The Edge of Infinity (War Eternal Book 7)

by M. R. Forbes

  "You said we were lovers in your spacetime. I don't sleep with just any old Marine with a nice physique, which means you knew me pretty damn well. What do you think?"

  "I wasn't old when we knew one another, but okay. Good hunting, Captain."

  She bowed to him and hurried from the bridge. He had no doubt she had memorized the path to the hangar on her way up.

  "I like her," Teegin said once she was gone.

  "Don't get any ideas."

  Teegin chuckled. "I think Captain North would find my form incompatible with hers, even if I were interested in such things. I was referring to her overall attitude, which I believe will be valuable to our goals. There is a word for it; I understand the root is Yiddish."

  "Chutzpah?" Mitchell said.

  "Yes. She has chutzpah."

  Mitchell smiled. "In spades."

  Ella was in the cockpit of the S-17 within a few minutes, and out into the black a few minutes after that. Mitchell kept the Goliath moving, vectoring parallel along the large asteroid belt while Teegin scanned the area around it. Kate kept Origin on a similar track, extending the distance between the two ships as they searched for the Tetron that was causing havoc on Liberty.

  "I'm entering the belt, Colonel," Ella said. "I assume I'm looking for something similar to your ship?"

  "Not exactly," Mitchell replied. "The Tetron natural form is more like a pyramid shaped web of dendrites and axons. Like a massive, exposed nervous system."

  "It seems like it would be difficult for something like that to hide."

  "It should be, but that field is pretty large."

  "Affirmative. I'm nearing a pretty big ass rock right now."

  "Teegin, can we get her eyes on one of these screens?" Mitchell asked.

  "It will be low quality and choppy, due to interference from the ore in the asteroids."

  "Do your best."

  "Yes, Colonel."

  The view ahead of him changed, replaced with the feed from the S-17. As Teegin had warned, it was grainy, but at least it allowed him to watch the action.

  Ella navigated the fighter through the dense field with precision, skirting between an ever adjusting layout of dense rock that could crush her if she weren't careful. Some of the asteroids were huge, bigger than the Goliath, stretching for kilometers and controlling the gravity around them. She dropped in low and skirted along one of them, remaining near the surface.

  "Teegin, did you get anything from the archives that might be useful?"

  "That depends on your definition of useful, Colonel."

  "Do you know where I'm stationed?"

  Ella was approaching a large mountain near the center of the asteroid. Smaller rocks were rotating around the mass, and a second large asteroid was off in the distance. There was no sign of the Tetron.

  "Not yet, though my military records are incomplete."

  "What about medical records?"

  "Running a query against your name on the data I have captured returns no results, Colonel."

  It was a little strange, but not alarming. Teegin hadn't gathered too much information yet. He watched the view from the S-17 as Ella banked around the mountain.

  "Teegin, does that rock look oddly formed to you?" he asked, noticing that it seemed to be almost layered on top of itself, with ridges that made it look more like scales than a solid form. As he stared at it, it seemed to take on a more triangular appearance.

  "Yes. It does. Very odd."

  "Ella, get in as close as you can to that formation there. Does it look strange to you?"

  "Roger. Moving in."

  The view changed as she got close to the mountain. She was only a hundred meters away when the feed cut out.

  "I lost the signal, Colonel," Teegin said.

  "Ella?"

  "I'm here, Colonel," she said.

  "What do you see?"

  "It's not like anything I've seen before; I can tell you that much."

  "Okay. We're coming to you. Get clear of the area."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Hiding under rocks, now?" Mitchell said, adjusting the Goliath's vector to head for the belt.

  "As I feared, it is being cautious."

  "It didn't help it all that much. Kate, we found something hiding out in the belt. Cover us."

  "Yes, sir."

  The Dove began to slow and change direction, coming back toward them.

  Mitchell adjusted the power flow along Teegin's outer dendrites, increasing the shielding around the Goliath as they neared the asteroid belt. Ella's feed returned a moment later, showing her heading back toward them.

