Brigadier Jenner (Command Channel): “Infiltration team is clear. Blow it.”
Morgan didn’t hesitate. Everyone was out of the station, which she’d known via Mia and Alex for almost four million nanoseconds.
A thought became a quantum wave containing the detonation code directed at the receivers inside the bombs, and she settled back to watch.
Spectacles like this? The collision of terajoules of negative energy, generating an inverse-equivalent force as it met megatonnes of reinforced metamats comprising the sprawling structure? They never got old.
25
AFS STALWART II
TARACH STELLAR SYSTEM
* * *
“OUR HIGH-PRIORITY TARGETS have changed somewhat in light of the information we discovered in the Vigil database. Confirmation that they do not possess the locations of additional anarch posts means we can reduce—but not eliminate—our numbers dedicated to the defense of those locations. Unfortunately, our analysis of the information has highlighted several new locations we need to protect.
“The net result is our fieldable numbers for offensive operations remain reduced, and we need to choose our targets carefully.”
Miriam’s hand passed over the virtual control panel, and an enormous map sprung to life to occupy the entirety of the space above the table. “First, this is the comprehensive LGG map with target candidates and at-risk locations marked. Everyone should study it now to get a sense of how the new intel alters the board. In a minute I’ll zero in on the areas of greatest interest.”
Alex had already seen the new intel, but not the results displayed visually in such a dramatic manner. The map was too expansive, too glutted with minute details to serve as a practical planning tool though, and in these strategy sessions they usually opted for a more targeted view.
She tilted her head, eyes focusing in on the map as a sensation began to tickle and buzz at the base of her skull. It didn’t feel like Akeso, thankfully. No, this was pure intuition…she knew something.
Abruptly the stars and galaxies blurred away. “The first potential target I want to—”
“Wait, go back.”
Her mother paused mid-zoom. “To the full view?”
Alex nodded. “Please. This is the official Directorate-sanctioned LGG map, right?”
“It is. For better or worse, everyone including the anarchs reference it, and since we don’t have a history working with a different map, it’s simply easier to use this one instead of developing our own.”
“Sure, sure….” Her eyes narrowed, and she craned her neck farther. What did she know? “And the sequences of numbers next to notable locations—they’re official supergalactic coordinates?”
“Correct. Alex, what do you see?”
“I think….” The spatial dimensions of the charted and traveled universe were spread out before her. So many other dimensions hid within them, crisscrossing and looping in and out and cutting through this space, but if one wanted to find a location, the spatial dimensions were still the show. Even in sidespace, one had to identify a point in the three spatial dimensions in order to send one’s consciousness there. They were the anchor upon which all that went unseen moored itself.
The unaccounted-for signals the Reor pass among the slabs. The waves that were neither data nor encryption. They’re coordinates.
It’s like you read my mind, Valkyrie.
She threw a knee on the table and climbed up on it.
“Alex!”
“Humor me for a minute.” She crawled to the center of the table, lay down on her back and stole a glance at Caleb. He was chuckling silently, and she winked at him before resting her head on the table surface. “Thomas, can you center the map on our current location, then center that point above me? Or maybe—you know what, just give me control.”
‘Commandant, permission to cede control of the map to your clearly insane daughter?’
Miriam sighed. “Granted, under the theory it will get her off the table faster.”
“Thanks.” She lifted a hand and spun the map, then drew it in toward her until their location basically overlay her face; this resulted in half the map residing beneath her and the table and encroaching on the floor below. “Devon, where did the Reor slab you borrowed from Post Epsilon end up after we were done with it?”
“Most of the equipment and storage was moved to Post Charlie, so probably there.”
“Great. And Charlie is in Triangulum, Sector 2….” She twisted the map around, while keeping their location centered on her, until the planet hosting Charlie hovered above her and off to the left. “Valkyrie, pull up the set of waves recorded from that Reor slab.”
‘Done.’
She sent the data to an aural and slid it off beside her. Next she pulled her Reor slab out of her pocket and held it above her.
A smidge of power, please. Borrow some from Devon or Morgan if you need to.
As requested.
She opened a tiny wormhole a few centimeters above her. The Reor-generated strings of light poured through it from all directions, but she concentrated on the ones streaming from Post Charlie’s location. “Thomas, if you could zoom the map in toward Charlie’s planet? I’m a little busy at present.”
‘Certainly.’ The Artificial had dropped any note of teasing in his tone. She had his attention now.
“Thank you. A bit more. Stop.” A multitude of luminous streams flowed from the planet—of course they did, as more than one Reor slab stored data at Post Charlie.
“Valkyrie, can you parse all these out to find the matching set?”
‘I believe so. A moment. Yes, I have located the data set.’
“Now, can you show the room what we’re seeing somehow? Get Thomas to help. We need a visualization, and also the spectrum readings themselves.” She kept talking aloud to Valkyrie for the others’ benefit, lest they think she was merely lying there atop the table daydreaming.
She knew additional screens had materialized by the muted gasps rippling around her.
A thud echoed to her left, causing the table to vibrate. A second later Devon appeared crouched beside her. He tilted his neck all the way around until he was peering up beside her. “Holy shit.”
