Richard Navick parked his skycar on the east end of the nearly empty dirt lot, then exited the car and took in the scene. A rustic, real wood-frame lodge sat on the banks of a lake to the south of the parking area. In every direction, forested mountains jutted into the sky to cradle the lake, and a slight breeze added a distinct chill to the air. It was an overcast day, and the water churned a muted indigo beneath a canopy of steel clouds.
Lake Boscosa was situated almost six hundred kilometers from Cavare and ninety kilometers from the nearest town, deep in the Alba Mountain Range to the north of the capital. Will had taken him to visit many vacation spots on Seneca over the years, but none so remote as this.
A dock extended out from the lodge into the water; at the end of it, an open-air boat rocked on the languid waves, where a large man in a floppy hat and a flannel shirt was lugging a cooler onto the deck. The man dropped the cooler in a corner, turned around and, spotting him in the distance, waved him forward. “Richard! Down here!”
Richard grabbed his jacket from the passenger seat and set off toward the lake. As he drew closer, he noticed the dock spanned the length of the lodge and then some. Two berths held tied-off boats, and another three sat empty.
As soon as he reached the boat, Graham Delavasi produced two beers from the cooler and offered him one. He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted one until he held the cold, frosted bottle in his hand. He opened it and took a long sip, then scrutinized the interior of the boat. “I didn’t bring a fishing rod. Or bait. Or whatever else one uses to catch fish.”
“Not a problem.” Graham gestured to a pile of supplies in the rear corner as he settled into the captain’s seat. “A full set of gear comes with every rental. Besides, we don’t actually have to catch any fish if you’re not so inclined. We can just putter around the lake in circles and drink beer.”
Richard laughed. “That might be better, if I’m being honest.” He watched in growing curiosity as Graham fired up the motor and guided the boat away from the dock at a gentle speed. “I know you said you’d ‘retired,’ but I didn’t believe it. You’re going to…I was about to say you’re going to live another hundred years, but now that you made it this far, you can live forever. Are you seriously intending on spending eternity running a fishing lodge for tourists?”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
“Not much for easing into things with a spot of small talk, eh?”
Richard shrugged. He’d known Graham for many years now, and the man had never met an etiquette he didn’t ignore.
Once they were a hundred meters or so out onto the lake, Graham engaged the autopilot and spun his chair around to face Richard. “Aristide stepped down after his last term and moved to Elathan to run a nonprofit group. Gianno is, obviously, gone. You and Will left for the bright lights of Concord. I guess what I’m saying is, when The Displacement happened, the world got a lot bigger—which meant my world got a lot smaller.”
“I have asked you to come work with us at CINT at least once a year for the last thirteen years.”
“I know.” Graham took a fulsome swig of his beer. “Most gracious of you. But I am set in my ways and too old to learn new tricks.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. I know the ins and outs, major players and small fries, of every gang, cartel and corrupt corporation in the Senecan Federation. But when I think about trying to start from scratch with seven alien species inhabiting thousands of worlds? Nope. Don’t want to do it.”
“It’s not that complicated once you….” Graham scowled at him over the top of his bottle “…okay, okay. I won’t browbeat you. But the world is a little less safe so long as you are out here on this boat instead of behind an intelligence desk.”
“Bah. The world’s getting along fine without me.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Graham adjusted a setting on the dash, and the boat slowed. “I figured this wasn’t entirely a social call.”
“Sorry. I am glad to see you, and this is a gorgeous place. I already want to come back here with Will and stay for a few days. Wander around the mountains. Maybe even learn how to fish. But yes…” Richard groaned, sank lower in his chair, and propped his feet on the top of the gunwale “…I could use someone to talk to right now.”
“It’s only me, the lake and the mountains, and we’ll all three keep your secrets.”
