Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection

by G. S. Jennsen

  Her gaze traveled across those present. “However, I do recognize the strategic advantage significant quantities of this metal could grant us. As such, I am open to alternative suggestions.”

  Kennedy exhaled quietly. She hadn’t wanted to raise the proposition unless no other option presented itself. She was not frivolous with her family’s money and even to her the sum was mind-boggling in size. But this was the end of the world.

  Her hands came together atop the table. “I should be able to cover the costs, at least for the first month. After that point, I suspect the urgency will have passed, one way or another.”

  Noah all but fell out of his chair beside her. Once he’d righted himself he drew close to her and muttered under his breath. “Blondie, are you insane? No one has that kind of money to throw around.”

  She gave him a weak grimace. “We do.”

  Wyryck had been stunned into silence and was unlikely to contribute anything else to the discussion. Miriam sighed. “Ms. Rossi, I cannot ask your family to contribute such sizable funds. Not without guarantee of repayment, which I regrettably cannot give.”

  “And you don’t need to. I’m volunteering. Given the…unique nature of the sum, I will need to seek my father’s approval. But I’m confident I can convince him of the necessity of the investment.”

  “You honestly believe in the capabilities of this material this much?”

  “I do, ma’am. More than that, I believe we all must do everything in our power to defeat these aliens. This is within my power.”

  Miriam chuckled dryly; it carried less harshness than her earlier utterances. “Then I will not protest further. Should we win the day I’ll do what I can to see your family is reimbursed in some likely inadequate manner. Get back to me when you’ve worked out the details. On behalf of the Earth Alliance—on behalf of everyone—thank you.”

  When the holo had winked out of existence, she shot Noah a playful grin. “Have you ever seen Texas?”

  His brow furrowed up in confusion. “What’s a ‘Texas’?”

  20

  SENECA

  CAVARE

  * * *

  MIRIAM HADN’T ASKED FOR the military escort which greeted her on disembarking the transport. In point of fact, she had instructed the pilot to dock at the commercial spaceport in Cavare specifically to avoid this sort of pageantry—and also to preemptively avoid any ‘issues’ resulting from an Alliance Admiral requesting direct access to Federation Military Headquarters.

  Mostly she had hoped she might steal twenty minutes of solitude to absorb the reality of stepping foot on the soil of what had been an avowed enemy for twenty-five years. The enemy responsible for the death of the man she had loved with the entirety of her being.

  Miriam took her seat in the back row just before Admiral Chonsei stepped to the front of the small briefing room. He surveyed his audience once and began. “The information I’m about to divulge is classified Top Secret until you are instructed otherwise. In the next six hours it is expected Prime Minister Ioannou and Admiral Breveski will sign an armistice with the Senecan Federation which will halt hostilities—” the room erupted in exclamations and protests “—enough! The armistice will declare the cessation of hostilities for so long as a detailed list of conditions are and continue to be met.

  “This is not a peace treaty. Our forces are to remain on Level IV alert status until we can verify the conditions have been fulfilled, then at Level III for probably a hell of a lot longer. I’m telling you this now because once the news breaks we’re going to be fielding inquiries from the press. In the event any of you personally receive an inquiry, your orders are to recite the official line. No exceptions.”

  Chonsei droned on about ‘embargoes’ and ‘restricted travel’ and ‘clear boundaries’ and ‘minimal diplomatic relations,’ but Miriam didn’t hear most of it for the shrill ringing in her ears.

  No. This could not be the outcome. She had slaved for the last four months, foregoing sleep and meals to do everything in her power to push them toward victory. David’s sacrifice would not be in vain. It couldn’t be. How dare they.

  She stood and cleared her throat. “Sir, this will look like a surrender.”

  “The Earth Alliance’s official stance is that it is no such thing, and this is to be your stance as well.”

  “But, sir, we can’t fold now. We have the forces and the firepower to win this war—the officials in Vancouver are simply unwilling to use them. They send our ships out in minimal formation strength and allow them to be whittled down in skirmish after skirmish. But we send half—a third—of the Sol Fleet to Seneca and we can crush this rebellion—”

  “Commodore Solovy, you are out of line. Unless you want to face a censure for insubordination, you will take your seat.”

  Her lips parted, the protest hovering on her tongue…but she sat as instructed.

  “The Sol Fleet isn’t going anywhere. The Alliance is not going to leave Earth undefended or even vulnerable for an instant. Also, our leaders are not going to risk the losses which might result from such a risky offensive. End of story.”

  The briefing ended at some point. Miriam returned to her office on the 7th floor of the Logistics Center at North American Military Headquarters in a frozen daze. Several minutes later she found she was sitting at her desk with no recollection of how she had arrived there.

  How could they capitulate to these seditionists? What had they been fighting for the last three years if not to bring the rebels to heel? What had David died for if not the belief that duty, honor and loyalty were to be defended to the last breath?

  If these Senecans fantasized life would somehow be better without the pesky interference of the Alliance government, they should have run off to Requi or Pandora or Gaiae. But they did not have the right to take up arms against their own government, steal Alliance ships and confiscate Alliance infrastructure as their own and turn it on those who had built it.

