we do, the only thing that matters is that you find someone whose soul fits with yours. Who cares if there’s a few decades or even centuries between you?”
Kai blushed. “Well, thanks. I think you two are the only ones who haven’t made a cougar joke.”
Alexis offered them both a warm smile. “I wish you luck. Some of us are destined to be alone forever. Some of us being me since no man is ever going to be brave enough to put his hands on my body.”
Gabriel growled, “Good.” He looked at Alexis. Cougar?
Alexis gave Christina a pained look as she jerked her thumb at Gabriel. “See what I mean? Can you imagine my uncles or my dad if I brought someone to meet them?”
“I can imagine the funeral,” Gabriel promised.
Christina remembered her burning question from earlier. “So, how did you two go from fifteen to fully grown in the few months since I saw you last?”
Kai did a double-take. “They did what, now?”
“Our parents gave us the choice to be sequestered on High Tortuga for the duration of the war, or to be fully enhanced in modified Vid-docs while living the time we would have missed in VR,” Alexis explained.
“We chose the enhancement,” Gabriel added to clarify. “And Mom sent us to work with you to investigate the cult.”
Kai nodded. “I figured as much with the investigation.” He stared at the twins in turn. “It’s insane. I wouldn’t know the difference between you and any other twenty-one year-olds.”
“What can we say?” Gabriel replied. “We’ve lived for those years, just not in this reality.”
“If anything, we’ve experienced more than most people our age,” Alexis added distractedly as she read through the communications she'd missed while they’d been out of touch with Gemini. “Our whole lives have been shaped to prepare us for war.”
“Aren’t you lucky?” Kai nodded. “Now the war is here.” He looked at Christina, who was giving him one of those looks. “What?”
She turned to the twins. “What do we want to do about the cult now that we’ve got evidence it exists?” Christina asked.
“We have to get back to Onyx Station,” Alexis replied, sharing the message she had from the medical examiner there. “Paul Jacobsen’s autopsy report just came in, and I want to speak to whoever performed the procedure.”
“What about the cult?” Kai contested, pointing at the receding ship on the viewscreen. “We can’t let them get away.”
“They’re not going to get far,” Gabriel assured him. “Their ship doesn’t have a Gate drive. Gemini will flag any attempts they make to use the public Gate system. We won’t lose them.”
Kai supposed that meant the cult couldn’t cause too much trouble while they reported in and came up with the next move to trace the leak in the Federation from this end. “Fine, but I think Christina and I should come straight back here and keep an eye on that ship. If they stop at any center of population, we have to go scoop them up before they do anything stupid.”
“I can’t argue the logic of running surveillance on them,” Christina conceded.
“Agreed,” Alexis looked at the woman. “We’ll split up. Gabriel and I will go back to Onyx Station, and you two follow that ship from a distance.”
She pushed a panel in her console and a small drawer slid out. “Take this Etheric comm and call us if anything interesting happens. We’ll Gate out to your coordinates in three days to relieve you if the cult hasn’t made a move.”
Christina took the comm from Alexis. “I like that as a plan. There’s a good chance the autopsy won’t give us anything.” She tapped it with a finger. “Thanks. I’d hate to think they got away because technology failed us.”
Alexis smiled as Christina and Kai headed for their ship. “Keep your fingers crossed for a breakthrough. It would be nice to link up both ends of the investigation.”
Chapter Eleven
Onyx Station, Bad Company HQ
Bethany Anne’s mind was churning two steps ahead of the moment as she waited backstage for the first group of FDG soldiers to make their way in and be seated.
Nathan had ensured the first group was diverse to give her a baseline of what reaction to expect from the troops as a whole. Bethany Anne wasn’t convinced that everyone who saw the recording of this group’s briefing would choose to take the upgrade, and she wanted to get an idea of what numbers she could expect to return to when she got back to Devon.
“Are you nervous?” Nathan asked, failing to hide the disbelief in his voice. “I didn’t know you were even capable of—” He remembered who he was talking to when Bethany Anne’s eyebrow arched. “I mean, I guess I thought you didn’t get the same doubts as us mere mortals.”
“Keep digging. It’s cute.” Bethany Anne rolled her eyes a
nd went back to observing the gathered soldiers. “If you must know, I’m not nervous. I’m concerned. It’s important that this goes to plan, since unlike Gödel, I haven’t deluded myself into believing I’m entitled to unquestioning obedience from my people.”
