“No, she’s not,” Hans said, entering from the opposite side of the office. He nodded. “But she knows what’s she doing. These are InterLegis Transport Contracts.”
Michael knew the term from his flight licensure process.
“Shit. We’re all in there. Every Solomon pilot, technician, and comm specialist in the NAC.”
“And every Chancellor who contracted with them, even for a single flight,” Hans said. “This is privileged, archival data, but useful if you’re planning to leverage it.”
The woman didn’t lower her arms, but Michael knew she wanted to reach for her gun, even if she was outnumbered.
“I know who you are,” she said, her voice halting but arrogant. “You are part of what’s going on outside. Ruining our city.”
“What do you care?” Hans stepped closer. “Half this city could burn, so long as you took your prize.”
“We give you Solomons an ounce of dignity, and you want to take a pound of our flesh,” she told Hans. “Yes, I’m planning for the future. When the Guard puts Earth on military lockdown, the future changes. I will not be DayWatch the rest of my life.”
Maya sighed. “Oh, sweetie. Don’t you understand? Solomons are taking nothing from you. Chancellors like you are doing all the work for us. You’ll leverage those contracts to the Guard for what? Mass roundups and executions? Arrest rival Chancellors as collaborators and traitors? And your mediocre descendancy will rise. Is that your plan?”
“You are smart, for a Solomon.”
“I’ve known Chancellors like you.” Maya nudged closer. “The second you leverage, another will up the ante, and you will not be able to compete. History might be about to change, sweetie, but not how you think.”
“Or for you.” The woman pointed to her skull. “I’m listening to everything on the DayWatch local streams. Guess who’s coming in time for a late dinner?”
Michael, Maya, and Hans shared a tense second caught in each other’s glare.
“They just received the dispatch order,” the woman continued. “The UGT Desolation. They’ll be here within minutes. Almost a thousand peacekeepers to put you filth in your place for good.”
Michael chose to call her bluff. “You ain’t helping your case for walking out of here alive.”
“Stating facts. You’re forgetting, I’m DayWatch. I can help the three of you escape your predicament. Give me one minute to finish this data transfer, then all leave quietly. You go your way and I …”
She convulsed as a laser burnt a hole through her right lung. She fell back against the desk and tapped her head then crumpled.
Michael lowered his weapon. “Sorry,” he told the others. “I really hate these assholes.”
Hans dropped his lasers and nodded in firm agreement. However, as they moved closer to Michael’s victim, the woman twitched. She opened her eyes and fixated on Michael. She forced each breath.
“They’re here,” she said, blinking twice.
Maya finished her with a headshot, but Michael felt sick.
What the hell did I just do?
“She gave us up,” he said. “They know exactly where we are.”
“DayWatch and assassins both,” Hans replied. “I guarantee they’re amped in. And if she’s right about the Desolation, they do, too.”
“How do we get out of this?”
“The lift, but there’s only direction.”
Hans didn’t need to say it. They ran.
Out of the office, through the reception, to the lift, their weapons raised in case they weren’t fast enough. The tube opened empty.
Hans verbalized their destination. “Level twenty-two.”
He tapped his amp and opened a cube. “Oliver, your status?”
They rose halfway to their destination before the pilot of the second uplift responded. He landed safely; they were disembarking, bringing on two fighters with larger munitions.
“Your people are OK,” Hans told Michael and Maya. “Oliver, home in on my position and take off. We’re about to try something stupid.”
“Staying alive is never stupid, brother,” Oliver replied. “Mom would say the same thing.”
Michael felt Maya nudge up close. She didn’t like this plan, either.
58
Landing bay, Lioness
The Salvation Fleet
V ALENTIN WAS WAITING AT THE UPLIFT when Brother James arrived with his sons. The boys unsettled Valentin. At this rate, the lanky creations who looked like rubber stretched too thin would reach shoulder-high to their father in weeks. Benjamin and Peter flanked James, as if his personal guard.
