Echo Rift

by G. S. Jennsen

  Her countenance hadn’t shifted; if anything, it might have softened a touch. “We don’t store people.”

  “But you do wipe them, or else ice them and send them off to Zaidam. So what’ll it be for me? I’m standing here before you, unarmed and defenseless.”

  “Lacese, if there is anything I learned about you on Namino, it’s that you are never defenseless.”

  “It was ‘Joaquim’ the other night.”

  “I was drunk the other night.” She sighed with what resembled existential weariness. Was it all part of the performance? She’d extracted the confession she’d sought. “No. I’m not going to arrest you, though only the gods know why not.”

  He relaxed a touch. Part of him had honestly expected her to do it. “Because you’ve got a soft spot for me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. Because Satair made you look like a saint. He lied to the other Advisors. He deceived us for his own nefarious purposes. He was a murderer and a poisonous influence on our society, and he deserved to be punished for his actions.”

  “A thousand times over, but I’m shocked to hear you say it.”

  “I try never to deny the truth…” she shot him a glare “…much as I want to sometimes. And the truth is, Satair deserved to die.”

  “But your vaunted Justice system doesn’t allow for it. In fact, to hear Weiss tell it, deletion causing final death is the single worst crime a person can commit.”

  She leaned against the back of the couch. “The Guides wrote those rules. Now they’re gone, and we’re free to make new rules. I suppose I’m rewriting a few of my own.”

  Damn, that was a sexy move on her part. How messed up was he to think so? He lifted his hands in a less confrontational gesture of surrender. “What now? I’ve laid my soul bare at your feet. You know my dirty little secret. You say you’re not going to arrest me, but if you spill the beans to Weiss, I guarantee you he will jump at the chance to put me away. So will you keep my confidence?”

  “You want me to lie to another Advisor—like Satair did.”

  “Not like Satair did at all. This would be in the cause of good.”

  She scowled at him over the top of her bottle. “What good?”

  “Keeping my mind intact and my body breathing free air?”

  “And?”

  “And you might need me around for the next Rasu invasion. Or the next time you’ve got an itch you can’t scratch.”

  She dropped the empty beer bottle on the table a tad roughly. “I can scratch my own itches just fine, thank you.”

  “Sure…” he wandered deliberately closer, invading her personal space “…but not the way I can.”

  “Damn you, Lacese.” Her breath was hot, her cheeks flushed, her body weaving its heady spell to trap him in its web.

  He smiled darkly. “No need. I’m already damned.”

  “Then maybe I am, too.” She hooked a hand behind his head and crushed her lips to his.

  26

  * * *

  SAVRAK

  Savradin

  Brigadier Akhar Ghorek walked the battlefield, his tail stiff and his teeth locked together by his jaw, like the military commander he’d always been and the leader of his people he now was. Only today, what he’d labeled a battlefield were in fact the ravaged streets of Savradin.

  General Jhountar was dead, killed alongside most of his top lieutenants in the explosion at the prisoner exchange. Mere chance had caused Ghorek not to be in attendance at the exchange that day; as a result, his life had been spared, but now he found himself the last person standing at the head of a non-existent military, a gutted government and an all-but-annihilated people.

  With the planetary defenses destroyed in earlier attacks across Savrak, a single Concord warship had been able to waltz in and bomb Savradin into literal dust before Ghorek’s last three flight-worthy vessels had managed to overtake and destroy the Concord warship using antimatter missiles. Two of the Savrakath vessels had been destroyed in the engagement as well, however, leaving him with a single, solitary warship and a scant four antimatter missiles secured in its hold. If a new Concord warship showed up now, he’d need to decide whether to sacrifice his last viable weapons to eliminate it or to save them for some grand, suicidal final act.

  Nothing worth bombing remained standing here for them to destroy, but Ghorek no longer believed Concord acted rationally. He’d known for some time that they were bullies and tyrants, but now he judged them to be monsters. Rather than allow his people to pursue their own safety and security, Concord intended to eradicate them from the universe. And they might well succeed. But, he thought, he should make them regret their actions either way.

