Tabitha poured a glass of water and held the straw to Bethany Anne’s lips. “We’re almost home.”
Bethany Anne paused before accepting it. “The Collectives? Everyone else?”
Tabitha gave her a stern look. “Drink first, questions after. It was downright reckless of you to push so hard,” she chided gently. “Everyone is fine. Dan and ArchAngel dealt with the factory and the Gate after we got everyone back into the Skaine system. He’s somewhere behind us. Kael-ven is already at Devon since he messaged to ask permission to take the Collectives there instead of to QT2. Something the Conduit requested.”
Bethany Anne sipped the water as Tabitha ran through the post-op report, grateful for the sensation returning to her parched mouth. “Probably because the habitat in Eve’s lab is larger,” she surmised. “Give me some room.”
She waved for Tabitha to move back and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Fuck!” She grabbed her head and cursed some more as the brass band inside her skull kicked up its enthusiasm a notch.
Tabitha’s eyebrows went up as she moved in to steady Bethany Anne. “You okay?
Bethany Anne nodded carefully as Tabitha propped her up with pillows. “Yeah. It’s just been a while since I’ve been this weak. You’re right, I pushed too hard, and I’m paying for it. I’ll be fine as soon as I’ve eaten something.” She moved her hair out of the way before focusing on Tabitha again. “What happened after I went down?”
Tabitha grinned as she counted off the remaining points on her fingers. “The Skaines were happy they got their people back. The delegation from the Federation you requested to fix Stewart McAssface's wagon reported for duty, and I gave them an intro to Slater.”
Bethany Anne lifted a hand to halt Tabitha’s retelling. “Slow down. Intro? To Slater? Why?”
Tabitha’s grin widened. “Oh, yeah. I made Slater the governor of this quadrant and had him sign a treaty with the Federation on behalf of his people.” She shrugged at the look Bethany Anne gave her. “What did you want me to do? You were busy napping, so I acted for you. Slater isn’t so bad.”
She lifted a finger when Bethany Anne smirked at her. “Don’t tell him I said that,” she warned.
“You did good,” Bethany Anne conceded. “Has Dan had any trouble getting the people we rescued taken care of?” She surprised both of them with a huge yawn that erupted without warning.
Tabitha shook her finger at Bethany Anne. “You haven’t even asked how you’re doing. You need to rest. Sleep. We’ll talk when we get home.”
Bethany Anne closed her eyes as weariness stole over her. TOM? Do I want to know what I did to myself?
TOM considered whether knowing she’d been inches from death would be helpful. Then again, not telling her wouldn’t work out so well for him. You cut it pretty fine, he admitted. But I knew there was no reasoning with you while you were so focused. You did what you had to do to save those people’s lives.
Bethany Anne was hit by a huge yawn. Thank you for keeping me alive. You’re a good friend.
TOM didn’t quite know how to respond to that.
He had not expected to care so deeply for Bethany Anne when he had made the decision to merge himself with her, but today had taught him something new about himself. If it had come down to it, he would have burned out his own mind to save hers without hesitation.
Thank you, he managed to tell Bethany Anne, despite being overcome with relief that she’d pulled through.
Bethany Anne’s reply was a murmur before he received a soft snore.
Devon, The Hexagon, Eve's Sublevel
Tina pushed her datapad away with a tired smile on her face. “Progress,” she murmured. “I thought it was never going to happen.”
Marcus looked up from his simulation. “You solved the formula?”
Tina frowned, missing his meaning. “Formula? Oh, for the E-BYPS. No. This is something else Bethany Anne had me thinking about.” She sent the file she was working on to Marcus, William, and Bobcat with a smile. “How to extend the BYPS in our reality to cover the Federation.”
Bobcat and William shared a glance before the two of them focused on her again.
“I don’t think even Bethany Anne can afford the expense of that,” Bobcat blurted. “Just getting that many satellites into place would bankrupt her.”
