by Gun Brooke
“Sleeper cells consisting of ultra-powerful changers and their sponsors. I’m sure you must have seen something about them in your visions?”
“I have seen groups of people, shadowy, like through a haze. I never know who they are, nor do I see any faces or where they’re located.”
“That’s because of the shelter-minds.” Foy sat down next to his husband and looked kindly at Caya. “They can block other changers, like you, who possess amazing perceptiveness, and Tomita, who can track like nobody I’ve ever seen. The fact that you have seen them at all shows the level of your power.”
“Then what happened? After you became a member?”
“I learned a lot about them, but then I got too cocky. When I had to attempt to alert the authorities, I blew my cover…and they caught me. As punishment, and a means of eradicating me, they injected me with white-garnet-infused TPN.” Tomita shuddered.
“Do the authorities know of them, these sleeper cells?” Caya swallowed, wondering how many of these people were out there, merely waiting to prey on the innocent passengers aboard Pathfinder.
“They are aware of the threat. They call them terrorists, which fits well, but I don’t think they know just how organized they are—and definitely not that one in each cell is a particularly powerful changer. We call them super-changers. We have debated how to alert the authorities to the sleeper-cell situation, but we’re torn.” Aldan looked gravely at Caya. “That’s where you come in.”
“What do you mean?” Caya wasn’t sure she liked where this was going. She needed to find a safe way to get back to Thea and to work with Briar.
“Like we told you, we lost our seer. We need you to take her place, or we won’t be able to fulfill our destiny. We have to keep Pathfinder safe and help her reach her destination. Time is running out, and for you to appear here is an amazing sign. Your visions will be enhanced by Aldan’s potions—which are safe to ingest, I assure you—and together we can get to work.” Tomita took Caya’s hand. “You can probe my past as much as you like to learn the truth. Aldan and Foy as well.”
“I already did. Some.” Caya looked into Tomita’s bright-green eyes. “I just can’t understand how many changers can exist aboard right under the noses of the authorities. I was sure Briar and I were the only ones. Kind of arrogant, I suppose.”
“Not really. We all live in our respective realities. You were sheltered and homeschooled. We were sent to underground changer schools by a mother who was a peace activist. We all have our perspective, and our prejudices, I suppose.” Tomita shrugged.
Caya knew Tomita was right. This was one of the reasons Thea and she had fought their feelings for so long, or part of it at least. Now when Caya saw Thea as an equal, instead of an iconic president on a pedestal, she also understood the toll being the president took on her—and why she had to make unpopular and hard decisions when she really didn’t want to. Caya rested her chin against her knees as she hugged her bent knees even harder. “These super-changers…do you know the identity of any of them?” The repercussions of what they were telling her made Caya nauseous, but if she didn’t get a handle on what they knew, she’d be of no use to Thea and Pathfinder.
“I was only allowed into one meeting, and by then they had donned their masks. I had ingested one of Aldan’s subduing potions so they wouldn’t peg me as another changer. That meant I couldn’t put any trackers on them.” Tomita looked apologetically at Caya. “From what I saw, they consisted of ten women and ten men—one leader from each cube—and they referred to each other by that number. I also heard rumors about a woman, a changer with mythical powers called Grand Superior. This topic was forbidden, but people are people, no matter their background. Gossip is popular. The fact that nobody on our levels ever saw her, or heard anything that might hint at her identity, showed what a grip the leaders have on their members.”
“Yet you feel quite safe telling me all this?” How could these three be so sure they could trust her?
“You’re Caya Lindemay. You’re the one the super-changers refer to as the Seer, the changer they want to get their hands on to use against the president.”
“I would never allow that to happen.” Caya stood, too jittery to sit still on the bed. “I would rather die than betray the president or the people aboard Pathfinder.”
“I think they know this, which is why they hoped to spring this surprise attack on you and take you in before you could self-terminate out of sheer loyalty.” Aldan rested his chin on his palm. “We have to find a way for you to return safely to President Tylio’s side. As we don’t know if more guards than the one that attacked you are compromised, you need to take an obscurity potion.”