  He looked to his left to see a child sitting on the broken sidewalk, covered in dust and blood, cradling the head of an adult Savrakath in his lap. Young enough for sentimentality not to have been beaten out of him. If their people survived this trial, the child would grow up to carry a world-breaking chip on his shoulder and a deep and abiding hatred for Concord. If their people survived this trial, in time Ghorek could work with such hatred. He could use it to build a new military, one that would never stoop so low as to negotiate with its enemies.

  He’d once believed Jhountar’s rage and bloodlust was irrational and counterproductive. Now, though, surrounded by the ruins of their once-mighty civilization, he decided Jhountar hadn’t been nearly aggressive enough.

  His tour next brought him to a flooded intersection. The swamp was rising up out of the soil to reclaim its land. He sighed to himself, then pivoted to face the two aides who trailed along behind him. “I’ve seen enough. Tell the medical squad to round up anyone who still lives and move them to the camp we’ve established outside of the city, then meet me at Site 2A.”

  Site 2A

  A wide swath of jungle trees and runaway overgrowth hid the military’s emergency fallback site from prying eyes overhead. Ghorek himself only spotted the vague outlines of tents and large crates once his shuttle was descending through the canopy.

  He had set up the site on Jhountar’s order—one of the man’s last—as a location to gather all their remaining antimatter weapons. Then Jhountar had been murdered and Concord had attacked anew, and Ghorek had used those weapons on the attacking enemy vessel. But instead of abandoning the site, he’d ordered his highest-ranking officers and scientists to convene here in the jungle.

  He’d made his decision during the trip from Savradin to Site 2A. If he used his last antimatter missiles on the next Concord attack, it only forestalled the inevitable. Yet another Concord attack was certain to soon follow, and at that point they would be utterly defenseless until the end. The brutal truth could not be denied: there was no way for him to win this war.

  Best to leave a mark that Concord wouldn’t soon forget, then.

  Savrakath vessels were marked as shoot-on-sight in Concord space; they’d tested Concord’s so-called ‘Red Flag’ decree and found the enemy perfectly willing to follow through on the decree’s threat. Therefore, sending his final warship against a Concord target was an exercise in futility and an impotent gesture. The antimatter missiles had limited range, and the warship would never get close enough to hit a worthwhile target.

  But there must be another way he could make Concord pay for slaughtering his people. His gaze traveled across the hastily erected tents and the covered crates to where their sole surviving warship sat ‘docked’ upon wooden planks to keep it from sinking into the muck…and the beginnings of an idea stirred in his mind.

  He spoke to his chief aide without turning toward him, trusting the man had followed him on his meandering journey across the site. “Is Dr. Khalik still alive?”

  “As of this morning, yes, sir.”

  “Get him here. And bring in a small paramilitary tactical squad as well. I believe I have a mission for them.”

  Ghorek cornered Dr. Khalik the instant the shuttle carrying him landed. The scientist was overly frilled and weak, but Ghorek nonetheless respected the man
’s intelligence. “Can you package the antimatter from our missiles into a portable bomb?”

  Khalik’s eyes swept across the site, taking in and likely cataloguing the purpose of every individual, crate and object in sight. “A significant portion of it, yes. Some amount will be degraded during the transfer.”

  “Can you package enough to destroy a large space station?”

  “How large?”

  Ghorek chose his words carefully. Desperation made people stupid, and he couldn’t trust any single person with the full details of his plan. “Several kilometers in diameter.”

  “Hmm. We can repurpose enough to cause significant damage, but to destroy a structure of such size? We will need an additional catalyst to boost the explosion. How are you planning to deliver the bomb?”

  “Let me worry about the delivery mechanism—and the catalyst. Can you render the antimatter impervious to security scans?”

