The Rimes Trilogy Boxed Set

by P. R. Adams

  Rimes stared calmly. “How long, sir?”

  General Durban blinked. “Two, maybe three days before I stepped onto the Butler. And even then, I’m not sure I believed it would stay. It’s all so volatile right now.” He looked ready to say more but stopped.

  “One last question, sir.” Calm now. “What did we know about COROT-7 before we were sent in?”

  General Durban’s jaw worked as he tried to reconcile being grilled by a subordinate. “You’re talking about the Commandos we lost?”

  “Staff Sergeant Pasqual's team.” Rimes needed to say the name.

  General Durban sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “That’s the Bureau. We knew they wanted Sergeant Pasqual’s squad for something. They tasked the Carolina without giving us the slightest bit of information. We had our suspicions. The Bureau’s been running its own operations for a while now, but they’d always preferred Delta until the budget cuts whittled them down to nothing. None of us knew what they had in mind. I still don’t think we have a good idea. The Bureau’s in tight with the Cartel and the UN I don’t see that changing. Damn it, Rimes, why are you making this into some sort of trial? I’m not the enemy! I’m a victim, just like you. Hell, you’re the one with the bright future. You’ve got people seriously talking about ending hostilities with the genies. If things get worse with the metacorporations, we won’t have any choice but to abandon the war. We don’t have the wherewithal to fight two enemies.”

  Rimes considered General Durban’s words and body language; he seemed sincere enough. “I believe you, sir.”

  “I still need an answer, Captain. Yes or no?”

  “You want a battalion, maybe a brigade, I’ll need the appropriate rank. I’ll also need ships tasked specifically to the ERF—and it needs to be designated that way. Unambiguously. I’ll also want a say in crew. I’ll need a direct line in to the Bureau, a liaison here on Plymouth.”

  “We can get a tasked ship of the appropriate size.”

  “Task force, General, not ship.”

  General Durban caught his breath, colored slightly, then cleared his throat. “Task force. Crew shouldn’t be a problem either. I think the Bureau will want a liaison here. On the rank, we can get you up to major, nothing more.”

  “Colonel.”

  “Lieutenant Colonel.” General Durban's face was a brilliant red.

  “Colonel. Not brevet. You’re in the middle of reorganization. Make this part of it. I’ll submit names from my unit for promotion as well.”

  General Durban’s face darkened even more for a moment, then he relaxed, and the coloring left his face. “Don't get greedy, Captain. That’s what’s got us to where we are today: unbridled, short-sighted greed and no shortage of incompetence. You’ve been quite upfront about your dislike of venality and politicking. I can appreciate that. Don’t become what you hate.”

  “I sincerely hope not to, sir.”

  “Good. Colonel it is.”

  Rimes extended his right hand. General Durban hesitated a moment, then shook. “I can’t guarantee you I’ll take this offer, General. I can guarantee you I’m satisfied with the terms.”

  General Durban released Rimes’s hand angrily. “I’ll need a final answer, Captain.”

  “I’ll talk it over with my wife. We should know before you leave Plymouth.”

  General Durban’s jaw trembled for a moment, then he seemed to regain control of himself. “Everyone I’ve talked to says you’re an honorable man. We live in an imperfect world, but don’t fool yourself that the choices are simple. It’s not one extreme or another. The choice isn’t between completely abandoning all pretense of dignity and becoming a whore. There is a middle path. There’s no shame in conscientious compromise. You need to seek out opportunities like this. Make the most of them. Do that while caring for those you love, and you’ll find the ability to sleep and dream of a better life for everyone, all while being just who you are. That’s what I do, Captain, and I’m content.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.” Rimes offered a crisp salute and turned, heading for the housing unit and Molly. Colonel Rimes, just like Perditori said.

  They had tough choices to make, but he knew whatever they chose, they would be all right.

  * * *

  THE END

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  * * *

  AWAKENING TO JUDGMENT

  * * *

  Copyright © 2016 P R Adams

  * * *

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  * * *

  Cover Art by Adam Burn.

  * * *

  Logo Text Design © Tom Edwards.

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  To Dean, Derek, Lee, Mike, Randy, and Stacey, for toughing it out.

  Prologue

  [Classified message incoming]

  [Source: Plymouth colony, ERF Battalion, Colonel Jackson Rimes, Commander]

  [Recipient: Earth, United Nations Compound, New York City, New York, United States of America, Representative Deepa Bhatia, Special Security Council, Indian delegate]

  [Transmission date: 29 September 2174]

  [Playback initiated]

  * * *

  “Representative Bhatia. Thank you so much for your July communiqué. It’s always good to hear from you. Well, normally.”

  Colonel Rimes is handsome, broad-shouldered, and muscular. His hair—normally cut close so it’s little more than a shadow on his cinnamon scalp—is longer than normal, the black curls going gray. A crescent-shaped scar is white on his right temple. His eyes are pale brown, growing closer to amber with each passing year. He sits in his headquarters office, a modest room with none of the indulgences typical of someone in his position.

