He thought back to the old days. To Albion. To the boy he used to love as a brother. To Jamie.
“I’m coming for you, dude. Get my speed?”
The saga continues now in The Reversing Tide …
The
Reversing
Tide
The Impossible Future: Book 3
Frank Kennedy
c. 2020 by Frank Kennedy
All rights reserved
PART ONE
MISDIRECTION
Yeah, so … I’ve learned a few things about life.
A man ought to know better than to get comfortable. As soon as they pat you on the back and fill you full of ‘attaboys,’ that’s when you’d best send up the radar. Those same boot-lickers sure as hell won’t be around when you fall – and they’re just waiting for the trapdoor to open.
And another thing: Don’t assume you’ll live forever. Be ready to go next Tuesday. If old man Death has you marked up in his calendar, ain’t a thing you can do about it. Just hold on tight, find the biggest, most impossible rollercoaster in the universe, and let her rip. What’s the worst that can happen?
1
System Transport Ship Hadrian
34 million kilometers from Earth
Standard Year (SY) 5357
N ERVOUS?”
Sam Pynn stopped fidgeting and answered the question.
“I don’t know which will be worse: What they tell us, or how long the nightmares stay with me.”
Sam’s Chief of Staff, Patricia Wylehan, broke from a holocube of financials and leaned across her seat. She kissed Sam on the cheek.
“Nightmares? Come now. Your biggest fear is what to tell Michael when you return home.”
Sam grabbed her sixth glass of wine since Hadrian entered full system burst. She was close to the recommended max of alcohol for a journey of this duration. She read the spaceflight guidelines three times before launch, this being her first trip off-world.
“We argued for an hour, Pat. He couldn’t believe I was leaving him out of this. He went on about how he’d been a good boy for the last year and didn’t organize a damn-fool mission out of the system.”
“Sam, you’ve been the voice of reason. Michael knows this. He’s more valuable on Earth right now.”
Sam nodded. “The next few weeks will be a tipping point.”
“And Michael will play a vital role. He’s come a long way, Sam.”
“He has.” She closed her eyes and felt Michael’s arms around her, their bodies intertwined. Eyes of a hunter, lips of a poet, muscles of a linebacker. She chased her fingers through his beard and his dreads. Sam snapped back to reality and sipped wine. “I’m very proud of him, Pat. I remember the day we crossed the IDF.” She faced her Chief of Staff. “Neither of us thought he’d survive here for long.”
“He defied the odds, as did you. Now here you are, minor celebrities with more influence than you realize.”
“Only because the Chancellory hasn’t decided we’re a pair of frauds. Let’s face it, Pat. The Presidiums trust me because they don’t know me. They think Michael’s harmless because they don’t understand half of what comes out his mouth.”
Pat swiped lines of numbers. “Sometimes, a brilliant plan falls into your lap. The best saves I ever made on the battlefield were improvised. Only way to turn defeat into victory is defy the narrative. I’ve never seen anybody defy like you and Michael.”
Sam loved having Patricia close. The former peacekeeper and mercenary recognized when to slip in those ego-stroking asides.
They first met outside the Interdimensional Fold twenty-two standard months earlier, when Patricia was Ophelia Tomelin’s “Chief.” Five months after the fall of SkyTower, an inquest cleared the Chief of wrongdoing but gave her ten days to secure a contract position on Earth or leave the planet for good. Sam hired her an hour after the judgment. Yes, it was a reward for saving Sam and Michael’s lives after an assassin shot them both. Yes, Patricia had no executive experience. Yes, others in the Americus Presidium objected.
Still, Sam knew she’d never find a more qualified candidate. She needed a survivor who held disdain for the status quo and brought fierce loyalty. Like her boss, Patricia learned on the job. These days, no one dared play games with Sam Pynn’s “Chief.”
“Funny thing about defiance,” Sam said. “Eventually, somebody with real power snaps that rubber band back in your face. Every Chancellor – even our best allies – will pounce the first time we stumble. The hardliners will never agree to Solomon equity, and some lunatics think they’ll control the hybrids and the immortals.”
