by David Ryker
“According to us?” Quinn scowled. “Toomey confirmed it before he took off, in case you forgot.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything; I’m just telling you what we overheard. The plan stands: mount the assault as soon as possible. How long will it take to reach Oberon?”
“Fifteen days,” said Schuster.
Drake and King both blinked, eyes wide.
“Are you shitting me, boy?” Drake demanded. “That’s almost a week less than it took you to get back to Earth!”
Schuster shrugged. “We managed to build a more efficient engine, thanks to the help you brought in.”
Careful, Dev, Quinn thought. Don’t go overboard with the exposition.
“Then it’s definitely going to be a surprise attack,” said King.
“All right, then.” Drake turned to Quinn. “The next question is obvious: what did you people decide?”
Quinn took a deep breath and looked at his friends. Then he turned to King and Drake.
“We’re staying,” he said.
King frowned. “So say you all?”
The others nodded in unison.
“Perfect,” said Drake, brightening. “To be honest, I was almost thinking of ordering Sergeant Schuster to stay, regardless. His talents are irreplaceable.”
Quinn was surprised to see the ghost of a smile on the old man’s lips. He supposed it made sense, given the circumstances. The general had forced a concession from the people who’d been flipping the bird at him for weeks. They were under the his thumb once again. For now.
“What happens next?” Quinn asked.
Drake rose and crossed to the chamber door. He tapped the control panel at the side of it and it slid open to reveal a group of eight men in black uniforms, ranging in age from twenties to early forties. They stepped into the room and saluted.
“I took the liberty of assembling our assault team on the assumption you’d agree to that course of action,” said Drake. “Mr. King helped me choose them, just so you know.”
King looked like he had indigestion, but he stayed silent. Quinn scanned the men’s faces: they appeared to be no different from the other black uniforms the Jarheads had encountered since arriving back on Earth.
“Have they been briefed?” he asked.
“We know what we need to know,” said the tallest of them. “Sir.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow as Drake dropped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Alpha here is one of my top men,” said Drake. “I’ve used him on a number of missions.”
“What about zero-G experience?” asked Quinn. “You’ll be in space for two weeks before you arrive for the attack, and you’ll have to deal with different levels of gravity on the station itself.”
“Don’t worry about us, sir.” Alpha’s confidence bordered on arrogance to Quinn. “We’ve got experience in all sorts of environments. We’re good.”
Quinn looked to Bishop, who shrugged. It wasn’t their fight anymore.
“They know the basic plan,” said Drake. “Fly in with cloaks on, attack from space, drop the infiltration team to place the charges, and take out the wormhole generators, assuming they’re in position. If they’re still on the station, they’ll go up when it goes up.”
Quinn nodded thoughtfully. It was the plan he’d devised, almost word for word, but there were nuances that only the Jarheads could know, especially in regard to the technology Schuster had been working on. Also, Kergan and Toomey were formidable enough on their own. Together, they could very well be unstoppable.
That’s not your problem anymore, he told himself. So why was he still having such a hard time believing it?
“All right, then,” he said. “I suppose I need to relinquish command of this part of the operation, such as it is.”
Drake actually flashed a full-on grin now. “I appreciate that, Captain. And you people have your own roles to prepare for. We need to start working on how to make you undesirables in the eyes of the people again. First up, I think you need to send Tiffany Tranh on her way.”
Quinn shot a look at King, who appeared to be about as impressed as Quinn felt. But it made sense; if they were going to look like they were in custody again, they couldn’t have one of the world’s top defense lawyers representing them.
“Agreed,” he said. “She’ll understand.”
“And you’ll need to move back into your government accommodations under guard again.”
Quinn could practically feel the tension from his friends as that sank in. They’d gotten used to their freedom, and none were in a hurry to lose it again, no matter how luxurious their new digs would be. But again, they had to grin and bear it for the sake of the plan.
“Fine,” he said tersely. “But we need to discuss the endgame to all this first.”
“Of course,” said Drake. “Once the mission is complete, we’ll release you all and reveal the plan to the public.”
“How d’ye know they’ll believe it?” asked Maggott.
“Good question,” said Chelsea. “We’ve been through this before, in case you don’t remember.”
“I understand your reluctance,” said King. “But I think I can help with that.”
“How so?” asked Quinn.
“Because when we announce your innocence, we’re also going to tell the world that I’m still alive.”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “Are you sure about that, sir?”
King nodded. “It’s time. There are a lot of things going on in the world that need to change, and the time to start is now.”
“And you’re on board with this?” Quinn asked Drake.
“I’d rather the circumstances were different, obviously, but we’ve worked out a deal.”
Quinn was silent for several moments before nodding.
“All right,” he said. “We’re on board.”
“Perfect.” Drake clapped his hands together. “It’s good to be on the same side again, Captain.”
“I’m not a Captain,” Quinn pointed out. “The pardons are still pending.”
“Of course. They’ll be ready when the time comes.”
As the meeting broke, Quinn watched the black uniforms file out. He still had apprehension tickling at the back of his mind, telling him that they weren’t the right people for the job, but he couldn’t come up with a logical reason as to why.
