Relativity: Aurora Resonant Book One (Aurora Rhapsody 7)

by G. S. Jennsen

  She studied the readings from the Rifter with half her attention while letting the ship cruise—then the other half of her vision caught a plume of flame in the distance 30° to her port, possibly on the lunar surface.

  What the hell was that?

  PRESIDIO

  GCDA HEADQUARTERS

  Field Marshal Nolan Bastian showed up on holo seconds after Morgan arrived in the conference room. She knew him by sight, but in her years as a flight commander with the Federation military their paths had crossed only in the loosest sense.

  Miriam acknowledged him in her usual no-frills manner while Morgan eased into one of the chairs. “You have an update on the incident, Marshal?”

  The holocam didn’t attempt to place him here in the conference room, instead tracking him as he moved around an office, presumably at the provisional Military Headquarters. “A plasma energy eruption occurred at 1821 local near the exterior of the Equipment Testing Annex on the perimeter of the Lunar SSR Center grounds. The Annex maintains its own force fields separate from the main Research Center facility, and both of the Annex’s protective fields were disrupted. The structure was physically ruptured, venting one-third of the interior air before internal blast doors sealed off the remainder of the building.

  “There were six fatalities on the scene, and three people remain in critical condition—two suffering from exposure and one from multiple shrapnel injuries.”

  “Is there any ongoing threat to the facility?”

  “Negative. Power has been restored to the force fields and temporary bulwarks have been placed over the damaged portion of the structure to seal the rupture.”

  Morgan leaned into the table. “Marshal Bastian, you called it a ‘plasma energy eruption.’ That’s an interesting choice of words. Why not label it a detonation or explosion?”

  He regarded her with a mix of curiosity and consternation, which was fine. She was used to befuddling high-ranking military officers. Besides, as the leader of all IDCC combat forces, she technically stood on equal footing with him.

  “Because of the nature of the work performed at the test site, we employ comprehensive vidcam monitoring of the facility and its vicinity. Here’s what the closest cam captured.”

  She started to protest how that wasn’t any kind of answer when footage began streaming to the main screen above the conference table. It showed a quiet scene recently familiar to her, with the only movement being the subtle shimmer of the Annex’s outer force field.

  Abruptly a silvery stream of energy materialized quite literally out of nowhere several meters outside the field. It surged into the barrier then tore through it, the internal force fields and the building they protected.

  Morgan sank back in her chair. “The stream looks a damn lot like the fire the test drones produce.”

  “My analysts tell me there’s an 82.4% likelihood it is precisely that.”

  She met Miriam’s inquiring gaze with a touch of anxiousness. The reason Morgan was in the room was because the Eidolon had been on the field engaging the test drones when the incident occurred. But she’d honestly expected it to be nothing more than coincidence.

  Solovy returned her attention to the holo. “Thank you, Marshal. I would appreciate it if you could forward me a copy of the cam footage so my people can analyze it as well. I will of course send you the entirety of their findings. I’ll see to it the families of the deceased receive official condolences from AEGIS.”

  Silence hovered for a moment as Bastian’s expression betrayed greater emotion than was appropriate for a man of his rank. “That’s it?”

  Miriam didn’t flinch. Then again, Morgan had never seen the woman do so. “We are at the beginning of an investigation, Marshal, and I will not make assumptions or jump to conclusions in the absence of persuasive data. I will endeavor to find answers, and the effort will be transparent within AEGIS leadership, of which you are a member. Now, please, let us do our jobs.”

  Morgan smirked at the response; she could have squelched it, but no one was paying her any mind at present. Solovy wasn’t exactly bosom buddies with Bastian the way she’d been with Gianno, was she?

  The Field Marshal seemed to accept the response, if reluctantly. “Very well. I will keep you updated, and trust you will do the same.” His holo vanished.

  Miriam exhaled and, after a few seconds, turned to Morgan. “Alex said the Rifter sent a weapon’s energy into…nothingness, or into a black hole of sorts.”

