Bethany Anne dropped the pretense and offered Lance a tired smile in reply to his sympathy. “It’s a visit, Dad. I’m doing this for the people. It doesn’t matter if they live in the Federation instead of the Empire; they’re still mine to protect. I need you to do what you can to appease them before I arrive. Nothing would make me happier than to meet with the council and hear that the Federation is going to join this fight without making war against me first, but honestly, I can’t see it happening. And it’s not a fight they can win.”
Lance took Bethany Anne’s hand. “You know I’ll do my best to make that happen.” He sighed. “I just wish I didn’t know it’s going to take you putting the fear of God into the council to get them to cooperate. You shouldn’t have to be the monster.”
Bethany Anne squeezed his hand. “That’s just the thing, Dad. If I don’t act the tyrant, then the real monsters will win.”
Her eyes flashed red. “They will understand that inside, Baba Yaga will do what it takes. They want to talk to me?” She smiled. “I’ll talk.”
6
QT2, R&D Base 3PO
Ashur sniffed the air as he left the Wolfstar’s ramp and entered the hangar at 3PO’s base. “You can come out, Bethany Anne. It’s safe.”
Bethany Anne walked onto the ramp, her mouth set in a fond curl. She ruffled Ashur’s fur as she passed him. “Good dog.”
Ashur wagged his tail, picking up his step as he trotted after Bethany Anne. “Some might say I’m the best dog, but I wouldn’t like to comment on that.”
“I should hope not,” Bethany Anne teased. “Otherwise, your head might get too big to fit through the door of that fancy ship of yours.”
Ashur walked at Bethany Anne’s side as she circumvented the exterior security checkpoints at the maglev station and led them to the VIP platform. The tram pulled up at the platform shortly after they got there, and they stepped aboard the reserved car of the tram to ride to the restricted level at the heart of the asteroid.
He continued to sweep for danger like a good guard should. While he did that, the tram swept along the overhead track into an area made up of identical two-story buildings that were laid out in a grid. “It does help that this place is based on the design of the Meredith Reynolds,” Ashur remarked. “It’s almost like going home after being away for a long time.”
Bethany Anne grinned as the tram came to a stop at their station. “What can I say? Classic design never goes out of style.”
The doors to their car opened, and Bethany Anne hopped off the tram with a spring to her step. “It does feel kind of like home. I can’t deny that.”
Ashur took a moment to glance at the tram to make sure they weren’t going to be followed by anyone who couldn’t contain themselves when they got a glimpse of Bethany Anne. Seeing that theirs was the only car that had opened its doors, he picked up his pace to get in front of Bethany Anne. “Anne did design QT2 to ensure nobody who worked here felt out of place,” he reminded her.
Bethany Anne’s smile was tinged with sadness. “She always had others at the front of her mind.”
It was a short walk to the exit. An elevator ride down to street level later, followed by a pleasant stroll through tree-lined streets, and they were met at the entrance to their target building by a tall, thin, red-haired man in a white coat wearing safety goggles pushed up on his head to keep the unruly curls out of his eyes.
Bethany Anne smiled warmly. “Hey, Ronnie. How are you liking it here in the Interdiction?”
“Pretty well,” he replied, brushing back the curls that fell over his goggles. He grinned as Ashur finished his inspection of their surroundings. “Ashur! Good to see you, buddy. How’s it hanging?”
Ashur barked his greetings. “Ronnie Diamantz, as I live and breathe! When did you decide to leave the Federation?”
Ronnie knelt to meet Ashur’s eyes and opened his hands to welcome the dog with a good petting. “Hey there, yourself. When our Queen had my workplace hauled here to defend the Federation from a bunch of fuckface aliens.” He grinned and got to his feet. “Best thing that could have happened, as far as I’m concerned. Did you hear I got married?” he asked Bethany Anne as he held the door for her and Ashur.
Bethany Anne’s smile instantly grew brighter. “You did? Congratulations! Who is she? Anyone I know? Spill!”
