He lowered his chin, acknowledging her words, but didn’t speak.
“I am in here because I opposed Asher Dent as premier. My actions were taken with one goal in mind, and that was to protect the late premier’s daughter, to ensure her ascension to the position she had been groomed for since birth.” She paused and tilted her head, considering. “It was my loyalty that convicted me, one might say.”
Raphael knew all this. She had to know he’d been briefed on the role she played in that near disaster on Hawking. She had little hope of garnering his sympathy.
“By all accounts, Asher Dent is behaving in a much more civilized way than the premier you backed,” he retorted. “Tensions between your people and the rest of the settled worlds have been the lowest in recent memory.”
“You know that is but a smokescreen,” she scoffed. “Your presence here proves that.”
He lost his patience. “Look, I know ritual is very important to you and your people, and you love nothing more than to drag things out, but I’m in no mood for it. Just say what you want to say.”
Rin Zhou leaned forward and let out a breath. “I help you, you help me.”
Raphael motioned for her to go on.
“I know what Janus has done to you. I know your chiral clone has been returned to Ceriba and is even now being forced to do Dent’s bidding.”
He fought to keep his surprise to himself. “Do you know his endgame?”
Rin Zhou’s eyes shuttered. If she knew, she apparently wasn’t willing to share.
“I can help you escape. In return, I want your help to depose Dent.”
“Why? So you can rule instead?”
For the first time since they’d been thrust together, Rin Zhou’s words sounded without artifice, her words unguarded.
“Believe me, Mister Garza. I pose a much smaller risk to the Alliance than that man does. And an even smaller risk to the settled worlds.”
Her words gave him pause. It seemed she held a critical piece of information regarding Dent’s intentions; something so grave, she was willing to treat with an adversary to stop him.
“Dent is one man. You think he poses a threat to every star nation in the Coalition?”
She stared at him, her expression frank. “Raphael, I know he does. And we need to stop him at all costs.”
HURRY UP AND WAIT
Task Force Blue HQ
Humbolt Base
The week following the mysterious man’s death passed with interminable slowness for Task Force Blue. Valenti instructed them to remain close and to be prepared to deploy at a moment’s notice. As the days went on, Gabriel Alvarez saw that the constant state of readiness was beginning to wear on the team and flight crew alike.
After Hyer’s attitude set Boone off for the third time in as many days, out of desperation, Gabe reached out to Major Snell, the officer in charge of the stealth combat aviators.
{What can I do for you, Alvarez?} asked the Shadow Recon leader.
{I have a bunch of people up here ready to tear each other’s heads off. You wouldn’t have any drills you could manufacture to help the crew burn off a bit of steam, by chance, would you?}
Snell’s mental laugh was droll. {Valenti’s SI contacted me a week ago and told me the colonel was putting you on call. That causing a little bit of tension, is it?}
{A bit, yeah. So her SI contacted you, huh? The one she calls Takeko?}
{That’s the one.}
Gabe must have made a mental noise that gave away his discomfort, because Snell chuckled.
{I know; I’m still getting used to that thing in her head, too.} There was a brief pause, and then Snell asked, {Still no orders, eh?}
{No, sir. Looking forward to the time when that comes, I can tell you that much,} was Gabe’s heartfelt response.
{I’ll just bet you are. Actually, this is perfect timing. Shadow Recon just took control of that new vessel Cutter commissioned for you people.}
{That thing finally arrived?}
Gabe was surprised. He’d been hearing for a year and a half about the mysterious spacecraft that the Geminate Navy had commissioned from Siderius Aerospace, a vessel designed specifically for TF Blue. It had taken on the tenor of an urban legend among the team; no one really thought the ship would ever show up.
{It did,} Snell confirmed. {It’s everything we’d been told to expect. And the folks from Siderius are almost done with the refit that’ll give Wraith some of the same new toys that the new ship has. Tell the flight crew to report tomorrow for recertification at 0800.}
{Copy that, sir. I’ll pass your orders along. And… thanks.}
The next morning, curiosity got the better of Gabe, and he decided to head down to the hangar to catch a glimpse of the mysterious new ship. The vessel was a completely new type-class, a Nadir. It differed slightly from Wraith, the ship that normally carried the team when they deployed.
Unlike Wraith, this new vessel wasn’t simply a modified version of a Helios fast attack craft; the Nadir took those modifications to an entirely new level. It was also bigger than Wraith, though it was a bit difficult to distinguish any features from this distance.
Oddly, the closer Gabe got to it, the more disoriented he became. It got to the point he was forced to focus on the people standing in front of it, instead of the ship itself.
“Start her systems up,” he heard Snell call out as he drew to a stop.
He saw Hyer standing in the ship’s open hatch, but she looked for all the worlds as if she were floating two meters above the deck, suspended in a sea of black nothingness. It looked almost as if she had opened up a door in spacetime, a portal to a ship that… wasn’t there.
He saw her nod and duck back inside the ship.
Gabe looked over at Jonathan Case, the person nearest to him, and tilted his head in the direction of the vessel. “That’s Mirage, I take it?”