“They think they’re ready to fly,” James said. “What do you think, Admiral Valentin?”
“I don’t know. Astro-mechanics is a complicated skillset, even with the aid of a navigation cylinder. But the quantum algorithms of Slope travel?” He pivoted to Ulrich Rahm, who stood at the uplift that would pilot James to Spearhead. “What say you, Ulrich?”
He laughed. “Much harder than it looks,” Ulrich told the boys. “But if you have half the insight of your father, you’ll be flying in no time.”
“But if we’re on our home world soon,” Peter asked, “will we ever have a chance?”
James snapped. “A discussion for another day, son. Ulrich, show the boys around. Uncle Valentin and I need a moment.”
Ulrich led the boys, who clapped as if about to receive a shiny birthday present, into the uplift.
“Their growth is astounding,” Valentin said. “It’s as if they’re receiving your transference almost daily.”
“I know. I haven’t touched them in a month, not since you saw us in stellar dome.”
“Are you worried?”
“Not yet, brother. I’m following the Jewels’ design.”
“I see. And does their design include this trip to Tamarind?”
The red glow in the corners of his eyes sharpened, and Brother James constricted his jaw.
“It is, and still you object to this mission.”
“Why will you not tell me Tamarind’s importance? Give me a reason to justify the risk.”
“Does our long-term survival seem like reason enough? Brother, all I can tell you is Tamarind has something our enemies will want when they have no other options. If the Mongol and Chinese tribes are united behind Salvation, they’ll prevent the enemy from using Tamarind against us.”
“James, I don’t pretend to understand how the Jewel reveals itself, but you talk in puzzles. I cannot be an effective Admiral with inadequate information.”
“I say all you need.” He wrapped a hand behind Valentin’s neck and leaned in. “Brother, I don’t do this to play games. I know I was an asshole in the executive quarters yesterday. But I’m an asshole everywhere. Ask my wife.” James forced a smile. “I am processing all of space and time while trying to love my wife and my boys. Some days, I leave myself.”
“So, yesterday was one of those times?”
James nodded. “Brother, this is my journey. If I don’t follow their design, I’m afraid I’ll leave and never come back. Sometimes, I think it’s too much for me. Do you understand?”
“I do, brother. Which is why I haven’t killed you.”
James laughed, a deep and guttural response while holding his lips shut tight.
“We’d have been a hell of a pair growing up together.”
“No. I doubt our parents would have given us the chance.”
“Emil and Frances? Probably not.” James sighed. “So, I trust you’ll have everything under control after I leave. The other matter is being handled?”
Valentin tensed. “It is, brother. I don’t agree with everything we’re doing, but I like your endgame. It will send a message.”
“Loyalty, brother. Nothing else comes close. That’s why I have to return to Tamarind. Those indigos cannot split their loyalty between Salvation and the Chancellory.”
Valentin looked across the landing bay to the Scramjet manned by a combination of immorta
l soldiers and rogue peacekeepers.
“They’ll give you everything they’ve got if there’s trouble. I should be with them.”
“You know our agreement. My wife won’t be back for another few hours, not until the last of the refractors are installed.” Rayna left an hour earlier aboard Scramjet Beta, destined for five different star systems. “We need our Admiral to secure the fleet.”
“I’ll see it done, brother.”
Valentin meant those words, though he hated what lay behind them. If there was even one miscalculation – on Lioness, on Tamarind, on Scram Beta – all else might unravel before the final move. He doubted the necessity of today’s maneuvers. Hadn’t they installed enough refractors to make their point? Hadn’t James, Rayna, and Valentin earned absolute fealty after boldly leading months of dangerous missions rather than sending their followers into the maelstrom? Would anything about today improve their calculus?
Minutes later, after the uplift and Scramjet departed, Valentin studied the quiet docking bay, his nephews at his side.
“Uncle Valentin,” said Benjamin. “What’s the best place to rule? In space or on the ground?”