Ronnie’s cheeks reddened with pride. “She’s named Deborah, and she’s perfect. It was kismet, I know it.” He took the left-hand corridor after the reception area and led them past a number of doors before swiping his hand on a scanner and taking them into his office.
Ashur took his position outside. “I’ll wait out here,” he informed them.
Bethany Anne followed Ronnie’s embarrassed gaze to a chair piled with notebooks and papers and smiled. “You’re still the same messy kid under that cool exterior, huh?”
“Let me get that.” Ronnie closed the door and hurried to clear the chair for Bethany Anne. He chuckled. “Cool exterior, my left ass cheek. I’m a hot mess, and always will be.”
Bethany Anne scooped up the pile and handed it to Ronnie. “A little mess never killed anyone.”
Ronnie made a pained face. “Tell that to the man who runs projects a single speck of dust could destroy,” he joked.
Bethany Anne chuckled at his attempt at humor as she took a seat. “I know you don’t keep your labs like this. I want to know about this wife of yours. When did you decide to make time to find a woman?”
Ronnie reddened. He dropped the notebooks he was holding on top of an identical-looking pile on his desk. “Well, I kinda didn’t. When do I leave this place?” He grinned at Bethany Anne’s good-natured shrug. “The answer is never. I thought I was married to my work, but my assistant Nicolai decided not to move with us when you had the base moved out here.”
Bethany Anne pressed her lips together. “Shame. You two had decades of working together.”
Ronnie nodded. “I could have lost my actual right hand and had an easier time coping.” He frowned. “It wasn’t just Nicolai. This base lost its heart when Anne vanished. Stevie decided to stick around the Meredith Reynolds just in case she suddenly came back, and there were others who didn’t want to uproot or leave their families.”
Bethany Anne nodded. “I get that.”
Ronnie smiled sadly. “I wasn’t the only one who found myself needing to interview new team members when I got here. I wasn’t in the best place at the time. Especially with the system defenses just being built. You know I was the lead programmer on the minefield project, right?”
“Yes.” Bethany Anne nodded. “I wanted the best, which was why I insisted on the 3PO being brought out here as part of QT2’s defenses.”
Ronnie dipped his head. “It was a challenge. I can’t resist a challenge, even at the expense of my own good. I got here with this heavy schedule and nobody to help meet it. I posted on the recruitment boards with my requirements but got no takers. Just as I started circling the drain, thinking nobody could be a replacement for Nicolai, in walked Deborah, with no intention of leaving without the job. I don’t know where she’s been all of my life, but I’m sure-as-dammit glad she showed up when she did. Saving my ass doesn’t begin to cover it. Within a week, I had a fully-staffed lab, and the production schedule began to move back into the green.”
Bethany Anne couldn’t miss the love in his tone. “Sounds like she arrived in the nick of time. So, how did you two go from colleagues to true love?”
His eyes misted over for a moment. “She took me by surprise. To be honest, I never really got over Tina, but Deborah changed all that. She’s dependable. Relentless, even. Nothing stops her when she has her heart set on a goal. I’ve never met anyone so organized.” His eyes twinkled. “I think that’s what got me.”
Bethany Anne hadn’t known a skillset might be a consideration when choosing a life partner, but then she had fallen for Michael’s relentless determination to do right even when his stubbornness had made her hands itch to slap him.
So who was she to judge?
Besides, she had always believed that “to each their own” was how there could be someone for everybody. She smiled at Ronnie. “So, you married your co-worker.”
Ronnie grinned right back at her. “You betcha. But you’re not here to talk about my personal life. I’ve made some progress with one of Anne’s old projects that’s going to please you.”
Bethany Anne narrowed her eyes in curiosity. “What kind of progress, and on which project? I was only expecting to get an update on synthetic ruby production.”
Ronnie waved a hand over his desk, and a series of holowindows popped up in a rolling index. “Ruby production is on schedule. Ahead, even. Deborah was going through the records and found Anne’s notes on the original experiments with different gemstones. Then Eve came over to look at the original research.” He flicked to the appropriate window and maximized it to show Bethany Anne. “Check this out. It’s beyond what we’d thought possible.”
