The most marvelous thing that humanity could take credit for was the Gravity Rejector. This development had allowed for the space elevators, giving mankind the ability to move up out of Earth’s gravity well without difficulty, but again, the mechanism of this device was a secret kept locked in military vaults.
As for the space-time-altering anomalies, the military’s official, deep internal position was that they were an un-classed, unexplainable natural phenomenon, able to be used to this advantage. The idea of sentience did not serve the military-use protocol, so was not considered in the defining.
This space-based attack on the Seeker was the second. The first space attack had been a better-kept secret. And the first encounter with these things was, in fact, on Earth.
Swan was still serving in his Earth-based position at the time. He had been maneuvering for his promotion to permanent Lab Head on DTA.
That first earth-based attack involved some children, and, tragic and shocking as it was, he had turned the outcome to his advantage, eventually ending in his current position as DTA Station Head. At the time of the first space attack, two years ago, Swan had assumed that one of the Earth-sourced objects had been illegally removed from the controlled environment of the research lab on Toroid Alpha. The truth or fiction of that assumption had never been resolved. Until now.
This second interstellar run-in triggered an alarm status on Swan’s current actions. This incident confirmed the objects unrestrained presence in space as well as on Earth. And, even more disconcerting, Swan believed this was not a coincidence. The universe, even the galaxy, was too big for an event this unusual to happen twice by chance in mankind’s small corner of it. But how frequent would the incidents be?
His original hypothesis had been unchallenged for two years; maybe that would be the way of it. Maybe it was going to be a matter of vigilant damage control.
Before the interstellar-drive development program ended, Earth-based personnel losses of this type had become part and parcel of the research. Skillfully rotating in a fresh set of researchers after an accident had always blocked off a spreading knowledge of the danger to workers. At that time in Swan’s Generalship, threats and blackmail, and other necessary measures, had made sure that the few surviving witnesses never discussed the incidents.
But space was beyond Swan’s control.
Long before the first space-based massacre, they had worked out how to salvage the personnel losses, applying new regrowth technology. It had started off as a very unpleasant situation: the initial experiments used the fetal-survivors of the artifact-search on Earth, as well as some victims of subsequent accidents under controlled conditions. The first full-press regrowth attempt produced pitiful, unfortunate individuals; newborn minds in adult bodies. These completely re-grown individuals had to be re-trained from an infantile state. Retarded adults, diapers and all, were slowly brought to the mental age of about two years old, whereupon they could function on the most base levels. The subsequent training to a full, advanced-level education took years of compressed teaching.
This early experience led to the present policy of halting the accelerated growth at the stage of twelve months, post-womb. Then, after three months of normal growth adaption, intensive military education and training began in a nursery environment, with additional growth-tank sessions at regular intervals, which advanced the bodies in unison with accelerated learning techniques.
Despite initial setbacks of personnel loss from the attacks, SBMMP gained a big advantage. The families of those soldiers and scientists accepted them to be dead in the sweep of heavy condolences from their superiors. It was the official position the military took: military accidents were an accepted reality throughout man’s history and remained common enough. When BUMP could not produce the bodies of the dead, it still was not questioned.
So with his past experience, and the ready-made equipment, Swan was able to rescue that first vessel’s crew, if it could be called that.
All of these individuals were now the sole property of SBMMP; they knew no other reality. And their new life training reflected this. They had been taught only that which then-General Swan and several other superiors had wanted them to be taught. Former soldiers were retrained from mental infancy to be soldiers of extraordinary toughness, service-bonded in the extreme. They had been guinea pigs in an experiment for which SBMMP could never have gotten human-trials permission.
Swan considered the results of these experiments to be the perfect soldiers.
And then there were the scientists and science workers who had fallen victim to the field effect. Swan quickly earned his credit toward promotion as he picked up the pieces, providing the military with some re-grown, and re-trained scientists, techs, and others that were fully committed to SBMMP. These individuals now occupied sensitive positions around his Admiralship, including his doctor aboard the Medallion.
Through the history of incidents, however, the behavior of the anomaly had shown it to have earmarks of intention or consciousness. For example, there was an exhibited preference to possess one sex over another in the course of an attack. When both men and women were present, the interface host was always chosen to be a woman. In one observed attack, a reversal of hosting had taken place mid-event, as the force moved from a male host to a female one.
The shell-shocked personnel who had been possessed as hosts for a full-scale event, were left in a fragile state at the end of this experience. After spending days or weeks in a comatose state, these victims would awake and begin to babble about feelings that they’d had during their possession. They would describe the sensations as “not my own” and “beast-like.” Considering the fact that the hosted condition could easily be compared to the antiquated religious definition of possession—occupied by an evil intelligence—it would have quickly led to conclusions of possible xeno-intellect. Swan recognized these recovering hosts as threats to the idea that the influence was a natural force—the military’s official position—versus an intelligence.
