The lab had no windows, but she kept glancing over her shoulder through the open doorway to the wide windows of her office. There were flickers of soldiers rushing to and fro outside and the occasional blur of laser fire, but she was simply too far away to ascertain any details.
Troubled and increasingly curious, she escorted the next crate out of the lab and halfway through her office to get a closer view. As she motioned the men carrying it on ahead of her, the walls shook in a roaring crash and a massive fireball plumed outside the front window.
Off to her left, Major Yardua sprinted toward the exit while shouting into his comm. “Fighter down! Pilot did not eject—I repeat, pilot did not eject. Attempting rescue now.”
Aghast at the war’s dramatic arrival upon her doorstep, she stumbled backward until her hands found the wall of the lab.
One of the soldiers came up beside her. “Ma’am, the best thing you can do to help them is to help us get this equipment loaded faster.”
She shook her head roughly. “Right. We’re almost finished.”
Abigail exited the front door of the Institute to find a nightmare awaiting her. She froze at the entryway, halted by a tightness seizing her chest beyond the ache of the muscle she’d pulled lifting one of the crates.
Sagan was a lovely planet by any standard, flush with aquamarine waters sparkling under a vibrant primrose sun and bordered by verdant emerald hills. Now fire and smoke raged to devour the colors like ravenous beasts gorging on the landscape.
Debris rained across the bay in white-hot streaks. The water sizzled when the metal impacted, creating a layer of steam to hover above the surface. On the horizon a dozen fighters spun through the sky, locked in combat against more numerous strange tentacled alien ships. Closer, the Harbour Pointe entertainment district lay in smoldering ruins under the shadow of a mammoth superdreadnought.
Steps from where she stood, the wreckage of the crashed fighter jet was not yet smoldering. The twisted heap of metal still burned hot as thick smoke roiled to surround it. Five meters to either side two soldiers stood with SALs positioned on their shoulders and pointed upward. All the windows on this side of the building had shattered, leaving a carpet of glass to coat the entryway.
“We need to move, Dr. Canivon. Please follow me.”
She jerked her head clear, blinked past the shock and studied Yardua. On his arrival his uniform had been clean and well-pressed; now it sported streaks of dirt and soot and…perhaps blood.
“Of course.” A pack slung on her back filled with her most precious data and a change of clothes stuffed in the crevices, she accompanied Yardua along the path that led away from the Institute and wound around to the park adjoining it.
“Were you able to rescue the pilot, Major?”
His only response was a terse shake of his head.
On rounding the corner of the building she found herself standing thunderstruck for the second time in less than five minutes.
Sitting in the center of the manicured grass was in fact an Alliance frigate. It loomed large over the scattered picnic tables and benches, all of which were unsurprisingly empty. Burn marks had scorched two sections of the park, one worryingly close to the ship.
Soldiers hauled the last of her crates up the ramp of the open bay door while others stood guard, more SALs raised and pointed at the sky.
“It seems Alex was correct. Nothing is impossible.” She adjusted the pack higher on her shoulders and started down the hill.
The abrasive flooring beneath Abigail shuddered. The ship was taking off an instant after she climbed aboard. They truly had no time.
“Doctor, we need to get you strapped into a safety seat. The corridors are no longer safe, so we’ll be departing through the atmosphere.”
Yardua was prodding her toward a row of jump seats on the far wall of the flight deck, but she resisted his efforts. Part of her wanted to keep an eye on Valkyrie, but all the crates were lined in two layers of adaptive cushioning gel. Absent a crash, she told herself, the hardware should be safe.
“I’d prefer to be able to see if possible. Is there somewhere I would be secure with windows—er, viewports?”
The Major sighed. “Follow me. And please, hurry.”
They took a plain metal lift up what felt like maybe two decks then headed at a brisk pace along a hallway. Soldiers jogged past her in both directions, none of them sparing her the slightest notice. To a one they looked shockingly young and utterly competent.
Her guardian took a sharp left and opened a door to a small room—possibly a meeting room, though the military decor was so spartan she couldn’t be sure. As the door closed behind them the entire frame of the frigate began to vibrate. The scene out the viewport on the opposite wall suggested it was due to increasing atmospheric turbulence, not mechanical problems or an attack.
He gestured to several chairs attached to the wall. “These seats don’t have as much support as the jump seats below, but they do have basic safety restraints.”
The ship lurched hard to send her stumbling into the wall. Properly chastised, she followed the wall to the first chair and quickly sat. He activated the restraints, and her torso was yanked against the smooth upholstery of the chair.
“Thank you, Major.”
“Yes, ma’am. I need to attend to my duties now. Someone will return to check on you soon.” Then he was gone.
She tried to find a more comfortable position in the chair, but unfortunately the restraints had very little give to them. Making matters worse, her blouse clung to her skin in grimy patches and her scalp itched beneath dried sweat. Resigned to the discomfort, she peered out at the thick rust and gray clouds billowing past the viewport as the ship ascended through the atmosphere.
The impenetrable haze continued to swirl for so long she had begun to wonder if the ship was going sideways instead of up when the clouds finally thinned then vanished.