Bethany Anne scrutinized the familiar scrawl without understanding much of what was written. “Ooookay, then. Individually, the words make sense, but put them together, and all they’re accomplishing is giving me a headache.” She waved a hand at the information. “What am I looking at?”
Ronnie nodded. “Don’t sweat it. I’m the expert in Anne’s absence, and it took me years to decipher most of what she was doing.”
Bethany Anne tilted her head to look at Ronnie. “Her original Gate project included research into Gating between here and the Etheric, right?
Ronnie nodded. “She achieved that by using synthetic emeralds. The Gate was originally between here and the Meredith Reynolds. Then you had it moved and installed on High Tortuga to allow the EIs to be moved off the physical plane.”
“I remember that,” Bethany Anne replied, her concern growing with every second Ronnie didn’t get to the point about the piece of technology that was currently installed in the Vid-doc vault on Devon. “What does it have to do with Anne’s Gate? This end of it is shut down, right?”
Ronnie nodded quickly to reassure her. “Yeah, and the other half isn’t in range, so there’s no point in dusting it off. The breakthrough was with the different stones set into the Gate—ruby, emerald, and onyx. We could never figure out why Anne did that, but what we did find was that those three stones were structured different than the standard synthetic stones.”
Bethany Anne smiled at Ronnie. “Looks like I know something that could help. The emerald is for Etheric travel. The onyx zeroes in on the nearest source of Hawking radiation.”
Ronnie coughed politely. “The theoretical kind?”
Bethany Anne lifted a shoulder. “I couldn’t tell you how it works. I can tell you that when the Gate is activated by feeding energy to the onyx set into it, the Gate opens on a black hole without fail.”
Ronnie waved the extraneous windows out of the way and pulled a closeup of a ruby to the front. “Can you see how the stone is actually five stones within a sixth?”
Bethany Anne zoomed in to scrutinize the image and saw the five smaller stones set within the larger one. “That’s not accidental.” She looked over. “Do you know why Anne did this?”
Ronnie nodded, losing his words to the excitement he felt. “It increases the efficiency of the power draw, as well as stabilizing the ruby. These seeded stones can store energy at the same tolerance as the regular stones, and unlike the regular stones, they don’t need to be recharged once they’ve been activated.”
“So, the user can just draw from the Etheric indefinitely?”
“No,” Ronnie explained, his hands dancing in excitement as he spoke. “We don’t know why growing the rubies this way works, just that this configuration draws from the Etheric without the need for the user to have the ability to tap it. The user can be a complete null. All we had to figure out was an Etheric battery, and the staffs can be button-activated.”
Bethany Anne fixed Ronnie with a stern smile. “I don’t want any technology I give the Bakas to fall into the wrong hands. Keep a tight lid on the seeded stones, and stick to the regular stones for Baka staff production. I’m happy to arm my allies. It would be foolish to give our enemies the power to match our capabilities.”
Ronnie’s flurry of hand-waving stopped abruptly. “Oh, yeah. I wasn’t suggesting we hand them out to everyone. The seeded stones are difficult to produce, for a start.” He broke into a grin. “What I did was send what we had to Jean.”
Bethany Anne nodded, satisfied that Jean would figure out the best use for the technology. “That suits me fine. I want to take a look at the Gate while I’m here.”
Ronnie got to his feet as Bethany Anne rose. “Sure. You know where it is, right?”
“I do,” Bethany Anne told Ronnie. She left him to his work and made her way to the sealed part of the base, which was Anne’s workshop and personal quarters.
Ashur hesitated at the door. “I don’t want to go in there,” he admitted. “I know I’ll smell Jinx, no matter that it’s been a century since she was here.”
Bethany Anne dropped to one knee and wrapped her arms around Ashur’s neck. “I understand. I have to be certain that this Gate is inactive, though. Call it paranoia, or mother’s intuition if you’re being kind, but something in my gut is telling me there’s something I’m missing in the twins’ defense.”
She stepped through the Etheric so Ashur didn’t get flooded by any scents remaining behind the thick steel door and came out in the pristine operations area.
