by Darren Beyer
“I will do what is required.”
“Perhaps this will pique your interest.” Andrews tilted his head back and looked down his nose through the screen. “That AIC operative—the one who did us in at the New Reyk spaceport—he’s more than just an operative.”
Erik couldn’t keep the sneer from rising to the surface.
“Listen to this.” Andrews tapped something on his comm, and an audio recording played.
“Colonel Raymus. Damn, it’s good to hear your voice.”
“Enough chatter.”
As the second voice spoke, Erik sat up straight. He felt a tinge of hatred spark deep within his cold heart. Static overlapped much of the recording, and some words were garbled, but Erik would have recognized that voice anywhere. And the more he heard it, the more the spark threatened to take to flame. Without warning, his stomach cramped violently, and he fought to keep from doubling over. Then the feelings of hatred ebbed, and the cramps abated along with them.
“Did you trace it?” Erik grunted the question as he recovered.
“No.” Andrews scrutinized Erik through the screen. “But we have a search area defined.”
Erik composed himself and looked Andrews in the eye. “I’ll be on the surface within the week.”
A spurious but wary smile grew on Andrews’s face. “I know you won’t let me down.”
As Erik shut the communications window, his eyes were drawn to a folder of one of the plans he’d just put in motion. It had an apt label. He called for Karis. Within seconds, the door opened.
“I need you to prepare a field test of one of the operations,” he told her. “If I’ve read the briefing correctly, it’s a lynchpin to our—my plans, and it has not been tested in an operational setting.”
“If you are referring to the one I think you are, it’s in very short supply. We’re trying to accelerate production, but we have none to waste.”
Erik stood and moved to his office’s viewport. Outside, the planet of Eridani—green, brown, and blue—rotated into view, but Erik caught his reflection in the viewport, and that was where he focused. The accelerated regen therapy had fixed his body’s critical wounds, but not his scars; they were permanent reminders of his failure at the spaceport. Vanity seemed a distant emotion unworthy of his energy, but the long scar cutting across his right eye, forehead to cheekbone, and the pocked, mottled skin covering the entirety of the right side of his face… those generated another emotion.
“Colonel Raymus, you’re down there somewhere.” Erik’s voice was a whisper as he shifted his gaze to the planet. “And I will find you.”
Abruptly, he turned back to Karis. “Pathogen Protocol. I want an operational test within the week.”
Chapter 7: Eridani
Our array is getting painted with a communications laser. Credentials are good.” Excitement carried on the technician’s voice, and the glow from the comm display washed his face in green light.
Standing behind him, Grae placed a steadying hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Lock it in. Establish the link.”
Moments later a familiar voice came across the feed. “M-base India, skimmer seven hotel Charlie. Mass dampeners on full, no enemy contacts. We’re ready for deorbit maneuver.”
Grae smiled. “Ivey.”
“Pardon me, sir?”
“Piloting the skimmer. That’s Lieutenant Ivey.” He reached over the tech’s shoulder and keyed the mic. “Skimmer seven hotel Charlie, this is M-base India. We hear you loud and clear. Airspace open to three hundred kilometers. You are clear for deorbit maneuver, approach, and landing.”
“Cleared to land. See you in a few.”
Grae stood and ran his hands through his dark, close-cut hair.
The technician turned to face him. “Sir, who is Lieutenant Ivey?”
Grae returned a confused look before realizing the technician had no idea about Ivey, Dauntless, Helios, or anything that had led to their current situation.
“She’s a royal pain in the ass.” Grae chuckled. “And the best engineer AIC’s got. What I don’t get is why she’s piloting a skimmer to an m-base.”
“At least she seems to know what an m-base is. Until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know they existed.”
“Well, now you can count yourself part of an exclusive club. And I don’t think I need to remind you that you aren’t to mention a word about it to anyone.”
“Yes, sir.” The tech swallowed.