Alex laughed faintly. “Mia? Lekkas? Want to join us?”
Mia shook her head. “As tempting as the offer is, I will take your word for it, as I’m wearing a skirt. Also, Commandant Solovy is glaring.”
Lekkas snorted. “It looks a little too cozy up there for my tastes.”
Alex cast a frown sideways. “It is. Uh, Devon?”
“Right. Leaving.” He clambered back out of her field of vision.
“Are you sure we’re not seeing an optical illusion created because Post Charlie’s planet is in focus?” Her mother sounded skeptical, and also like she was glaring.
“Fair question. Valkyrie, blank out all the streams in the visualization unrelated to the target slab. Thomas, shift the map twenty degrees east, thirty degrees north and zoom back out ten percent.”
The map shifted, and with it so too did the streams remaining, flowing from and to Post Charlie’s planet.
Silence fell. She fought the urge to fidget and look around to judge the reactions.
You’ve convinced them all. Masterful performance.
Somehow, Caleb always knew what she needed. Mollified, she waited while realizations sank in and implications began to bubble up.
Her mother was first, because no one was going to venture out on this limb until the commandant authorized it. “All right. So what does this mean? If you determine where a particular slab is located, you can…what? Read its contents from anywhere?”
“Yes, it means that. But it gets even better. Doesn’t it, Valkyrie?”
‘Yes, it does.’
“Out with it, Alex.”
“Yes, Mom. Valkyrie, display the frequency of the first wave in this data set not attributable to data or encryption, to a precision of sixteen.”
‘Done.�
�
Somewhere outside her peripheral vision, a screen displayed:
1.132515800775050 GHz
She closed the wormhole and set the Reor slab on the table beside her, then retook control of the map and zoomed in until the supergalactic coordinates of Charlie’s planet were in focus.
SGL 11° 32’ 51.58” SGB 00° 77’ 50.50”
These gasps were far more pronounced.
“That’s way too exact to be a coincidence.” Her father. His voice held not a touch of doubt; it might hold a touch of pride.
“Almost certainly. But just in case, Valkyrie, now display the frequency of the first unattributed wave from the data set we recorded at Vigil HQ.”
‘Also done.’
829.4166562297414 MHz
She spun the map around to the Milky Way and quickly zoomed in on Sector 9. Vigil HQ had a red line drawn through it, but its former location remained on the map.
SGL 82° 94’ 16.65” SGB 62° 29’ 74.14”
She left its ecliptic coordinates in focus while she sat up and scooted toward the side of the table to the tune of a room full of excited and confused murmurs. Caleb met her at the edge, put his hands on her waist and hoisted her off.
“You are remarkable.”
She grinned. She didn’t need to explain any of it to him, as he was plenty clever enough to see it all instantly. “I try. Really, really hard.”
“You succeed.” His forehead dropped to hers. “Dear god, I love you, woman.”
“Good thing you married me.”
“Ahem. Alex?”
She rolled her eyes and extricated herself from his arms, then turned toward her mother, who was trying to look cross. “Sorry.”
“I doubt it. You’ve already unlocked the master decryption key. Now you’ve discovered coordinate markers embedded in the Reor slabs’ data. Does this mean…I hesitate to say it. It sounds too implausible.”
“Then I’ll say it. It means all we need is a location—and check it out, we have a handy map with location coordinates pre-marked on it. Do you want to know what’s stored on the Reor slabs in the data servers at Praesidis Command on Solum?” She leaned into the table, reached up and spun then zoomed the map until Solum dominated the display. Its coordinates shimmered helpfully alongside it.
“Now, there are doubtless many, many slabs packed with data stored there, so it’ll take some time to parse out what we’re searching for. But I’ve heard Artificials can crunch numbers pretty damn fast.
“So, yes, it means what you dare not hope it means. It means we’re in. An empire’s worth of knowledge is ours for the taking. All we have to do is cast our gaze to it and look.”
SIYANE
TARACH STELLAR SYSTEM
Caleb ascended the stairwell after taking a shower to find Alex lying in the middle of the floor. A pillow from the couch was positioned behind her head. She stared up at nothing—nothing he could see anyway. Her lips moved faintly and wordlessly, and her fingers fluttered at irregular intervals.
She was working. On the floor.
He went over to where she lay and lowered himself to his knees beside her. “Everything okay?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She glanced at him. “I was thinking. You need to get an updated neural imprint taken.”
“Already planning for our regenesis-enhanced future?”
She shrugged. “It never hurts to take precautions now.”
“I don’t need to get one taken. The diati isn’t going to let me die.”
“Things happen. Circumstances change. If anyone knows that, it ought to be us.”
He forced a lighthearted smile, though he wasn’t comfortable discussing this. “Well, what about you? Where’s your neural imprint?”
“Valkyrie’s my neural imprint.”
“What if the Siyane explodes with you and her in it?”
She scowled at him. “Way to be cheerful. Valkyrie, when did you last upload an outrageously complex and fulsome dynamic map of my brain to AEGIS’ secure scientific database?”