  "Colonel, I am detecting an energy spike within the field," Teegin said.

  The feed from the S-17 moved to the side, showing the view in front of them. The asteroid had a blue glow forming around it.

  "Shit," Mitchell said. "Ella, go full throttle, the Tetron is preparing to fire."

  "Yes, sir."

  She sped up instantly, while Mitchell adjusted the balance of energy around the Goliath, pushing the stern out and bringing the port side hangar toward the field. Once it was in position, he prepared to re-divert power to deflect the attack that he knew was coming.

  "Come on, El," he said, watching her small fighter come into view.

  The Tetron unleashed its attack behind her, the plasma stream tearing through its camouflage and disintegrating the rocks ahead of it, on a direct course for both Ella and the Goliath.

  "Oh, hell," he heard her say as she realized what was happening. She skipped through the field, bypassing the rocks and screaming toward the Goliath. "I hope this thing has good brakes."

  She vanished from the view of the cameras as the S-17 reached the hangar. Mitchell unleashed the diverted power, sending it to the side of the ship. A green energy field appeared, shimmering brightly as the plasma stream smacked into it.

  The Goliath shuddered for a moment and then was still.

  "Our turn," Mitchell said. "Is the torpedo ready?"

  "Yes, Colonel."

  "Kate, give me some cover fire. Amoebics only."

  "Roger."

  Origin began firing across the distance, dozens of advanced explosive discs streaking across the gap and vanishing into the field. Explosions followed, along with flares of shielding as the Tetron rose from the cover.

  "Uh, Teegin," Mitchell said.

  A second Tetron was rising with it.

  "Interesting," the intelligence replied.

  It was glowing brightly, prepared to fire another plasma stream. They had moved in too close to avoid it, and the Goliath shuddered again as the second wave of superheated plasma poured into their shields.

  "Son of a bitch," Mitchell said. "Kate, you have the second one, fire at will."

  "Roger."

  He looked over at the Dove. Origin's bow was pulsing with energy, storing it up to fire. The amoebics continued to pour from it as well, slamming into the new enemy.

  The first Tetron was preparing to fire again, in synchronization with the second, a pattern that would allow them to break through the Goliath's shields in no time. They had to end this fast.

  Mitchell directed the Goliath to rise, pushing energy out to provide thrust, rotating the ship to bring the bow around. They were in the field now, and asteroids were smacking the shields, draining their overall power further.

  The first Tetron unleashed another stream. It slammed the Goliath, a portion of the energy breaking through and burning into the armor.

  "Teegin," Mitchell said.

  "A surface wound," he replied calmly.

  "First blood," Mitchell said, getting angrier. He surveyed the battlefield. "Kate, break off your attack on number two, divert to number one."

  "Roger."

  "Mitchell?" Teegin said. "Number two is preparing to fire."

  "I see that, but watch the asteroids."

  "I do not understand."

  "That's why you aren't flying yourself."

  Mitchell tracked the path of the asteroids b
etween them and the second Tetron. Then, with a thought, he fired their sole torpedo.

  It screamed away from the Goliath, rapidly accelerating in a straight line. The asteroids shifted around it, slamming together behind it as it cleared a small gap, barely avoiding a second rock that passed in front of it, and diving further through the field.

  It connected a moment later, the EMP in the torpedo triggering and momentarily disabling the Tetron's shield in a barely fifty-centimeter diameter. The warhead exploded as well, the tip moving aside to allow a second, smaller rocket take flight. It continued the journey, crossing the distance between shield and surface and stabbing into one of the Tetron's dendrites. It didn't explode when it got there. Instead, it created an interface with the intelligence and began pouring instructions out into the wound.

  "If this does not work, we will take heavy damage," Teegin said.

  "You had four hundred years. This better work."

  The Tetron's energy was still building along the bow, and it was adjusting its vector to fire. Mitchell kept the Goliath moving, trying to get it maneuvered so the stream might only deliver a glancing below, not willing to take any chances. Meanwhile, Origin and Kate were trading fire with the first Tetron, locked in a likely stalemate.