“Danny Dagan built these m-bases in secret. Dozens of them are spread within fifteen hundred klicks of New Reyk. The idea is that they could act as refuges or staging areas separated from the main ops bases, so if we’re using one and it gets discovered, the ops base remains secure.” Grae looked for a chair, but the technician sat in the only one. He turned over a trash can and sat on it instead. “He didn’t spend much on amenities.”
The technician stood. “I’m sorry, sir. You can take mine.”
“Sit. You’re operating the approach systems, not me.”
For twenty minutes Grae leaned against the rough concrete wall, and the two men waited in silence in the stark, dim confines of the tiny communications room of the remote emergency base. Grae’s ass and back were beginning to hurt when at last the comm gear came to life.
“M-base India, skimmer seven hotel Charlie. Crossing SAGIK, ten thousand meters, on steep approach.”
Grae stood and jumped to the communications display—then stopped himself short of keying the mic.
He turned to the technician. “You respond.”
“Skimmer seven hotel Charlie, M-base India, airspace is open. You are cleared to land.”
Grae patted the technician on his shoulder. “I’m going outside. Keep a close eye on the passive sensors. This is when we’re most vulnerable.” He picked up his rifle from the corner of the room and headed down the concrete hall to the oversized metal door leading outside. It slid open with a grinding of metal on cement and a loud pneumatic hiss.
Some stars twinkled, but most were washed out by the pinkish disc of Ascension, which dominated the night sky. Eridani had no moon, but when fully illuminated, the gas giant shone brighter than the most luminous of full moons on Earth. For a moment, Grae stared. Mandi—and everyone he cared for—was there.
High in the atmosphere, a small, dull blue glow appeared. Grae watched as it plummeted through the night, growing in brightness, like a giant shooting star. Pressing his rifle against his shoulder, he scanned until he found the blue light through the scope. At full zoom, the blue was split into several distinct sections that Grae recognized as the pods that allowed the skimmer to defy gravity.
Grae scurried up the hill atop the hidden m-base and took up a position overlooking the clearing that served as the base’s landing zone. On its left edge, the skimmer he’d piloted in sat hidden under an electronic camouflage net. For a moment, he feared Ivey might set down on top of it, but he quickly pushed the thought from his mind. Ivey was too capable a pilot to allow that to happen.
The approaching skimmer descended rapidly at an angle so steep, it seemed impossible that it could pull up in time. But at a mere hundred meters above the ground, the grav pods brightened to the intensity of a newborn star, and the skimmer flared into a hover. The pods then dimmed, landing legs extended, and Ivey set the craft down.
Grae again brought up his rifle and scanned the horizon. As unlikely as it was for anyone to have detected the stealthy skimmer on sensors, its one vulnerability was the light the pods gave off. Gisela was the genius behind them, but she had no solution to mask their light. The horizon betrayed no sign of movement.
The cargo skimmer’s hatch opened, and two people crawled from it. The relative darkness hid their identities, but Grae recognized Ivey’s diminutive silhouette. As the new arrivals hurried toward the m-base, Grae slid down the hillside and met them with a cloud of dust in tow.
“Always with flair.” Ivey stepped forward and snapped a crisp salute. “Colonel Raymus.”
> Grae returned the salute, and Ivey smiled as she let her hand drop. “I’m the one with flair? What do you call that landing maneuver?”
“I call it getting beneath the ridgeline before lighting up.”
Grae looked to the face of the man who accompanied her. “Doc.” His tentative greeting was met with a nod. “How is it that Captain Stanton let Dauntless’s chief engineer and medic make a cargo run?”
Before Doc could answer, four more people crawled from the skimmer. Grae turned back to Ivey. “What the hell is going on here?”
Ivey’s face grew serious. “This isn’t a cargo run. We’re here to stay.” She took a deep breath. “Jans knows we’re critically short in the ops bases and asked for volunteers.” She turned as the others approached. “We all have people on Eridani—people we care about—and we want to be here.”
“How the hell did you convince Stanton?”