  “I don’t understand the physics the way Alex does, or even Devon, but we all believed that’s what happened. That’s what the equations say…but let’s be honest, no one’s ever derived equations like these before, and I’m not sure they will look any different if we discover the energy’s up to something else on the back end.”

  “How about other possibilities? What else might have caused the accident?”

  A surge of protectiveness welled up inside her. “It wasn’t the Eidolon’s fault, I can guarantee it. It didn’t do anything wrong—it performed beautifully, in fact. There could have been a drone malfunction elsewhere on the field, maybe? I’d encourage you to have someone review the status of all the active drones in the area around the time of the incident. But yes. It’s probably a glitch with the Rifter.”

  “What do you think the chances are the problem is isolated to this particular Rifter, or to the new, smaller model? I know you’re not an engineer—I’m asking for your gut instinct.”

  “Both are possibilities, but right now I’d have to say it’s just as likely the problem is inherent in the Rifter technology.”

  “Okay. Why do you say that?”

  The questions were intense enough she sort of wanted to flee, but they weren’t accusatory. Morgan got the impression the woman genuinely wanted to understand the problem, so she took a stab at it.

  “The drone strike the Eidolon fielded immediately before the explosion was point-blank. The laser traveled approximately thirty-six meters from origin to impact with the rift. To my knowledge, this is the closest hit a Rifter has been subjected to, by a wide margin, and the explosion occurred seven hundred or so meters away.

  “What if these terminus ruptures have been happening all along—they’ve simply happened too far away for us to realize it?”

  Miriam’s eyes widened briefly. “There have been no reports of unexplained explosions or physical damage associated with Rifter usage.”

  “Space is 99.9% empty void. Odds are, the expelled energy has never hit anything before.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a guess—and I’m the last person who should be guessing about this type of thing, so don’t take my word for it. Put your experts in ASCEND on it.”

  “I will. And I’m suspending all Dimensional Rifter use pending the outcome of the investigation, effective as of now. You and your team can continue to test the Eidolon’s other components, but only in deep space for now.”

  Morgan’s lips twitched. The Eidolon would be exonerated; of this she had zero doubt. And it damn well better be soon. “Understood.”

  “Thank you, Commander. Dismissed.”

  When Commander Lekkas departed, Miriam remained in the conference room. Her office brought a constant stream of distractions, but while she was in here and the door was shut, barring an emergency no one ought to bother her for a few minutes.

  The Dimensional Rifter was the best defensive tool they had in their arsenal, and she didn’t want to let it go. It had saved her life.

  But she recognized the hubris involved in blithely playing with dimensions they could neither see nor fathom. The fact that doing so held dangers should not be a surprise, and to ignore them would be the height of vainglory.

  “Thomas, what’s your off-the-cuff opinion?”

  ‘I have been analyzing the issue for 7.6 seconds. I am not certain this qualifies as ‘off-the-cuff.’ ’

  “I generally indulge your special brand of humor, but now’s not the time.”

  ‘Apologies. Crowdsource th
e problem.’

  “In what way?”

  ‘Your daughter and Valkyrie together might be able to unravel the mystery, but they are not here at present. Mr. Reynolds and Ms. Requelme are both highly preoccupied with more personal troubles, and Commander Lekkas admits she is not qualified. You have several talented scientists and engineers in ASCEND you can call upon, and you should do so.

  ‘But the fastest and most likely way to get the answers you need is to crowdsource it. To the Noesis.’

  “You think I should share the classified specs and capabilities of the Dimensional Rifter, plus the details of the incident at the Lunar SSR Center, with hundreds of thousands of non-military individuals—many of them hackers and counterculture enthusiasts—as well as their Artificials, of which we know nothing about?”

  ‘Miriam, they already know most of the information and are busily deducing the rest. Whether you intended it or not, your Volnosti victory set in motion the blossoming of a society and culture that is more open, more democratic and more autonomous than any which have preceded it.’