  Khalik’s honed teeth scissored across one another. “That will take more work. But I believe I can construct multiple levels of shielding to prevent it from being detected at anything less than very close range.”

  “How close of range?”

  “Perhaps two meters.”

  “Make the shielding as robust as possible. Spare no expense or effort. I’ll also need the bomb to operate on a remote detonation trigger.”

  “It will require yet additional work, but it is doable.”

  “How long do you need?”

  “For everything? If I have on hand the supplies and workers I will need to accomplish it all? Four days.”

  “You have two.” Ghorek pivoted and strode to the adjacent tent, where the tactical squad and the captain of the warship waited.

  “Soldiers, you are going to steal a ship.”

  The captain sputtered. “But, sir, we already have a ship.”

  “A ship that is marked for death in Concord space. You are going to steal one that is not so marked.”

  “But how?”

  Ghorek called up a map of this sector of the Antlia Dwarf galaxy. “Forty-eight parsecs from Savrak, the closest Concord installation, a commercial warehousing and distribution facility, orbits the star designated 48Cv. Most of the ships which visit the facility are cargo haulers or merchant vessels. We need to procure one of the latter.

  “Captain, you are to idle, stealthed, out of range of the station’s scanners and track vessels departing the facility. When you acquire a suitable target vessel, you will move in, disable it, board it, kill the crew—all except one member—and bring the vessel and the surviving crew member here. Do you understand the parameters of this mission?”

  A few hesitant questions followed, but the plan was straightforward enough for them to absorb the details and fill in the blanks within a few minutes, so he left them to their preparations. It wasn’t going to be easy to neutralize the merchant crew before they sent off a distress call without also damaging the ship, but Savrak tactical squads had ways of doing so.

  Ghorek grunted to himself as he headed across the camp to check on Khalik’s progress. The plan would work. There was no other option.

  27

  * * *

  EPITHERO

  Eren idly considered the assholes gathered around the dinner table while he sipped on expensive champagne. The apéritif was the first mood-altering substance he’d allowed himself to ingest since returning from Savrak, and he forced himself to sip it slowly. This wasn’t about drowning his sorrows in a haze of drunkenness; this was for show.

  He was the only asi in the room. He might be the only one on the premises. For what he assumed were security reasons, even the help staff were elas. He’d stopped caring about such caste distinctions long ago, but he doubted the same could be said for the rest of the people at the table. Possibly excepting Corradeo.

  Giora elasson-Idoni studied him from across the table as if she were a predator sizing up her next meal, and not the one soon to be presented on the plate in front of her. Though he’d never met her before tonight, she seemed to imagine she held some power over him, some right and authority to dominate him by virtue of her elevated status. He’d like to see her try.

  Seriously, he would like to see it; the rearrangement in her thinking he’d deliver would be…satisfying. The Kyverns at the table—Ferdinand, Basra, plus two he didn’t know by sight—scowled at him in the way they did to all Idonis, with disdain bordering on disgust at the wild, unruly nature of the entire Dynasty dripping from their dour mouths. The Machims mostly pretended not to notice him. He’d received the curtest of nods from Casmir, but no acknowledgments from the others.

  The truth was, many of those at the table harbored too much festering ill will toward the man sitting at the far end to be bothered with sparing much for Eren. They’d been bickering and sputtering like spoiled children used to getting their way ever since he’d arrived, and thus far they appeared unable to deploy any coping mechanisms when that was denied them. In fact, only a few had explicitly recognized Corradeo’s authority so far.

  Corradeo, however, was demonstrating patience beyond any limits of where a normal man would have blown a gasket, followed by blowing up the entire estate (or maybe that was just Eren). Now, after an afternoon jam-packed with incessant arguing and escalating tempers, Corradeo had insisted they simmer down the stress level by all sitting down for a friendly, no-business dinner. Under any other circumstances, Eren would have excused himself for the evening, as enduring a formal dinner with thirty elassons had to be in his top five worst nightmares. But this dinner, he wasn’t going to miss for anything.