‘Sixty-three hours ago.’
“See? She’s got it covered. But we were talking about you, and you’re trying to dodge the issue.”
He sank lower and rested back against his heels. Why did he even bother trying to keep troublesome thoughts from her? “I can’t help but worry…say we find ourselves in some hypothetical future where humanity has followed the Anadens’ path and adopted regenesis to extend our lives. If I get resurrected enough times, will I gradually become just like the Inquisitors? Just like the Praesidis Primor?
“Alex, I would never take away the gift of having your father back. And if someone I care for were to suffer an untimely death, I can’t say I wouldn’t move mountains to bring them back. But across a civilization, those individual decisions become routine, and routine becomes dogma. When death is removed from the equation, priorities begin to veer off-kilter, and perception and ethics soon follow. Having seen where that path leads, I’m not sure we as a people should start down it. I’m not sure I should start down it.”
“We’re not like the Anadens—we can make better choices. You’re nothing like the Inquisitors, and the opportunity to escape an untimely, tragic death isn’t about to change who you are.” Her voice softened. “Caleb, I won’t lose you. I can’t.”
“You won’t. Now can we talk about something else? How’s the data analysis going?”
“Going.” Her eyes drifted over to her unseen work, then back to him. She sighed. “I’m tired.”
“Understandable.” He stretched out beside her on the floor and propped his head in his hand. “You don’t have to do everything yourself.”
“Oh, I’m not. Valkyrie and I are merely pulling in the data from critical locations, decrypting it and scanning it for markers that might indicate it includes information we’re particularly interested in. We’re funneling the promising files off to the Connexus for thorough processing and analysis. But it’s a metric fuckton of data.” She tapped a temple with a fingernail. “And up here is still a mostly human brain. Organic, limited and tired.”
He leaned in closer and kissed the temple she’d tapped. “Then it should rest.” His hand found her jaw and gently shifted it toward him. “You should rest.”
“I am resting—I’m lying on the floor. Got a pillow and everything.”
He nuzzled her nose. “You are a very, very stubborn woman.”
“True.” Her lips brushed across his, then returned to settle against them. “But this is important. We’re going to save people. A lot of people.”
“Baby, we’re going to save everyone.”
26
ANARCH POST SATUS
LOCATION UNKNOWN
* * *
MIRIAM APPROACHED THE TELEPORTATION GATE with some small amount of trepidation. Much had transpired since the attack on Chionis and the contentious meeting which followed. She had kept the Sator informed of developments and conferred with him on several matters; those conversations had been formal but civil.
Now he’d asked to meet with her alone, ostensibly to discuss the plans now taking shape to strike at the Directorate itself thanks to the plethora of secrets Alex had opened up for them. Did he possess secret knowledge to aid their efforts and wanted to extract a price to share it? Did he intend to impose requirements or restrictions on any such strike?
She steeled herself for the tiresome but obligatory dance guaranteed to transpire no matter his purpose and stepped through the gate.
“Welcome, Commandant. Thank you for interrupting your work to indulge me for a few minutes.”
She forced a frown into the shape of a smile. Was this Nisi in a good mood? “It’s no trouble, Sator. Hearing your counsel is part of my work as much as mission planning.”
“But not necessarily ‘taking’ my counsel, yes?” He gestured to another of the gates in the room. “Will you accompany me?”
“Of course. Where are we visiting?”
“Someplace quite special to me. Plea
se, I will explain once we arrive.” He ran a hand along the rim of the gate’s frame. His fingertips tapped a rapid pattern, as if playing the keys of a piano. The mirror-like substance filling the gate rippled in brief agitation before returning to its placid oscillation.
He lowered his hand to his side. “Follow me.”
LIVAD
UNKNOWN GALAXY
BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LGG
They emerged in a small, circular room. Its walls and ceiling were constructed of refined bamboo, its floor of sandstone.
Near the wall stood a…the first comparison to pop into Miriam’s mind was of a giant grasshopper, though it was an imprecise comparison. The creature stood nearly three meters tall on narrow, reedy limbs bent at two joints. If it stood up straight, it would be far taller than three meters. A thin torso led to two smaller versions of its legs and an angular head that stretched more horizontal than vertical. Black eyes with double lids blinked at them from beneath four antennae.
Nisi spoke a phrase in an unfamiliar tongue, took two steps toward the creature, and knelt before it, his head bowed.
She hadn’t thought the man retained the ability to shock her, but here they were.
Should she kneel as well? It seemed likely Nisi would have warned her if it were expected, and they were both ignoring her anyway, so she opted to stand quietly.
The creature uttered a series of clicks and noises. When Nisi responded with more unfamiliar words, she decided they were speaking the same language. After another interchange, the creature folded its lengthy legs in until the first joint touched the floor. It was now kneeling, as it were, opposite Nisi. The front two of its antennae bent forward until they touched his forehead. More words were exchanged, then at last they both straightened up.
“Commandant Solovy, allow me to introduce Ekhor’pai of the Hoan.”
The creature lowered its head in her direction—some body language transcended species—and she did the same. Then it backed out of the room through a drape of woven fibers.
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 98