Caya was ready to do just about anything to get back to Thea and her sister. She wanted to talk to Briar about what she’d just learned. More than that, she needed to inform Thea and help devise a plan to take down the super-changers and their…what did Tomita call them? Their sponsors?
Foy looked pointedly at Tomita. “She needs to learn about the orb before we do anything. It belongs to her now, as only a seer can harness its power.”
“I know.” Tomita sighed. “It’s just that it’s been a part of my mother for so long. When I hold it, I can feel her even if I can’t make the orb enhance my gift.”
“What orb?” Nonplussed, Caya watched as Aldan pulled out a drawer hidden in the bulkhead beneath the bed. He removed a large box and placed it between them.
“This is yours now, Caya.” He opened the lid and pulled back a silky golden fabric. Something that looked like a stone orb, its diameter approximately twenty-five centimeters and its surface rough and crackled, lay among the fabric. “Pick it up. It’s the only way to find out if we’re right.”
Nervous now, Caya placed her hands on the orb, only to yank them back when the stone object began to hum. “It—it moved.”
“Excellent,” Tomita said, her eyes welling with tears.
Caya gathered her courage and picked up the orb. It hummed faintly and felt oddly warm and smooth against her palms. As she turned it in her hands, it emanated a low tone and began to glow. First it was barely visible, and then the sound increased and the glow became a bright light.
“Hold it over your head,” Tomita said and stood.
Caya did as Tomita suggested and held it up on straight, slightly unstable arms as she sat on the bed again. The tone turned into a piercing whistle, and yet another vision hit out of nowhere. She froze, and the last thing of the present she saw was how the orb rose to hover above her palms. Gentle hands guided Caya to lie down. The orb spun faster as her mind went to that place where the future waited.
Smoke was everywhere. Caya coughed at the acrid taste it forced into her mouth and down her airways. Alarm klaxons blared, people ran in panic, some carrying people with burns or broken limbs. Pressing her back to a bulkhead to stay out of the way, Caya felt how Pathfinder shook and stomped beneath her feet.
Tearing herself out of the vision, Caya gripped the orb between her hands. “We’re going to be too late. We need to make our way to cube one. I have to talk to the president, and the three of you have to be there as well. I need to borrow one of your communicators while we’re in transit.” Caya turned to Aldan, handing him the orb. “Put this away for now. You can tell me more about it later, but we don’t have time for more experiments right now. Do you have any of your obscurity potion on hand?”
“I always do.” Aldan opened a cabinet by the far wall, pulling out four bottles. “These hold four doses. One dose lasts about an hour, and then you must replenish.”
Caya nodded and drank a fourth of the bottle. “Creator,” she said, wheezing. “That’s strong.” It tasted similar to the moonshine brandy her young friends among the Vantressa clan had once offered her.
“It sure is,” Tomita said, coughing a few times. “Now, tell us what you saw?”
“The destruction of Pathfinder, or at least part of it. Does that match what your mother saw?”
“I’ll say.” Aldan pulled on a jacket and hung a bag over his shoulder. “The potion works into our system fast. Let’s go.
Caya’s head still hurt from the cascade of visions, but she pulled her hood up and followed. She trusted her new friends, the first ones she’d had of her own kind except her sister, to know the fastest way to cube one.
Chapter Seventeen
Thea hadn’t received any word regarding Caya’s current status, and nobody had been able to locate her. Her stomach trembled, and she wanted to magically find room for a few moments to just breathe. Instead, she was in one communication conference after another and read written reports on her computer tablet.
“Time to head for the bridge, Madam President,” Thea’s first assistant said from the open door. “Fleet Admiral Vayand, cube one’s captain, and three of your cabinet members are already there.”
“Fine.” Grabbing her coat, Thea hung it over her shoulders as she strode to the jumper gate. “I hate to repeat myself, Palinda…”
“I was just getting to that, sir. No reports from the search party. No messages from Ms. Lindemay. Briar Lindemay checks in every fifteen minutes, precisely. I’m sorry, sir. I know every single person who is not on duty elsewhere is looking for Caya.” Palinda shook her head. “I wish I had better news.”
