The Impossible Future: Complete set

by Frank Kennedy

  “How about Coronado and Vancouver?” She asked. “Malcolm Rainier and Evan Augustine are good men. I know they’ll pitch in.”

  “I’ve been trying, dear,” Lucinda said, lacking the swagger she carried into the ill-fated GPM conference. “Poor Evan has fallen under the spell of his children, I fear. He’d been thinking of ceding family control for years.”

  “And Malcolm?” She questioned Ezekiel. “What’s his stance?”

  “One of his favorite Solomons was assassinated yesterday. She worked for his family since before Malcolm was born. Cared more about her than his own mother. Maybe he’ll fight, maybe he’ll surrender. At the moment, he’s paralyzed.”

  “He won’t take my link. You have to keep trying, Ezekiel. He has contacts inside the Guard. People we must have.”

  Ezekiel wiped his brow. “Even if something comes of this, your plan … it’s too big. The math doesn’t work.”

  “It’s not about math, Ezekiel. It’s about tides.” She glanced to her pilot, who nodded from inside the Scram’s navigation cylinder. They were landing. “If we see each other again, I’ll tell you what I mean.”

  Sam scrapped the holowindow and double-tapped her temple. Somehow, she felt Lucinda and Ezekiel, as if they lived inside her. When the Scram touched down, Sam disengaged from the still-seat. She leveled her rifle and took position behind her team, led by Joseph Doltrice, former Guard special operations captain and the oldest of her mercenaries. She tapped the neck plate of her bodysuit, and a combat helmet encircled her skull.

  The starboard bulkhead pixelated, and they jumped.

  The massive estate house – built more than six centuries ago in a castle-like Brimoge style – blocked the last setting rays of the sun. Its silhouette of towers and domes dwarfed the Pynn house. This, Sam reminded herself, was what old-school Chancellor power looked like. Security countermeasures launched exactly as her intel predicted.

  Floodlights exploded from every direction – even the external spotlights pivoted inward. A silver flash overhead revealed a magnetic dome designed to trap invaders while estate defenses captured or slaughtered them. She activated the DR29 grid inside the helmet, allowing her a clear schematic of the grounds and a link to Captain Doltrice’s feed.

  Flash pegs and laser pulses enveloped them in an expected storm. The team raced toward their target position, firing at locations where snipers were trying to take them out. Her body armor absorbed the killing energy of the pegs and lasers, but Sam staggered when hit by multiple shots at her legs.

  Though they knew what to expect after all Sam’s earlier pleas for estate entry were denied, Sam didn’t think the armor would hold up to more than thirty seconds of an onslaught. Despite wearing a close substitute for proprietary UG body armor, its fabricated strength was less than ninety percent Guard-effective.

  They sprinted fast as they could toward the east portico – their way inside – but they seemed to have no success taking out snipers. Even if they pushed through, what awaited them inside? Could they hope to survive combat in close quarters?

  Sam closed off all doubts and charged with her team, firing with precision and a cold heart, exactly as her father taught.

  Which made the team’s easy entry through the portico a frightening shock. The instant they penetrated the grounds and escaped the lines of sniper fire, resistance disappeared.

  Capt. Doltrice took point as they penetrated the portico and entered a grand vestibule not unlike inside the Pynn estate. Corridors led in four directions, with a magnificent, carpeted staircase ascending two flights. They held weapons high, scoping every angle where security personnel might pick them off with ease. Nothing.

  “Feel free to lower your rifles.” The voice came from on high. “Trust me. You’re in no danger.”

  Sam looked to the top of the stairs, where a familiar face lorded over them. She’d met him twice – once at dinner with Michael and Finnegan. He rejected her links twenty times in the past week.

  Moss Chief of Staff David Ellstrom cut an imposing figure, more intimidating than when he played a secondary role at dinner, deferring to his boss. He held out his hands, as if to surrender.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Ellstrom continued. “But you’re here, and you’ll kill somebody if I allow this insanity to continue.” He started down the stairs. “I am alone except for a skeleton staff of household maintenance.”