  The first sign that anything was happening to the Tetron was the sudden, diminishing glow from the forward dendrites before they could unleash their power. The next was when other dendrites began to go dark.

  "I think it's working," Mitchell said.

  More of the dendrites started to fade as the opportunity for it to fire was lost. The darkness continued inward toward the core, pulses slowing as it succumbed to the sickness.

  "That looks pretty damned effective to me," Mitchell said.

  "I will believe when it is fully inoperative," Teegin replied.

  They continued watching as the seconds passed. The darkness continued inward about halfway before slowing to a stop. Then the dendrites began to revive again, regaining their pulsing energy.

  "Son of a bitch," Mitchell said.

  He didn't hesitate to fire the amoebics, opening up with every battery. The explosives crossed the distance and sank into the Tetron, ripping it apart. He continued to fire, launching hundreds of the discs into the enemy, his teeth clenched as they grew nearer and nearer to the core and finally reached it, digging in and blowing it apart.

  "You need to work on it a little more," he said as he shifted his attention to the second Tetron and began diverting power for the plasma stream.

  "It is optimized for Watson's instruction set," Teegin replied. "Destroying its defenses was still a success."

  "True," Mitchell said. "Kate, I'm in position to fire on your target. Give me a mark."

  "Roger, Colonel. Standby."

  The Dove was backing away from the Tetron, its own stream building. The enemy would be hard-pressed to absorb two at the same time after a pitched battle.

  "Fire," Kate said.

  The streams leaped from both the Goliath and the Dove, stabbing the Tetron from two directions. The shields faded beneath the onslaught, the energy digging deeper and deeper until finally passing through the Tetron's brain.

  When the light of the plasma faded, the asteroid field was dark once more.

  14

  "Teegin, what's the status on Liberty," Mitchell asked, leaning forward in the command chair to break the connection with the intelligence.

  Repetition would cure him of the sickness he felt after using the interface, but he wasn't there yet. He leaned over, once more vomiting on the floor.

  "Beautiful," Ella said, the doors to the bridge sliding open.

  "Are you hurt?" Mitchell asked, wiping his mouth.

  "No. The magnetic clamps on the feet helped me slow down enough to not crash into the wall. The design is ugly as sin, but that's the only bad thing I can say about it. Are you hurt?"

  "Directly connecting your brain to an advanced intelligence isn't without side effects," he replied.

  "It is not my first option either, Colonel," Teegin replied. "I am monitoring Liberty's transmissions. There is a lot of confusion, but it appears we have successfully eliminated the Tetron threat."

  Mitchell sat back on the floor. "Open a channel to the Dove."

  "Open, Colonel."

  "Did you hear that, Kate? We did it."

  "I heard, Mitch. It's one less demon to haunt you."

  He closed his eyes. Liberty would survive. At least for now.

  "Kate, grab a transport and head over. I want to introduce you to someone and get us ready for the next steps."

  "On my way."

  "Teegin, get back on downloading those archives, including the military stores. You should have the keys from the prior recursion."

  "I have already resumed the transfer, Colonel."

  "Great. The Tetron are being sneaky, and I don't like it. Not at all. We need to find out what happened to Kathy."

  "Yes, Colonel."

  "Also, I want you to accelerate the rest of the reconstitution. We just made ourselves known in a big way, and we need to get organized in a hurry."

  "Yes, Colonel."

  Mitchell pushed himself to his feet. "I'm going to get cleaned up. Ella, I'll show you to berthing. By the way, nice job out there."

  "Thank you, sir," Ella said. "You as well, sir."

  "Also, you can drop the sir unless we're active. It's Mitchell or Mitch otherwise."

  "Okay, Mitch," Ella said, letting go of the formality.