He didn’t see that one coming. “Interesting question, Ben. Tricky answer.” But Valentin didn’t need to think about it. “The best place to rule is where you have the least chance to die.”
Benjamin scowled. “No fair. You didn’t answer the question.”
“Didn’t I?”
He led them across the docking bay toward the lift. Ahead of them, one of the triple doors slipped open. The man inside remained there until the Admiral and his nephews arrived.
The man and his white eyepatch nodded in deference.
Valentin followed James’s orders and ignored Harrison Malwood.
59
Mandewatt Valley
Tamarind
S PEARHEAD LEAPED FROM THE WORMHOLE aperture into sheets of rain sporting a pink glow. Lightning flashes and rolling thunder pushed the transport side to side. Ulrich compensated to counter the usual gravitational turbulence, but the storm caught him off-guard. Intelligence insisted the Stratospheric Storm Cycle would not extend this far west for another six months. He dared not lose his composure, not with Brother James buckled in behind him.
With deft hands, he double-checked the numbers and exhaled. His calculations, as always, were perfect. They arrived at the predesignated coordinates, twenty kilometers from the rendezvous point. Another ship blasted into form: The Scramjet escort appeared two kilometers ahead, scanning for any potential opposition – ground or otherwise. If they provided the all-clear, they were ordered to jump back into Slope and maintain a high-orbital status, watching for global Guard deployments.
“Any problems, Ulrich?”
“No, Brother James. In fact, take a look at this.”
He threw open the forward viewport, which flooded with the soupy yellow rays of one of Tamarind’s binary suns. It was low in the western sky, perhaps two hours of light remaining, but its light danced in electric shock waves off the thinning rain.
“We’re clearing the storm front. It’s a whopper. Thirty miles high.”
“Is it moving on Mandewatt?”
“Negative.” He studied new meteorological data. “Slow pattern, taking it north. Mandewatt shouldn’t feel its force for three days.”
“Good.” James laughed. “For a second there, I heard my brother saying, ‘I told you so.’ I’ve always hated when he’s right.”
“That’s the problem with younger brothers. They’re always trying to find your weakness.”
“And you know this how?”
Ulrich didn’t understand why he opened his mouth. He spent months trying to put Lleyton out of his mind.
“Did I never tell you, James? I had a brother in my first life. I only remember what the compliance program didn’t erase, but he was a good boy. Very headstrong. Died before I could tell him the truth.”
“Hmm. Probably best he never knew. The one I used to call brother did not handle the truth well. In fact, he died for it.”
Ulrich heard the stories about Ben Sheridan many times and why James named his first son Benjamin. “For all his flaws,” James told the other hybrids, “he was the only one who tried to save me.”
The Scramjet reported in. No Guard presence within one thousand kilometers. Safe to land.
His nerves lightened. What did Major Kane’s report suggest? Guard suborbital movements to the perimeter of Salvation’s incursions? If true, they’d be waiting within a hundred kilometers of the target. It appeared advance intel was taking a sizable hit today.
Spearhead entered the valley – a thick, rambling and verdant forest intercut by small villages lying in a radius spreading outward from the regional capital, Mandewatt. Dramatic red-white flashes lit up the valley from lightning that splintered along the storm front.
Rising above the tree line, now three kilometers ahead, the four Convocations of Mandewatt rose in the style of their Earth ancestors – elegant structures built on axial symmetry to form the heart of commerce, government, and culture in the valley. Per their agreement, Spearhead would not land in so public a venue. While James agreed his presence in Mandewatt would induce the most converts the quickest, he decided the forest provided cover from the probing eyes of the Ark Carriers.
“More time to negotiate,” he said. “More time for miracles.”
Ulrich brought down Spearhead a kilometer north of the city center, along a ridge where the forest cracked open like a predesigned landing pad. The conifer forest blocked most of the western light as they nestled comfortably into the shadows.
James unbuckled. “You’ll be at my side, Ulrich. You’ve played this role many times.”