  “The proposed cuts to the ERF Budget outlays for 2175 are…” He waves at something that only he can see. “Well, troubling. I know the war with the genies has officially been declared resolved, but I feel it would be dangerous to take the metacorporations at their word that no further genetic engineering efforts are ongoing. Even if they never spend another dollar creating one more genie, they still have hundreds enslaved or at least unaccounted for, despite signing the Mumbai Accord.”

  He shifts in his seat as his brow creases. “Frankly, the genies aren’t my greatest concern, Representative. I know the Special Security Council has been under pressure to reduce tensions with the metacorporations, but the hard reality is that they continue to agitate and bully in the colony worlds. You’ve seen the IB reports. It’s not just proxies. There have been times when the metacorporations have used armed intervention. What happened on Bermuda wasn’t an aberration. Maintaining the military budget—especially for the ERF—sends a clear signal that this sort of continued intervention and intrusion will not be tolerated.”

  He rubs the crescent scar and seems to fight down a fit of fury. Even after all these years, he struggles with what’s in his head. Finally, he relaxes and says, “War’s the last thing we want, and projecting strength is the best way to avoid war.”

  ”I hope to hear in the coming weeks that you and the other members of the council have managed to convince the full body of the Security Council of the importance of the military and the danger posed by weakening it. We have won so much before. It would be a tragedy to endanger it all now.

  “I look forward to hearing from you again, Deepa. Sometimes it seems like you’re the last voice of reason.”

  * * *

  [End message]

  1

  13 June, 2174. Atlanta, Georgia.

  * * *

  O’Hara Towers stretched two hund
red meters into the Atlanta sky, and reflected morning sunlight that gave off an intensely pink rainbow. The towers were twin, ruby-colored glass structures that hugged an advanced composite framework three times stronger than steel. It wasn’t nine o’clock yet, and already the temperature was approaching thirty degrees Celsius. All along Moreland Avenue, smartly dressed, freshly scrubbed pedestrians doused with sweet, flowery scents and sporting European fashions that accentuated their athletic bodies, hustled on their way to work. Everywhere, stylish haircuts easily caught the eye. The beautiful people stared into the distance while chatting into exotic and alluring earpieces. Their voices combined with the hum of the everyday activity that made Atlanta the jewel of the South and became a distracting cacophony.

  Jennifer Credence had eschewed the tube system’s last kilometer. It was a pragmatic thing to do, better than waking early to try to squeeze in a workout, but regret was visible in every angry millimeter of her long, sharp face, a face that hovered somewhere between cute and plain without ever settling.

  Credence was dressed fashionably in a bright yellow dress that was sleeveless, low-cut, and tight, but not uncomfortably so. The fabric ran to mid-thigh with two parallel green lines running vertically from left shoulder to hem, intersected by matching lines just below her breasts. She wore practical shoes with slightly raised heels that accented her toned calves enough to gain an occasional glance without endangering her ankles. Her short, light-brown hair was streaked with blond. She moved casually, unhurried, as if unwilling to break a sweat—something requiring near-mystical skill in the clinging air.

  In a city of twenty million, Credence was alone, relatively speaking. Since exiting the tube and making her way onto the street, she bumped shoulders with someone an average of every six steps approximately. Anywhere other than the O’Hara district, the crowds were impossibly thick, a constant crush of humanity. But only the elite ventured into the district, where the buildings glittered diamond-like in the bright sunlight, and public trash receptacles had marble facades.

  Among those elite, Credence walked with confidence, seemingly soaking in the serenity.

  Decades before, Atlanta had been wrecked both financially and physically by the country’s economic collapse and powerful storm systems birthed by climate change. Its rebirth into a full-blown metropolis had led to it taking on the nature of other American metropolitan areas. People became invisible to each other, granting a sense of privacy where it rightly shouldn’t have been possible. Combined with the absence of significant automobile traffic, the result approached the quiet of a forest. The people of this urban forest did everything they could to advertise their success and significance. In the world they occupied, conspicuous excess was no simple badge; it was life.

  Credence was a few feet from the O’Hara Towers’ main entrance when the throaty growl of a powerful engine shattered the morning calm. She turned, and one of the city’s giant maintenance vans accelerated from an alley and turned onto the street. She shivered as the terrifying monstrosity—a hulking, polished, jet-black machine—approached. Twin banks of grilled and hooded fog lamps ran above and below the smoked glass bubble of a front window. The main headlights were similarly hooded and recessed. The vehicle gave off a bug-like, vicious, and malevolent impression. It cruised down the road and turned out of sight, a solitary machine on the virgin blacktop.

