The measures taken were extreme, but he’d jumped at the chance to take the lead on this mission—to not only be responsible for the most important location of the operation, but also to coordinate the other agents spread across the Directorate’s domain.
On returning from blowing the Maffei I Gateway with Alex, Caleb and Valkyrie, he’d stopped at Post Alpha long enough to get into costume then traveled straight here. He should be on a collision course with exhaustion, but instead he felt invigorated.
He’d convinced Sator Nisi to go public with an impassioned plea to the two and a half trillion beings living under Directorate rule, but accomplishing such an act wasn’t a simple matter.
The Directorate controlled public communications: news, information dissemination and entertainment. As a method of keeping said control, there existed no universal, open communications platform they might access. Alex had been shocked on learning this, calling it archaic and backward; he understood her friend Devon had used crasser words. They weren’t wrong, but the system did work to help keep control.
So he and his team would hardline hack individual communication hubs and impose their own broadcast signal. It wouldn’t reach everyone, but with anarch agents ready to hack sixty-two Arx, hubs and admin centers, it would reach a lot. Far too many to contain. The Directorate was not going to be able to bury this one.
Oraihe Villiane (mission): “In position. Ursa Major I Arx.”
Drae ela-Machim (mission): “In position. MW 36 Administration.”
Eren reached Maintenance Hardware and credentialed his way inside under the guise of, obviously, maintenance work.
It took him only seconds to find a local communications access point once he was inside the vault. As an added bonus, it was tucked safely out of direct view of anyone outside the vault. Still, no need to take unneeded chances.
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “Stay cloaked. Get set up and wait for my signal.”
Cosime Rhomyhn (private): “Roger mission leader sir.”
She’d accompanied him all the way through the Arx to Maintenance Hardware under the cover of a Veil, and had done a damn sight better job of it than he had at Machimis Central Command.
Now he smiled and reached out, to where her cheek should be. His fingers grazed feathery hair on their way to settle against soft skin he could not see.
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “You’ve got this.”
Cosime Rhomyhn (private): “I’ve got this. Go be a hero.”
His hand fell away as he retreated to a dim corner in the rear of the vault.
Cosime Rhomyhn (mission): “In position. Centaurus Arx.”
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “Mesme, I’m ready.”
The next second the swirl of white-blue lights surrounded him and hurriedly swept him away.
The distance traveled was great and the trip short, but not too short for Mesme to poke at all his fresh wounds while in transit.
Mnemosyne (private): You appear in better spirits than when we last parted. I must apologize for any discomfort I caused you.
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “It wasn’t your fault. And yes, I’m feeling better.”
Mnemosyne (private): Then you do not regret visiting the Faneros?
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “The dark, dank and crowded dungeon that houses my regrets is a place you don’t want to venture without a full party and sturdy armor.”
Mnemosyne (private): Eren asi-Idoni, there are times when you become more perplexing than the Humans.
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “I know. Thank you for taking me to see the Faneros. The rest of my answer is still in progress.”
CHALMUN STATION ASTEROID
LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD
LGG REGION I
They landed in the far corner of the hangar bay of Chalmun Station. Mesme was gone before Eren had properly regained his balance, off to wait in the asteroid’s shadow for the call to return.
He smoothed out the lines of his coat and strode toward the tunnel leading out of the hangar bay.
He hadn’t lied earlier—he was responsible for the most important location of the mission. But it wasn’t the Centaurus Arx. It was Chalmun Station.
The settlement occupied a rather unique position in Directorate society. It existed off the grid and served as a haven for criminals, runaways and outcasts. Transaction fees on lucrative black market trade paid for the power and stocking of food and basic staples, but everything else that went on here was cutthroat business. Carved into the cavity of an asteroid orbiting a binary pair, Chalmun expanded in jagged, haphazard swaths deeper into the asteroid as additional space was needed.
If asked, the Directorate would deny to the end of its days that places such as Chalmun existed, but in truth the Directorate allowed them to exist. A few of them.
Even mad, power-drunk dictators recognized the necessity of maintaining a few release valves, lest society combust from within. So the Directorate discreetly monitored Chalmun Station and a small number of similar locations scattered across the empire. So long as they did not grow too large, wealthy or ambitious, it left them alone, because it needed to.
Oh, how the Primors must despise them.
He nodded a greeting at the bouncer, a Ch’mshak wearing mismatched but heavily spiked armor. The creased, pale look of the bouncer’s skin meant he was old, which meant he’d won enough battles that it would be suicide to provoke him.
“I’m here to see Trepenos.”
The bouncer grunted. “Passcode?”
“Potentissimus est qui se habet in potestate.” He held up his open palm and projected a sequence of signals to accompany the phrase.
Another grunt, but this one came with a motion forward. “He’s in the club, upstairs.”
“Thank you.” Eren hurried forward, less because he wanted to put distance between himself and the bouncer—though he did—and more because time was super, excruciatingly short. He had agents hanging out there across multiple galaxies waiting on him. Good thing he knew his way around the claustrophobic tunnels. While he maneuvered through them, his temporary Diaplas disguise faded away to return him to his natural appearance.