  She smiled wryly. “Are you saying such antiquated notions as top-secret military classifications no longer serve a necessary purpose in this ‘new society’?”

  ‘I am saying such notions have become irrelevant, whether they serve a purpose or not. Calling something secret does not make it so.’

  “So it doesn’t.” She fell silent.

  Arguably she should consult with a few others before moving ahead on Thomas’ suggestion—the GCDA Advisory Board, or at a minimum the EA and SF military and government heads. On the other hand, the whole point of her position was to transcend individual governments and proprietary militaries. The quiet state of emergency which had existed since the GCDA’s formation gave her the authority to act.

  She waited another ten seconds on the off chance a message from Alex would arrive along about now announcing her daughter’s return from Amaranthe, safe and sound, bearing scads of intel and an easy answer to the current problem. The ‘safe and sound’ part would be the most important, a thousand times over…but not necessarily the most opportune part.

  The clock ran down. Cognizant such a message could arrive in the following ten seconds or the ten after that but unable to wait any longer, she nodded to herself and the empty room.

  “Do it, Thomas. Authorization code AFX-21X93 Alpha Zulu. Wrap all the usual warnings around the data for appearances…but open it up.”

  20

  ROMANE

  IDCC COLONY

  * * *

  MORGAN HAD BEEN ABSENT longer than usual, and a packed slate waited on her by the time her transport landed back on Romane. She retrieved her skycar for the quick hop over to IDCC Headquarters while she scheduled meetings and made slivers of free time for file reviews and four mission sign-off requests.

  She was helping AEGIS because it was the right thing to do—and because she wanted a say in the next generation of combat attack craft—but no way in hell was she giving up her leadership position in the IDCC. Here, she mattered, and she wasn’t inclined to lie and say authority didn’t suit her.

  Harper was more amenable to giving copious time to AEGIS, but it was mostly due to the fact the IDCC ground response forces were now both well-trained and rarely needed. Before Jenner came calling, Harper was bored, which Morgan secretly kind of preferred in that it had led to some unexpected and deliciously wicked—

  ‘Proximity warning!’ Red lights flashed across the HUD, snapping her out of her reverie. What the—?

  A skycar slammed into her side of the vehicle at full speed, sending it lurching out of the airlane. ‘You are having an accident. Brace for impact.’

  “You think? Manual control!”

  The vehicle shuddered clunkily in her hands as she tried to pull up and level off. It was not a fighter jet—but she was a fighter pilot, dammit, and she was not going to fucking crash in a fucking skycar.

  Another impact and everything flung sideways, her included. Her neck jerked more violently than anyone’s neck should. Nope, this heap was definitely not a fighter jet. She blinked as her vision artificially refocused and her eVi activated provisional medical responses.

  Okay, so she was dealing with a rogue skycar then. Sent to kill her? A thoroughly rational conclusion. Fun.

  She fought the controls in an attempt to veer away from her pursuer, but acceleration functions had been damaged in the last hit and she failed to create any distance before the reprobate attacker struck again. With the jolt the adaptive cushioning gel deployed like a proper safety measure, promptly blocking her access to the controls and her ability to see.

  She clawed it away from the area right in front of her, shoving the insistent material to the side until she was able to grasp the controls again.

  The slender gap she managed to create in the gel revealed a glass high-rise looming due ahead. “Motherfucker—”

  The attacker slammed into the rear of her vehicle at the lower bumper. She went spinning end over end as the gimbal mount broke apart and all controls failed.

  She had microseconds to activate a distress signal transmission from her eVi. On the next revolution the front of her vehicle met the far stronger metal of the building, and everything went black.

  Brooklyn Harper didn’t bemoan the fact she now had more work than three people could do, because not long ago she’d had none. It felt good to work; it might even border on fulfilling.

  After months of struggling to find a new place in the world, one where she felt at home, she now found herself needed on multiple fronts. Important fronts. This did not suck.