She had expected their disappearance to reveal the blackness of space accentuated by the pinprick light of stars. In their place it revealed a battle so breathtaking in its ferocity as to render the scene back on the planet a ridiculously pitiful skirmish.
Abigail had spent a number of years working on the periphery of the military. While she acknowledged the improvements in both medicine and technology which regularly occurred as a by-product of its mission, she had never approved of a culture that based its entire existence on the pursuit of warfare. It bred brutes and bullies and more than one sadist, but mostly it bred bureaucrats and drones.
The scene outside the viewport was enough to make her question four decades’ worth of assumptions and prejudices.
On a stage awash in vessels dancing a chaotic dance of death, a single confrontation captured her attention. One of the impossibly large alien superdreadnoughts, broken and afire due to multiple hull breaches, careened into the broadside of a frigate outwardly identical to the one she occupied.
The comparatively tiny craft cracked in two faster than a brittle eggshell. Golden flames poured out of each half as they ricocheted down the length of the alien vessel.
From above the viewport came dual laser beams to sear into the superdreadnought. One of the existing ruptures expanded under the new onslaught. The behemoth cavorted in fits and jerks like a marionette in a macabre burlesque.
The shadow of an Alliance cruiser grew above the scene—the source of the laser fire. She gawked, transfixed, as dozens of the tentacled ships swarmed around it, burning holes into its hull but not yet slowing its advance.
Two frigates joined in the assault on the superdreadnought, yet still it barreled forward to send crimson beams each as wide as a frigate tearing into yet another Alliance vessel.
Abruptly blood-red plasma erupted from the other side of the superdreadnought, pouring out in a shockwave as the vessel’s hull splintered along the plasma’s path until the ship literally disintegrated before her eyes. Jagged pieces of the hull shot out in every direction, skewering two fighters and ripping into
the impulse engine of one of the frigates.
A glimpse of an additional cruiser briefly emerged through the rubble as her ship accelerated away.
She huffed a quiet breath, here alone in this little room. The scene she’d watched had all been a decoy, a diversion to enable an attack from the opposite side.
As the sky began to darken she sank down in the chair. Her shoulders ached; she had been tensed forward in the restraints for some time.
She had just watched over a thousand Alliance soldiers die in the space of less than a minute. Yet the encounter would be considered a victory, for the enemy was vanquished. But at such a cost.
Perhaps she could reduce that cost? She considered what Alex had asked of her…and began to understand.
Abigail was deep in thought when the door opened. Rather than her previous escort, an older man in a nicer uniform with more officer’s bars walked in. She fumbled with the restraints but managed to release them before he was forced to aid her.
When she stood he extended a hand in greeting. “Dr. Canivon, I’m Lt. Colonel Oursler, commanding officer of the EAS Fitzgerald. I’ll show you to your quarters for the trip to Earth momentarily. But first, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what you possess that’s so important I was ordered by the head of the entire damn military to abandon my fellow soldiers and flee this battle so I can ferry you and eighteen tonnes of hardware to Earth. No offense intended.”
As recently as this morning she would have felt offended at the man’s rudeness and audacity in challenging her. But given what she had witnessed…she found she couldn’t particularly blame him.
Her expression drew tight with weariness after what had been one very long day. “Lt. Colonel, I believe I have the ability to ensure not only that the deaths of those soldiers today will not be in vain, but that far fewer will die in future battles. Deliver my hardware and myself to Earth, and we may be able to win this war.”
8
SPACE, CENTRAL QUADRANT
EARTH ALLIANCE SPACE
* * *
“GOOD WORK. YES, GIVE HER whatever she needs, within reason…no, not that. I’ll forward the request to Brigadier Hervé. Perhaps she can accommodate it once they reach Earth.” A longer pause. “Thank you, Lt. Colonel.”
Richard watched as Miriam seamlessly transitioned to yet another conversation. She had been working non-stop since they left Vancouver: holo-conferences, one-on-one communications, the occasional argument and many issuances of orders. When she wasn’t meeting with others she was studying maps of ship migrations and updates on colonies under assault.
Alex’s pulse earlier had spurred a new flurry of activity and orders involving Sagan, an emergency evacuation and Dr. Abigail Canivon. He had to wonder why they needed an additional quantum computing expert badly enough to divert resources away from an engagement the outcome of which appeared to be in doubt in order to rescue her. When he’d queried Miriam on it, though, she’d simply shrugged while connecting to a new conference.
Miriam in action, even in the otherwise empty passenger compartment of a military transport, was impressive to behold. David would be ridiculously proud if he could see her. The man had never lacked for confidence—occasionally veering into cockiness—but he’d worshiped the ground Miriam walked on. The two were so unlike one another, but somehow the relationship had worked.
Some days he missed the man who was his closest friend for twenty-five years more than others. There had been a lot of those days recently.
He wished David were here to talk to about…everything. Selfishly, he wished David were here to thank him for clearing his daughter’s name. Very selfishly. Mostly he wished David were here with them at the end of the world. His friend would tell them they were going to win and would believe it; his unwavering confidence would make them believe it, too.
