“He was, Admiral. He was … Finnegan was living with her. He was in her bed. If you contact David Ellstrom, he’ll confirm it all.”
Poussard nodded, but looked up, beyond her desk. Sam realized the Rear Admiral was not alone.
“Maybe he will, but I don’t think this helps your case. He could very well be working both sides to maintain leverage. He could confirm the story himself if …”
“No, he can’t,” Sam interrupted. “He’s dead.”
Gasps raced through the room as eleven faces bore down upon her. She didn’t want them to find out this way, not when they might have had a chance to pull back earlier.
“I’m sorry, everyone. I only found out just before we arrived. Admiral, I’m certain Celia Marsche killed him. Finnegan was a very smart man. He wouldn’t have …”
“Please. Ms. Pynn. Just. Stop. This is a remarkable story you’re telling me, but it also seems like a diversion. If we were to put everything on hold to investigate these allegations, nothing would change in your status or in the Guard’s redeployment. Even now,” she glanced to someone beyond her, “I am receiving reports that the UGT Desolation is preparing to suppress an uprising in Harrisboro Prefecture and stabilize the city. The Supreme Admiral issued the order himself. We will see many episodes like this play out in the coming days. And then what? I do not have the leverage to reverse Grandover’s orders. Again, I do apol …”
Sam needed only to hear the words Harrisboro Prefecture to know she’d been left with no choice. She had one card to play, and she didn’t even know what it looked like. What was David Ellstrom seeing on Finnegan’s stack before they were cut off? Was it an ace? A joker? Was this the end she always deserved?
“I’ll give you the leverage,” she shouted. “Please. Listen. I know you want him gone. You wouldn’t be speaking to us if you didn’t hope we could hand you a stronger case. Yes?”
Poussard leaned forward. “I’m listening, Ms. Pynn.”
“I can’t tell you what it is. I have to show you. If you can restore my amp, all I need is to contact David Ellstrom.”
“Not possible.”
“Yes, please. I’ll concede anything. I’ll … if I can’t prove to you why Grandover has to be stopped, you can execute me.” Lucinda tried to interrupt, to talk Sam down, but she refused to listen. “Tell Grandover to have me killed but allow the others to return home. Please, Admiral. This is all I ask.”
Poussard sat back in her tall, plush chair and said nothing.
A sudden, unexpected wave of peace abided Sam. She did not mind putting her faith in a longshot. She felt buoyed, as if she now stood in the intersection created by all the choices she ever made, from the moment she learned her true identity, to freeing Jamie at the lake house and finding Michael near death. This was, Sam determined, for the best.
68
Harrisboro Prefecture
W E CAN’T GO UP AGAINST THE GUARD,” Michael said. “Capt. Doltrice, clear a path for us. Now.” He turned to Oliver, the pilot. “We got one chance, dude. Get ready.” As Oliver swung the uplift about, Michael’s comrades found something strong to hold onto. Michael reached for the next inward hook and prepared to step away from the port.
“Might be a good idea to close the …”
Michael didn’t finish his sentence before three DayWatch uplifts exploded nearby. The fiery light of their decimation, bigger than he might have expected for such small vessels, filled the hold. In the same instant, the uplift concussed as a massive sheet of shrapnel pounded the starboard bulwark and flipped the vessel on its side.
The open port did not close soon enough.
His feet suddenly out from under him, Michael realized one hand on a hook was not good enough.
He plunged.
The descent felt apart from life or death. For Michael, it was an instant when all his foolishness caught up to him at last. “I am no damn hero,” he told Hans. Michael knew he was right because heroes did not go out like this.
He didn’t have time to think about the end, about Sam, or if anyone would remember him after this war. He didn’t have time because his fall broke when he crashed onto the rooftop balustrade. He fell over the side … onto the roof.
His lungs felt as if they expunged every molecule of air, and his ribs … something had to be broken. His amp, however, remained active, and Capt. Doltrice was demanding Michael respond. For the moment, that wasn’t possible.