He would discover a reason soon enough, however, and what followed would change the course of human history forever.
23
Grigori Tomalchev strolled along the razorwire fence that ran the perimeter of the so-called “relocation center” in what had once been known as Carroll Park, in the heart of West Philadelphia. Boys and girls stood outside the fence in the crumbling streets, hurling insults at him in English, which he had yet to learn. Calling him a dirty Russian, or a fucking spy, or a waste of air. It had been the same for weeks since he’d arrived at the center, along with two dozen other refugees from across his homeland. Grigori’s family were all dead back in Siberia, leaving him alone in a world he didn’t understand.
Then, always the same thing: another young man, older than him and bigger, would push him down and steal the small, rocklike loaf of bread that was his food for the day. And he would spring back from the ground and wrap a ropy arm around the boy’s neck, leveraging his strength with his body weight and the height of a nearby park bench to wrench until two vertebrae finally separated and severed the boy’s spinal column.
But that was only half of what he was seeing.
In his other eye was an engineering laboratory. His arms were much weaker now inside his white lab coat sleeves, but that didn’t matter because he had a small army of able-bodied men to carry out any physical tasks that he found demanding. They were all very unkempt, some in prison guard uniforms, others in orange jumpsuits. All of them sported the same blank stare as they carried out his instructions, assembling a trio of satellites some two meters in diameter. He had divided the toomium into smaller pieces, three of which fit in speciall
y designed power converters, one to each satellite.
Every time one of the drones would take away a piece of the element, Dr. Toomey felt a pang of regret. It was as if he were losing a small part of himself.
“Doctor!”
Kergan’s booming voice brought him out of his reverie, though it did nothing to dispel the confusion that he’d been plagued with for days. Was it days? How long had he been here? It felt like he was living different lifetimes.
The drones around him came to a standstill as Kergan crossed to where the three satellites sat on pedestals on the floor. They were in various stages of development, each with errant wires and circuits still jutting out at odd angles until the puzzles could be completed and fitted back together.
“Excellent work,” Kergan said with a grin. “I’d be happier if they were further along, but I know it’s been difficult for you, given your reaction to the proximity of the God Element.”
Toomey blinked. “The what?”
“A more accurate name for toomium, Doctor. It’s how the Gestalt thinks of it.”
“My name is Grigori,” said the teen, standing over the body of the boy he’d just killed. “I’m not a doctor.”
Kergan sighed and strode over to him. He slapped Toomey hard enough to prompt stars in the older man’s field of vision, and suddenly his perceptions were singular again. I’m in the lab, he told himself. On Oberon One. With Kergan. And my cheek hurts.
It seemed as if he’d lost all track of time since Kergan had punched him. Every time he tried to concentrate, his mind would split, leaving him unable to focus on anything except the tasks at hand: finishing his engineering work, and killing the boy who stole his bread.
“Sorry I had to do that,” Kergan said with what sounded like genuine regret. “But I’m afraid we don’t have time to fuck around, as Butch would say.” He grinned. “I love his imagery. Fucking around. It’s hilarious.”
Toomey was beginning to better understand Kergan’s references to himself as two beings, now that he’d had experience with the effects of toomium. It sparked burning questions in him about the very nature of consciousness and existence, but now was not the time to speculate on that. Completing the satellites was Kergan’s primary goal, as he’d made clear several times since his commlink call to Oscar Bloom. How long ago had that been? A day? A month? He didn’t know.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Kergan. “I very much appreciate your work on the amplifier. That was very important. But the quicker we open our end of the Span, the quicker the fun can really begin. And, of course, there’s always the slim possibility that we’ll need to use it very soon.”
The amplifier had been relatively simple for Toomey. He’d understood how the device worked very quickly, though not exactly what it did. He’d had an almost instinctive grasp of its inner workings, recognizing patterns that allowed him to simply expand the capacity of its existing mechanism. He’d been experiencing something a bit different with the satellites, as if his own voice was lecturing him inside his mind, passing along knowledge that he’d already known but had forgotten somehow, or didn’t have access to. Every time the answer came, it was followed by a sensation that he was remembering something, not discovering it.
And it was strangely addictive. He’d never realized before just how much he enjoyed the sensation that accompanied overcoming a challenge, and now, here on Oberon One, it was as close to sexual pleasure as he’d ever come in his life.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said. “What is this slim possibility? Why do you need everything so quickly? What did Oscar Bloom tell you?”
Kergan fixed him with a look and sighed, which made Toomey feel mildly ashamed. He knew that his sense of dissociation was having an impact on his new benefactor, and the last thing he wanted was to have Kergan angry with him. If he was ever cast out of this place, if he lost access to toomium—well, he didn’t want to think about it.
“I’ll explain it again,” Kergan said wearily. “Please try to grasp it this time, Doctor. For your sake as well as mine.”
Toomey nodded. “I will.”
“It wasn’t what Oscar said, it was what he did. He kept fidgeting and looking away from the camera. There were other people in the room when he made that call, and I’m betting these people were from the government. They were using him to try to get intelligence on what’s happening here on Oberon One.”