“Nobody is going to choose to miss out on the raid unless they have a damn good reason,” Nathan assured her. “Besides, those who don’t want to take the risk are still needed here. It’ll work out,” he promised. “Just wait and see.”
Bethany Anne nodded in appreciation of his support. “There’s only one way to find out.” She made her way onto the stage as the soldiers applauded, then took a seat at the table with Tina, Marcus, and Takal.
Nathan waved the applause down as he came out from backstage and claimed the remaining chair. He cleared his throat, thinking a little bit of feedback to let him know the microphone was on wouldn’t go amiss. “Thank you all for being here.”
“It’s a mandatory briefing, sir,” some brave soul heckled.
“It is,” Nathan agreed. “But accepting the mission you’re about to be offered isn’t, so pin your ears back, zip your piehole, and listen to what the Queen has to say.”
That got the response he wanted.
Bethany Anne chuckled when every soldier seated in the rows turned their heads to stare at her. “Thank you, Nathan.”
She paused and folded her hands on the table before beginning her address to the troops. “When I left Earth, I took the best of humanity with me, knowing their strength, courage, and innovative minds would be needed for the fight to save us from a future beneath Kurtherian heels. I continued to gather the best from every world when I took on the heavy duty of being the Empress. For a short time, there has been peace in the Federation. That peace is under threat because of the Seven, because the prodigiously batshit fuckbucket who has taken control of them has gotten it into her head that the Federation and all that it stands for has to be destroyed. My goal is to ensure that the only thing Gödel gets to be the goddess of is her ashes.”
The soldiers booed, making their disdain for the Seven clear.
Bethany Anne gestured at the others at the table, raising her voice to be heard. “These are just a few of the people responsible for my ability to extend the Interdiction around the Federation. As I speak, there are teams plugging this station into the defense system. It’s their work that has made it possible to take the fight to the Kurtherians.”
She pointed at the seated soldiers, ignoring the camera drone hovering in front of the stage. “You are the boot I intend to break off in her psychotic ass. The reason you are here today is so I can offer you a physical upgrade and a place in the fleet that wipes the Seven out once and for all.”
The roar was damn near deafening.
I’ll tone that down a bit, TOM mentioned.
Appreciate that, Bethany Anne replied.
She waited for the reaction to die down before continuing. “The Yollins and Leath among you won’t have forgotten what cowardly motherfuckers the Kurtherians are. They have moved on from slavery to growing super-soldiers by the millions in factories spread far and wide across the galaxies. See for yourself what they’re capable of.”
The room darkened.
Silence permeated the room as video clips of Ooken encounters played on the screen wall behind her.
Soon, the video stopped and the lights came back up. It was a testament to the bravery of those present that no one had bolted nor thrown up.
She eyed them, most feeling that she was looking into their eyes and their heart. “There will be no judgment if what I’m asking is beyond your capability to give, but I promise you this: if you choose to follow me, it will be into the fight of your lives. Those who accept the mission will receive the upgrade and leave for Devon within the month to begin training.”
Bethany Anne understood that it was a lot to take in and had prepared for her audience to be suffering information overload. “There is a choice to be made. The upgrade will affect you in a number of ways, which you can read about in the information packet you should be receiving right about now…”
She glanced at Geroux, who nodded to confirm she’d delivered the basic information about the nanocytes that had been developed to give them toughened skin and bones so they could face the Ookens and survive. “Take your time. Read the information. If you have any more questions, you can use the link provided in your packet to speak to an advisor in confidence.”
“Is it reversible?” someone called.
Bethany Anne glanced at Tina.
Tina lifted her hands. “We’re mostly sure it is. Like, ninety-nine percent.” She wrinkled her nose when Takal leaned in to whisper to her. “Ninety-eight point seven percent,” she amended.
Bethany Anne waved down the avalanche of questions that followed. “This briefing is done,” she told them all before looking at Nathan. She got to her feet and indicated that Tina and the others should do the same.
Nathan walked to the front of the stage. “The upgrade will be available for the next four weeks. Before we wrap this up, I want to personally thank everyone, and to tell you that Bethany Anne has provided a bonus for everyone who volunteers.”
She left the briefing room to thunderous applause. Tina, Takal, and Geroux said their goodbyes and hurried to make the dock before the SD Reynolds departed for the outlying systems.