“Unlikely,” Tina replied. “Since I designed this to be a cost-efficient model instead of a spendathon. No satellites. We’re going to turn each individual point of defense on the Federation borders into a piece of a network that will cover the whole, like a crocheted blanket.”
William’s brow furrowed as he tried and failed to picture the end result. “So, there will be gaps?”
“Yes,” Tina confirmed. “It was something Bethany Anne said about the armor project that got me thinking. The Bl’kheths providing a security blanket, or something like that. So yes, there will be physical gaps, but they are only figurative because CEREBRO will be present throughout the network. The first thing I considered was the impossibility of producing that many individual BYPS systems. The second was how to get around the sheer distance between some of the locations. My solution is to use the infrastructure that’s already there. Upgrading the offensive capabilities is just a question of bootstrapping. We don’t even need a ton of people to make it work since CEREBRO can take care of the programming.”
William looked at Tina skeptically. “You can’t get all of it accomplished using EIs.”
Tina inclined her head. “No. Don’t get me wrong, most of the physical labor can be taken care of using bots and printer tech, but there does need to be some input from the people at the locations.”
“Have you taken the strain on CEREBRO into account?” Bobcat questioned. “It’s not omniscient and omnipresent, and…uh…” He glanced at William. “A little help?”
“Omni-something?” William replied, delivering a shrug with his answer.
“Not much help,” Bobcat eyed him. “I should have called in Marcus. What was I thinking?”
“I’ve no idea,” Marcus agreed. “If you need a drinking buddy, you call William. If you need a word starting with 'omni,’ such as ‘omnipowerful,’ you tag me.”
William pointed at Marcus. “Yeah, the mistake was with your selection.”
Tina ignored the three of them with practiced ease. “Yes,” she replied to the question of strain on the system. “We incorporate the EIs in each location on the network into CEREBRO, which gives the whole a boost in processing power for each core added. By the time we’ve done that, CEREBRO will have unmatched computational power.”
“Meaning they will be able to react in sync across galaxies,” Marcus marveled. “This is ambitious, but I think you’re on to something.”
Tina lifted her hands. “We’ll see. This is all just theory until we test it. I’m not done figuring out all the potential snags to the project’s success yet. There are bound to be a few locations where the distance is too great for them to connect, which we’ll have to take care of by placing boosters at the relevant point—or points—between them to make up for the shortfall.”
William began scribbling as an idea took him. “We’ll have to come up with a safe way to do that.” He waved his stylus. “We don’t want to be leaving a bunch of backdoors into our defense system lying around in open space for just anyone to find.”
“Valid,” Tina agreed. “Can any of you think of other potential pitfalls? I’m relying on you guys to tear this plan to shreds and identify everything that could go wrong.
Bobcat tilted his head. “Bethany Anne will want this system up yesterday. We have to be clear that it can’t just be thrown up like wallpaper.”
“True,” Tina agreed. “We need to build a simulation and test this ‘blanket’ to destruction before we can rely on it to be the protection she wants the Federation to have.”
Marcus’ eyebrows rose in appreciation for his wife’s fine mind. “I would say that this is unbelievable, but you have been doing
the impossible your whole life.” He gathered his belongings. “I’ll get started on building the sim.”
Tina squeezed Marcus’ hand. “Be harsh,” she told him. “Make the conditions stringent enough to be certain we won’t fail once we roll it out across the Federation.”
“You’ve got it,” Marcus promised, touching her shoulder before he left for his private office, where he could work in silence.
Bobcat grinned as he popped open a beer. “Looks like it’s time to crank up the power on our thinking caps. I make that,” he looked up a moment, “three urgent and impossible projects we have on our hands.” He took a sip and placed his can in the one empty spot on the table in front of him. “What d’you say to having dinner brought to us?”
“I say bring on the cheese pizza,” Tina replied. “My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”
Bobcat turned to William. “Pizza good with you?”
William nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Make mine a meat feast. We’ll keep chipping away at the E-BYPS problem while you do your thing.”
Devon, The Interdiction, QSD Baba Yaga
Bethany Anne strode down the corridor to the lower bridge access, her mind on her next steps now that she was back at full strength.
Michael insisted on remaining by her side in case she relapsed, although Bethany Anne thought that had more to do with his absence when she had gone down.
“You can quit fussing over me,” she told him as they approached the bridge door. “Shit happens. I’m over it.”
Michael released a patient breath. “You can hardly blame me for being concerned when I know for a fact that we’re walking to the bridge right now because you don’t want to draw on the Etheric. You should have called for me. ”
Bethany Anne fixed him with a knowing look. “What, so you could leave our children here? When I would have had to pull your ass through the Etheric in that old armor? I don’t think so. I told you, I’m fine.”
Michael put an arm across the bridge door to prevent Bethany Anne from entering. “You almost killed yourself transferring those Collectives. Then you risked your life again and again, transferring the rest of the prisoners instead of stopping to get the care you needed. What if you had died, Bethany Anne?”
His face was caught between loss and rage, which made Bethany Anne angry. “You mean like you did when you decided to try to outrun a backpack nuke?”
“That was different,” Michael refuted. “We didn’t have children who would have been left without a parent.” His face softened as dawning realization crossed her face. “Promise me you won’t go to extremes like that again.”
Bethany Anne wished she could make that promise. “You know that’s not how it works,” she told him. “I could promise, but it would be a lie. I have a larger duty to consider. I could die if I come up against someone more powerful than me. I face the prospect every time I step up to take care of the Seven’s latest move. Our enemies don’t care that we have children, Michael.”
Michael dropped his arm. “What happens then? Do you think our son and daughter would sit back?” He shook his head. “Don’t forget how they reacted to Addix’s death. They would throw themselves into taking their revenge, and there would be nothing I could do to prevent it.”
Bethany Anne understood what he was suggesting, and the thought of her children in any kind of danger proved to be too much to bear. The ship shook violently, listing in the outpouring of Etheric energy of which she was the epicenter.
The bridge door opened, and John peered through it. “BA, you okay?”
Bethany Anne nodded. “I’m good.”
John looked at her skeptically. “You don’t look so good to me.” He pointed at the shaking corridor. “You don’t generally start shaking the ship to pieces when everything’s peachy.”
Bethany Anne gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes at John. “We’ll be in shortly.”
John flicked a glance at Michael before closing the door.
“We will talk about this another time,” Michael told Bethany Anne, understanding her fight to retain control of her reaction. “Preferably somewhere you can’t destabilize with an Etheric storm. I think we need to have a serious discussion about it.”
Bethany Anne breathed hard, riding the wave of inexplicable emotion that threatened to swamp her entirely with continued difficulty. “Nothing is going to happen to our children,” she ground out. “If one of us dies, the other won’t have the luxury of losing their shit since we will have them to think about.”
The ship ceased its rocking as she reaffirmed her grasp on logical thought and clamped down on the energy buildup.
Michael captured her darting eyes. “Do you have it under control?”
“Yes.” Bethany Anne met Michael’s eyes with determination. “We have a responsibility above and beyond most parents’. We may be left with no choice at some point, but I swear on all that’s good and right I won’t allow my children to risk their lives for something as stupid as revenge.”
Bethany Anne entered the bridge without another word and headed for the small room on the upper level.
Michael had known Bethany Anne long enough to understand when to give her time to think. She understood he was coming from a place of love and not a desire to control her choices. Or at least, he hoped she did.
Bethany Anne’s heels on the stairs announced her arrival before she opened the ready room and walked past John and the guys, who were seated on the right-hand side of the table. She nodded at Tabitha, Dan, and Kael-ven and took her seat at the head of the table. “I’d say let’s get straight to business, but we appear to be a few people short of a full meeting.”