  In reality they were nothing but armed thugs spoiling for a fight. At Kappa Crucis they could have disengaged once they saw the mission was an evacuation and not an offensive. Instead they pushed ahead, weapons blazing, eager to kill scientists and their children merely so they could take yet something else which wasn’t theirs to begin with. They—

  —all the emotions, all the pain and despair and impotent rage welled up out of their dark, desolate hiding place in her soul to crash through her iron-forged armor and break free. She grabbed the small bronze sculpture of Marcus Aurelius sitting on her desk and hurled it against the opposite wall.

  The piercing clang it made as it impacted the wall didn’t help, nor did the noisy rattle as it rolled about on the floor, bumping into the furniture and bouncing around like a pinball. She squeezed her eyes shut and ground her teeth as she waited for the most unbearable, life-destroying sentiments to recede back into the shadows.

  Then she stood, went over and retrieved the statue from the corner where it had finally settled and placed it gently back upon the desk.

  Violent outbursts never helped, and she had been weak to partake in one. Nothing ever helped, except putting one foot in front of the other in front of the other until the relentless, monotonous repetition crushed the grief beneath its weight.

  Now, twenty-three years after the armistice, she arrived on Seneca as an honored guest. She had advocated for peace with the Federation. She had made peace with the Federation. Affixed her own signature to the treaty and everything. She had strategized with its leaders and implemented cooperative measures with its military.

  Was it any wonder that in the same dark, desolate corner of her soul it all felt like a betrayal—a betrayal of David’s memory, of his life, his love and his death?

  It was an irrational emotion she should not indulge. Beyond this, she knew David would not have wanted her to indulge it. Above all else he had loved life in all its splendor, and were he here he would tell her she damn well better do whatever was necessary to save it.

 
Still, she’d have preferred the twenty minutes to work past the lingering bitterness in private. Instead a Federation captain and two lieutenants waited for her at the bottom of the ramp.

  “Admiral Solovy, welcome to Seneca. Field Marshal Gianno has instructed us to escort you to Military Headquarters.”

  She squared her shoulders and straightened her jacket. “Lead the way.”

  SENECAN FEDERATION MILITARY HEADQUARTERS

  Miriam was herded with brutal efficiency through the bustling halls of Military Headquarters, onto a well-guarded lift and down another featureless but still busy hallway to a stately door at the end.

  The trip from the spaceport to this door had left her with several impressions worth noting. The Federation government’s architecture of choice was simple to the point of barrenness, yet impeccably designed. The civilian architecture was refined and expensive, if a bit glossy for her tastes. Seneca’s moon was shockingly large.

  She’d gotten a good view of the enormous planetary satellite because it was 0200 local time, not that anyone seemed to have noticed. Truthfully she was relieved to discover the Senecans were working as tirelessly as she and Brennon and their subordinates.

  “You can go on in, Admiral. When you’re ready to return to the spaceport the Marshal will let us know.”

  She sent the escort off and entered Gianno’s office. The decor, what there was of it, was tasteful and understated in the extreme. The sole personal item in sight was a visual on the wall of a distinguished-looking man who might be roughly Gianno’s age arm-in-arm with a much younger man who distinctly favored the Marshal.

  Gianno stood at her desk reviewing a screen in her hand and motioned Miriam in without glancing up. A man in a dark, finely-tailored suit stood at the window, his back to them. From the angle she didn’t know who it might be. Then he spoke, and she recognized the voice as belonging to Federation Chairman Vranas.

  “Your rogue general just used nukes on Ogham.”

  Miriam stared at the back of his head while she contemplated her response. She considered and rejected the diplomatic tack. She was neck deep in a battle for civilization alongside these people. They had previously shown a preference for straight talk over ass-kissing, so she would oblige them.

  “There is a reason he’s rogue.”

  Vranas huffed a wry breath but still didn’t turn around, so she switched to Gianno. “The only nukes he’d possess are tactical fusion anti-ship mines. Are you saying he used those on the surface? If so—”

  Gianno’s head shook as she set aside the screen and directed her focus to Miriam. The woman’s demeanor was decidedly cooler than it had been when they’d met on Romane, but under the circumstances Miriam hardly expected warmth.

  “He used them to take out two nodes on the defense array and create a gap he could traverse. The array’s orbit is low enough the nukes will likely poison the atmosphere to a greater or lesser degree. Of course, the initial death toll on the ground from his attack is already in excess of ten thousand.”

  “I am sorry, but I realize that means little more than the air expended to say it.”

  Vranas finally faced them. “What are you going to do about it?”

  She regarded them both for what became a long, weighty moment.

  “Nothing.”

  The man’s chin dropped to his chest in an act she took for genuine shock. “Nothing?”

  Brennon might argue her answer hardly constituted ‘whatever it takes’…but he wasn’t here and this was her play to make.

  “We’re working diligently to find a way to track his movements. We expect Fionava communications to be restored in the next day, which ought to help. If we are able to track him and have sufficient advance warning, I will happily—gleefully—approve a strike against his ships or provide you the information so you can do the same. You have not only my authorization but the full blessing of the Earth Alliance Armed Forces to blow him out of the sky should you find him, though I’m certain if provided the opportunity you would not wait to receive it.