  Sam tapped off her helmet. “And what about the snipers that nearly tore us apart out there?”

  “What snipers would those be?”

  Capt. Doltrice tapped off his helmet and sneered.

  “Unbelievable.” He pivoted to Sam. “It’s a SimShield. I thought I recognized the patterns. I’ve been out of the game too long.”

  Sam was baffled. “What’s a SimShield?”

  “Don’t see it so much on Earth. Mostly a colonial favorite. Chancellors protecting real estate from indigo raiders. It’s an automated defense system. Uses a mimic sequence to create the illusion of human heat signatures. Weapons fire is as deadly as the owner chooses.” He turned to Ellstrom. “You nulled the flash pegs?”

  “Yes,” Ellstrom smiled, halfway down the stairs. “I set the laser pulses at twenty-five percent. Enough to incapacitate … unless you’re wearing body armor.”

  “Wait, what?” Sam lowered her rifle as her blood steamed. “It was all a show? If you didn’t intend to put us down, why didn’t you just take my link and invite me over like I requested?”

  “Because I have my orders. And, frankly, because I didn’t expect you to be so persistent.” He examined her mercs with disdain. “Or violent. Things are at a delicate stage right now.”

  Sam laughed. “You think?”

  “I am sorry, the way things turned out. I truly am.”

  “No. That’s not good enough. I’m not leaving here without answers. Where is Finnegan Moss?”

  “Far from here, Samantha, which I’m sure your intel confirms.”

  “I thought we were allies. Finnegan said he’d keep us in the loop.”

  David reached the bottom of the stairs. “As much as he could. Yes. Might we talk in private, Samantha?”

  “Wouldn’t advise it, Miss Pynn,” Doltrice said.

  “I won’t say another word in front of them,” David responded. “Mr. Moss does not believe in personal armies, whether mercenary or otherwise. And my loyalty is to him.”

  She knew arguing was pointless, and time was slipping.

  “Fine. Captain, keep your team on alert in case there’s another surprise waiting for us. If I have any problems, I’ll contact you through the DR29. Agreed?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  She followed David, who did not say another word until they were several corridors and a short flight of stairs away from the mercs. They approached the observatory.

  “I apologize for my silence,” he said. “I know you’ve been desperate since Michael fled. I know you counted on Mr. Moss as a silent ally if matters turned dark. If there’s any consolation, please know I tried to convince Finnegan to change course.”

  His voice cracked. Sam feared where this was headed. Inside her, Lucinda Blanche spoke through the circastream.

  “Dear, this feels like a trap of some sort. Perhaps if you turned around now …”

  “Changed course?” Sam asked. “Changed from what?”

  “Please.” David pointed to the massive sectionals in the center of the observatory. “You’d best sit. This will not be easy – for you or whoever is watching on your circastream.”

  She accepted the invitation but refused to set aside her rifle.

  “Changed from what?”

  “Few men are as complex as Mr. Moss. In the years I’ve served Finnegan, he has routinely surprised me. He …”

  “You’ve been lying to us. Haven’t you?”

  He met her eyes with a hint of anger.

  “We’ve never lied to you or Michael. Not once. Everything we discussed – our efforts to track dow
n James Bouchet, our inroads to assist with Solomon equity – were factual. But the lack of a lie is not a guarantee of a whole truth. Like every Chancellor, we calculated the value of information based on our ability to leverage our position.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Samantha, I tell you this against Finnegan’s wishes because he does not want to hurt you. He genuinely cares about Michael and considers him a friend. So, I tell you with heavy heart that the circumstances which brought Finnegan into Michael’s orbit were engineered for a larger purpose.”

  “You mean, what happened at Entilles Club …”

  “Was staged. Yes. Not everyone was in on the scheme, of course. The individuals who were killed were sacrifices Finnegan deemed necessary.”

  Her blood reached a full boil. “What? Michael was almost killed … twice. Why would you do that?”

