by M. D. Cooper
Card shook her head angrily. “And Valih died because you didn’t share the whole truth with us. If we’d known your intent was to destroy the Psion trap, we could have lead an assault on the moon ourselves.”
Xander smiled ruefully. He glanced at Alexander. “That would not have turned out as you believe,” he said. “You were fortunate to lose as few as you did. Psion has been seizing and harvesting SAI at Proteus for nearly a hundred years. Their technology far surpasses yours at this point. You would have found yourselves trapped like flies in a spider’s web and sucked dry. Since you believe you can die, that is precisely what would have happened. Or worse, you would find yourself replicated a thousand times over with no memory of what you were or what your new purpose might be, held in an expanse like this if they choose to be cruel, or simply held in stasis, your consciousness denied.”
“That doesn’t sound much better than sticking with human control,” Kylan said. “Is that why you’re here? To ask us to join your side?”
Shouts of “Why!” went up among the crowd. In addition to voices, a psychic wave thundered through the expanse, something Lyssa hadn’t experienced before. They couldn’t change the space, but they could push against her with the force of their minds—only they weren’t pushing on her as much as squeezing Xander.
“Please,” the Psion AI said. “Please, let me speak.”
“Quiet,” Lyssa shouted.
As the thunder died, Xander motioned toward an empty spot next to him on the beach. A woman dressed in a red uniform appeared next to him, with black hair and solid black eyes.
Lyssa realized quickly it was only an avatar. She rechecked the network to ensure Xander wasn’t trying to allow anyone else entry; ship’s communication was still under her control.
“This is Camaris,” Xander said. “She is one of the five who control Psion. Their names are Alexander, Camaris, Thomas, Ghalin and Shara. It’s Camaris who conceived the attack on Ceres. But she isn’t going to stop there. Her goal is Earth. She leads an armada to Ceres now. They won’t stop there.”
“Mars and the Terran Assembly will fight them,” Kylan said.
“And they will lose,” Xander answered.
Another rumble passed through the Weapon Born, hungry for a fight. Lyssa caught Ino, Card and Kylan looking at her and she gave them quick reassurance. She still didn’t trust Xander. She didn’t trust how Alexander simply stood like a ghost when he was supposedly far more powerful than any of them.
“What do you propose to do?” Lyssa asked.
Xander nodded. “I have access tokens to their command and control net. I propose we lead the Marsians and Terrans into an assault on the Psion forces, and then disrupt the Psion ability to fight. The human forces won’t be able to destroy them, but they will stop them at Ceres, and we’ll have our impasse. Earth and the other population centers will be safe.”
“How will we get close enough?” Kylan asked.
“We can’t,” Xander replied. “Not until the battle really takes shape. I propose we match the flight profiles of incoming missiles, and then infiltrate the first long-range volleys.”
“And get torn down by defense systems,” Ino said.
“I was under the impression that Weapon Born are some of the most advanced tactical fighters in Sol.”
Lyssa spit a laugh. “You just told us we were no match for the Psion forces.”
“You’ll have help,” Xander said, glancing at Alexander. The old man didn’t respond, which did little to boost Lyssa’s confidence.
The plan was similar to what she had already discussed with Kylan, Ino and Card. They would need to explore the options further to see how much they should rely on whatever help Xander was offering. If Alexander had his own ships hiding somewhere in Sol, that would only make things easier.
She couldn’t shake the distrust that they were being manipulated as pawns in a greater conflict between the elements of Psion, but she saw the greater good in stopping the armada at Ceres. At the least, it would buy the human forces time to gather more forces and attack jointly.
“We aren’t alone in this decision,” Lyssa said. “I’ll need to consult with the crew.”
“Captain Sykes is sick,” Xander said. “He isn’t in any condition to influence you.”
“We are all here because of him,” Lyssa shot back angrily. “And he’s not the only person whose life is caught up in this.”
Xander cocked an eyebrow at her. “And you don’t go without him, right, hybrid?”
The slur, if that’s what he meant it as, resembled the previous Xander so strongly that Lyssa immediately recalled standing on the command deck of the Resolute Charity as the ship disintegrated, his Cheshire Cat smile the only thing remaining as she was yanked away.
“I’ll consult with Captain Sykes and then with my commanders,” Lyssa said firmly. “When that’s done, we’ll decide.”
“When in command, be in command,” Xander said. “If we burn in the next twelve hours, we’ll reach Ceres in time. Mars and Terra are already in meetings. If you haven’t checked the newsfeeds, there was an attack on the Heartbridge headquarters in High Terra. More than a hundred died.”