  Credence entered the building’s lobby, and her shivering intensified. Air-conditioning kept the building’s spacious atrium below twenty-one degrees, and the maintenance van’s growl slinked through the front door’s seals. She waited for the security scanner mounted on the black marble wall to flash its approval, blinking as if her nerves had been shaken by some trauma. One of the guards glanced at her. She smiled. He looked back at his bank of displays, disinterested. When the scanner blinked green, she walked to the escalator at the west end of the building. Although there were four lift cars, the morning rush always overtaxed them. They were already overflowing with passengers fresh from the tube system as they ascended from the basement.

  Credence turned to watch the lift cars as she approached the elevator. Their running lights glowed pale amber inside the red-tinted plastic tubes, giving the passengers a strange, gold aura. Some people described the effect as souls rising from the fiery depths of Hell toward Heaven, a quaint myth in a time that needed none. She shook her head.

  People queued up at the escalator; she fell in at the rear. There was always room for someone willing to press tight against the brightly colored, amorphous blob of shuffling humanity. A gleaming set of garnet-colored onyx marble steps with red obsidian trim ran between the up and down escalators. The escalators themselves were a combination of black metal and scarlet rubber. Everything was designed to accent the experience that was integral to the O’Hara Towers.

  Credence shifted on the escalator, brushing at her hair with apparent anxiety as she eyed a man a few meters back of her on the escalator. The man was the office technician. He’d stayed behind her since she stepped off the tube several moments earlier, although she hadn’t reacted to him until now. He was middle-aged, athletic, tall, and handsome, with cinnamon skin and curly, black-and-gray, close-cropped hair. A white crescent scar stood out on his right temple. He seemed to be focused on something in the display of his earpiece.

  “Prototyper,” Credence mouthed as one might a wish or a prayer.

  The company hadn’t been able to fabricate components for two days, and that was going to impact the bottom line soon. The prototyper was the key to their success.

  At the sixth floor, Credence got off the escalator and headed for the lift. She stopped and took a breath, smiling. A subtle sweetness emanated from a planter set just in front of the elevators. Azaleas, viburnum, and gardenias were in full bloom. She paused, barely acknowledged the maintenance man as he came to a stop in front of the elevator, and twisted her feet playfully.

  Something about the feel of solid ground under her seemed vital to Credence. She never stopped talking about how living in a penthouse apartment and working in the upper reaches of the city’s tallest skyscraper had a way of leaving her feeling vaguely uneasy and disoriented. She always laughed it off and attributed it to a childhood case of acrophobia, long since conquered.

  “You think you’ll get the prototyper fixed today, Neil?” Credence asked the maintenance man. She thought his name was Neil but could never be sure. He was maintenance, lucky to even have access to the towers. And yet she seemed oddly embarrassed that she couldn’t be sure of his name at the moment. Mostly, it seemed she was annoyed that she couldn’t tell whether to be embarrassed or not. He was maintenance, after all, not one of the important people. Still, it was quite apparent that the matter of his forgotten name bothered her at some level.

  “Jared. Jared O’Neill,” he said. His voice boomed out deep and powerful even when he spoke quietly, as he was doing now. “I’ll give it another go, Miss Credence. I found another possible solution last night and ordered the part. It should arrive today. Odd no one has a prototyper to generate a replacement part.”

  “It is ironic that if it were running, we could simply create the part ourselves,” she said after a moment. She rubbed the back of her neck and seemed to be trying for a certain vulnerability that even she seemed to realize wasn’t convincing.

  O’Neill stepped aside as the elevator door opened, allowing her to enter first before following her in and settling in beside her, his coveralls giving off a fresh scent. Their common bond expired, they said nothing the rest of the ride to the fortieth floor. When the door opened, he once again stepped aside to let her out first. At the door to her office, Credence found herself waiting for him to open the door for her. When he did, she thanked him and stepped inside. The office space was large, connecting to the floor above via a private set of spiral stairs. Offices ran along both sides of the hallway. Polished glass walls and transparent aluminum doors provided semi-private space. In addition to her, Credence Concepts employed twelv
e people. It was a dollhouse in many ways, everything on display for all to see.

  Credence walked past the disassembled prototyper to the open door beyond, stopping to watch O’Neill settle onto the carpeted floor behind her and begin laying out his tools. A display embedded in the glass wall announced in brilliant turquoise that the office belonged to Tom DeVries, executive vice president and CFO of Credence Concepts. Credence put on a smile that, unlike the one she’d worn in the elevator, actually reached her dark-green eyes.

  DeVries looked up from his desk and offered a smirk. “Jenny.” His face was calm, something everyone who had the misfortune of encountering the man had learned to read as a dangerous sign. He was slender and nearing fifty, although that fact didn’t show without close investigation. His hair was gold and full, streaked with the slightest gray, combed back and parted down the middle. There were wrinkles, but not many. Refined, handsome, and polished, he made no attempt to mute this key part of his corporate warfare arsenal. He wore a conservative, charcoal-gray suit, a neon-blue tie, and a bright goldenrod silk shirt. The air-conditioning carried his cologne—a light musk he said his wife favored—into the hallway. He’d been using a spicier, sporty scent until recently. “I’m glad you swung by. We need to talk.”