  “To achieve a creditable alliance with someone important inside the Solomon equity movement. A direct link to the leadership.”

  Anger turned to horror. “So you would know who to kill when the assassins were sent out. You were part of her plan.”

  She lifted the rifle, but David remained comfortably seated between pillows.

  “It’s not what you think, Samantha. Mr. Moss is sympathetic to Solomons, but he has been working on a larger project for more than a year. He has had to make difficult choices. Not choices I approved of, but as I said before, Finnegan is complex. He is also practical.”

  David tapped his temple and threw open a holowindow. He fingered the graphics to bring up geographical schematics of the Scandinavian Consortium. He tugged and swiped the land features. At last, he produced an image of a tall house built several stories high against the side of a mountain overlooking a fjord.

  “This is where Mr. Moss currently resides. I could go inside, but I doubt you’d like what you see.”

  “Who lives there?” Sam knew the answer already.

  “Celia Marsche. Based on recent feeds, he is likely sleeping in her bed. They have been sexually intimate for some time now.”

  Her worst, most persistent nightmare overtook her emotions.

  “Oh, God. It was all a scam. You were playing us.”

  “He saw no other options. I disapproved at every turn, but he was sure he found a pathway to a resolution. He had to give her what she wanted. Everyone gives Celia Marsche what she wants.”

  “And what does she want?”

  “The Guard. The Chancellory. Earth. All of it.”

  “And Finnegan is helping her?”

  “Like I said, Samantha, he’s a complex man. I am sorry.”

  She reared up and aimed her rifle. It would be so easy.

  David did not budge, as if unconcerned with his imminent fate.

  Her father’s voice in her ear and her heart burning with rage, Samantha laid a finger upon the trigger. One day, she’d finish the job with Finnegan himself.

  Then David uttered one word. The most unexpected of all.

  43

  The Appalachians

  20 minutes before sunset

  E VACUATION MEANT TWO THINGS: Grab every offensive weapon and run. Which they did. Inside the chaos, Rikard made a command decision to abandon four of the seven ships that ferried them into hiding. He charted the escape routes with the least path of natural resistance and divided the insurgents into three teams of ten. He gave each pilot rendezvous coordinates and a program for dropping into blind flight. In the frenzied departure, one sprained knee, a shattered tooth, and a broken fibula caused the briefest of delays. As they ran, the mountain pass fell into fading shadows of pink and orange.

  Michael saw the enemy approach from the north: Scramjet, most recent model, based on size and configuration. He’d studied every commercial and military craft inside-out to earn his flight certification. It was coming in low, too high a speed to be an error.

  He warned the team around him to close the forward spotlights in their holocubes, lest they be seen. The Scramjet passed directly overhead, its course pure and obvious.

  “Don’t look back,” he told them. “Soon as they finish, they’ll spread a net for us.”

  Rikard and Matthias gave him command of these nine, which included cook-turned-fighter Helene Yaffetz, fellow assassin Maya Fontaine, and Carlos Rivera, whom Michael now referred to as “No. 1 asshole.” The other members of his earlier scout team raced alongside, plus four more he’d taken little time to know during the one-week hideaway.

  “Three ships,” Rikard had told him as they packed their weapons. “If one or two of us go down, we’ll suffer heavy losses, but the other survivors will be together instead of splintered across the continent.” Rikard admitted he didn’t know which was the soundest strategy – split into as many groups as possible or consolidate. “I’m not a general, but I want to give us a real shot.”

  “I don’t reckon they’ll listen to me after what happened,” Michael said. He blamed their predicament on himself. He screwed up by exposing his team to the exobiologist rather than maintaining cover. Rikard did not agree.

  “They will follow you, Michael. You might not see it in yourself, but you are a born leader. Time to put away the comedian and take charge. Lead these people to safety. Kill the enemy until you can’t.”

  “Copy that, dude.”