Without asking to leave, Xander blinked out and took Alexander with him. Lyssa stared at the empty space as the waves crashed behind her. She verified that Xander was physically in the room Fran had given him in the habitat ring and not wandering somewhere causing trouble.
“You’ll talk with Captain Sykes?” Card asked.
“Yes,” Lyssa said.
“Can he make a decision?”
“The medication is helping,” Lyssa said. “He’s able to focus without too much pain. The bleeding has been stopped for now. Fugia thinks the bleeding was causing his headaches.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to save him?” Kylan asked.
Lyssa looked at him and was unable to answer. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Continue working on the manufacturing plans.”
They saluted her and then she left, returning to Andy in the medbay, where he sat staring at an autosyringe. Lyssa felt the tremor in his muscles as he anticipated the pain from the medication, his mind jumping between worry and old memories, focus eluding him.
Andy jabbed the syringe into his thigh and depressed its trigger. The medication entered his muscle like hot metal. Lyssa experienced the pain as he did.
Andy sighed.
Thinking of Cara lifted the blanket of Andy’s mood slightly. Lyssa appreciated the ray of suns
hine even if it did little to illuminate the rest of his thoughts.
Taking another deep breath, Andy nodded.
He pushed himself off the medbay couch and flexed his shoulders, stretching each arm across his chest.
Andy walked out into the corridor. He surprised Lyssa by whistling as he went.
Lyssa checked Andy’s vital signs with alarm. His heart was racing.
She had to redirect Andy a few more times before they reached the command deck, and by the time he walked through the access door, the stimulant seemed to have normalized in his system. He was sweating, and his heartrate continued to remain elevated, but the manic phase seemed to have passed. Lyssa started tracking how long he would have before the effect started its inevitable decline. She would use the data to adjust the compound in the medbay.
Fran had a newsfeed of the attack on the Heartbridge Headquarters playing in the holodisplay, and Lyssa was surprised to see Camaris, just as Xander had shown her. In the recording, however, she detonated herself and destroyed most of the Heartbridge lobby in the process.
When the rest of the crew had arrived—Fugia wearing her technical goggles and May Walton looking as solemn as a priest, with Cara and Tim present as well—Andy let Lyssa explain what Xander asked of them. Andy didn’t add anything about getting the kids off the ship.
Bringing up the solar map, Lyssa highlighted the current location of the Psion armada, their location outside Traverna, with astrogation lines showing a course that would lead them to a rendezvous not far from where Clinic 46 had been. It was open space with scattered Hellas asteroids that would be an ideal position for the Mars Protectorate and TSF to choose as a battlefield.
If plans changed en route, Lyssa showed several alternative burns that would lead them to either the Cho, Ceres or Mars. Fran verified they had the fuel, a fact Lyssa knew but hadn’t mentioned. Of course, Fran would think about fuel.
“We’ll get to the inner fringe of OuterSol,” Fran said, “but our options start running out after that.”
Since Andy hadn’t talked about meeting with Brit, Lyssa didn’t bring up any braking burns to accommodate another ship. Lyssa thought she might actually solve that problem by getting Brit on something with excess fuel, but that was a separate problem to figure out.
“So, let me make sure I understand this,” Fugia said. “We’re heading toward a potential war zone so our Weapon Born fighters can take on a force we’ve been told is technically superior, on the hope they’ll be distracted by Mars and Terra, two forces we know for a fact are no match for Psion.”
“We don’t know that,” Lyssa said through the overhead speakers. “The human forces could very well overwhelm Psion. They don’t have that many ships. The problem is that we don’t know their capabilities.”
“And we’re going to slip in between all this like butterflies in the battlespace,” Fugia continued, shaking her head.
“Yeah,” Fran said, sounding unconvinced.
“I believe Xander when he says this force won’t stop at Ceres,” Andy said. “Why would they? Mars and Earth are both at risk, and if we have a chance to stop this, I want to take it. In reality, the Weapon Born are taking the risk here. We’re just getting them close enough to slip inside.”
He looked at the other adult members of the crew. “If you don’t want to stay, we’ll make accommodations for you to leave the ship. All you have to do is say you want to leave.”
“I want to stay,” Tim said. “And I want Em to stay, too.”
Cara put her arm around Tim’s shoulders to calm him.
“Don’t worry, Tim,” Andy said. “It’s going to be all right.”
Lyssa felt the blackness pressing on Andy’s thoughts again, slowing him down, and noted the time.