“True. There will be pockets of resistance. But don’t overthink it, Sam. When SkyTower fell, Chancellors acknowledged a future they’d been trying to ignore for decades. Most of them are still jackasses, but they wear it alongside humility. I feel what we’re about to discover will terrify even the hardliners.”
Sam set her glass aside and paced the private cabin. She tapped her amp to trigger Hadrian’s external nodes. The bulkhead pixelated and transformed into a live panorama of open space. She recognized the orange-red jewel in the lower quadrant: Mars. They were two hours from the Vasily Intersystem Transfer Station, which was situated a million kilometers inside the Martian orbit on a direct line between Earth and the Fulcrum.
“You think it will be that bad?” She asked Patricia.
“If the reports are accurate, probably worse. These people survived for reasons we don’t understand, and they’ve provided scant details to the Guard inquisitors.”
“Which is why requesting me to come out here makes no sense.”
“They believe you can help, Sam. Offer insight.”
“What? Into James? It’s been two standard years since he sent me that message. I still don’t know what to take away from it. Frankly, Pat, nothing I have to say about him applies anymore.”
Pat stiffened her shoulders and tossed away the holosheets.
“I suggest you bury that nugget in a dark hole. There’s no more sure-fire way to lose your leverage than to admit you’re of no use.”
“Sometimes, I think that’s all they see in Michael and me – our connection to James.”
“At one time, perhaps. Don’t underestimate the impact you made at the inquest. Your public speech was chilling and inspirational. Your words forced Chancellors to reevaluate their worldview.”
“But the war went on anyway, Pat. The Solomons are still fighting for full citizenship, Chancellors are still hiring assassins, and James is still out there killing by the thousands.”
Pat studied the starfield. “Humans. We’re monsters at heart. But we store away tiny bottles of redemption to bring out for special occasions – even the worst of us. That’s what they’re counting on, Sam. Redemption. They want to see if James has any bottles left on the shelf. Understand?”
“I do. If he can be redeemed, that means he has a weakness. And they need to learn his weakness to kill him. It’s exactly how Daddy would have analyzed it.”
Each replenished her wine.
“So, here’s what you do,” Pat said. “After we hear from the survivors, you take an hour to process the intelligence. Then you give the military what they’re seeking: A bottle of redemption. Call it whatever you want. Make it up if you have to. But give them a weakness they can strategize against. They’ll take it. Trust me. Nothing else they’ve tried has worked.”
The Unification Guard’s incompetence in tracking down and capturing James Bouchet and his terrorists was the source of endless debate among the Chancellory. Sam heard many theories. Some suggested the terrorists evaded capture using revolutionary technology. Others suspected sympathizers within the Guard were shielding the enemy. A few said the terrorists were wiped out long ago, but the Guard created the illusion of a threat to bolster recruitment and financing for new ships.
Yet Sam’s heart told her the truth was worse than any theory. She remembered the last time she saw James, standing between his immortal brot
her Valentin and hybrid partner Rayna at Hinton Station, staring out at SkyTower. Even then, she sensed nothing good coming of their union. Monsters allowed to roam free.
The logic behind their ongoing success confounded her. Even if James’s intellect had reached unprecedented levels thanks to the Jewel, his group’s numbers were small. Why had a military with unlimited resources in every system been unable to track them after attacks? Why had no one detected a pattern in their movements? How could these killers walk away from slaughter after slaughter without one casualty of their own?
And now this. A private liner emerged from the Fulcrum five standard days ago, the last of its Carbedyne fuel stores dried up and its hull buckling, most cabins decompressed. The liner floated in space, sending an automated distress signal. Its four surviving passengers were found in stasis tubes and awakened. The Guard took over the investigation. Two days later, they contacted Sam.
She decided. When they arrived at Vasily Station, she intended to confront their UG liaison and pose her questions directly. If they expected her to interview these survivors and offer insight, they would give her something in exchange.
