Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3)

by L. L. Richman

  “You’re going down, Asher Dent, and there is no world anywhere that will harbor you.”

  One month later….

  A FOND GOODBYE

  Governor-General’s Mansion

  St. Clair Township

  Ceriba

  The setting for today’s debrief wasn’t anything like what Micah had expected. His gaze wandered past the industrial-sized chiller to the carbyne-reinforced clearsteel windows, inset behind the governor-general’s kitchen sink.

  He, Sam, Thad, and Ell were seated around the biggest damn polished stone countertop, smack in the middle of the biggest damn kitchen he’d ever seen in his life.

  You’re doing it again, an amused voice sounded in his head—the one voice that security surrounding the governor-general could not jam or block.

  You should be here, not me.

  Jonathan’s voice took on an impatient tone. We’ve been over this. Showing up together wouldn’t be the kindest thing to do to the prime minister right now. Besides, he added, you were the one who spent the most time with José—other than the prime minister, of course.

  Micah’s attention was brought abruptly back to his surroundings when he realized the governor-general was patiently holding a plate out to him, two slices of a flaky dessert piled atop it.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he murmured, accepting the povitica.

  Laura Castro nodded, a sympathetic awareness in her eyes as she returned to the task of slicing the pastry to serve to her guests.

  {What was that all about, hoss?} Thad nudged Micah with his elbow.

  {Jonathan,} was all he said, but it was enough.

  Thad straightened and smiled his brilliant white smile when the governor-general served him next.

  “I can tell by the look in your eyes that you all are wondering why we asked you to meet here,” Raphael Garza said from his seat beside Castro, on the other side of the countertop.

  Duncan Cutter paused, povitica halfway to his mouth, and broke into a grin. He pointed the piece of pastry at the governor-general, and then waved it around.

  “I told you they wouldn’t know what to think about a casual audience like this. Just look at them.”

  With a chuckle, he sank his teeth into the sweet dessert.

  Laura Castro paused, plate in hand, as she regarded those gathered with a half-smile.

  Colonel Valenti and Admiral Toland were there, as were Gabe, Harper, and a very wide-eyed Katie Hyer. The latter sat on her stool, her back ramrod-straight, holding herself perfectly still, as if afraid to move.

  I’ll bet Gabe had a talk with her.

  Of the ‘Chief warrants should be seen and not heard’ kind? snarked Jonathan.

  Micah bit off a chuckle, ducking his head to hide his amusement. Stop it.

  “Please eat,” Castro said to those who had politely abstained, as she handed Gabe the final plate. “In this kitchen, we don’t stand on ceremony.” The governor-general’s cheek dimpled as she confessed, “That’s why it’s my favorite room in this beast of a house.”

  They dug in. After a few quiet moments had passed, Garza pushed his plate aside. Crossing his arms atop the polished stone, he gave Castro a solemn, expectant look.

  In response, the governor-general sat back, a contemplative look touching her eyes as she considered them all.

  “You know, it’s not every day that a group of people are tasked with the impossible and somehow manage to pull it off.”

  Garza nodded his agreement. With a faint smile, he gestured around the island. “That’s why we invited you here today—to say thank you, and to ask you to help us better understand what went down this past month.” He shot a quick glance at Cutter. “A last debrief, if you will.”

  Beside him, Micah saw Sam carefully brush her fingers off before folding them in her lap.

  “I’m… so very sorry, Mister Prime Minister.”

  Raphael held up a hand. Eyes earnest, he leaned toward Sam. “I wanted to thank you, and Admiral Toland, for everything you did to try and save José. You went to great lengths, and I appreciate that—more than you can know.”

  A somber quiet descended upon the room at his declaration. Sam nodded and looked down at her plate, clearly uncomfortable.

  Micah reached over and squeezed her hand.

  “Doctor Travis,” Raphael’s tone was reflective, curious. “How was it possible that José shared the same memories with me when he didn’t live them, like I did?”

  Sam’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “There’s a lot we still don’t understand about the human mind, even after centuries of study. But we do know memory is encoded in the nucleus of the neuron through epigenetic changes. That same encoding would have shown up in your twin.”

  Her gaze turned thoughtful. “However, it’s the synapses firing that activate that memory, so when you thought of it—or he did—it…well, it made it real for him, if that makes any sense.”

  The prime minister looked down at his plate. “Oh, it was very real. He was very real. And I want to thank each of you for coming to his funeral. His life might not have been one that we could either celebrate or ever acknowledge publicly, but it was one lived courageously, and with great sacrifice.”

  Raphael’s head came up again after a moment. “Can you tell me what it was that ultimately killed my twin?”

  Sam glanced over at Toland, who answered the silent plea in her eyes with a slight nod.

  “We told you upon your return that we had discovered that your mirror twin suffered from something we call cell senescence,” the admiral began.

  At Garza’s nod, she continued.

  “No matter what we tried, we couldn’t reverse it, so we attempted to clone tissue samples—not another Garza,” she clarified quickly, “but a critical mass, if you will, of enough DNA to try to transfer the quantum connection.”

  “It worked.” Garza’s words were clipped.

  From grief, Micah realized.

  He misses the connection. They didn’t have much time together, but they were close, Jonathan murmured.

  Hard not to be.

  Micah caught a hand signal Cutter sent to Valenti, and the colonel stepped in.

  “The team we left behind on Eridu went over Janus’s research with the task force Rin Zhou Enlai assigned to investigate. This arrived yesterday.”

  She palmed a portable holoprojector, and a report, clinical and concise, appeared.

  A single line jumped out at Micah.

  “Janus knew the clones didn’t have long to live?” Ell’s tone held a mix of incredulity and horror.