  They rode the lift together, making the trip to berthing. Mitchell explained what he could of the situation while they walked, doing his best to summarize the story. She didn't need to be convinced of the threat, especially now that she had witnessed it first-hand.

  "Pretty much every rack is open except mine," he said, pointing to his bunk. "The others aren't awake yet, so you have a good selection."

  "Others?"

  "We brought a few more spacers from the past. The Dove's original crew. The Tetron are advanced, but they never gave any thought to giving humans immortality. Essentially, they converted us to binary and kept us in storage for the last four centuries. It sounds crazier than it was."

  "It doesn't sound that crazy after what I just saw."

  "If you want a change of clothes, there are standard issue grays in the head. I was going that way myself."

  "I'll pick a rack after. It doesn't really matter to me where I sleep."

  "I know," Mitchell said, leading her across berthing to the head.

  He bypassed the void stalls and moved toward the shower, showing her the stacks of clothing that Teegin had created from some of the excess linens on the Goliath. Then he started stripping off his dirty and beaten clothes.

  He wasn't surprised when Ella did the same, shedding the utilities she had been wearing and joining him in the shower. He didn't need to look at her to remember her appearance with nothing on, but the sight of her now was giving him a slightly embarrassing, unprofessional reaction.

  "We might have been lovers in a past life, space jock," she said as she turned on one of the showers and stepped under it, amused by his situation. "I don't know you at all here."

  "I thought you were dead. Lost forever. It's subconscious."

  "Yeah, that's what they all say."

  "I thought I was going to pick up this recursion's instance of myself. Now I don't know where I ended up, or how, and I don't know if I'll ever find out. Maybe it doesn't even matter. We destroyed two Tetron today. Liberty survived. That's a step in the right direction."

  "But only the first step," Ella said.

  "Yeah. There's a long way to go."

  He paused. He knew what he had to do, but there was a part of him that didn't want to do it. The fact that Ella was here and his duplicate wasn't meant he didn't have any other choice.

  "We have two ships," he said. "Two missions. I was going to take one of them and send my current iteration on the other."

  "Except I'm here instead of a
nother you."

  "You say that like it's a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, El. You're as good of an alternate as I could have hoped for. Better, actually. You're a true hero. You really did save Liberty from the Federation. You have the clout that I would never have held."

  "But?"

  "I was going to give the other Mitchell the Dove and Katherine and keep Kate with me. I love her."

  "Oh. The plot thickens. I guess maybe it is subconscious."

  "Funny. I was hoping we would have more time together, but it doesn't look like it's meant to be. I want you to go with her."

  "Go where?"

  "Back to Earth. You need to find my brother Steven and warn him about the Tetron. Show him the recording we made of the battle here. Between that and the news that's sure to start feeding back from Liberty, he'll believe you. We need the Alliance to organize the fleet."

  "The fleet doesn't stand a chance against those things."

  "They do. The first torpedo was a test. We have a plan to disable all of the Tetron at once. If it doesn't kill them outright, it will disable them and give our units time to finish the job. But we'll only get one shot, and that means we have to be prepared."

  "What about the Federation?" she asked. "If they see the Alliance fleet is thinning out along the border, they'll be on it like vultures."

  "I know. Don't worry. I intend to deal with them, too."

  15

  Kate was waiting for him on the bridge when he returned with Ella. She smiled when she saw him, bowing formally before embracing him. Then she looked over at Ella, confused.

  "This isn't who I was expecting," she said.

  "Kate, I want you to meet Captain Ella North."

  A spark of recognition reached her face at the name. "Oh." She paused. "Oh. It's good to meet you, Captain. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I was expecting someone else."

  Ella smiled. "None taken, Major, Asher, is it? Mitch has already done a lot of explaining."

  "I would have told you," Mitchell said. "It seemed easier just to let you see for yourself."

  Kate looked at him, concerned. "But if she's here, where are you?"

  "I don't know. Teegin's working on it."

  "Mitchell has told me a lot about you, Captain North. Well, the you from his original timeline. I suppose none of that is relevant here."