At the pilot’s nod, Gabe grunted, keeping his gaze fixed on the other man’s face. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I thought you could cycle those ships’ skins so they looked normal and didn’t play tricks on the eyes.”
Jonathan glanced over at the ship and then back at Gabe, a look of amusement pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, sorry about that. We’re cycling through Mirage’s outer hull settings, kind of a multi-point inspection. Hang on; let me have them put it on hold for a sec so we can calibrate your software uplink.”
Gabe nodded his understanding and waited while Jonathan sauntered over to Snell and the two men briefly conferred.
“Okay, come on over,” Jonathan called out, a laughing note in his voice as he added, “We can’t have the team’s second-in-command walking around the new ship like a drunken sailor—especially when she’s about to be sent out on her first mission.”
“Very funny, Case.”
He followed the pilot gingerly, doing his best to look anywhere but directly at the ship.
“Just walk up and place your hand on Mirage’s hull,” Jonathan encouraged. “I’ll input your token into the ship so you can handshake with her systems.”
Gabe’s gaze wandered over to the figurative black hole where the ship sat, and he immediately tilted his head up to look at the hangar’s overhead.
“Damn, that ship’ll do a number on your vertigo,” he muttered, and heard Jonathan smother a laugh.
“It’s the ship’s ultrablack surface. It’s ten times blacker than Wraith’s coating.”
“Shit, and I thought Wraith was impressive.”
Both vessels evoked an eerie feeling of sensory deprivation when their skins were programmed to present a precisely aligned ‘forest’ of carbon nanotubes. The tubes were spaced in such a way that they absorbed all light that hit the surface across the visible, IR, and UV spectrums.
It was disorienting enough that military minds had programmed a virtual optical overlayer for the crews attached to the spacecraft. It allowed ship’s personnel—and any passengers, like Gabe—to approach and interact with the vessel without being thro
wn by its lack of visual cues.
Gabe recalled someone explaining to him that the vertigo he experienced was because the surface suppressed all depth perception. This, in turn, made the human eye want to shy away from looking directly at it.
“Right, then. Keep going; you’re almost there.” Jonathan’s voice held suppressed laughter, and Gabe shot him a murderous look.
“Smartass,” he said under his breath, but sped up, ignoring the other man’s mirth. “I’m not interested in getting a bloody nose over this.”
“Okay, extend your arm. Contact should initiate an auto-update,” Jonathan told him.
Gabe did as instructed, reaching out blindly until his palm landed on the curve of the ship. Suddenly, the craft’s wireframe depiction snapped into sharp resolution on his overlay.
Gabe’s low whistle pierced the air as the ship resolved on his overlay.
“Impressive,” he whispered, sidling up to the craft and splaying his hand over its surface.
It was one thing to read that the spacecraft’s profile had been subtly altered. It was another to see it up close and personal. Mirage looked sleeker, somehow. Deadlier.
He skimmed the ship with his fingertips, feeling its slightly bumpy texture as he walked toward the ship’s open hatch. At the same time, information began to pop up beside the wireframe.
Total hemispherical reflectance: 0.0003%.
Ablative strike plate: 230% to norm.
Composite interlayer: Phosphorene-Stanene Picofoam.
“What the hell’s a phosphorene interlayer?” Gabe muttered.
“Oops, sorry about that,” said Jonathan, and in the next instant, the data cut out. “That was a list of all the upgrades and improvements over the Helios.”
Gabe crooked a smile and jerked his chin at the slumbering beast. “Have you or Micah taken her out yet?”
Jonathan grinned back at him, and planted his hands on hips. “Yeah, Micah took her out to the Badlands on that last mission. Wraith got the new plating too, while he was out dancing the asteroid tango with those smugglers.”
Gabe followed Jonathan up the ramp and into the craft. He nodded a greeting to Will Morris, Wraith’s flight engineer, and smiled at Hyer, seated in the co-pilot’s seat.
Jonathan slid into his cradle, and Gabe stepped up between him and Hyer to peer over his shoulder.
“So, what did all that stuff mean, anyway?” he tapped his temple to indicate the data feed that had appeared on his overlay.
“What, the list of features? You want the layman’s version, or you want Specialist Morris here to spout fancy science shit no one understands, like ‘twisted Weyl semimetals,’ at you?”
Gabe held up his hands and sent an apologetic look the flight engineer’s way. “No offense, Will, but let’s keep it simple.”
Will waved him off. “None taken, sir.”
Jonathan continued the explanation. “Well, as you’ve already seen, Mirage has a tunable strike plate, just like Wraith, but it’s been completely redesigned from the ground up. When she’s in active stealth mode, like she is right now, we can’t be detected while we’re at rest.”
“But we’re going to be moving,” Gabe pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter,” Katie joined in. “Mirage’s energy cross-section is so low that even the Navy’s sensors will write us off as a cloud of micrometeorite dust.”
Jonathan jabbed a thumb back toward the ship’s aft section. “Drives are twelve percent more efficient. Not only will that help mask our energy signature from other vessels, but the engineers also reduced the size of the tokamak plant. That lowers the mass, which makes for a more responsive ship.”
Gabe gave another low whistle, impressed. “So, you’re saying we’re basically… a mirage.”