Michael contorted, tried to find life-giving oxygen, and fought through the agony that spiraled out through his chest. This ain’t how I go out. No. Fucking. Way.
Above him, the chaos dissolved into order. The DayWatch vessels – including the Scram – understood reason and flew away. But his uplift was struggling to right itself, the portside nacelle flickering.
Maya Fontaine amped into him. He didn’t have the strength to throw open a cube. Her words were enough.
“Michael, we see you. Hold on. We’re coming, sweetie.”
Again, there she was using Sam’s special language. But she wasn’t Sam, and he wasn’t going to see any more of his brothers and sisters killed tonight.
His breath returning in gulps, he replied. “Leave me. Tell Hans. Get away and keep … keep fighting.”
Doltrice intervened. “I hear you, Mr. Cooper. Tell the uplift we’ll handle this. We are better equipped and all ex-Guard.”
Michael tried to push himself up against the balustrade but coughed without control. He tasted blood.
“Go, Maya. I got a ride. Hook … hook up with our team.”
When she didn’t respond at once, he feared she was making Hans and Oliver do something outrageous in a damaged uplift.
Finally, he heard her. “We’ll be waiting, Michael. This will not be for nothing.”
She disconnected. He didn’t expect to wait long for Doltrice’s team to arrive, but Michael realized how desperately close this would be. To the city’s north, a huge vessel with system engines and capable of holding dozens of Scramjets and troop carriers descended from the clouds. Its landing lights bore down upon the city like additional suns. A gauntlet of tinier vessels emerged from the belly of this creature, their running lights like constellations.
He was reminded of skeptical Solomons who long insisted any insurgency against the might of the Chancellory was doomed from day one. To see this great demon arching over the city, Michael figured the skeptics were right after all. But the fight?
Worth every minute. Even if we never had a chance.
A blue laser missed him by inches, smashing into the balustrade. Then another.
Michael pivoted. The shots came from the portside of the Sanctum Scram parked in the landing zone.
He saw the shooter. Limping, burned, helmet partially dissolved. And inside the only eye Michael could see, pure rage.
He reached for his blast rifle and realized he lost it in the fall. He felt for his Ingmar. No such luck, either. Ah, the other pouch. The laser pistol. He grabbed it with his left hand when reaching across his body was too agonizing.
Michael wasn’t in position to develop a steady aim, but he did his best. The first two shots dinged off the Scram. The assassin, one of those who pursued him from the outpost, ducked and returned fire.
A blast tore through Michael, singing a hole through the jacket’s armor and cutting above his right collar bone. The pain was … no worse than how his ribs already felt.
He continued firing, a steady parade of short bursts.
“Why,” he muttered through clenched, bloody teeth, “do people on this goddamn planet keep trying to kill me?”
Michael settled on luck. A blast splintered off the Scram’s flight deck and caught the assassin in the top of his skull. He crumpled.
Immediately thereafter, another Scram dropped between him and his dead enemy. He let go of his pistol as mercenaries surged around him and gathered him up. They handled him roughly, scrambling to beat the incoming ships, and his pain sent him into a fog.
He was conscious still as th
ey carried him onboard and lifted off. They stood him up and magnetized him to a still-seat. They didn’t seem interested in attending to his wounds right away. Were any of them even qualified? And yet, he understood.
The mercenaries spoke with the urgency of soldiers girding themselves for battle. One said they weren’t going to make it, that the enemy Scramjets were entering into flanking maneuvers.
Michael coughed blood and triggered something unexpected.
His amp came alive, but not with a live stream. This was a prerecorded message, sitting on his admin stack, for timed release. He recognized the admin signature. Sam.
He didn’t have the strength to throw open a cube.
It didn’t matter. Her voice was enough.
“Michael. Sweetie. If you’re seeing this, it probably means you’re safe and maybe with the team I hired. I hope so.” She laughed. “They cost us a bundle.” She couldn’t hold her witty tone, however. “But I’d pay anything to save you. Being a Chancellor used to mean everything to me. Now, I don’t care about any of it. This crazy life we built only works with the two of us going down that road together.