Sam didn’t allow the history or grandeur of Vasily to distract her when she disembarked two hours later. The drone of cargo conveyances and crowded promenades between docking ports impressed her, but only because everyone seemed oblivious to the looming threat beyond the solar system. Most short-term visitors were destined for ships traveling to the Fulcrum, the network of manufactured wormholes linking forty solar systems. Was anyone concerned what they might run into after entering the local Nexus point? Out of sight, out of mind?
Pat, however, appreciated the wonders of Vasily, having berthed here dozens of times. “This facility has been operational for nine hundred years,” she told Sam. “To look at the historical archives, you’d swear nothing has changed. A perfect, pragmatic design. Those were the old days when Chancellors built for permanence.”
They boarded a commercial rifter to complete the kilometer-long journey to UG headquarters on the far side of Vasily. Their liaison, Major Cyril Lancaster, was waiting, a stoic monolith standing outside a cascade barrier. He was a giant of a peacekeeper, adorned with trappings which rendered him as imposing as any of the Admiralty she’d met during her Presidium’s security conferences at the Great Plains Metroplex. He stretched a brow, as if in irritation.
“We have been waiting,” he said. “Your clumsy captain docked at the farthest port he could find.”
“My apologies for …” Sam began.
“Did your Chief of Staff,” he turned to Patricia, “not inform him of clearance under a UG docking profile?”
Patricia didn’t answer, but she twisted her lips – a giveaway. She screwed up. Not her first logistical error, but Sam would not let her Chief take the fall.
“As I said,” she told the major, “my apologies. This was my call. It’s my first off-world trip and I wanted to see the full expanse of the station. I heard it was a perfect, pragmatic design. Nine hundred years old. Yes?”
He flinched. “I suppose, if that sort of thing interests you. Either way, you’re here now. We have been prepping the survivors to speak with you. If you will follow me.”
He tapped his amp and brought down the cascade barrier. After they were separated from the prying eyes and ears of civilians behind the translucent wall, Sam made her demands clear.
“You know who I am, Major,” she said. “My Presidium sat in consultation with the Admiralty. They insisted they gave us all the intelligence they had, but none of us believe we’re hearing the whole truth. The UG has persistently deflected our questions. I need one honest answer. Why has the Guard made no progress in hunting the terrorists?”
“I am not authorized to …”
“Yes, you are. If nothing else, your conscience gives you the power. I am …”
“Miss Pynn, my superiors insisted I provide you with every accommodation. On that ground alone, I’ll allow one question, but hear me: The answer does not walk out that barrier with you.”
He was more flexible than she expected. “Why?”
“Because if word got out, the panic would do more damage than James Bouchet and his band of fanatics.”
Sam needed a drink. “I understand. It stays here.”
Major Lancaster shrugged. “It’s simple, Miss Pynn. We haven’t hurt them because we don’t know how.”
“Excuse me?”
“Chancellors have been a space-faring people for thirteen centuries, yet we’ve never faced an enemy in space. Not once. We set up the colonies under the Guard’s thumb. We base the entire colonial fleet on Ark Carriers, designed to suppress the local populations. We kill efficiently on the ground, but our capital ships have no offensive combat weaponry, no deep-range fighters with system engines, and our shields only protect from the natural dangers of open space, not enemy aggression. We have little mobility and no training in interstellar combat strategy.”
The shame was written on his face, but his tone suggested he was glad to have this off his chest. She was floored.
“Damn. It was the most obvious answer all along. What’s being done to upgrade the fleet and improve tactical training?”