It had been Swan, once again, who had seen to this inconvenient circumstance, grasping early on the need to protect the potential of this discovery. It meant another necessary sacrifice.
When news of the current disaster reached him, he had mistaken it as an attack by the rogue interstellar pirate. The transmission went on to Center Comm on Earth and it blew up in his face. By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late to spin it in the way he would have liked. As Head of Station on Toroid Alpha, he could only do damage control at this point.
He thought that would be easy enough. Swan was actually looking forward to getting a new batch of moldable soldier material. But it was turning sour. The relatively few salvageable bodies were well on their way to the targeted re-growth, but now what? He’d planned to tell the families that the crew had died an unfortunate yet heroic death, but he had to somehow discount the rumors. His media engine was already feeding out the counter-story that “not all of the soldiers’ bodies were recoverable.” The truth of the anomaly would send the population into a panic, so he couldn’t very well hand over the dead fetuses to the families.
Only eleven of the crew remained alive, after a fashion. Ten, now that Pvt. Geoff was dead. So he had ten potentially perfect soldiers that he could craft. But he was going to have to give up some to satisfy the media and the families, and dispel some strange rumors about disfiguring viruses. Where these rumors came from he had no idea. Disfiguring… I can see that, but not a virus. But it had to be quelled.
Swan’s mortician was doing reconstruction on Geoff now. He might be able to get away with giving up just four of the ten regrown soldiers. With Private Geoff, that would be five bodies that he could produce for the public. It really burned him. That would have to be enough for the whiners. Enough so that the military appeared to be sensitive to the families of the fallen. He could spin this as a heroic effort to recover the dead.
Beyond the panic that the truth would cause, the public would never assent to the soldiers being used in the way that he had done. This forfeit of perfectly good soldiers was what he had to do to keep his secrets. He was used to making sacrifices. He had commanded men for many years now, and in this time of amazing discovery he’d had to sacrifice some of those men. It was something he learned to accept, even expect.
He would have four subjects regrown to a young adult body-state and arrange a lethal injection, or maybe do it himself as a hedge against future scandals; the fewer who knew the truth, even amongst his own, the better.
Gant, and his methods, being the hand of death for Pvt. Geoff gave Swan some insulation from that occurrence. His PR people were watching the man, and would carefully control his statements to the media, through his psych evaluator. The public would hear what Swan wanted them to hear. The sincerity of the man’s pain would sell brilliantly.
Presently, Swan was studying parameters in the ten soldiers’ files. He had to decide the best candidates for increasing the numbers of his special forces. And which four of these would be fully re-grown immediately, slated for the morgue slabs and “public glory,” next to Geoff.
A discreet tone sounded in his ear. His gaze flicked up to the right, an automatic response, shifting his ocular implant to view mode.
It was General Hanson. A moment later the man entered through the open door without announcing himself. He saluted and stood at attention until the admiral, without taking his attention from his sheaf of z-vellums, acknowledged him by way of a question. “How is our friend, Dr. Gant, doing today?”
“He is well supervised, sir,” Hanson responded stiffly.
“What is it that you have to report to me, General?” The admiral maintained his preoccupied façade.
The man did not speak up right away.
Finally, Swan looked up at him. The general answered then. “Have you seen the latest recordings sent back from the Quantum Butterfly?”
Now Swan’s gaze riveted on the general, and he asked in a measured tone, “No… Is there something I urgently need to know?”
“Uh, well, sir… Captain Astra and Bartell, well…”
“Spit it out, General!” If there was one thing the admiral couldn’t stand, it was this type of stammering and stalling.
“Yes sir! They are having sexual relations, sir!
Swan felt he’d been punched in the temple. His vision shook and blurred, tinting to red. The general sensed the man’s upset and took an unconscious step back.
Swan managed to force through gritted teeth, “Dis-missed.”
Hanson quickly turned and marched out as if he expected to be attacked from behind.
* * *
That Bitch! That cold fucking Bitch! After the years of attention that I’ve given her! The years that she spurned me, repeatedly! Each time that he’d thought he’d figured out how he could make her love him—come back to him—she’d walked out on him, wearing the glory of whatever new thing he’d arranged for her to have, always claiming it as self-made accomplishment.
That BITCH! She’d be nowhere without me, still trying to make officer in some shithole assignment. The fucking whore! That’s what she is! A goddam whore!
“WHORE!” he shouted into the quiet of his office. He looked down at the hard copy files that he’d been working with. It was difficult to damage a zephyr vellum, but one was nearly torn, others crumpled; a jumbled, disjointed mess. He looked at his hands. They were shaking. He was breathing heavily. What could he do? Nothing. He’d already signed her death warrant. He just wished it were done and over with already. He’d feel better then.
As he tried to calm himself and appease his anger with the fact that she was as good as dead, a piece fell into place. Not a good place. It could still all go to shit. He’d been counting on that bitch’s cold demeanor. Now she was getting all up into Bartell’s sex. This was bad. Bartell would spill sooner or later; then what?