Bethany Anne caught a movement in her peripheral vision.
A small maintenance bot zoomed out from under one of the inert workstations and attempted to sweep her boots away. She looked at it for a moment while it obstinately persisted.
Bethany Anne chuckled at the bot, then shuddered at the way the echo made her amusement sound slightly sinister. ADAM, can you fix this little guy? He’s probably forgotten what a human is. It’s been so long since anyone else came in here.
>>I guess that’s one way of looking at it,<< ADAM mused. >>Although it was actually a line of its code that had gone screwy.<<
Bethany Anne watched the bot return to its cubby, still feeling a whisper of amusement. Was it the part that told the bot I wasn’t dirt to be cleaned?
>>Well, yeah,<< ADAM replied.
Then there’s nothing wrong with me anthropomorphizing the bot if it makes me feel like someone has been in here waiting for Anne to return. The sharp clicking of Bethany Anne’s heels on the polished floor ricocheted off the bare walls as she left the operations area and headed for Anne’s quarters.
ADAM considered the psychological benefit of Bethany Anne distracting herself from her grief by anthropomorphizing the bot. He couldn’t miss that she was deeply affected by the empty room, even though almost thirty years had passed since Anne’s disappearance. >>As long as I don’t find you and some basketball became bosom buddies while my back was turned, I won’t fear for your sanity.<<
Bethany Anne rolled her eyes. You watch too many old movies.
>>Well, yeah. What else do you want me to do with my free cycles? I can’t exactly take up a sport.<< ADAM activated the lights as Bethany Anne walked into what would have been Anne’s living area. >>Why are we here? You know the Gate isn’t active. The twins are safe.<<
Bethany Anne looked around the room, which in typical Anne fashion was populated by the numerous projects her young friend had been working on before her disappearance. I guess I couldn’t avoid facing it any longer.
>>I wouldn’t say you’ve avoided facing it,<< ADAM mollified. >>You have to give yourself a break. Between forming the Federation, everything you’ve done since to protect it, and raising two children, when do you think you would have squeezed in the time for a search? How would you even know where to begin?<<
Bethany Anne left Anne’s quarters via the Etheric as ADAM repeated himself on the subject of Anne for the umpteenth time. All right, all right. I know what you’re going to say word fo
r word. But there isn’t going to be a good time to get a resolution on what happened to Anne and the dogs.
Ashur tilted his head when Bethany Anne reappeared. His sharp nose wrinkled at the sadness tingeing the air around her.
He pressed his head to Bethany Anne’s leg. “It’s okay. I told you that I’m going to find them if it takes my whole life to do it.”
Bethany Anne dug deep and found her resolve. “I know you will. For now, I have to concentrate on the people who are here fighting.”
Ashur tilted his head. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Bethany Anne told him slowly, “that I need to get real about protecting those closest to me.”
7
Devon, The Hexagon, Penthouse Apartment
Tabitha was making light work of chopping the vegetables for lunch, while Nickie and Todd played video games in the living area.
Her niece had turned up at the apartment late last night after being gone since the rift battle. The two of them bickering good-humoredly over their game was music to Tabitha’s ears.
Tabitha glanced at Todd and Nickie with a knowing smile before tossing the vegetables for their lunch into the pan. She recalled how anxious Nickie had been about not being the major part of Todd’s life that Tabitha had been for her when she was growing up. Watching them together, Tabitha couldn’t imagine anything more natural than the two of them playing video games in the living area.
Nickie jumped up and threw up her hands when she won their game by a hair. She looked around at the sudden sizzle from the kitchen and spotted Tabitha’s smile.
She returned the smirk, narrowing her eyes in mock-offense. “What’s so funny, Aunt Tabbie?”
Todd dropped his hands to his hips and copied Nickie’s expression. “Yeah, Mama, what’s so funny?”
Tabitha lost her composure completely at the sight of her son’s face. She held onto the counter to steady herself until the laughter had passed, then came around it to scoop him up in her arms. “You are too delicious, baby boy,” she exclaimed between big wet kisses.
The Valkyrie Returns (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 7) Page 7