“That would be question number two. Sorry, Miss Pynn. In the meantime, you keep your mouths shut about this and interrogate the survivors. Don’t forget: We’re on the clock. All of us.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?” He leaned in, his eyes piercing them both. “I had family in New Stockholm and several friends in SkyTower. These lunatics murdered a hundred thirty thousand people on Earth. They’ve killed almost as many since they escaped. If they ever build a real army …”
Sam flashed back sixteen months to the Pacific Riviera. The sun disappeared as she comforted a distraught Michael on the beach. “They’ll kill millions, Sam,” he said. “Billions.” She thought Michael’s warning was alarmist. Today, she saw his dread mirrored in Major Lancaster’s features. Even the Guard is terrified.
“We must make sure it never comes to that,” she said. “Lead me to them. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to help, but I’ll try, Major.”
“I’d say you’ll do more than try. You’re the reason we’re all here.”
As they entered a lift, Sam and Patricia shared puzzled frowns.
“What do you mean, Major?”
He glanced at them both, paused, then smiled with recognition.
“They didn’t tell you, did they?”
“Tell me what?”
“The Admiralty did not invite you. The survivors did. First thing off their lips when we woke them. They requested you by name.”
“What? Why?”
“I think you know.”
She did.
2
The Entilles Club
Boston Prefecture, North American Consortium
W HEN MICHAEL COOPER NEEDED to take the edge off, he found his go-to in jubriska. Shots, on the rocks, quick hits from a flask – it was all good. The mint blast opened his sinuses; the bourbon delivered a hot kicker going down. Jubriska dialed up his focus, sharpened his wit, heightened his sexual vibe, and settled the tremors in his trigger hand. A little now, a little later. It all made sense.
More or less.
He threw back a shot and declared himself ready to move after Rikard Bryznewieski briefed the team on mission details. He hid his flask in a custom-designed interior pocket of his faux leather jacket. To his dismay, true leather did not exist on Earth.
The synthetic fabric he discovered in a custom Recon tube program delivered a rugged brown sheen and rivaled the rawhide texture. The jacket was flexible, although the inset body armor added a few pounds. The Solomon tri-crest branded over his left chest compromised the chic he angled for.
He turned heads anyway. The Chancellors didn’t know what to make of a bearded proto-African with shoulder-length dreadlocks, silver ear studs, and a fashion sense they assumed he borrowed from the indigos on Zwa
hili Kingdom. All of which worked to his advantage when Michael embarked on a side career telling jokes to audiences with little understanding of ironic humor.
“How long does it take a Chancellor to cook dinner?” He paused for a beat to watch their suspicious, arrogant brains turning. “Beats the shit out of me. Ask the Solomon who cooked it.”
They laughed. Clueless. He saw an opening.
“I didn’t grow up around here, as some of you kinda figured. Right? So, back in my old neighborhood, we had these seriously crazy ideas about equality. Anybody could dream big and do whatever they wanted. Born into nothing? Your family name ain’t worth shit? No problem. You could rule the world if you tried hard enough.” The crowd laughed. “Can you imagine that? Some punk-ass indigo come along and tell a Chancellor to fix him dinner? Talk about an empire buzzkill. Am I right, people?”
They ate it up. Every racial or caste-driven shot across the bow drew more enthusiastic laughter and applause. Michael went places that would have ruined him on first Earth. He decimated the poor, uneducated, and oppressed but championed the masters of wealth, power, and racial purity. Exactly what insecure Chancellors craved.
The more they laughed and applauded, the more they tapped credit transfer holocubes. Their new clown – the only one practicing this strange craft called “standup comedy” – was making enough money to rival the most successful Solomons. Bookings filled Michael’s admin stack at a steady pace. He gave most performances by circastream projection from home. The interactive hologram dropped him amid his audience, allowing him to walk around and ply his antics with the customers without having to touch these people.
However, a few performances – like tonight’s – were live.
By necessity.
Michael learned about the Entilles Club the day he and Sam moved into her inherited family compound two miles north of the city. Entilles operated every third day, its four levels drawing the region’s most powerful Chancellors to everything from classical concerts and “drifting opera” to off-book kwin-sho matches, dramatic theater, and “living art.” The last one, Michael learned, involved an intimate setting reserved months ahead and designed for sexual voyeurs.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 63