“And I thank all of you for it.” He rubbed at his jaw. “Where to start? I had a mole in CINT who helped ex-Senator Ferdinand orchestrate his coup attempt against the Concord government. My oldest friend went behind my back to steal my personal access codes, then used them to help Caleb steal one of CINT’s highly classified, highly experimental ships. I’ve been forced to issue an arrest warrant for Mia Requelme for breaking into the secure CINT server, impersonating both Miriam and myself, and issuing illegal orders to Anaden personnel during an active intelligence operation. And though I can’t prove it, I believe Devon Reynolds helped her pull it off. My entire department is leaking like a sieve, morale is in the ditch thanks to the coup attempt and Anaden defections…and now I’ve lost two of my closest friends and a valued colleague.”
“Shitty week, huh?”
“Shitty month.”
Graham fiddled with another setting on the dash. “Have you talked to any of them about all of this?”
“Oh, everyone’s very sorry. They were only doing what they thought was right and necessary and blah blah. And they’re not even wrong.” Richard sighed. “But I don’t care for being taken advantage of.”
“The easy thing for me to say would be how you’re too nice, and this is why people take advantage of you. But I’m an unrepentant asshole, and I’ve gotten taken advantage of far worse than you did.”
“What?”
“Come on. Don’t you remember that time my chief deputy was working for the Aguirre Conspiracy? She nearly got Isabela Marano and several other innocents killed while trying to ensure the Second Crux War never ended, and she did it all right under my nose?”
He conceded the point. “I do remember.”
“We’re all fallible, Richard. So go easy on yourself.” Graham paused. “I also remember a day, around the same time, when the world was spiraling out of control, and you broke every rule to work with me while our governments were at war with one another.”
“You’re saying that sometimes the rules are worth breaking…and that I used to know this.”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m simply reminiscing about the good old days with a friend.”
Richard grunted and finished off his beer. He hadn’t meant to drink it so quickly, but…. “Have I become a bureaucrat?”
“I am certain you have not. But if you ever do feel yourself becoming one, head out here and hang out with me—or by yourself, or bring Will—and catch some fish for an afternoon. You’d be shocked what nonsense it’ll make clear.”
Richard gazed out at the waves lapping easily against the hull, then farther, to the hunter-green forest lining the shore. “I can believe it would.” He glanced sideways at Graham. “So, do you want to come work at CINT?”
Graham guffawed and grabbed two more beers out of the cooler. “Hell, no. I’ve got fishing to do.”
4
* * *
KIYORA
Asterion Dominion
Gennisi Galaxy
She lay peacefully beneath the curving glass of the stasis chamber, eyes closed and features relaxed, slightly crooked nose and all. Already enveloped in a deep, dreamless slumber that could last a week, a month or an eternity.
Dashiel Ridani’s hand rested gently on Nika’s shoulder. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
She—the wakened version of herself—nodded resolutely and without hesitation. “I am. Splitting my consciousness into separate bodies was an intensely uncomfortable, if necessary, experience. The situation required it, but my everyday life does not. And if I ever desperately need to be in two p
laces at once again, I can wake this body up and reconnect to it.”
“I know you can. But you seem…sad.”
Was sadness the name for the strange, aching hollowness in her chest? Sentimentality, perhaps, but it had no basis in reality. It was simply unnerving to stare down at one’s own face beneath the translucent cover. “It’s not sadness. I told you, I’m not giving up anything or bringing an end to any part of a life. Everything that body experienced, I experienced. Her thoughts were my thoughts. There was no separation, so there’s no loss now.”
“If you say so.” He moved closer behind her and leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “On to happier topics, then. Did I thank you yet for last night?”
She chuckled quietly. “Once or twice. But you should really thank her.”
“What? You said there wasn’t any separation.”
She shifted around to face him, kissing away his growing puzzlement. “I did, and there wasn’t any. I’m just playing with you.”
“Something else you—both of you—have proved you excel at.”
“Quite.” She let the salacious and delightful memories of the night before drift through her mind…but reality soon intruded, and the responsibilities that came with it. “Come on, we’re going to be late for the Advisor Committee meeting. I don’t want to miss it, since it stands to be the first meeting in a while that doesn’t feature screaming, crying and gnashing of teeth.”