“I didn’t give him a choice.” Ivey’s smile returned. “Besides, if I’m not here, who’s gonna pull your ass out of the fire?”
“Colonel!” The technician’s voice came through Grae’s helmet. “We got a message relayed from ops. You need to hear this.”
“Patch it to me.”
Moments later, the staticky recording filled his earpiece.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is cargo carrier—cargo carrier one tango bravo.”
“Cargo one tango bravo, this is ops base bravo. Send identifier and state your position.”
“We have no identifier. Our position is unknown. GPS is inop. Four souls on board. We are five hours out of New Reyk on heading one one five. I am AIC security, employee ID seven four four six nine six. We were in custody and being transported—overpowered the guard and pilot—took the carrier—requesting recovery.”
“We have directional bearing. Recommend you set down in some cover and hold for our call.”
“We’ll try to find a spot. Ops—please hurry. They injected something—shit! What’s—”
The transmission abruptly ended.
“Jesus,” Ivey said.
“You heard that?” Grae said. He looked at Doc and the other skimmer passengers. By the looks on their faces, they’d all heard the playback. Well, the technician was new at this. Everyone was new at this.
Grae looked at the ground for a few moments before snapping his head toward Ivey. “Come with me.”
They entered the base and walked down the concrete hall to the control room.
“This is Lieutenant Ivey,” Grae said to his technician. “I need the console for a minute.”
The technician stood and offered Grae his chair.
Grae looked through personnel records, then keyed in the ID number of the pilot calling the ops base.
“Hell.” He sighed and shook his head at the picture on the screen. “I know him.” He stood and pulled his flight helmet from a peg on the wall. “Ivey, since you’re staying, I’m putting you in command here. Get this place sealed back up and then take everyone back to the ops base.”
Ivey grabbed him by the elbow. “And where the hell are you going?”
Grae sternly looked down at her hand, and she let go, then followed as he walked toward the base exit.
“You don’t think this thing smells?” she called after him.
“Yes.”
“And you’re going anyway.”
Once outside, Grae keyed his comm. “Skimmer, retract camo screen and initiate power-up sequence.”
“You need to stop thinking like a soldier and start being a commander. You can’t take risks like this.”
“We have exactly two skimmer pilots. One is combat trained, and the other just got here.”
As Grae neared his skimmer, its hatch slid backward, and the whine of its spinning turbine grew in volume. He took one step up the inset ladder before looking over his shoulder.
“Those are our people. I’m tired of watching everything get taken from us. I’m going to bring them back.”
Chapter 8: Helios, Eridani Syste m
Sophia pushed herself in her wheelchair down the wide Anghazi tunnel, with Mandi trotting alongside. Sparse emergency lighting and the Anghazi’s natural glow provided just enough illumination to see by.
“I think this is the way.”
Sophia made a hard left. Mandi stumbled over her own feet trying to stay with the turn; she was surprised at how adept Sophia had become at maneuvering.
When they reached a set of double doors, Sophia slammed on the brakes, and held her hand up to an access panel glowing with a red light.
“At least the emergency power is working.”
The panel turned green, and with a quiet whoosh, the doors slid to the sides. Beyond, a dozen people sat at the holo screen stations of the main control center. A wall screen showed a view of the thin, wispy outer ring of the massive planet Ascension fading away in the distance. Invisible to the naked eye from the surface of Eridani, the rings were visible from the close vantage of the camera. Reflecting Ascension’s pink light, they arced behind the multihued bands of the gas giant. Just above the ring’s plane, three small shapes, illuminated by the planet’s light and the Eridani system’s white star, slowly grew in size until their purpose was clear. Their carbon-colored hulls were covered with armor plating designed to deflect both beam weapons and sensor signals, and they bristled with turrets housing a variety of weaponry. A dull blue glow emanated from each ship’s four massive engine bells.
Jans stood transfixed in front of the screen. As the doors closed behind Sophia and Mandi, he turned and forced a smile.
“Come on,” Sophia whispered.