Indeed. Ulrich, clad in a yellow ceremonial robe over his armor, portrayed himself as First Minister to Salvation whenever other hybrids did not come along for the ride.
James adjusted his traditional, silver-and-olive robe, which hid his body armor. He checked the neck brace to verify that his armored helmet would activate at a second’s need.
“James, I’m leaving Spearhead on auto-spool sequence, in case we need to depart ahead of schedule. I hope the military assessment is wrong, but we dare not take any chances.”
“To that end, I want you to carry a blast rifle in addition to your sidearms. If I learned nothing from the Mongols, these indigos value shows of strength. Have you installed your communicator?”
Ulrich tapped his left ear. “Uncomfortable, but I’d feel unarmed without it. I know we’ve had this conversation before, but I do believe we lose an advantage without stream amps.”
“No, Ulrich. The stream isn’t for us. Ever. Soon, it won’t matter anyway. Time to go.”
In the cargo hold, James offered brief instructions to the six immortal soldiers designated as his flanking guard. Admiral Valentin hand-picked them; each was combat-tested and squad leaders among the child army. They responded with an imperial salute and a red-blooded sparkle in their eyes. Ulrich was impressed. No indication of fear whatsoever.
What must it be like to have zero concern about death? To know you’ll always return?
Ulrich pushed aside his tinge of jealousy. Every hybrid experienced it, but none discussed it beyond the shared mind. The races needed each other now, but for how long? He sensed the confusion; some hybrids questioned the long-term viability of one home world for both Jewels and immortals. We’re few now, some reasoned. But once we expand and they remain the same, will they feel threatened? Will they see our children and resent our joy?
As they left behind Spearhead and moved into the forest in formation – Ulrich at James’s side and the immortals behind – Ulrich wondered about this dichotomy. How long before immortals demanded to walk alongside; or worse, lead the way? Ulrich tapped the communicator and spoke to Scramjet Beta, hiding in orbit. He kept the channel open so they could monitor all discussions.
Wide stone paths guided them. Along the route, they passed intricately carve
d signposts topped with shimmering beacons. The path that led from Spearhead intersected a wider route in which stones were arranged to form medallions of detailed geometry.
“Shanzing,” James said. “The symbols represent good luck and good health. A relic of Earth. In pre-history, the Chinese worshipped a pantheon of gods. Most were wiped out by the Chancellors’ Crusade. But even those armies couldn’t wipe out these symbols.”
Ulrich knew nothing of pre-history. Though the Jewels of Eternity allowed him to explore vast corners of humanity’s past, Ulrich had no interest in Earth. He was born there to become an experiment then hidden away in another universe. He vowed never to set foot there, no matter how long he lived.
“They’ll make new symbols for me,” James said.
“Perhaps. But today, I just hope they agree to our terms.”
“No one has refused yet.”
Ulrich admired James’s arrogance inasmuch as it allowed him to play savior. He did not, however, like the blind spot James created with his blanket assumption of victory.
Fifty meters ahead, their hosts arranged themselves in front of a steeply arched, open pavilion. Though the architecture and rock arrangements held to classical tradition, these Chinese were thoroughly modern indigos. They wore light-fitting, two-piece bodysuits with silken vests plus narrow sashes at the waist.
Ulrich counted more than a hundred. The bulk stood in the rear, their garments shining in warm colors. Twenty soldiers wearing black berets stood at attention, their arms crossed over their chests, laser pistols in hand. The tallest Chinese stood at the vanguard. Two women – eyes dark and wide, hair like midnight falling over their chest, a dragon’s head lining their vest – flanked someone much smaller. The man, gray and decrepit, leaned to his side and breathed hard within his medchair.
One of the women raised her hand as James and Ulrich approached to within twenty meters.
“Far enough,” she said. “We’ve heard what you can do at close proximity, James Bouchet.”
“You will not refer to me that way,” James said, his tone slathered with indignance. “My name is …”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 95
