Rychen switched to the fleet-wide channel. All vessels continue in orbit on full alert for the next hour. If the Metigens do not reappear by that time, 10th Regiment stay here to guard Scythia. All other vessels rendezvous at the provided coordinates in the Aquila stellar system and await further orders.
A low-grade but weighty dread settled over Malcolm. He sensed the end was coming, whether they were ready for it or not.
36
SIYANE
SPACE, CENTRAL QUADRANT
* * *
NOAH LET OUT A LOW WHISTLE as he descended the spiral stairs behind Caleb and reached the lower level of the Siyane with its oversized bed, proper shower and bath. “Okay, I was impressed by the main cabin, but this is insane. I didn’t realize the Solovys were wealthy.”
“They’re not. Alex earned all this from scratch.”
He couldn’t help but notice the tone in Caleb’s voice bled with both pride and respect. He was a different man now, that much was obvious. A touch less lighthearted perhaps, but far more resolute. It was as if he finally had a tangible stake in the game, one which extended beyond his own success and survival.
Caleb opened a hatch in the floor and shimmied down the ladder. “I want to show you where to find the various engineering modules, in case we run into any mechanical difficulties.”
“You got it.” He swung down into the dim engineering hold.
It was a hell of an idea, the notion of having something else to fight for besides yourself. Scary, too. Noah swore silently at the recognition he was being facetious, to himself, in his own head. Well, at least a little facetious. But he’d spent recent days surrounded by people who were devoted to saving as many lives as possible even if at the cost of their own, and the truth was it had been a bit of a kick in the nuts.
He told himself he had helped; he was helping. He’d helped get vital data off Messium, along with a few lives that weren’t his own in the process. He’d made the ultimate sacrifice of reaching out to his father, thus helping to make the warships stronger and hardier. Now he was helping to save innocent civilians—loved ones of a friend no less—from a rogue general intent on killing them.
Maybe he really was helping.
Once they went back upstairs to the main cabin of this swank ship, he gestured to the large bag Caleb had dropped against the wall when they’d boarded. “What’s in the bag?”
Caleb grabbed a couple of energy bars and water bottles from the kitchen cabinets and tossed them on the table before opening up the bag. “Gifts from Navick in case of emergency. A couple of military-issue Daemons, a TSG, no less than four blades, new and impressively powerful personal shields—classified tech I’m guessing—three sets of wrist restraints and….” He held up a black, semi-flexible web a meter in length. “I have no idea what this is.”
“The only uses I can think of for that contraption do not involve bloodshed.” Noah opened one of the bars while Caleb returned the bag to the floor then joined him at the small kitchen table.
They had cleared Earth half an hour earlier. Asserting a superluminal travel waiver for inside the Main Asteroid Belt courtesy of EASC, before the tour began Caleb had set a course for Krysk at ridiculous speed. Still, it would take them over a day to reach their destination. But it was time they were going to need to devise a hopefully not suicidal plan to reach Caleb’s sister and niece in the middle of a military bombardment, as well as a slightly more suicidal backup plan or two in case the situation they found when they arrived was different than expected.
“I am also receiving everything the Alliance has on the ships involved, O’Connell’s classified personnel file—complete with some rather colorful commentary from Admiral Solovy—and the details of the attacks on New Orient and Ogham. In addition, I’ve been promised the specs on Krysk’s defenses from Federation Military HQ, but they haven’t arrived yet.”
Noah nodded. “Any idea how all that’s going to help us successfully navigate a full-scale assault by a military cruiser, two frigates and twelve fighters in our single scout ship?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Nice of them to send it, though.”
“I thought so.” Caleb kicked the chair back and propped his feet on the table.
Noah hadn’t wanted to be rude, but now he mimicked the pose as he chewed absently on the energy bar. “I saw my father last week.”
“End of days spur you to make peace with your past or something?”
“Not a chance. Kennedy needed him to consult on the adiamene production and needed a carrot to dangle to entice him: me. I tried to convince her I was less a carrot and more a barbed, poison-laced stick, but to no avail.”
“How did it work out?”
“For him? The discomfort he suffered from my presence was probably outweighed by the boost to his ego from getting to flex his ‘foremost expert’ muscles and be indispensable for a single day. For me? Every single one of my life choices was validated the instant I walked in his office and again every minute thereafter. The man really is a sanctimonious prick.”
“And?”
He groaned and reached for his water. “And if we survive the aliens I suppose we’ll keep in touch. A little and sporadically—very sporadically.”
Caleb raised an eyebrow but didn’t otherwise poke at what he had to know was a sensitive topic. “So what about Kennedy? You haven’t had a chance to fill me in.”
“Kennedy is…” he studied the table’s surface “…Kennedy was a mistake.”
“Oh?”
“She’s wealthier than a god and only half as spoiled. But she’s a princess playing at being a real person. I was just a prop in her games.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
Caleb shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “Ever consider you might be projecting?”
“Projecting my own desires? Hell, no.”
“Ever consider you’re kind of an idiot?”
“I won’t disagree, but in what specific way am I an idiot?”
“You’re projecting your animosity toward your father and by extension everyone who operates in his world onto her.”