  But the reality remained that work was work. She massaged her left shoulder to work out a kink before she prepped to head downstairs.

  The distress signal from Morgan sent her vaulting out of her chair and through the door simultaneously with activating her comm across multiple channels.

  HarperRF: “Romane Emergency Services, report to an incident at Rainaldi and Barclay. Expect injuries on the scene. Romane Tactical, provide backup and institute a two-block security perimeter. RRF Security, pull downtown cam footage from the last twenty minutes.”

  Skycars rarely had accidents, and Morgan certainly didn’t have accidents—not in anything that flew. Which meant whatever was happening was foul play.

  Well, hell.

  Emergency Services had already reached the scene when Brooklyn arrived. Rescue vehicles hovered in the air around a gaping hole halfway up the Galaxy First Communications building, and personnel surrounded a vehicle embedded between the first and second floors. Though crushed, its distinctive red and gold paint marked it as a rental from the main spaceport—not Morgan’s skycar.

  Her eyes darted up to the hole three hundred fifteen meters above.

  Focus, Harper. You have to focus.

  She jogged over to where an ad-hoc command post had been established on the ground, grabbed an ER officer by the arm and pointed. “Get me up there.”

  The man hesitated, then seemed to recognize her. “Yes, ma’am. The riser is about to take some additional equipment up. You can hitch a ride, but grab a helmet and gloves first. The wreckage is a mess.”

  His casual words chilled her to the bone, but her outward bearing didn’t waver. She retrieved the safety gear from the back of the emergency vehicle and hopped on the riser as it began ascending.

  During the twenty-second ride she prepared herself for what she might find in the rubble. She’d seen more than one crash scene—enough to know regardless of what it looked like, injuries could be treated and wounds would heal. The important thing in the early minutes was to effect the rescue, safely but quickly, in the narrow window of time when treatment remained an option.

  The walls of the building had bent and yielded, as they were designed to do. The glass had of course shattered to cover most of the surrounding surfaces and the ground below.

  Inside, the fixtures didn’t prove quite so sturdy as the scaffolding. Morgan’s skycar had p
lowed into a storage room—storage of heavy equipment. Racks and crates had tumbled down to bury the vehicle.

  She grabbed a lever included in the riser load and climbed through the open window. Two rescue personnel were working to move the heaviest, most unwieldy debris away from the wreckage, and a third passed her to retrieve the supplies from the riser. He eyed her briefly but didn’t challenge her.

  She ducked under a beam lodged diagonally from the ceiling to the rear of the battered skycar in order to reach the passenger side, then shoved the end of the lever under the edge of a thick slab of metal blocking access.

  “It’s not safe in here, ma’am!”

  “No shit.” She grunted, threw her muscle onto the lever and heaved the debris up and out of the way.

  “But you—”

  “Am RRF—now shut up and do your job.” The clatter of a rack falling to the side a second later suggested the man obeyed.

  The frame of the skycar had partially held, but impact with the robust building façade strained it to the brink of failure. The roof sagged down into the cab and the front and rear sections had crumpled.

  Harper strained to lift a long sheet away from where the right-side door should’ve been, but it didn’t budge; one end of it was trapped beneath a displaced rack. Another pair of hands appeared at the other end to hold the rack up while she yanked the sheet free and shoved it to the side. When she turned back, she found the interior was exposed.

  The adaptive cushioning gel had deployed as designed, coating the passenger cabin in soft, semi-pliable material then shrinking back once the impacts ceased to allow movement.

  Morgan’s bloodied, bruised right arm rested at an unnatural angle against debris that had fallen through the shattered windshield. Her legs disappeared beneath a mangled dash, but at first glance her chest looked intact and unpunctured.

  Her head was another matter. Her face was a swollen mess of cuts. Blood streamed down from a long cut above her forehead; her nose and mouth were both bloody. Worse, dried blood was caked beneath her right ear.