Richard studied the portable screen he’d propped on the table, his half-eaten dinner pushed to the side and long forgotten. His thesis was due in two days, and in the harsh light of day his writing from the night before bore all the marks of sleep deprivation.
What advantage did he foresee a Masters in Contemporary History was going to get him in the military, in any event? The courses he’d squeezed in on nights and weekends had neither taught him to shoot straighter nor pilot so much as a shuttle. He hoped they’d made him wiser, but he wasn’t convinced wisdom qualified as a job requirement.
Still, books—reading them, studying their contents, absorbing the knowledge they held and lessons they imparted—had propelled him out of the orphanage and into university; they had propelled him out of a minimum-wage job and into a scholarship program. He trusted they could take him yet more, better places.
Movement in his peripheral vision distracted him. He looked up as David Solovy slid in across the table from him, meal tray filled with one of everything available at the food service.
He tilted his head in mild surprise. “When did you get back to base?”
David had already attacked his meal with gusto, so the response was several seconds in coming. “Two—no, three—hours ago, and I’m out again in the morning. The Trafalgar’s being routed to Ceres for a mission I’ll presumably be informed of approximately ten minutes before we arrive.”
“How’d it go on Perona?”
David’s eyes lit up and his fork clattered to the plate. “Beautifully. I met the woman I’m going to marry.”
He stared at David in perplexity. It was hardly a rare occurrence, of course. “Okay…first off, I meant the mission, or at least I thought I did. Second, is she aware of this?”
“I don’t think so. She hasn’t quite declared her undying love for me yet, but give it time.”
“How much time?”
“As much time as it takes, my friend. She’s worth it.”
“And you’ve determined this after knowing her for…?”
“Three days. Hey, I’m as surprised as you are. I am completely bowled over.”
Richard drew his plate closer, finding he held a renewed interest in it after watching David devour his food with such zeal. “I can tell. I assume the mission was a success, then, since you had time to meet the love of your life afterward?”
“Oh, I met her on the assault—she’s the XO of the Perona outpost. The mission was a bloody and brutal incursion and I came within a centimeter of losing my left arm to a frag mine. We took some injuries, but all my people survived. And we won, naturally.”
He chuckled dryly. “You know, it’s not actually ‘natural’ that you would win. You could have lost.”
David cocked an eyebrow. “Your history texts tell you that?”
“Yes, they did. In order for one side to win, the other has to lose—and both sides expect to win, so by definition one side will find itself sorely disappointed, not to mention likely dead.”
“Sorry, but it was natural that we would win. Preordained, even.”
“Why?”
David flashed a brilliant smile, the one which garnered him easy friends and admirers. “Because we were the good guys. We were in the right. The universe looks out for people who act with honor in furtherance of an honorable cause. It must, or we never would have gotten this far as a species. We won—this little conflict and a thousand like it—because we were destined to win. The universe will allow no other outcome.”
Richard rolled his eyes at his own sentimentality. He had pondered once or twice over the years, usually when in a brooding mood, whether the assertion, if true, meant David died at Kappa Crucis because in the First Crux War the Federation had been the ‘good guys.’
It made him uncomfortable to place his government in the role of evildoer, and deep down it wasn’t nearly so simple. In the end no one had officially won the war, though the Federation would argue otherwise. Still, recent events were blurring the lines of right and wrong and good and evil more than he’d realized.
He felt fairly confident, however, that in this war against the Metigens humanity was on the right sid
e of the struggle…and he hoped whatever David had meant by ‘the universe’ agreed.
He straightened up in the marginally comfortable transport seat and nudged the thoughts away. They’d be at Pandora in two hours and he had his own work to do.
The intelligence network was in a kerfuffle over how to act in the face of the new peace with the Federation and the new war with the Metigens. The role of intelligence agents during a war generally tended to be one of spying on the enemy. Occasionally active covert operations were required, but usually such actions fell to special forces.
Given the nature of this particular adversary, it remained unclear exactly how and to what extent they could spy on the enemy, covertly or otherwise. The answers thus far seemed to be ‘no idea’ and ‘not much.’
He was saved from seeking better answers by a pulse from Devon.
I’ve found something on the Fionava virus, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.
I’m not surprised. What you got?
So you remember the altered logs of the Detention Center from the night Caleb Marano was ‘released’? The ones I ‘didn’t find’? Well, I didn’t technically delete the logs from my personal data store.
This also does not surprise me.
Heh, guess not. Anyway, the operational methodology of the virus bears some…‘tics’ is probably the best way to describe it…which are similar to the Detention Center hack. See, even the best hackers have personal preferences and styles of coding, and sometimes they’re unique enough to be noticeable. When I studied the virus it kept bugging me that I felt like I’d seen some of the idiosyncrasies before, and I was right. Where I saw them before was the alteration of those logs.
Richard groaned and sank deeper into his chair. Miriam glanced over, but he waved her off.
You’re telling me the same person wrote the code to hack the Detention Center and the virus General O’Connell used on Fionava?
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 96