“Oh,” Toomey breathed. “I see.”
Kergan nodded. “I’m afraid the way you left Earth sent out some ripples, Doctor. The world watched it as it happened, and it got certain people to wondering what’s going on out here on the fringes of human space.”
Another flash of shame. He had, indeed, been duped by Quinn and his friends. Him, the smartest man on Earth.
“At first, I had high hopes that I could convince Oscar Bloom to use his influence to call off the dogs, as it were,” Kergan continued, scowling. “But Former Captain Napoleon Fucking Quinn just couldn’t be content with stealing my ship and making it back to Earth with his stupid friends. No, he had to go and tattle. I can just picture him, running to the government and telling them that I was doing something terrible out here.”
“It’s not terrible,” Toomey protested. “It’s wonderful. Once your friends arrive from the other side of the wormhole, we can truly begin the next phase in human evolution. The possibilities for advancement are inconceivable.”
Kergan smiled indulgently, as one would at a dim child. “That’s right, Doctor. You’ve only seen the very tip of the iceberg that the Gestalt offers your people. Don’t you want that to happen soon?”
Suddenly, Toomey felt like a child, one whose parents have told him he would have to wait until Christmas morning to open his gift. Suddenly, finishing the satellites and generating the wormhole that would bring Kergan’s species through was the only thing on his mind. The boy in the relocation camp was back in his memories, where he belonged, at least for now.
“I do,” Toomey said. “I want that more than anything.”
Kergan grinned widely. “That’s super, Doctor. I’m glad we’re finally on the same page with this.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Now let’s get to work! Time’s a-wasting! Meanwhile, I’ll got make sure the amplifier is ready for our guests when they arrive.”
The drones suddenly began to move again, resuming their tasks as if they hadn’t all frozen in place almost five minutes earlier.
Toomey got to work, feeling more focused than he had since he’d arrived on Oberon One, awaiting the thrill of discovery as he continued the task of piecing together the technology that would fold the space-time continuum itself and allow Kergan’s species to cross twenty-five light years in an instant. He allowed his mind to drift for just a moment, dreaming of all the possibilities that lay ahead.
Kergan sat back in his chair, propped his feet on what used to be Sean Farrell’s desk, and let out a sigh. This feeling—of satisfaction, of a plan coming together—was one of the emotions he most treasured. The amplifier was in place, and the Span soon would be. Smoking was obviously taboo on a space station, but if it hadn’t been, he would most certainly have fired up a fine cigar to celebrate.
He let his focus slip from his office over to the other world that the two entities sharing Kergan’s body had access to. The dimension of the mind, where there were no limitations—at least, that’s how it was for the others in the Gestalt. It was different for Kergan; merging with a vessel that was inextricably tied to the physical universe had, by necessity, dampened the entity’s ability to fully communicate. Once upon a time, he had shared every thought with the rest of the Gestalt, across the vast expanse of space and even time. Now, he could only perceive dim shadows of the fullness of their collective mind.
But he could see well enough to know they were pissed. Well, fuck them if they couldn’t take a joke.
The armada hung in space outside the Span’s sending apparatus, near the star the humans called Fomalhaut.
A thousand ships were packed with the insectile species that had been their foot soldiers in this arm of the galaxy for centuries. They had quick reflexes, long lifespans and a strong, armored musculature that made them excellent combatants, though Kergan doubted it would come to a ground war with Earth. Human technology wasn’t close to the level it needed to be to pose a significant threat.
Let them wait, he thought. As the other Gestalt were so fond of saying, time was of no consequence, at least to them. For Kergan, on the other hand, the clock was ticking. An assault from Earth was almost certainly on its way.
He sighed again. Toomey. He’d had such big plans for the doctor. If Toomey had just killed Quinn and the others when they landed on Earth, instead of allowing them to escape, things would have been different. They could have explored that big, wonderful brain of his together, maybe even charted a new course for both their species.
But by inadvertently exposing the truth before he left for Oberon One, he’d forced Kergan to make different contingency plans. That included increasing the range of the attenuation amplifier, to stop any assault on the station before it could even get close enough to be a threat. Unfortunately, that meant that Toomey himself would be subjugated by the omni-directional wave. Kergan would have access to his knowledge, yes, but not that unique imagination that made him so unique.
He hoped it didn’t come to that. It was still possible that the Span receiver would be ready before the assault team arrived. The last thing he wanted was to lose his new friend.
That made Kergan think of Iona Ridley. Like Toomey, she could have been so much more fun as she was, instead of the drone she’d become in the mass attenuation that was necessary to end the riot Quinn had started. The thought brought a wave of hot anger with it. It was all the fault of Quinn and his stupid friends, just like losing Toomey would be.
He would make sure that they paid. He hoped with all of his being that it would be them who came. They would almost surely be killed by the amplified wave as soon as they were in range, given their past exposure to attenuation. But if they weren’t, he would use their bodies as his playthings until he tired of them. He already had a couple of ideas: the giant would be his footstool, for starters, and Quinn would be his punching bag.