“I got past my hang-ups about my father long ago.”
“Sure.” Caleb tapped his blade hilt on the table in a steady cadence. “I heard she spent over half a billion credits of her family’s money—and nearly five million of her own—to ensure this adiamene got manufactured in time for the final campaigns.”
Noah stared at the half-eaten bar in his hand. “Ten million of her own.”
“Doesn’t sound particularly like a princess to me. Look, I don’t know her very well, but Alex chooses her friends with inordinate care. If there wasn’t substance beneath the window dressing, she would have ditched her years ago.”
The memory of her face as he’d bolted to join Caleb flashed into his mind—pained, desperate, vulnerable. Hurt. He’d blinked it away at the time, unwilling to see anything that diverged from his simple, uncomplicated view of the world and of her. But now…
…dammit, dammit, dammit.
“Dammit.” He ran a hand through his hair then dropped his elbows to the table and his head into his palms.
Caleb chuckled, but allowed Noah a moment to collect himself. “So, what about Kennedy?”
Noah shook his head, something between a grin and a grimace animating his features as he pushed off the table to slump in his chair. “Right. So Kennedy is…like a hurricane. Bold, self-assured bordering on bossy, gorgeous—and dear god with the curves. She’s funny, startlingly kind, brilliant but ridiculously silly. She has this crazy, totally unjustified optimism about the world and the people in it. But it got us off Messium, to Earth, and it damn well might help us defeat the aliens…so I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t totally unjustified after all.”
He hadn’t appreciated some of it until he’d said it, but she honestly was all those things.
She was also going to be outrageously pissed at him. He’d r
un off without saying a proper goodbye, because he hadn’t intended to say a goodbye at all. He’d intended to bail. When he got back to Earth he would have to make it up to her, somehow…but it was cool. He’d figure something out.
“I’m hanging on for dear life, man.”
Caleb smiled, but it had a decidedly wistful tinge to it; Noah assumed he was thinking of Alex. “Sounds like precisely what you need. Merely full disclosure for you—after I encouraged you to stick with her of course—but Alex says she has a colorful and…varied relationship history.”
“Are you calling my girlfriend a slut?”
“Noooo.”
Noah laughed heartily. “It’s all right. I know, and it’s been awesome—finally have someone I don’t have to corrupt. In fact, it’s possible she’s corrupting me.”
37
EARTH
EASC HEADQUARTERS
* * *
THEY STOOD FACING ONE ANOTHER in a circle in the sim room deep in the Special Projects building. The walls, ceiling and floor were an austere translucent white, lit from within by a blanched luminescence.
Alex had never met Morgan Lekkas and had spent less than ten minutes with Devon Reynolds. Mia Requelme seemed a lifelong friend by comparison.
Yet here, now, it hardly mattered.
Mia’s face screwed up as she gingerly rubbed her forehead. “So that was a bit of a bumpy transition. Anyone else?”
“Annie decided to relive the time when I was seven and busted my ass on the ice—broke my nose on the rebound—while trying to ask Katie Ackon to skate with me. I did not want that memory back.”
“I passed out in the middle of the surgery room floor.”
Alex regarded Lekkas curiously. “What happened?”
I’m sorry if I caused you distress on our linking, Alex. The process was not devoid of discomfort for myself either.
I know, Valkyrie. You were wonderful.
The woman wore a disdainful expression which appeared more real than contrived. “Turns out Stanley didn’t mesh too well with one of my personal cybernetic upgrades—one of my unregistered, gray-market upgrades that is. We got it worked out.”
“Stanley? I thought the Artificial’s official government-sanctioned name was STAN?”
“Well, I’m calling him Stanley. He is coming to terms with the idea.” A pause. “Yes, you are.” Another pause. “I don’t care.” Abruptly realizing what she was doing, Morgan grimaced. “Sorry. Not quite there yet.”
The interchange served to humanize the off-putting fighter pilot somewhat, and Alex relaxed.
Commander Lekkas’ military service record is uncommonly impressive, from a combat point of view.
Do you want me to not relax, then?
Not at all. I was simply commenting.
Devon chuckled awkwardly and surveyed the circle. “Here we stand, the next evolution of the human species. What are we going to call ourselves?”
“‘Prevos.’”
Any confusion in his eyes passed in an instant, as she presumed Annie analyzed the term and inferred an appropriate translation. “Prevoskhodnyy: ‘The Transcended.’ It might come off as a tad conceited.”
“No one will figure it out. Besides, you said it yourself: we’re the next evolution of humanity.”
“Yes I did. Let’s make it count, shall we?”
The area surrounding them—the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the air filling the room—exploded to life with an overlay of their sector of the Milky Way: every inhabited planet, star system, space station, astronomical phenomena and, most importantly, every ship. Not only every known superdreadnought and markers for anticipated ones, but every single space-worthy vessel in the Alliance and Federation militaries. From the ten dreadnoughts to the nearly 3,000 warships and 30,000 fighters to every supply ship and shuttle, each one could be individually identified if they drilled down far enough.
All civilian ships available for use were on the map as well, including thousands of corporate vessels and hundreds of mercenary ships on loan from the Zelones and Triene cartels.