“So do I.” For the first time during her presidency, Thea wondered if she was going to be able to hold it together. Her mind strayed to Caya, to the image of how she looked when they spoke quietly about their feelings. No, they hadn’t confessed to love in so many words, but they had both spoken of belonging together, to each other. More than anything else, Thea regretted not waking Caya this morning. So much could have been different…and Thea might have found the time, and the courage, to tell Caya that she loved her more than anything or anyone else in her life.
As they reached the bridge, Korrian glanced up and acknowledged Thea’s presence with a nod. She worked at her console with a deep frown marring her forehead. Behind her, Meija stood by her smaller console, no doubt interpreting what they could find out about the sabotaged buoy.
“Madam President.” Fleet Admiral Vayand came up to her, his face serious. “We have interpreted the telemetry from the buoy. Not only is it clear and obvious sabotage, but the next buoy’s faint signal shows it’s been tampered with also. Perhaps fired at.”
“Fired at while in subspace?” Thea thought that was impossible. “How, and who?”
“The individuals behind this have managed to coax the buoys out of subspace. They didn’t even have to get them all the way back into regular space to cause damage to them. You have been briefed about how fragile they are when handled. Only the fact that they were supposed to sit sheltered in subspace made it possible for us to use such sensitive technology.”
“Admiral Heigel?” Thea motioned for Korrian to join them. “An update, please.”
“The closest buoy has indeed been fired upon. The blast shows traces of alien alloys and chemical compounds. I never suspected the buoy situation to be part of the domestic issues with terrorism, and now we know. This is an alien presence. I recommend we go to level-one alert. There’s a reason whoever is behind this doesn’t want us to gain access to the information collected by the buoy.” Korrian rapped her nails against the console next to them. “From what I’ve read of the advance team’s logs while enroute to Gemocon, this makes me think of the—”
“Alachleves.” Thea had read Admiral Caydoc’s log entries at least ten times—everything from the ordeal on the planet with poisonous rodents, where the admiral had almost lost her life, to the battle with the Alachleves. Caydoc had placed these buoys to show Pathfinder safe passage, which meant that either the Alachleves had expanded their territory, or some rogue ships had happened upon the signals and figured out how to retrieve the technology. Either way it was bad news.
“Any way to boost sensors, Commander Vantressa?” Vayand asked, and only now did Thea spot a very pale Adina over by the engineering console. She had thought Adina would have remained with Briar, but of course at this level of emergency, Pathfinder’s chief engineer had to be at her post.
“I’m reconfiguring them to give us another couple of parsecs for our long-range sensors. I’m having some trouble fine-tuning them, though. Some form of blocker or scrambler seems to be deployed in this sector.”
“I want to know the second anyone here notices so much as a grain of space dust in the wrong place.” Vayand turned in a circle, meeting the eyes of everyone on the bridge. “We are closing in on our future home. Let’s keep Pathfinder in one piece till we get there.”
“Sir,” Meija came up to them. “If the Alachleves have expanded their space—there’s a risk their border is now perilously close to Gemocon.”
“We’re not going to allow anyone to violate our borders or a peaceful vessel like Pathfinder.” Vayand stood rigid, and he made for an impressive sight with his long, gray hair and well-maintained body—especially for a man in his seventies. His steely grey eyes kept vigil over everything that took place on the bridge. “Admiral Heigel, we need to put a few more safety measures in place—”
The alarm klaxons went off all at the same time. Moving over to the president’s seat, Thea sat down and felt the automatic harness sling around her body and tighten it in place.
“Report,” Vayand barked, not sitting down, which was against protocol. “Lieutenant?” He motioned toward a woman at the operations station.
“All of our long-range sensors are showing approaching vessels. They’re matching our course and speed.”