Borya Denovavan (mission): “In position. Andromeda 2 Administration.”
As promised, he found his contact in the glass-enclosed balcony encircling the only truly expansive, open space in this rock.
Trepenos Hishai had the same clock ticking down in his head that Eren did, so on spotting Eren he excused himself from a couple of ominously outfitted Barisan and met Eren halfway.
“You have the transponder?”
Eren retrieved it from his pack and handed it to Trepenos. At most of the mission locations, the transponders were set to replace the official Directorate-approved feed flowing through the access point with the feed transmitting from the module, which originated at Post Satus. The transponders were programmed to self-destruct at the end of the broadcast, so any of the devices that were eventually recovered by Vigil would be of no use to them. Here at Chalmun there existed no official feed to replace, but the signal would transmit all the same.
“I’ll see it gets looped in right away. Facility-wide. Are you ready to sell it?”
Inou asi-Antalla (mission): “In position. LMC Arx II.”
Eren cracked his neck and shook his hair out. Good thing he hadn’t sliced it off the other morning. “I am.”
Trepenos motioned below. “The floor is yours. Nos libertatem somnia.”
“Nos libertatem somnia.” Eren spun and hurried a few meters around the ring to a glass door, opened it and leapt down the ten meters to the floor below. He landed between a Dankath and the Naraida trying to sell her a custom power spike.
“Excuse me, ladies.” He left behind their stunned expressions to jog through the crowd toward the center stage.
Chalmun Station included hundreds of spaces. Businesses and workshops, temporary residences, labs and fight pits. His words and the message that followed them would be broadcast on every speaker and
feed in the asteroid, reaching tens of thousands of people occupying its tunnels and hideaways.
But most of the people here gravitated to Trepenos’ establishment whenever they could—for the comparatively open air, the prolific intoxicants and the somewhat more rare visual treat. They made the deals here that later played out in the other spaces. They drank and got high. Sometimes they fought, not for money but for sport or grudge.
They were the desperate and the daring, the lost and the searching. Tonight, they were his audience. Tomorrow, they would be his front line.
He reached the center platform, signaled for it to begin rising and hopped up on it. As it rotated and lifted ever higher, the lights angled toward him. Trepenos knew his stuff.
He donned a showy smirk and spread his arms wide. “Good evening, all. Ladies, gentlemen and otherfolk, enchantresses and woodkin, menageries and fluidics. My name is Eren asi-Idoni, and I bring you tonight’s entertainment.” He flourished his arms and swept into a low bow to a chorus of whistles and a few growls, then straightened up tall.
“You have business and pleasure to attend to. As an expert in both, allow me to advise you to put them aside for the next ten minutes. Why? Because the world is about to transform, and you will want to be able to say you saw it happen. The axes of our little universe are about to flip, and you’ll want to get your magboots set.
“Quite the grandiose introduction, even for an Idoni, no? Well, you haven’t seen anything yet.” New lights began to swirl around him, and for a second he thought Mesme had arrived early. But it was merely a ramping up of the effects. In the shadows near the fringes, spectators poured in, crowding against the crowd.
“You see, fine patrons, I am an anarch.” Amid the rippling murmurs of horror that he would dare admit it aloud, he pointed to a random location on the curving wall, then brought two fingers back to his face. Repeated the gesture. “Hey, Directorate spy cams, did you catch what I said? A-N-A-R-C-H.
“And you know what? I have lots of friends. Do you all want to be my friends, too? Do you want to take the work you scrape out in this shit-hole—no offense, Trepenos—and use it to set the world ablaze for a good cause?”
Venh G’ordackhl (mission): “In position. Triangulum 4 Administration.”
Forty-nine of the sixty-two agents had now reported in ready; technical difficulties or security interference prevented the other thirteen from completing their mission. Forty-nine was good. Enough.
“I believe you do, because I know you. I’ve been you, and I’m here to tell you that you can be so much more powerful than you are now.”
He snapped his fingers as the telltale electrical field of an oversized virtual screen sparked to life behind him. “So pay attention. If you have the ability to do so, sober up. If you can’t sober up now, sober up in the morning. It’s time to buckle up, strap in and go to work.
“The anarchs are stepping out of the shadows and into the light. Resistance is about to become revolution.”
Eren asi-Idoni (mission): “Operation is live. Activate access overrides, then get yourselves clear before Hades breaks out the rage.”
Eren asi-Idoni (private): “Mesme, make a proper spectacle of it. Show them the Kats are not Eradicated, and they are fighting.”
He stepped forward as the screen solidified and Mesme swept over the crowd in a dazzling tornado of light to surround him then spin yet hotter and brighter. They vanished just as Nisi’s voice boomed from the screen to resonate through the asteroid.
57
ANARCH POST SATUS
LOCATION UNKNOWN
* * *
“MY NAME IS DANILO NISI. I speak to you today as an Anaden appalled at my sovereigns, and as an individual unwilling to sit idly by as their abuses propagate unchecked across galaxies. I speak to you today as an anarch.