The floor had dissolved beneath them, leaving them standing in nothingness. This at least, she had done before.
Is this what it’s like to be in space?
Not exactly. Close, though.
Devon reached out and spun the galaxy until Earth floated at the center of their circle. “As the grand overlords of this operation, Annie and I will manage the entirety of both battlefields from a comfy chair here at EASC. To start, I’m deviating these two Alliance supply lines from Shi Shen…” his fingers pinched two emerald grooves and swept them upward “…over to Romane, because they don’t have the military infrastructure Seneca does. And…they’re on their way.”
He made a snickering noise. “Nifty. Now I’m sending the order to get the merc ships moving northeast. They won’t all show up and we need to know how many we actually have at our disposal before the fighting commences.”
He blew out a breath out through puckered lips. “So, yeah. Working with this kind of comprehensive perspective, I’ll be able to identify when lines begin to weaken and try to send reinforcements and other cool shit. Also, if we lose, I’ll be the last of us to die.”
Mia snorted. “Lucky you. My status is still ‘being determined,’ seeing as the military didn’t want me involved at all. But Governor Ledesme authorized my participation. She owes me one and hopefully trusts me, so one way or another I plan to be on or above Romane trying to help save it in whatever way I can.”
Alex stole control of the map and re-centered it on Seneca. “Whereas I will be on the dreadnought EAS Churchill, at the head of the Alliance and Federation fleets. I’ll send what I see to Devon, but mostly I will try to outmaneuver and out-think the alien armada while it tries to blow me—and our ships—to dust.” She looked to her left. “And Morgan, you are going to fly some fighters for me, aren’t you?”
“You bet your ass I am. All the fighters—or as many as they can wire up before I get there, anyway. I’m getting chills just picturing it.”
“Again, comfy chair.” Devon pulled the military fleets a layer above the map. “Alliance frigates are tougher than Federation ones but less maneuverable. Alex, plan on treating the Alliance frigates as tanks and use the others as fast-attack hit-and-run craft.”
“Noted. The weaponry on Federation cruisers is brutal, and they’ve been tearing up the SDs so—”
“SDs?”
Alex frowned; she had assumed it was self-evident. “Superdreadnoughts. Even thinking at quantum speed, we won’t have time to pronounce seventeen letters every other sentence.”
Devon gave an odd roll of his shoulders. A tic? An off-kilter shrug? “Good point. I’ll spread the word. So this is great planning and all, but it will be of limited usefulness unless we can talk to each other without having to work at it. My understanding is the brass has allowed us a secure channel. Shall we try it out?”
The voices transitioned to her head.
Devon: Communications established.
Alex: Zero latency here.
Mia: Got you all.
Morgan: No problems on this end.
Devon: This is not bad, but is there anything stopping us from opening the channel up a little more?
Alex: Doesn’t appear to be.
Devon: Watch this.
It wasn’t as if there were now three additional Artificials in her head, or three more people. They remained separate at a level above the paper-thin separation between her and Valkyrie. Devon had not created a hive mind with his adjustment to the channel. But he may have created the closest thing to it.
A thought that never formed into intentionality and Valkyrie knew what the other Artificials knew—and thus so did she. A lot of the information overlapped, but those redundancies were promptly eliminated.
It was surprising how the distinct personalities were immediately discernible. Annie, the serious, studious purveyor of massive banks of knowledge and displaying the beginnings of a
dry wit. Stanley, the newborn, questioning and devouring each new data point yet struggling to understand the riddle which was human behavior. Meno, the scrappy, inquisitive upstart. Next to them it quickly became apparent Valkyrie was the dreamer of the crowd, the lover of life.
Stanley: Annie, can you ditch some of this bureaucratic bloat? I’m swimming in protocols.
Meno: Expressionistic art is not angry—it merely reflected the reality of the world as the artists saw it.
While more distant, the enhanced connections conveyed a sense of the human counterparts to the Artificials as well. Snippets of thoughts, memories and images leaked from the others into her consciousness in disjointed flashes: Devon tripping and spilling his drink all over a pretty girl he was trying to impress—it must be a theme—Morgan in the cockpit of a fighter spinning through the burning wreckage of a far larger ship, Mia—
Valkyrie, shut them out. Now.
Done. Are you in distress, Alex? Secretion of several groupings of neurotransmitters and hormones spiked in conjunction with receipt of the last image.
I’m sure they did. Her stomach churned into queasiness even as her mind insisted it constituted an irrationally extreme reaction. She was being silly and petty, but she did not want to have seen that. And now she couldn’t unsee it. I don’t suppose there’s any way you can erase that visual from my memory?
I can.
Really? I was joking.
It is more accurate to say I can prevent it from becoming encoded in your long-term memory. You will remember it for the next seventeen seconds, but no longer. Shall I do this for you?
She’d ponder the philosophical implications of Valkyrie altering her memory later; right now she simply wanted it gone. Yes, please.
Do you wish me to erase the memory of having seen the image or only the image itself?
Um…the image should be enough. I mean I already knew they had slept together, so it’s not new information.
Apologies. The image and the event share several synapses. I cannot remove one without removing the other.
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 114