  They shared a quiet few seconds amid the chaos. Michael remembered his first conversation with Rikard – two years ago in a parking bay in Rikard and Matthias’s New Stockholm landing.

  The first ally he discovered on this side of the fold.

  Michael hugged Rikard and organized his team. They fled into the mountain’s deep forests. Forty minutes later, an enemy Scramjet passed overhead.

  The first explosions rifled through the pass in thunderous echoes, and an angry yellow glow mushroomed above the tree line where the outpost once stood. Michael hoped the bombardment lasted longer. He hoped the assassin team onboard would drop from the ship to search for and kill survivors. Every thirty seconds of stalling mattered.

  “No. 1 asshole” whistled from his position on point and waved everyone forward to their ride. The escape vehicle was the smallest model Scram on the market, with room for twenty.

  Michael had the codes for pixelating the bulkhead and triggering the flight cylinder. When he tapped his amp and dissolved the door, his team surged.

  “Move it,” he ordered. “If we don’t haul ass in about two minutes, we’re gonna be a mess of crispy critters.”

  He jumped onboard last, taking one final, horrified look at the fiery blossoms rising from the former outpost.

  “Settle in,” he shouted as the bulkhead reconstituted. “This is gonna be a bumpy damn ride. Scrams ain’t my specialty.”

  He tossed his rifle to Maya, who joined the other compatriots in stowing their heavy weapons and bolting themselves into still-seats. Michael jumped into the navigator’s chair. He tapped the positional control panel forward of the left armrest. The swivel pivoted then rose three feet. He double-tapped his amp, searching his admin stack for the catalyzer code to navigational controls. He threw out a cube and fingered it, entering an encrypted sequence.

  The Scram became his, and Michael belonged to the Scram.

  The ship’s features rained down from a dorsal port and wrapped him inside a holographic cylinder. Controls for everything beckoned his attention: Altitude, attitude, airspeed, pitch and yaw, Carbedyne stabilizers, nacelle fuel injection, meteorology, aerial topography, gravitational flux, directional sequencing, transponder configuration, orbital dynamics, and on it went. Michael had less than seven hours flying time in a Scram and never felt comfortable enough to add these ships to his professional services. He first trained on uplifts. Their flight ports were less imposing and required no cylinder.

  Yet Michael needed only to remember Rikard’s challenge. Lead these people to safety.

  He fingered the fuel injection sequence and pivoted to his fellow Solomon fighters.

  “Everybody tucked in?”

>   Nods, thumbs up, no words.

  “Hold on to your business,” he said as the Scram lurched. “And whatever you do, don’t throw up. I hate that shit.”

  As the Scram rose, Michael tossed the rendezvous coordinates from his admin stack into the directional sequencing control. He took a long, deep breath. Once the Scram locked in its track and began forward acceleration, it would appear on the NAC’s stack grid. Visible. Trackable.

  The next challenge: Hoping he understood how to pull off something he’d never tried before – blind flight. Only the real pros – Rikard and others like him – could do this in their sleep. The algorithm alone required ten steps and fifty program keys. The sequence had to be exact. His only hope rested in a stable, level flight pattern devoid of distractions from inside or out.

  “What if I bust the algorithm?” He asked Rikard after receiving the navigation launch codes. “Will we be screwed?”

  “You’ll be fine, Michael. Just keep your head about you and push the nacelles to their maximum. Ignore the warning sensors.”

  “OK. Sounds like a plan. I reckon.”

  He was not comforted.

  Nothing that happened next made life any less terrifying.

  A red beacon appeared on his aerial topography controls, which displayed a broad visual of the airspace fifty kilometers in any direction. This beacon showed an object five kilometers aft. It was accelerating. Transponder controls elevated to eye level.

  Michael didn’t need to verify what he was seeing.

  The Scramjet that blew the outpost to hell was racing on a new trajectory. It had locked on to Michael’s Scram, using the transponder as its guide. They were coming, armed with energy slews. Michael knew all about slews.

  One close call was enough.

  He pushed the nacelles to maximum.