“The Directorate denies our existence and our acts. But you hear tales of our deeds, delivered in hushed, furtive tones in the dark corners. ‘The anarchs rescued a host of prisoners from a torture facility,’ they say. ‘The anarchs destroyed the Phoenix Gateway,’ they proclaim. Some call us freedom fighters, others terrorists. But we are only what we must be. We do only what we must do to free people, worlds and knowledge from the chokehold and murderous hammer of the Directorate.
“You listen to me now, and if you are Anaden, you wonder my Dynasty, rank and role. The possibility I have none does not enter your mind, because your mind is controlled to a far greater extent than you realize.
“If you are a member of an Accepted Species, you listen to me and wonder why I would be any different from the Anadens who have abused you, dominated you and even murdered your families and friends. You wonder why I would ever bother to rebel when I can rule.
“To all of you, my answer is this. Freed of the suffocating influence of an integral, freed to question and to choose, I came to dream of a world where all individuals are free in this way. Where entire species are not Eradicated simply because they don’t fit a slot in the Directorate’s carefully constructed empire, but instead are nurtured and welcomed into our community.
“I dream of it because I have seen it. I have lived it and lost it.
“I do not stand alone. Countless members of every Accepted Species fight alongside me in pursuit of this dream: Novoloume, Naraida, Efkam, Ch’mshak, Katasketousya, Yinhe, Barisan, Dankath. The last members of species the Directorate had thought Eradicated fight alongside me. And now, species they did not know existed fight alongside me.
“You hear whispers of a new player on the field and know not whether they are liberators or conquerors. You have met people who met people who saw a battle take place—at the Sagittae and Provision Network Gateways, at Fabrication Centers and Regional Hubs. They talk of Machim fleets lying in ruin, vanquished. Even as I speak, you begin to hear rumors of Machimis itself, the crown jewel and heart of the Machim Dynasty, lying pitched into darkness. And you wonder if there might be reason for hope.
“You are right to do so. Though at times the anarchs have faltered under the crushing, omnipresent weight of the Directorate’s authority, today we find new strength in new partners. Humans, the distant descendants of the Anadens of old, come from a civilization that has evolved apart from our own—a civilization that is free, open and powerful. A civilization that can challenge the Directorate on the battlefield and in the public sphere.
“ ‘Impossible,’ you exclaim. I would not believe it either, had I not seen them accomplish it with my own eyes.”
Footage rolled for a moment, spliced dramatically from the clashes at the Provision Network Gateway, the manufacturing facilities and the Machimis system. An appropriately impressive explosion transitioned to an orbital view of Machimis. The visual lingered there long enough to ensure the planet was easily recognizable before lights spanning the surface portentously winked out.
The darkness faded away to again reveal his lone figure, positioned against a rich backdrop of stars.
“The Directorate will tell you these recordings are lies—but they have always lied to you. I tell you these recordings are truth, but it matters not what I say. You will see for yourself soon enough.
“For too long, the anarchs have clung to the safety of the shadows, content to pick at the fringes of Directorate injustice and call ourselves rebels.
“No more. Now is the time to emerge from the shadows and stand in the light. Now is the time when the battle for the heart and soul of Amaranthe will be joined, and we shall be unafraid.
“This is not an Anaden fight, but Anadens must fight it above all others. We are responsible. We have willingly ceded our freedom to the Directorate in exchange for security, comfort and most of all, eternal life. But now we must take it back, for ourselves and for all citizens of Amaranthe.
“The Directorate holds fast to the secrets of regenesis, zealously reserving it for only the Primors and their progeny. They wield the power of life and death like a scythe over you.
“No more. Regenesis is not out
of reach for any sentient being, and I vow to you today that should we prevail, we will work together with scientists from every species to unlock its secrets for everyone. For you.
“To all whom my voice reaches, I say now: stand with us. Fight with us. Together we will win for ourselves what the Directorate will never grant us: our freedom, and our lives.”
58
SOLUM
PRAESIDIS COMMAND
MILKY WAY SECTOR 1
* * *
IT WOULD BE INACCURATE TO SAY that Praesidis fled the Directorate meeting to cower in his tower at the apex of Praesidis Command. After all, he had been among the last to depart and had done so with dispassionate grace.
Yet now he gazed down upon his dominion from that tower…and for the first time in six hundred thousand years, he felt like an imposter. The other Primors expected him to be able to flick a wrist and dispose of the invaders and rebels in a single directed wave of diati.
He was the ultimate master of it, was he not? Its chosen companion, ally and vessel? He had bonded with it to crush a terrifying enemy and lead an Anaden expansion across galaxies.
Except he had not, and was not.
The fevered alerts rose up through the integral in near-unison from points across the empire, breaking his reverie in a raucous cacophony. They warned of a disruption in the communications networks at multiple locations. Control lost, signals overridden.
A visual transmission being broadcast on the hacked networks painted itself upon his mental vision, replicating with each instance until it blocked out all other perceptions.
The man’s features were not the same. The skin was darker, and the eyes lacked the trademark crimson. But he knew the face nonetheless. He had always known the face. For it was the face of his father.
Rubicon: Aurora Resonant Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 8) Page 36
