The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Page 1
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Alex White
Excerpt from Velocity Weapon copyright © 2019 by Megan E. O’Keefe
Excerpt from Splintered Suns copyright © 2018 by Michael Cobley
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover art by Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Author photograph by Rebecca Winks
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: White, Alex (Novelist), author.
Title: The worst of all possible worlds / Alex White.
Description: First Edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, is an imprint of Hachette Book Group, 2020. | Series: The Salvagers; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2019051046 | ISBN 9780316412148 (paperback) | ISBN 9780316412131 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3623.H5687 W67 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051046
ISBNs: 978-0-316-41214-8 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-41213-1 (ebook)
E3-20200612-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: Spectrum
Chapter Two: Crew
Chapter Three: Reflection
Chapter Four: Pickup
Chapter Five: Wavelength
Chapter Six: Expedition
Chapter Seven: Refraction
Chapter Eight: Bastion
Chapter Nine: Hue
Chapter Ten: After Action
Chapter Eleven: Focus
Chapter Twelve: Boarders
Chapter Thirteen: Illumination
Chapter Fourteen: Balance
Chapter Fifteen: Intensity
Chapter Sixteen: Homecoming
Chapter Seventeen: Darkness
Chapter Eighteen: Crypto
Chapter Nineteen: Rainbow
Chapter Twenty: Hardpoint
Chapter Twenty-One: Beacon
Chapter Twenty-Two: Ingress
Chapter Twenty-Three: Starlight
Chapter Twenty-Four: Flattened
Chapter Twenty-Five: Incandescence
Chapter Twenty-Six: Rally Point
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Flame
Epilogue: Landing Zone
Acknowledgments
Discover More
Extras
Meet the Author
A Preview of Velocity Weapon
A Preview of Splintered Suns
Also by Alex White
Praise for the Salvagers series
For those who refuse to look away.
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
Chapter One
Spectrum
Gentle waves washed over a beach of colorful glass pebbles. Impossible mountains rose across the bay, framing a golden sunrise. The prisoner stepped to the edge of the water and took a deep breath.
It was a beautiful execution chamber, illusions perfect and peaceful.
Nilah Brio had never been to a live execution before. She sat in the prison observation room alongside the crew of the Capricious, two GATO IGCC war crimes prosecutors, three Compass agents, and the crew’s handler, Special Agent Cedric Weathers. On the beach, prison staff waited just out of view of the imagers.
Nilah’s heart rested in her throat. She’d chased this monster across ten worlds before bringing her down. An execution seemed too simple an end.
The woman by the water nodded at her surroundings. “Pretty in here. It looks real.”
“We do try.” The chaplain walked into frame, rendered in precise detail for the offsite observers watching via projection. “Rebecca Grimsby, né Rebecca Fulsom, for your crimes against humanity, for aiding and abetting the Gods of the Harrow, you have been sentenced to death by spell. It will be instantaneous and painless. Your judgment has already been rendered; you may speak your mind without fear of reprisals. It now falls to you to say the things you need to say, so that you may pass into the next world unfettered by guilt.”
Nilah leaned forward to listen, trying to catch whatever Rebecca might reveal in her final moments. What excuse could she possibly give for the things she’d done? The chaplain gave Rebecca a kind smile and placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, dear. Go ahead.”
“I’ll tell my mother to kill you quickly when she gets here.” She placed her hand on him in return and mocked his sympathetic face. The guards were on them in an instant, pulling the chaplain away from her while she sneered.
“It’s the least I can do after you’ve been so sweet to me,” she added.
The chaplain smoothed away a strand of hair, which the guards had jostled loose. “Why don’t you decide how you’d like to make peace, barring a rescue?”
In the observation room, Nilah leaned over to Cedric and whispered, “We’re sure security is locked down tight, mate?”
“They always posture at the end.” Cedric crossed his arms and shook his head, features scarcely illuminated by the light of the projectors. “You’d have an easier time breaking into a bank vault.”
“We’ve broken into bank vaults,” said Nilah, “and the Masquerade. Look, this isn’t just some rando. This is Harriet Fulsom’s daughter.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Cedric. “Been to four of these since the Harrow, and it’s always a lot of bluster, followed by silence.”
“Four?” asked Nilah.
“You’re not the only one bringing down high-profile Children of the Singularity,” he said, glancing to the imager feeds to make sure he didn’t miss anything.
“I don’t think you’ve ever executed someone like her,” said Nilah, “the daughter of a god.”
Cedric smirked. “You’d be amazed.”
The woman on the imager took a deep breath and steadied herself.