“I know you believe somebody is looking over us, and maybe you’re right. They keep trying to end us, but we keep bouncing back.” She paused. “Maybe God is on our side. But if he’s not, and we don’t see each other again, I want you to understand what I’ve done. Michael, I made a decision to help us the only way someone like me can. You’ll know soon enough if I succeeded. But if I don’t return, just know that I’ve left my entire estate to you. What’s left of it, anyway. Take the credits and leave Earth. Find a new life on the colonies or go back through the fold and home to Alabama.
“I love you, sweetie. I hope we’ll see each other soon.”
His emotions tore through him with the same devastating pangs as the injuries to his chest. He didn’t understand what she meant, or what damn fool risk she’d gone off and taken. He assumed Doltrice might know, but the chaos onboard took the attention away from him. These mercenaries were arming for a heavy battle, their navigator trying all kinds of tricks from inside the cylinder. Michael recognized enough of what he saw from his vantage point to know they were diving down and traveling through the narrow pockets between the city’s high-rises, just as the uplift pilot Dana tried earlier. But she couldn’t evade a Scramjet with slews and died in the inevitable crash.
He recognized Capt. Doltrice. A tall, steady man, hands behind his back and standing beside his navigator to coordinate maneuvers. For an instant, Michael wondered how Sam pulled this off. Where did she find them? And so quickly?
The Scramjet banked and rolled, the strike team holding position with ceiling hooks or attached to still-seats. This felt all too familiar to Michael. Also familiar was the concussion hitting the starboard bulwark. Michael blamed himself. Why didn’t he order the uplift port closed sooner? Why couldn’t he have held on to the damn hook? The lost time was going to cost these men and women their lives.
He saw it on their faces. A sense of the foregone. They’d probably been here before as soldiers but found an escape. The Guard simply did not lose battles. Maybe they were arrogant enough to think they knew the Guard’s tricks. Not that any of it mattered now.
The Scramjet leveled and slowed. He saw it in the cylinder: The oncoming enemy, the flanking enemy, the snare falling into place.
At one point, the navigator bowed his head. Doltrice leaned over and placed a hand upon the man’s shoulder. Michael didn’t hear the words. The others raised their blast rifles as if called to attention.
And then …
Was he seeing this right? The enemy flew past and around the Scramjet, as if didn’t matter anymore.
The mercs’ eyes were his eyes. What’s happening? How are we still alive? Is this a Guard trick?
Capt. Doltrice pivoted to the crew and tapped his amp then threw open a cube. The transmission was foggy, but the words certain.
“… stand down. I repeat, this is Supreme Admiral Angela Poussard, assuming command of all Guard forces. I am sending my confirmation link to every commanding officer. You are hereby ordered to cease Earth operations at this time. UG vessels currently engaged in combat will return to their transports. The UGT fleet will assemble in orbit until …”
Michael didn’t hear the rest of it. He didn’t need to.
The moment was as impossible to conceive as the last two utterly insane years of his life. He was shot, he was exhausted, and he hurt all over. He knew this moment well, and it carried him into the land of the unconscious.
69
Marsche compound
Six hours later
C ELIA MARSCHE REFUSED ENTRY to the three ships hovering over the Ericsson Fjord outside her estate. Two DayWatch uplifts flanked a Scram holding members of her own Presidium. Traitors to the Chancellory, all of you. She also locked out members of her Solomon staff. The Cherniks were demanding to speak with Ester. She thought it wise not to tell them about the two bodies she tossed down the mountainside shortly after sunrise. She no longer cared whether the entire family conspired with Ester to betray her.
The only card Celia had left to play resided light-years from Earth, on the other end of a binary communicator. Brother James never taught her how to trigger a link to him, and Celia realized she was a fool for having never demanded a lesson. Nonetheless, she spent two hours working the egg, trying every imaginable technique. She needed him now, before she became the world’s Enemy No. 1.