She wheeled herself next to Jans, who put his hand on her neck and shoulder.
“Are those Coalition ships?” Sophia asked softly. She leaned into Jans’s hand, placing her own atop his.
Jans shook his head. “There are no markings, and I don’t recognize the design. I’m betting they’re contract, probably Tech Standard. They belong to Andrews.” He paused for a few seconds to watch. “We’re also picking up a hyperium signature.”
Sophia looked up at him. “TSI has jump-capable warships?”
“These are smaller, more like gunships, but yes. With the Coalition fleet thrown all over the place, I thought we’d have a little more time. Andrews isn’t giving it to us.”
Mandi spoke up. “How close are they? What are the chances they’ll find us?”
“We’re inside the outer mantle of Ascension, so sensor signals and radar get scattered. We shut down our fusion reactors to cut neutrino emissions. Right now, they’d have to fall right on top of us.”
Sophia pointed toward the ships on the screen. “If those are interstellar, why don’t we attack? Our system defense ships are more than a match.”
Jans shook his head. “We don’t know what else is out there. We can’t risk it.”
“So what do we do?” Sophia asked.
“We wait—and hope.”
With the room lit only by the dim, omnipresent Anghazi lighting and a few dull white emergency lights, it looked more like a cavern than one of the complex’s cafeterias. Mandi was seated by herself on an off-white chair, her arms resting on an off-white table. Others had congregated in the cafeteria as well, and they talked in low voices, as if they might be heard by the ships lurking somewhere out there.
“There you are.” Her mother’s voice drew Mandi from her daze. She pulled up a chair and sat across from her daughter. “You look as if you haven’t slept.”
“Oh, I’m sleeping. I’m just not getting any rest.”
“There have been dreams?”
Mandi saw concern written across her mother’s face.
“Sophia talked to you.” She dropped her head in her hands, closed her eyes, and rubbed her forehead.
“Don’t be upset with her. She’s worried. So am I. Tell me about them.”
“There are three—the same, over and over. Sometimes the vantage point changes, or time slows, and in some I can even move through the
m like I’m an observer. They’re all encounters I had with Erik Hallerson, and in each one there’s the same symbol: a snake in a circle, eating its own tail.” Mandi looked to her mother’s face. “Sophia told me about your connection with the Anghazi. She thinks I have it, too. Did you go through this?”
“I did—and sometimes I still do. It’s the way the Anghazi help some of us learn. It’s how I discovered the jump drive while on Hyperion. Then anti-gravity technology, and… well, a lot of things.
“I don’t feel like I’m learning anything. Except maybe what a mezcal hangover feels like.”
“The Anghazi, both the one here and the one that was on Hyperion, they don’t really teach us. They enable us to use more of our brains—and they do it while we sleep. During the day, we have all our daily troubles clogging up our neural pathways, taking up our brain power, but when we sleep, that all goes away. It might seem counterintuitive, but our brains are most powerful, most capable of making the connections of discovery, when we aren’t conscious. The Anghazi tap into that capability by putting us into a sort of dream state. But it’s not a dream, it’s almost-consciousness.”
“Almost-consciousness.”
Mandi’s mother nodded. “We can interact and remember, but we aren’t hampered by the anxieties of day-to-day life. It seems the Anghazi know when we’re on to something important, and they push us to discover it.”
“So if you’ve been through it, then tell me how you got it to stop.”
“I didn’t. Get it to stop, I mean. I still have the dreams. I still learn.”
“But you’re not like… like this. I’m at the end of my rope—going crazy with no sleep. You seem perfectly normal.”
“That’s because I’m able to solve the problems put before me. As I begin to uncover solutions, the Anghazi eases up. But I don’t know what she’s asking of you, and unfortunately, neither do you. Your brain is spending energy trying to solve a problem you haven’t even identified yet, and the Anghazi won’t stop pushing you until you do.”
“This is going to keep going forever? Or until I solve this unknown ‘problem’?”