“You have no idea how grateful you should all be to us. We sacrificed everything to give humans a future. But it’s fine. In a few minutes, this place will be a smoking ruin, and you’ll all be dead.” Rebecca let out a hissing breath through her teeth. “I can’t wait to see your faces when she gets here.”
As they watched the chaplain and guards walk off the wide-open beach, Orna Sokol’s fingers tangled up with Nilah’s
and squeezed. Nilah stared down at the place where her dark skin met the lightness of her fiancée’s. They’d both gotten a bit weathered over the past two years fighting the Children of the Singularity, and watching executions scarcely lightened the load. Justice needed serving, but Orna’s look of dawning worry wasn’t soothing to Nilah’s heart.
She hadn’t wanted to see this, but Rebecca’s sentence—over a hundred counts including murder, racketeering, high treason, and currency manipulation—had been handed down by a secret court. That meant a group of state-selected witnesses had to attend, and Compass always nominated the arresting authority. Only one member of the Capricious was required, but everyone else came along for moral support.
The guards and chaplain pushed into the observation room through a side door, scooting around the gathered attendees to get to the back. They gave everyone solemn nods as they passed, and Nilah wondered how often they did this.
“Start the termination sequence,” said Agent Weathers, and the bailiff at the control console tapped a few buttons.
On the projections inside the execution chamber, the sun began to set, an orange burst on a purple sky. Lights swelled to life inside the smooth glass baubles composing the beach, and the clouds picked up their pace, vacating their perches for a mist of winking stars. Rebecca turned to look directly into the imager with anger in her eyes. “My mother is coming. Today is the last mistake of your short lives…”
Nilah glanced down the row of chairs in the observation room, taking in the expressions of her crewmates. The others were waiting for it, too—the sound of an alarm, a distant explosion, a flash of magic. If the Gods of the Harrow knew about the execution, surely they’d intervene.
Rebecca drew her limbs in close, shivering in her silky robes. “She’s coming for me. No prison can stop a teleporter like her.”
That was when Nilah knew nothing was coming to save Rebecca. It was an odd feeling, the pang of sympathy that rolled through her bones. Rebecca was a killer who had used slingers and starvation alike to destroy people on her mother’s behalf. She’d created untold loss, and would’ve gladly done so again, had the Capricious not taken her out of play.
To Nilah, though, she looked like someone’s scared little girl.
“She’ll be here.” Rebecca took a breath and nodded quickly. A tear rolled down one cheek. “Today was the day you almost executed—”
A loud, charging whine was the only warning before the prison chamber’s autoslingers pelted Rebecca Grimsby’s body with paralysis bolts and a sleep spell. She froze midsentence, mouth agape, eyes rolled back in her head. Then, she fell backward onto the glass beads, relaxation taking over stiff muscles.
They watched for long minutes, listening to the prison doctor calling off oxygenation levels. Eventually, she said, “Brain death. One twenty-four a.m.”
“Flip it,” said Agent Weathers.
The bailiff threw a switch, and the projection filled with fire, burning Rebecca’s body away to ash. They watched until the orange light faded, leaving only the glowing glass beads and carbon-crusted metal walls. The lights came on, and relief washed over Nilah. Grimsby was officially gone for good. Nilah stood, her joints sore from sitting in that chair for the past two hours. The exact time of Grimsby’s transfer to the execution chamber had been kept secret, since that knowledge could help a prison break.
“Meet you at the ship,” Cordell mumbled as he went for a side door. In years past, Armin Vandevere would’ve been hot on his heels to sneak a smoke, too. It hurt Nilah to see the empty space beside him. He and the first mate had been inseparable, and she’d never noticed before Armin’s death at the Masquerade.
“Leaving so soon?” Agent Weathers called after them, and the crew halted. He reminded Nilah of a terrier—always steadfast whether anyone took them seriously or not. “I’ll need to see you in my office.”
Nilah sighed. She’d hoped to get off this depressing prison hulk of a planet and score a little vacation. If Cedric was flagging them down, he probably intended to send them somewhere unpleasant. He excelled in finding the worst places to conduct covert operations.
Cordell gave up on his smoke break, lumbered back to his crew, and cocked an eyebrow. “Surely it can wait a cycle? We only just arrived, and everyone busted their humps to get here.”
“Fresh intel. I’ve got something interesting for you.” At this, he gave the rest of those gathered a little wave.
“Well, well…” The captain fetched a dispenser from his pocket and pulled out a toothpick with his teeth. Nilah knew he’d have much preferred a cigarette and was secretly dying inside from the interruption. “‘Fresh intel.’ What do y’all say?”
“I’d say we haven’t caught a break in months,” said Boots, straightening her bright yellow Rook Velocity jacket. “We just put Grimsby down. Time to get the next chump in the hopper.”
“And what do the rest of you think?” asked Cordell.