Hyer shot him a wide grin. “Hey, good one, boss. I think there’s hope for you yet.”
“Now, why does that comment scare m—”
Gabe cut himself off and held up a hand as a ping came over his wire.
{SCIF. Fifteen minutes.}
Valenti’s voice cut out as quickly as it had appeared.
Gabe motioned to Jonathan and Katie. “You heard the colonel.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Jonathan said under his breath as he swung the cradle around and stood.
Snell stuck his head inside the hatch, his eyes pinning first Jonathan, and then Katie. “I’ll have the other crews hop onto this job with Will and Nina. We’ll have her sorted and ready to fly by the time you receive your orders.”
Gabe nodded his thanks, and the major slapped his hand against Mirage’s hide, and then stepped away.
“Ready?” Gabe asked as they jumped to the hangar deck.
“Stars, yes,” Katie groaned. “This has been the longest week!”
Gabe inclined his head toward the lift. “Something tells me things are about to start moving again—and quickly.”
POOR CHOICES
Prime Minister’s Office
Parliament House
St. Clair Township, Ceriba
Garza found himself spending a lot of time inside his head, carrying on long conversations with his mirror self whenever one or the other wasn’t in the middle of a sleep cycle or needing to focus.
They’d been tempted to stick with the use of ‘2.0,’ something about the label appealing to the gallows humor his Marine unit had used back in his active-duty days. But after some debate, they’d decided on the same method Jonathan and Micah Case used.
Mentally, he now referred to himself by his—Raphael’s—middle name, José.
He was glad the original Raphael, imprisoned at the maximum-security facility back in Akkadia, had the foresight to hide the mental connection they shared from their keepers. Had they known how effortlessly the two conversed, things might have gone down very differently.
Not only was it the lone edge he and his chiral twin had over their adversaries, but the familiar mental presence also kept him grounded and sane.
He’d been left alone this morning—a rarity these days. He sat at his desk, staring blindly down at the single-page daily brief that listed Parliament’s most pressing issues.
The knowledge that he was a clone and not the original version of himself was an awareness that simmered at the back of his mind, ever-present.
Despite that, he realized his good fortune. He wasn’t the first chiral clone. Though it was true that his position was what had caused him to be targeted, it also gave him access to classified information that others would not have.
He had been briefed on the Case mirror twins; he knew of their unique strengths and their greatest weaknesses. Knowledge was power, and forearmed with such information, he was able to beat back his encroaching panic to a manageable level and think with some clarity.
There was a lot to overcome, not the least of which was the need for chiral sustenance to keep him alive. If left to his own devices, he knew he would starve, for there was not a single thing growing on any planet in any of the settled worlds that would feed his mirror cells.
His keepers knew this, of course. It was one of two ways they kept him under their control.
“We can kill you fast, or we can kill you slow,” Ed, his Akkadian keeper masquerading as his newest assistant, had told him the day he was inserted back into his—Raphael’s—old life. “You’ll be just as dead, either way.”
The Akkadians had demonstrated as much to him and his other self back in the lab where he’d been brought to life. He and Raphael had been given a graphic demonstration of exactly how his quantum entanglement ‘prison’ worked.
José rubbed his hand over his chest at the memory. Getting shot hurt like hell. He’d experienced it a few times during his service as an active-duty Marine, and had thought those days were behind him—until that bastard Janus shot Raphael, point-blank, in the leg.
José hardly had time to process the scientist’s unexpected actions before searing pain brought his attention to an identical hole in his own leg. He’d s
taggered back into the exam table, unable at first to comprehend what had happened.
Janus’s action that day had driven home in a compelling way how narrow the thread was that held Garza’s life. Should he forget, Ed reminded him of this fact each morning, when he doled out the supplements he needed to remain alive.
He reached down, fingering the time-release capsule he was to take with his food when his lunch was served.
Please don’t let there be any more of those orange bars on the dessert menu.
He gagged a little, recalling the taste of pine tar that had clogged his throat when he’d bitten into one the other day.
I wonder what other ‘tasty’ surprises they have in store for me….
Raphael had tried not to laugh—and failed horribly—when José shared the incident with him. José had told him to stop being an asshole.
He was grateful he had someone to talk to, though. Ed and the other Akkadians who had infiltrated his protection detail were a stark reminder of the precariousness of his position. He knew that if he did not do exactly as he was told, the first casualties would be his family.
While he firmly believed in the vows he had taken to protect and defend the Alliance, he also recalled the solemn vow that he—or rather, Raphael—had made to his wife when they married. So he bided his time, agreeing to his keepers’ demands, while continuing to seek ways to free himself and his family from the enemy’s clutches.
He knew, as did Raphael, that at some point, he’d have to risk reaching out to someone for help. The problem was, who could they trust?
His thoughts had carried him through to the end of the briefing, and he looked up in mild surprise when a knock sounded outside his door, and his secretary, Ross, popped his head in.
“Assistant Director Sullivan to see you, sir.”
José flicked a glance at the calendar on his overlay and noted the NSA briefing that had been put on his schedule earlier that morning.
“Thank you,” he said. “Please show him in.”
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 7