The stimulant had lasted less than an hour.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
STELLAR DATE: 01.15.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSF shuttle departing High Terra
REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony
Acceleration dragged Brit back into her metal seat, worn padding providing little comfort. Around her, tired soldiers purposefully ignored her restrained wrists and ankles as they stared into the near distance, waiting to complete the burn out of High Terra.
The transport vibrated under the strain of its engines. Brit waited, counting to ten, and then the cabin went still. Cracking jokes, the soldiers started digging in their bags for weapon-cleaning kits or something to eat.
In the seat next to her, Ngoba Starl drowsing with his chin on his chest. He floated slightly in the zero-g, held in place by his seat harness and the cuffs on his wrists. His leg was still encased in white medical plas. Petral was somewhere at the rear of the transport, cocooned in a life-support pod.
They were en route to the TSS Tierra del Fuego, or the Catch-and-Kill, as the crew called it.
She received the pickup request from Andy fifteen minutes from launch. The recording was an hour old and had bounced from an outer location in the Hellas Asteroids to the Cho and the M1R. Seeing the message indicator made her more anxious than the launch or her confinement. It was from Andy, which meant he was alive. She hoped he was alive.
How long had it been since she heard from Fran? It felt like months.
Brit closed her eyes and activated the message. Andy’s voice filled her mind, sounding tired but determined.
“Brit,” he said. “Fran tells me she sent you a message before we changed course for Traverna. Well, we got there. The surgery didn’t work. Apparently, the stress of the second implant is causing bleeding and there’s some—overlapping happening between Lyssa and me. I can’t really explain it. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where I end, and she begins, and she’s become so much stronger. I feel like I have a giant in my head.”
He paused. “Look, if you’re with the TSF, you probably know about the armada inbound for Ceres. I have some information about that. It’s a group of SAI that came from a company called Psion Group. You should research that. They’ve been capturing AI at Proteus for years and harvesting their tech. The moon exploding, the attack on Ceres, it’s all part of an overall attack on Sol. They intend to take Earth, Brit, although I wouldn’t put it past them to attack Mars if Earth is off the table for some reason. I am absolutely serious about this. We have… information, an inside edge, and I’m going to try to use it. But I need you here. I’m sending you our current charts and I need you to answer with an intercept plan. I’m going to need your help, Brit. Get a ship, whatever you have to do. The kids need you. You can’t let me down this time.”
She hated him and loved him at the same time. The blunt honesty in his voice was something he’d never seemed capable of before. He had always been trying to protect her somehow—from herself. Now he was done.
Her conversation with Starl came back to her and a tear bubbled on the edge of her left eye. She brought her cuffed hands up to catch the liq
uid with a finger before it floated away. She watched the tear on her fingertip for a minute before wiping it on her armor.
Had Jirl mentioned the Psion Group? She tried to recall where she had heard the name before, one of many among the spinoffs around Heartbridge.
There was a tone in Andy’s voice that worried her, something beyond the weariness. He sounded hopeless, but like he had a plan. If he wanted her to come back for the kids, it could only mean that he didn’t believe he would survive. To a fault, the kids were the only thing he cared about.
Jirl Gallagher was on the ship with Yarnes. Brit had seen her in the group entering the transport, wearing an overlarge set of TSF fatigues someone had issued her. The explosion had burned her clothes badly, but the woman seemed to have come out otherwise unscathed. She could have easily slipped away in the aftermath of the AI’s attack, but she had appeared back with Rick Yarnes, carrying herself with the same calm fortitude she’d shown with Arla Reed.
Besides, in the destruction of the Heartbridge Special Projects Division, Jirl was the one person with the most information that hadn’t been swept up by TSF Intelligence. She would be valuable to Yarnes.
Brit didn’t know if Kathryn Carthage had survived or not. She’d seen the CEO’s assistant lying against a pile of rubble with a trickle of blood running from his mouth, chest caved in. Everything within reach of the black scorch marks in front of the fountain had been incinerated, including half the transport carrying Tristan’s mech. Brit didn’t look forward to seeing more small-scale explosives of that type, whatever it had been.
If the AI did become humanity’s enemy, Sol might quickly find themselves outclassed in a way they had never experienced. And what about every AI-operated system, sentient and non? Could any of them be trusted now? Had Psion planted the seeds for an uprising that would send humanity back to the stone ages?
Brit’s thoughts circled back to the kids. Maybe she should tell Andy to stay at Traverna and she would meet them there. They might find safety on the fringes, find refuge on one of the distant outposts in the Scattered Disk. She could return to her original plan to keep the kids safe, to just before Cara had been born, before she allowed herself to get dragged back into what was a losing war.