Only Hanson and Swan’s own superiors knew that he was running this mission—other than that nobody sergeant whose name he could not recall. Swan had carefully kept his own name off any report or order that Dominique might have seen before the mission, but if she saw Bartell’s orders she’d see his hand in this.
He’d blown up at her the last time she’d walked out on him, over a year ago. It wasn’t long enough for her to have forgotten. He’d transferred her out from under his command before his Admiralship had come through, but she might know of his quiet promotion. Given a little evidence, she could suspect that he had the pull, if not the direct authority to put her on that ship—in that position.
Swan had to be sure that Bartell wouldn’t talk. That seemed unlikely with this development. The admiral did the only thing he could think of. He concocted a devious message disguised as an order. But before he sent it he had to do one thing.
He gave the command that secured the door and made his office sound- and bug proof. He then requested the recording General Hanson had brought to his attention. Piped to both of his ocular implants, the scene filled his vision in full holographic glory; he could barely breathe…
Dominique peeled down the top of her one piece and her creamy white breasts flowed out… into the hands of a traitor, and not Clarence Swan.
The color that bled into his vision formed a crimson halo around the inner projection. Jolts of electricity fired painfully through his head. He refused to yield to the pain and rage, and watched until the end, until he was half-mad and thoroughly miserable.
CHAPTER 32
EVENT: DAY 11, 1215 UT
A wave of sensation and emotion crashed over Garrison.
He lost track of time. He lost track of his surroundings and all of his concerns about what loomed for their mission. Colors exploded in his vision throughout the entire experience, framing her exquisite femininity as he explored every silky-smooth inch of her. She responded loudly to his touch. She tasted as sweet as candy to his tongue, and her mouth was like hot cream. His body was filled with a buzzing sensation that lingered long after they had reached their climaxes.
* * *
Like waking from a dream, he found that they were in the sleep cubby, lightly confined against zero-G drift. The heat of their passion left their naked bodies sheathed in sweat. He had no recollection of leaving the flight couches and, thinking back, only various parts of Dominique’s body flashed through his memory. His deep sigh was rewarded with a tightening squeeze from the arms wrapped around him, her hot, slippery breasts and belly sliding against his left side; warm breath on his neck. This moment in the null gravity was liquid, dreamlike. How could this possibly be real?
Dominique stirred, just enough to move her lips to his ear. He was expecting to feel a kiss, or her tongue; powerful anticipation made him light-headed. So, when she began to whisper, the sharp-edged consonants softly punctuating his eardrum, he did not understand her words at first.
“Garry, I think we may be in danger.”
“Hmmm,” he automatically responded, then, “What?” But the words had begun to sort in his mind already as she repeated them in his ear, ever so quietly.
As the words sank in, things happened in Garrison’s body. The euphoric saturation shattered, withdrawing like water soaking into sand. The beginning of renewed arousal shrank back, deflated. His muscles tensed slightly as the sentence played over in his mind several times, each instance sounding differently, taking on new meanings.
She echoed his concerns that had evolved out of the anger, begun when he’d first read the mission orders. The large burden of that secret suddenly lifted from his shoulders. This was his first split-second reaction.
The words moved through his mind again, like a streaming banner, I think we may be in danger… She knew. Or she suspected. A highly charged feeling of protection welled up in him.
“Garry,” she started to whisper agai
n. He moved quickly but carefully. Garrison turned his body full on to hers and placed a hand to her mouth, he gave her a look that intended to convey his agreement and understanding.
He was still processing the ramifications of her own suspicions, when something clicked for him. In the moment of this revelation, his body overtracked his thoughts, becoming hypersensitive. The previous saturated blending of sensations shredded into separate inputs.
The close, liquid air he breathed was heavy with the raw scent of their spent love; the slightest sound came to his ears like the strike of a taut drumhead. Every point on his body that touched Dominique’s created a flare of awareness; legs entwined, he felt the softness of her thighs, his flaccid penis pressed against the strip of stiff pubic fur below her belly; his breath, bringing his chest into and out of close contact with her breasts, each movement accompanied by a peeling separation of their warm, moist flesh, cooler air slipping in and out; her soft, full lips that were pressed against the palm of his hand covering her mouth, the tips of his fingers caressing her smooth cheek.
This was when his muscles tensed: Garrison was overtaken by the hateful thought that he, in fact, was not the irresistible companion that she needed.
No, no; that wasn’t quite it. She needed him, but not that way. She had been doing the exact same thing as he had been doing—desperately trying to decide how to talk about their impending danger without revealing the conversation to Center. This was her way.
In his eyes, his thoughts must have been plain to Dominique. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head fractionally, her lips mouthing the word, No, under his hand. The movement caused him to become particularly aware of that hand, and he removed it from her mouth. Her response was to tighten her arms around him, hugging him closer, pressing her face back into the crook of his neck.
Parallel Extinction (Extinction Encounters Book 1) Page 18