  The doors to the dining room opened, and two of the omnipresent guards escorted in—

  Eren’s blood turned to ice. He’d known this moment was coming and had tried to prepare himself, but he still had to forcibly cement himself to the seat of his chair. For now, for now, for now.

  Torval elasson-Machim jerked a rough nod in greeting to his fellow Machims, then zeroed in his gaze on Corradeo. “You’re dead.”

  Though the man must be growing tired of having to explain this peculiarity for the thousandth time, Corradeo began elucidating it for 1,001st time without a trace of annoyance in his voice. Eren had heard it all several times over by now, so he tuned out the words to focus in on his enemy. The man’s skin had the faint sheen of recent regenesis—twice in a single week, if one was keeping count. His dull brown hair was trimmed in a perfect military buzzcut, and his new body bore no markers of the torture inflicted upon him by the Savrakaths. A small smile grew on Eren’s lips as he recalled how Torval had looked chained up in the belly of his ship.

  After some back-and-forth and a reassurance from Casmir, Torval seemed to accept the situation for the time being and moved to sit between Casmir and Hannah elasson-Machim. His eyes swept across the table, then abruptly jerked back to Eren. He flung the chair he’d just occupied away and stood once again. “Fuck, no. This Idoni fop kidnapped me and handed me over to the Savrakaths. Arrest him now.”

  Corradeo steepled his hands at his chin. “I am aware of Eren Savitas’ actions, and they will be addressed in due time. Please sit and enjoy your dinner.”

  A tiny flare of pride bloomed in Eren’s chest at the man’s use of his preferred name, but Torval shot Corradeo an incredulous glare. “I don’t care who you claim to be. I am not sharing a table with this psycho.”

  Corradeo calmly, deliberately nudged his chair back and stood. “Eren is my guest, as are you. Sit down and eat your meal.”

  Wow. Corradeo’s voice had not raised above a conversational tone, but his words thundered about the room with the authority and gravitas of Zeus himself. Eren had never seen the man do that before, but damn, such a skill was going to come in handy during the struggles yet to come.

  Torval blinked, stunned into silence. Finally he turned to Casmir, who placed a hand on Torval’s shoulder and applied appropriate pressure to urge the man down into his chair. Seemingly at a loss, Torval shook his head—and complied.

&nb
sp; “Thank you, Torval.” Corradeo gestured toward the doors as they opened again. “Ah, I see our first course has arrived. Excellent timing.”

  Servers ushered in platters stacked high with soup bowls, and Eren nodded a thanks when a bowl was placed in front of him. He brought the glass of champagne to his lips and held it there to obscure the fact that he was not partaking in the soup. At a cursory glance, everyone would assume he was trying to get blitzed as swiftly as possible. He was an Idoni, after all.

  He noted with interest when Corradeo placed a discreet hand on Casmir’s arm and leaned in to whisper something, leading Casmir to set his spoon down. Corradeo appeared to have taken a liking to the Machim. Eren had once heard a rumor that Casmir was the one who alerted the anarchs to the Machim Primor’s attempt to deliver a Tartarus Trigger to Humanity’s home universe. He’d dismissed the rumor at the time, but perhaps it was true?

  It took a herculean effort on Eren’s part not to stare malevolently at Torval as the time drew nearer. He dared not tip the man—or anyone—off, and this required him to play the part of docile lackey until the fateful moment. Instead he inhaled enough of his champagne to justify a refill and flagged the server down.

  He was raising the newly full glass when the first rumblings began. A Theriz—Lars, he thought—frowned and began massaging his temples. Across the table, Giora’s spoon clattered onto the table as she brought a hand to her forehead and her chin to her chest. “I don’t feel well.”

  Ferdinand coughed into his napkin, started to stand, and collapsed back in his chair. “Neither do I. Something’s wrong with the soup…have a word with the kitchen staff….” His hands came to his head and clutched raggedly at his hair.