“On the main screen. I want to see where these devils are coming from. Change course and reduce to magnetar two. I’m not about to take a volley at maximum magnetar.”
Thea studied the sensor readings on the main screen. She had learned quickly how to interpret the colorful lines and dots, and now she could tell that at least twenty vessels of different sizes were on their way to intercept. “Can’t we outrun them, Admiral?” she asked Vayand.
“I don’t think so. Had we been traveling with any of the Advance ships—yes, perhaps. But this big chunk of metal? No.” Vayand came over to her. “Sir. I think you should give the order for everyone to go to their designated secure station. At this time, the people need to know their president is at the center of things.”
“All right.” Thea pressed the sequence on her communicator that would allow her to do so. “Passengers and crew of Pathfinder. This is Gassinthea Mila Tylio, your president. I urge everyone to follow protocol and proceed to your safe station, quarters, or any public facility deemed an appropriate safety area. Strap in your children and the elderly. Don’t forget your pets. We are currently under attack, and until you hear from a member of the bridge crew telling you it is all right to walk freely again, remain in your seats. This is not a drill, my fellow Gemoconians. This is reality. Be safe in heavenly splendor. Tylio out.”
It was as if the aliens approaching them had just waited for her to end the alert. She barely had time to lower her hand from the communicator before the barrage of missiles began drumming against Pathfinder.
“Drop out of magnetar drive,” Vayand barked. “Deploy assault craft units two, eight, and eleven. Standby units one, three, and twelve.”
An ensign at the first row of computers smartly repeated the order and punched in commands.
“Shields at eighty percent!” The lieutenant at the ops station called out the numbers. “Seventy-five!”
“Return fire. Target their weapons’ arrays, their propulsion systems, and if they don’t back off, their life-support systems.” Vayand spoke distinctly, making sure everyone heard him over the bustling activity on the bridge.
Thea gripped the armrests but knew she was secure in her harness for now.
“Unknown missile type incoming. Aiming for Pathfinder’s belly. Evasive maneuver patterns.” The ops lieutenant was sweating visibly now, but she kept her calm behind her console.
“Brace for impact,” t
he security officer said from his end. “We can’t outmaneuver this thing.”
“What about the assault craft?” Vayand asked.
“They’re engaging the enemy, but if they get in the way of this explosive device, they’ll be vaporized.” The security officer spoke curtly as she simultaneously kept focusing on her screen. “Our birds have taken out two of theirs.”
“Any losses among ours?” Vayand looked steadily at the screen that had shifted to the external cameras. The smaller screens around it showed all the different data, but Thea knew Vayand was of the old-fashioned type when it came to how he handled the bridge.
“One bird is down, sir. Pilot is alive, and I’ve marked it for retrieval later. We won’t lose her, sir.”
“I’ll hold you to it, Commander.”
“Impact in, five, four, three, two, one.” The ops lieutenant countdown was drowned when the alien missile hit. Pathfinder shook and stomped so violently Thea had to press the back of her head against the headrest, engaging the cranium harness that wrapped around her forehead so fast it felt like being lashed by a whip. She watched the screen, mesmerized and sickened by the violence aimed at her people. She wasn’t surprised when, half an hour later, Vayand finally gave the order she had been expecting.
“All cube captains, this is Fleet Admiral Vayand. Commence full separation. Once it is completed, scatter according to pattern eight-zero-milo-quippo. Once the scatter-sequence is completed, deploy safety crafts on all six sides and set shields to maximum.”
A chorus of affirmative answers was heard via the communication system, and on the left of the big screen, Thea saw the different symbols for the cubes began to turn red. Unlike the careful procedure of shifting cubes among each other, the emergency separation sequence was done at impulse speed.
It took less than fifteen minutes for all the cubes to scatter and thus divide the enemy. As the alien assault vessels moved among the cubes and fired at will, but in a decidedly less efficient manner, cube one moved away from the worst of the fire to lead the Pathfinder forces. Vayand conferred with his counterparts in the other military branches, and eventually, the fight began to turn to their favor.