“I was promised shore leave,” said Nilah. “So how good is this one?”
“Very,” said Cedric.
“We can sleep when they’re dead,” said Orna, throwing an arm around Nilah. “Lead on, Agent.”
The crew shuffled into Special Agent Weathers’s temporary prison office—a three-walled cubicle at the end of the last row of the admin ward, beside the custodial bot cleaning station. It was clear whoever was in charge of office assignments liked Cedric Weathers as much as everyone else. On the way in, Cedric made a quick pass through the rest of the cube farm, making sure there were no other staffers present. Since it was the middle of the night cycle, the only other folks in the prison were the guards, distributed through the various wings.
“Going to a lot of trouble to make sure we’re alone, mate,” said Nilah, cramming into his cubicle with the others.
“That’s because we’re going to run a private operation.” Cedric waved out a projection and tacked it to the wall. “Compass eyes only. Not even Special Branch gets this one.”
Cordell perked up, the epaulets sparkling on his captain’s jacket. Nilah noticed that he always took special steps to make sure his old Arca Defense Force clothes shined in front of Cedric. He maneuvered his toothpick from one side of his wide grin to another.
“Just us?” he asked. “What kind of budget?”
The Compass man chortled. “Do whatever is required. Send receipts.”
“Oh, I like those jobs,” said Aisha Jan. She, like her husband, Malik Jan, had been napping before the execution. Nilah envied their ability to sleep anywhere they wanted. “Nice hotels, good food…”
“If it’s a civilized world,” Malik added.
“I feel like I never get off the ship,” said Aisha. “It’d better have some good food. That’s my favorite part.”
“My favorite part is the deserving target at the end,” said Alister Ferrier, crossing his pale, freckled arms. His red hair stood up at an odd angle from where he’d been trying to nap, as well. Jeannie, his twin sister, came up behind him and smoothed it down.
“You’re doing this off-books because of the mole in the Special Branch?” asked Boots.
“Because you’re the right crew for the job,” said Cedric.
Boots cleared her throat and nudged Nilah. “Mole.”
Cordell smirked at Boots’s comment, then said, “Enough beating around the bush. We’re all tired, remember? Let’s have it.”
“I’m sure you all remember catching Grimsby at Mizuhara,” said Cedric.
The woman’s dead eyes were still too fresh in Nilah’s mind to recall much of their brief day in the Thousand Waterfalls resort. She’d been responsible for bringing Rebecca to the Intergalactic Criminal Court on Compass orders. At the time, they’d been excited to remove Harriet Fulsom’s daughter from the game board, but now it felt hollow. It was just an arrest—they hadn’t actually stopped anything that they knew of.
“Grimsby was there to buy something,” said Cedric. “A data cube from the estate of Sekhet Mostafa.”
Cedric leaned back in his squeaky old office chair. “Of course you’ve heard of her.”
“Sure,” laughed Boots. “Used to be part of this group on the Link called the Graverobbers, where we’d swap stories about various historical figures. The place was a gold mine for me. Easy to sell a salvage map if you can stick some famous dead weirdo to the story and—” She paused to look at Cedric.
A smile crooked the corner of his mouth. “I’m not going after you for old frauds committed, if that’s why you stopped talking.”
“Just checking, bud. Anyway, one of the guys was obsessed with Sekhet Mostafa. Had like eight thousand murder theories.” Boots paused to grab one of Cedric’s clean mugs off the charger on his desk and drop a cube of government-issued coffee into it. The black shape melted into an oily splash, and hot steam filled the air.
Nilah couldn’t stand the stuff, but she watched as Cordell and Alister ducked in after Boots to fill mugs of their own. “Was she the murderer or the victim?”
“Maybe neither,” said Boots. “She was this kid from one of the smaller banking clans—rebel child, liked to adventure, obsessed with finding Origin. She’s basically forgotten now, but she used to be quite the scandal on Taitu.”
“I’ve never heard of her.”
Boots took a hearty sip and went to set her mug on the desk, but Cedric preempted her with a coaster before it could touch. “You wouldn’t have heard of her, Nilah. Had to be more than a hundred years since this went down. Mostafa was kind of like a professional cultist, too. She bounced around between about a dozen of them, and when her family threatened to disown her, she disappeared.”
Orna snorted. “What, Mummy and Daddy didn’t like all the liars and crooks dipping into their fortune?”
“She took it with her,” said Boots. “Cleaned them out, down to the very last coin.”
“I bet they disowned her after that,” said Cordell.
“There was nothing left, save for their land holdings, but with the family in arrears and cash-poor, they folded. Everything they owned was sold off—but there was a real market for Sekhet’s possessions. Lots of folks had a morbid fascination with her fate.”