She stopped watching the public streams and shut down her live amp after the newly installed Supreme Admiral Angela Poussard informed her of the arrest of Bastian Grandover and a vid of Celia negotiating with James Bouchet. Poussard told Celia to prepare to turn herself over on charges of sedition and treason against the human race. Poussard’s words were too broad for Celia to handle. The human race. Not just the Chancellory. Celia sent threats to her staunchest allies on their admin stacks, demanding they take action inside the Admiralty and come to her defense.
No one responded.
You’ll return to my corner soon enough, she thought. I’ll have our prizes. I promise.
She holed up in her bedroom suite, testing perfumes at her vanity. Many of the fragrances surprised her, for she hadn’t worn most of them in years – not since men like Finnegan Moss entered her orbit without games of seduction.
How did you do it? The question perplexed Celia since her world came undone that morning. How did Finnegan deliver the Artemis data and the vid of her talking to James? She took such care to make sure nothing escaped her estate’s temperate zone without her express permission. The answer would make no difference now.
She gasped when the egg glowed. James’s beacon.
Finally.
She laid it out on the floor. Seconds later, the beast stood in her bedroom. He did not seem happy to see her.
“What do you want, Celia? I have other pressing issues.”
“I’ve been compromised, Brother James. Our plans have been compromised. A new admiral has stopped the Guard’s invasion.”
He offered a stoical shrug. “Earth is your problem, not mine. You know what matters to me. Is Samantha Pynn alive?”
“Yes. In fact, I believe she had something to do with removing the admiral I controlled.”
James betrayed a smile. “Of course she did, Celia. She’s very smart, my Samantha. But I don’t care about the war on Earth anymore. The diversion did its job. Realignment will happen soon.”
“Realignment?” Celia tensed. “Of what?”
“Everything you know is about to go away.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, James, but I need you to fulfill your promise. Now. I did your bidding. Where are my prizes?”
He looked away. She knew it. He was going to betray her. Why did she ever think this deal could end differently? He …
“Yes,” he said, “I remember. The recipe for immortality. A replacement for brontinium extract. The schematics for the binary communicator.
Other secrets from a long-gone race. Fine, Celia. You are right. I owe you. Here is everything I promised.”
He dipped a finger into his end of the bicomm. Glowing blue orbs wriggled out of his finger and into the gelatinous interior.
“I suggest you open a holocube and prepare to swallow the data. It will be enormous.”
Celia did as told. Within seconds, sheets of algorithms appeared, incredible mathematical computations beyond her scope. And yet, she saw just enough of the language to recognize the science that brought about immortality and the human genetic dynamics that were altered over centuries by brontinium extract.
Already, Celia knew how she’d proceed, and how this data would immunize her from arrest or scandal. When the world realized what she sacrificed to save their future, the Marsche descendancy would guarantee its place in legend.
“One more thing,” James told her as the data continued to pour. “The first time I visited your home, I referenced Johannes Ericsson, your greatest hero. The founder of the Chancellory.”
“You implied that you knew him. But that’s not possible. When I asked what you meant, you said, ‘I am the first day and the last day.’ What is it you think you know, James?”
“Everything. Just as Johannes did, after he was found lost along the fjord now named for him.”
“What? Johannes wasn’t lost, he was …”
“Exactly what he wanted history to believe. Celia, how do you think he became a man of such stature? How do you think he was able to change the world?”
She wanted James to go away. She had everything she needed from this monster. If only he’d …
“Johannes rose above humanity,” James said, “because he was the same as me, but he was the first. Thanks to the Jewels, he began three thousand years of Chancellors, and I will start the next three thousand, when Chancellors will be forgotten. The Jewels always knew I would come.”
“No.” Celia raised her hackles. “The Chancellors will hunt you down and end this madness. And thanks to everything you’ve provided me, we will …”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 100