“I didn’t approve any bonus,” Bethany Anne told Nathan as they walked to his office.
Nathan grinned. “The twins are grown, right? Besides, you would have done it anyway.”
Bethany Anne punched Nathan in the arm. “Not the point. I wouldn’t have announced it and made it a factor in anyone’s decision. Just count yourself lucky that I’d be sad if my friend’s husband was suddenly killed in a tragic-and-yet-predictable airlock accident.”
“You’re talking like the acceptance rate isn’t going to be a hundred percent in this group, for the simple reason they get to go to war with you,” Nathan stated, indicating the soldiers flowing past them, gesticulating during animated conversations about getting the upgrade.
Bethany Anne declined to reply. She opened the office door and walked in while Nathan stopped to speak to the soldiers.
“Told you so,” Nathan leaned in to smarm as the door closed behind them. “I’ll say it again. If there’s not a hundred percent buy-in from that group, I’ll eat my hat.”
Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow. “You don’t wear a hat. How about I see you drink a glass of Coke with your dinner every day for a month?”
Nathan paled. “Only if I get to see you drink Pepsi.”
“One glass,” Bethany Anne bartered, holding out her hand.
Nathan shook on it. “One glass, and a photo,” he snuck in. “For commemorative purposes, of course.” He shrugged at Bethany Anne’s pointed look. “What? How often do I get to say I was right and you were wrong? I want proof it happened.”
Bethany Anne smiled. “You can show it to your grandkids.”
Nathan’s smile vanished as Bethany Anne’s laughter filled the office. “I’m not the only one with a daughter.”
Bethany Anne shrugged. “True, but I’d bet Michael and Gabriel will be an effective deterrent if Alexis goes through a phase of being bum-gum.”
Nathan chuckled. “Having met Alexis, I can’t see her having much time for assholes wasting her time.”
“Speaking of wasting time,” Bethany Anne cut in. “We need to get caught up on the kids’ investigation, and then I need to get to my next appointment.”
“Christina came by the house yesterday,” Nathan told her. “The autopsy was a bust since the nanos were destroyed in the explosion. They have a tag on the cell who orchestrated Jacobsen’s suicide, and they’re just waiting for them to show up again. What about Lance’s end?”
“Akio will be getting to Red Rock any time now,” Bethany Anne told him.
“Good.” Nathan shivered. “That cult gives me the creeps.”
Red Rock
<
br /> Lance waited deep inside the cave, getting what relief he could from the blazing heat of the twin suns baking the skin of the Rock.
His polarized viewplate kept itself clear of condensation, a small mercy since Akio was late and he’d begun to sweat as soon as he left the secret passage leading to the cave from his quarters. He shifted uncomfortably, the material of the atmosuit he wore over his clothing acting as a sauna despite the forcefield keeping the majority of the heat out.
Red Rock from space looked like its name. The iron-stained asteroid had no defining features except for the canyon ripped into it by an ancient impact. The House of Arbitration’s position inside the hollowed-out walls of the canyon gave it protection from the ravages of space. The caves that permeated the canyon walls had been only partially explored. With the surface exposed to levels of radiation that were lethal to most species, they were the only option for hikes among the more active.
This particular cave had been omitted from the maps for that reason. Lance committed himself to the wait, knowing Akio wouldn’t send a message. He gave up pacing and sat down on the rough rock to conserve his air, opening his HUD to find a task to occupy himself until Akio arrived.
The minutes stretched out. Almost an hour later, a smudge appeared on the horizon. Lance got to his feet when the smudge resolved into the familiar lines of a QBS ship. The red go-faster stripe on the nose identified it as the Achronyx when it got closer.
“About time,” Lance grumbled to everybody else who gave a shit. Unfortunately, he was alone.
He headed for the cave mouth and dropped the forcefield for the few seconds the Achronyx needed to swoop in.
Akio came down the ramp, jumping the final few feet when he reached the end before Achronyx had finished extending it. He landed gracefully and greeted Lance with a rueful smile. “I can only apologize for the delay.”
Lance waved his embarrassment off. “I figured you were tied up with something.”
Akio’s normally impassive expression flashed with momentary exasperation. “Our Queen generously assigned reinforcements to my quadrant,” he explained briefly. “Sabine’s group arrived, and it took a few days for them to get up and running.”
Return Of The Queen: The Kurtherian Endgame™ Book Eight Page 11