“I hope so. One never can tell.”
Try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself from taking a last glance back at the silent form lying in the stasis chamber. Then she pushed aside the perplexing, melancholy thoughts the sight stirred in her and followed Dashiel out of the room, closing the door behind her.
After stopping off at the clinic’s front desk to complete the authorization for the stasis chamber and its contents to be sent to medical cryo storage, Nika and Dashiel stepped outside into a warm summer Kiyora day. It was almost winter on Mirai, and she’d been carrying a jacket around all morning despite the heat here.
Dashiel stopped halfway down the steps and leaned on the railing. “Can I ask you something?”
She smiled as a gust of wind tousled his hair. It gave him an almost impish look, though she’d never voice such a scandalous notion aloud. “Always, darling.”
“Why…” his lips pursed briefly before he began anew “…why did you decide to keep the new body? I mean, it was created as a special-purpose weapon, and it fulfilled that purpose. The body you’re putting into cold storage, though? It’s been you for a great many years.”
“I know.” Even if I no longer remember most of those years. She extended her left arm in front of her and twisted it around; despite the bright summer sunlight, the glow in her skin was unmistakable. Its intensity still surprised her now and then. “I chose to keep this body because kyoseil is the answer.”
“To what?”
“To everything. We’ve scarcely begun to explore its true nature and capabilities, but you and I have both demonstrated how powerful it can be. And now that I’ve viewed the world through these kyoseil-saturated eyes, I can’t go back. Not until I’ve seen everything it has to show me.”
MIRAI
Asterion Dominion
Gennisi Galaxy
Nika and Dashiel walked into the Omoikane Initiative and were immediately greeted by a cacophony of sirens and overlapping shouts. So much for no gnashing of teeth….
Dashiel tapped the first person they passed on the shoulder. “What’s happening?”
The woman, one of Katherine Colson’s subordinates, gestured toward the far wall. “Rasu signatures are approaching Mirai.”
Here? A shiver chilled Nika to the bone, but she lifted her chin and projected her voice above the din. It was time to lead; hopefully events wouldn’t transform it into a time to fight. Not today. “Everyone, we knew this was bound to happen. Let them bounce off the Rift Bubble a few times, and they’ll lose interest.”
“I hope you’re right.” Dashiel scowled darkly as they approached the group of Advisors gathered in front of the primary panes along the far wall.
Only Lance Palmer and Adlai Weiss acknowledged their arrival, and she fell in beside Lance. “What’s the word?”
“Around twenty thousand Rasu vessels should reach the Mirai outer atmosphere in four minutes. Barely more than a scouting party.”
“They must realize what they’re going to find.”
“Damn straight—a planet that can’t be touched.”
She’d seen the Rift Bubble technology work its magic firsthand on Namino. Nevertheless, her pulse took off to the races as the first Rasu vessels came within visual range. This was her home, dammit. What if they had identified a weakness in the technology they could exploit? What if Mirai fell today?
Dozens of violet beams shot out from the largest of the Rasu vessels—and vanished into nothingness. Nika breathed out.
The attackers fired many more times, from different locations and altitudes, all to no avail. Finally, a tiny Rasu vessel accelerated forward. A sacrificial lamb? It reached the perimeter of the rift barrier and vanished as well.
As one, the Rasu pivoted and accelerated away. Nika gripped Dashiel’s hand, relief flooding through her.
Lance, however, growled over the erupting chatter. “Pull up the orbital feeds from Kiyora, Ebisu and Synra.”
Three of the panes shifted to views of the colorful profiles of the remaining Axis Worlds, and a hush descended upon the room as everyone…waited. The Rift Bubble for Ebisu had been delivered and activated a mere six hours ago; if the Rasu had shown up a day earlier, the planet would have been lost. It was an uncomfortable reminder of how precarious their situation remained, and of how dependent they were on the Kats’ technology and willingness to share it.