  “If—no, when—we are victorious over the Metigens, I intend to send an entire brigade to hunt him down and grant him no mercy when they run him to ground. But I happen to believe that won’t be necessary. Nearly six hundred Alliance soldiers are onboard those ships. They know right from wrong, and if there is any way to do so, they will stop him of their own accord.

  “No matter what transpires, we cannot for an instant forget the stakes at play here. Given the sheer immensity of those stakes, until the appropriate circumstances arise, I will do nothing.”

  Gianno’s expression was inscrutable as the seconds ticked by. It was an tremendous gamble, one Miriam sincerely hoped had worked.

  Finally the woman exchanged a troubled look with Vranas. “If the situation were reversed, I would do no more. I dislike it intensely, but I cannot argue with the logic.”

  Vranas groaned and sank back on the windowsill. “We make it through this, and Brennon is getting one outrageous repair bill delivered to his desk.”

  “I’m sure he will be expecting it, sir.”

  The tension in the air ratcheted down a few notches, though Miriam wouldn’t go so far as to call it relaxed. Gianno called up a larger screen above her desk and began entering commands. “There aren’t many colonies left he can hit unless he wants to nuke the rubble the aliens left behind. I’m increasing the defenses on the ones still standing—higher than they were for obvious reasons already raised. Beyond this, like you I have no resources to devote to staking out every colony.”

  The woman slid the screen to the side but didn’t close it. “Since you’re here, I don’t suppose you have any good news to share?”

  “It so happens I do. You recall me mentioning our research into a new ship-worthy metal? We’ve solved the production difficulties and expect to begin round-the-clock production within hours. The strength, resilience and conductivity characteristics are orders of magnitude above the current materials used by either of our militaries.”

  “Excellent, but what good does it do us right now? Ships aren’t built in a day.”

  “No, but in my opinion it’s worth it to use the material to repair damaged vessels. It has adaptive characteristics which may pay off beyond the scope of the repairs. If you wish, I’ll divert a portion of our production to you.”

  “What’s the price tag?”

  She allowed one corner of her mouth to curl up a touch. “We’ll worry about that once our rogue general is taken care of.”

  Vranas didn’t press her, presumably understanding the many variables at play in her statement. “Then if there is nothing else, I need to return to my office. Admiral. Marshal.”

  After the door closed behind him Miriam turned back to Gianno. “I do have one final matter I want to mention. This needs to be between the two of us and off the record.”

  “I have no recording devices installed in here, and the room is always shielded. What is it?”

  Miriam wandered over to the window, curious as to what Vranas had been staring at. But there was nothing to see beyond rooftops and a shadowy tower painted against the darkness. Perhaps the answers he had sought were more ethereal in nature.

  “I’ve learned some new details concerning the nature of the alien ships. They’re operated by shackled AIs, for lack of a better term: synthetic intelligences designed for a single purpose and provided the cognitive capabilities necessary to fulfill that purpose.”

  “Useful intel, no doubt—but why the secrecy?”

  “This intel need not be off the record. Use it as you see fit to refine your combat tactics.”

  Gianno’s head titled. “And the Metigens themselves?”

  “There are no organic beings inside the ships. We’re not actually fighting Metigens. We’re fighting their drones. The true aliens—I’m not sure I’d classify them as organic as such, but regardless—remain beyond the portal.”

  “Ah.” A knowing smile tugged at Gianno’s lips. She said nothin
g, but there were only two people who would be able to impart this kind of knowledge, a fact they both appreciated. “And you have a notion about how we can use these facts to our advantage.”

  “A ‘notion,’ as you put it, has been proposed, yes. Their ships are faster and stronger than ours, and on a computational level at least, smarter than us—smarter than our pilots, our ship captains and our battlefield commanders. Nevertheless, we do have machines which can match their speed of thought and sheer decisional power. Machines we dare not unleash, Eleni….” She paused sufficiently to ensure she had the woman’s attention. “Unless there is a way to harness their speed and power under human control.”

  “I expect this will be interesting.”

  “Quite. The proposal involves connecting a handful of people to carefully chosen Artificials and giving them some operational authority over combat decisions.”

  Gianno frowned. “Via remote interfaces? That’s hardly revolutionary, nor is it a game-changer.”

  “Clearly. I’m referring to a more integral connection, via a deeper neural interface.”

  “No, the human brain can’t handle a direct link with an Artificial. It’s been tried multiple times to damaging and often lethal effect.”

  I know. Believe me I know. Thinking about the risks involved urged her toward panic, but she refused to give in to it.

  “We—certain knowledgeable people—believe this obstacle may have been surmounted. I don’t want to say more right now, for two reasons: I won’t have a definitive answer to that question until tomorrow at the earliest, and I haven’t yet discussed this proposal with Prime Minister Brennon. But given how short our time is becoming, I wanted to give you the opportunity to begin assessing how something like this might work from your end, and who you might consider as potential candidates for participation.”