Izanami looked up from the console she was sitting at and Lance appeared on the wallscreen. “Team BMW is almost here,” the AI informed Bethany Anne. “They appear to be having a debate about whether they should have brought an antigrav cart.”
“Hey, Dad.” Bethany Anne smiled at Lance and tapped her nails on the table while they waited for Tina, Marcus, Bobcat, and William.
They filed in a few minutes later with their arms full of cartons.
“Sorry we’re late,” Tina apologized as she put her stacked boxes on the table and took a seat next to Tabitha. “We had a breakthrough last night and wanted to be ready before we presented the concept to you.”
Bethany Anne waved the others in, glad of getting some good news before they’d even begun the meeting. “Now that we’re all here…” The view on the wallscreen split to make space for Jean. “Now we’re all here…” she corrected.
Bobcat placed his boxes in the space between the table and the door and unhooked the cooler from his arm. “I figured this was going to be a long meeting, so I brought refreshments.” He opened the cooler and handed out the Cokes he had on ice in there. “We didn’t forget to bring the good stuff. Nathan sends his regards.”
Bethany Anne smiled as she twisted the cap off her bottle. “Bobcat, you’re an ass, but you’re a thoughtful ass.”
William chuckled dryly. “Don’t thank him yet. You haven’t heard what we’re about to propose.”
“It will have to wait,” Bethany Anne told him. “Take your seats and check your HUDs for the notes ADAM has prepared to help you keep up. The first item on today’s agenda is the Plan. That’s ‘plan’ with a capital P. By the time it’s complete, there won’t be a single fucking resource left that the Seven can bring against us or anyone else.”
She nodded at Izanami, who activated the HLP while everyone who was hearing about the crystals for the first time scanned their notes for details. “The attack on Devon wasn’t random. It was a diversion put in place so the Kurtherian calling herself ‘Gödel’ could break into my home and take back the memory crystals Michael and I recovered before Qu’Baka was destroyed.”
Everyone at the table shifted to watch as the spindles moved above their heads and a large 3D window made from hard light came into being. It showed a huge swath of space containing a number of galaxie
s, with a dark area along one edge. The spindles moved again, and the galaxies were steadily populated with tiny white geotags.
Bethany Anne got to her feet once the projector had finished whirring and set the window to turn slowly so that everyone got to look at the whole projection. “What you are looking at is called a galaxy map. It’s Kurtherian technology, gained from the one crystal we were able to read before Gödel pulled her stunt. The blank space is Federation territory. Using this, we’ve been able to pinpoint the location of close to eight hundred holdings belonging to Gödel. A number of those locations are the factories where the Ookens are mass-grown in Pod-doc equivalents.”
The window shifted in response to Bethany Anne’s deft hand movements. The dark area was discarded, and a number of the tags in the populated area turned red. “These are our targets. Every one of these factories is identical. Each is capable of producing millions of Ookens.” She paused to let the information sink in. “Worse than that, each of those factories is also a prison, where the only escape for the inmates is worse than death.”
Bethany Anne sensed the shift toward anger in the room. She dismissed the galaxy map with a wave and took her seat again. “We are going to take out all these factories, and we’re going to do it in one go.”
“How?” John asked. “They’re spread out across galaxies we didn’t even know existed.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the table.
Bethany Anne held up a hand. “We aren’t in this alone. We have Federation support.” She saw Lance’s question before it left his lips. “My Plan includes rolling out an upgrade for everyone who takes part in this operation. We’ll work the fine details out, but just like I’m not willing to take any of you into this without protection, neither am I willing to send people to die unnecessarily.”
Lance furrowed his brow. “You weren’t kidding, then.”
Bethany Anne shook her head. “I don’t fuck around when it comes to the lives of the people fighting for me. This is going to be the single biggest military operation there has ever been, and the most dangerous. I want them prepared.”
The Valkyrie Returns (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 7) Page 26