People were getting restless and moving on to actual work when a Rasu fleet, possibly the same one, showed up at Synra. The same sequence of events repeated itself as they watched on. She’d like to say it wasn’t as stressful as the first time, but she’d be lying.
The next several hours passed on a knife-edge of tension as relief replaced worry replaced relief over and over again. It was evening by the time the Rasu departed the last Axis World, Kiyora, and reappeared swiftly at Chosek.
The enemy must know by now all about how Chosek was a jewel of a planet—one that nurtured enough kyoseil to allow them to control a hundred million Rasu, if only they could crack the mysterious life form’s secrets. The data stored on Namino would have told them this when they pillaged it.
Of course they did know, which was why they tested the Rift Bubble protecting Chosek for longer than an hour and from pole to pole. Nika took comfort from the fact that Shoset and the rest of the Chizeru remained blissfully ignorant of the invaders trying so terribly hard to devour their civilization and take the planet and its resources for themselves. The rift barrier was located in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and with no telescopes or sensor technology, the Chizeru wouldn’t be able to see the ships. She wondered if some of them might nonetheless sense the malignant shadow looming over their peaceful existence.
Gods, what was with her and the melodrama today? Maybe all this kyoseil was screwing up her emotional processes. She should sit down in a quiet corner and take a look as soon as she had a few minutes.
After what felt like a veritable eternity, the Rasu fleet finally departed Chosek empty-handed.
At the first sign of their retreat, Lance went over and grabbed Adlai by the arm. “Announce the final Evacuation Order for the Adjunct Worlds. Right now.”
Adlai nodded soberly and gathered the other Justice Advisors together to hash out the logistics. Because the Adjunct Worlds weren’t protected, if the Rasu truly wanted to do so, they could spill Asterion blood today after all.
Nika wandered to one of the other busy tables. “Katherine, how many people are remaining on the Adjunct Worlds?”
Katherine looked up from a small pane in front of her. Worry lines a
round her eyes and mouth suggested she hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, and Nika felt a twinge of guilt. Katherine wasn’t an easy person to like, but no one could question her commitment to her job or to the Dominion. “Only about 140,000 across all the colonies, and of those, almost half have transferred their psyche storage to an Axis World. The footage from Namino provoked a change of heart in a number of previously recalcitrant people.”
“Good. Maybe we can get more of them to change their minds today.” She watched as Adlai, Selene Panetier and Julien Grayson hurried out and down the lift, presumably to oversee evacuations at the transit hubs. On the far wall, half the panes converted to display the sensor output from all twelve Adjunct Worlds.
Which one was it going to be? The closest to Chosek was Adjunct Rei, but she hadn’t gotten the impression distance mattered much to the Rasu. Shi and Hachi were probably the richest in natural resources, but what if the Rasu didn’t value the same materials as Asterions did?
The answer came almost two hours later, when red flashing alerts erupted in the top left corner of one of the panes.
“It’s Adjunct San,” shouted one of the DAF officers. The other boxes shrunk away as the feed from San enlarged. In seconds, the inky shapes of Rasu warships arrived to dominate the view. The first column fired their shots…and found the planet unprotected.
Lance paced in agitation in front of the panes. “Say the word, and I’ll have every ship in the air and every boot on the ground there in fifteen minutes. Let me defend it.”
Nika dragged both hands through her hair but shook her head. “We’ve talked about this. We’ve evacuated everyone willing to leave. We’ve moved all our sensitive or valuable data from the Adjunct Worlds to Synra. There’s nothing on San for them to take except the soil.”
“But we can fight them!”
“No, we can’t. Don’t you get it? There is an effectively infinite number of Rasu, and I imagine this scouting party of theirs will be joined by a lot of its friends any minute now. But every time we engage them, we lose people and ships, just when we’re on the verge of actually fielding a real fleet.”
Echo Rift Page 4