  Valenti nodded. “He did.”

  “It’s likely he hid it from Dent, thinking he could perfect the process as the plan for Obelus progressed,” Gabe contributed in a musing voice.

  “Profiling, are you, Agent Alvarez?” Cutter’s voice held just a trace of joviality, the right amount to snap the conversation away from morbid thoughts and back along more productive lines.

  One side of Gabe’s mouth ticked up, but he refused to take the bait.

  “What is Premier Enlai planning to do with the research now?” It was the first time Katie had spoken, and by the slight tremor in her voice, she half expected to be shot down for her temerity.

  The prime minister shot her an atta boy look of approval. “Very good question, Chief.” He turned to Cutter. “I assume you have an answer?”

  Cutter motioned to the analyst at his left hand.

  Harper responded, “Rin Zhou realizes that pursuing Obelus is an exercise in futility. From the research they recovered, our people gleaned that the telomeres unravel completely at around the one-month mark, and there is no indication that chiral research can overcome this problem.”

  She shot a quick glance at Micah, and amended, “Excepting what Stinton did to you and the animals on deGrasse, which no one has yet been able to figure out or replicate.”

  The analyst cleared her throat uncomfortably, shooting Garza an apologetic look. “From the point of view of a meg
alomaniac like Asher Dent, that’s… ineffective. Who wants to create a pawn, only to have to turn around and create a new one again and again? And that’s not even considering the suspicion it would raise, if every leader in every star nation began turning up dead after a matter of weeks.”

  Laura Castro made a sound of agreement deep in her throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl. “Speaking of Dent….” The governor-general turned first to Harper and then to Cutter. “I’m shocked to hear myself say this, but for once, I don’t think the Akkadians were bloodthirsty enough. They didn’t cut him down where he stood?”

  Something passed between Cutter and Valenti. Valenti shook her head.

  “They did not.”

  Micah saw Garza’s hand fist at those words.

  “And he’s escaped,” Castro stated in a flat tone.

  “Yes, but we have a joint operations team of Akkadian, An-Yang, and Alliance personnel working on it. They’ll find him,” Cutter assured her.

  He leaned forward, looking past Micah and Thad to catch Ell’s eye. “It’s being led by a friend of yours, Agent Cyr. And I hear that the Dagger never misses.”

  Micah felt a tremor pass through Thad at those words, but all the man said was a low, “Ooh-rah.”

  “A toast, then.” Castro motioned to one of the agents, and the woman obligingly picked up a tray from the sideboard and set it between Castro and Garza. On it were small shot glasses, filled with a light amber liquid.

  Once they were passed out, the governor-general lifted hers, and Micah swore he could see the light of battle in her eyes.

  “To the team whose journey began at the genesis of a novel biological discovery, four years ago in Luyten’s Star. Some might call it the Alliance’s own Pandora’s box.

  “The secret of chiral life has escaped the confines of that box, and it can never be put back. But, like Pandora’s box, what remains is hope.

  “Your team, Task Force Blue, the chiral project and its chiral members, have just saved literally every government in the settled worlds from enslavement, and for this, you have the thanks of not one, but many a grateful nation.”

  Castro lifted her glass higher. “Here’s to you. And to finding Asher Dent. May there be no asteroid he can hide behind that will shield him from your fury.”

  A word from LL Richman

  Thank you for reading Chiral Justice. I hope you enjoyed the ride. Turn the page to read an excerpt from a new series, set at the dawn of the Biogenesis War. The Early Years series begins with Operation Cobalt and continues in The Chiral Conspiracy.

  If you don’t mind, please take a minute to leave a short review. Not only would it make this writer a very happy person, but also your review makes a real difference. It’s an effective way you can help keep this series going. The more reviews, the easier it is for new readers to find these tales!

  Connecting with you as a reader is also one of the most rewarding things about writing. I’d like to invite you to join my VIP Reader’s Group at bit.ly/biogenesiswar. There, you’ll receive the latest news about new books and deals, plus receive free content and exclusive excerpts from upcoming books.

  PREVIEW:

  OPERATION COBALT

  They want a fight? She’ll give it to them.

  Katie Hyer is minding her own business, hauling ore for Cobalt Mining, when a mysterious ship appears suddenly out of the black. It soon becomes clear that same ship is inbound for the mining platform she calls home.

  When the secessionists on board take Sierra Twelve hostage, Katie will go to any lengths to free her friends and family—even if it means waging her own personal war of attrition.

  And when Katie goes to war... people die.

  — BOOK 1 —

  THE BIOGENESIS WAR FILES

  OPERATION COBALT

  EPIGRAPH

  “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

  ~ Sun Tzu

  “The way to win in a battle … is to know the rhythms

  of the specific opponents, and use rhythms that your opponents do not expect.”

  ~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

  ONE

  CMS Goblin

  Cobalt Mining Sector Twelve

  Big Blue (Sirius A)

  “Fred, no! That’s not a chew toy!”

  Katie Hyer planted her boots against the hatch she’d just sealed, and pushed away from the surface. The action sent her shooting across the cramped space toward the mining tug’s cockpit.

  The strains of a catchy, old-Earth tune filtered from the ship’s audio system as she snagged the pilot’s seat with one hand to arrest her forward motion. A reluctant smile tugged at her lips when she heard Carrie Underwood’s voice belt out, “The more boys I meet, the more I lo-o-ove my dog.”

  Jeremy’s timing, as usual, was impeccable. The traffic controller who worked Cobalt Mining’s first shift liked to spin the tunes during times when there weren’t any ships coming or going from the Sierra Twelve platform. Tuesdays were what he called ‘country music day’—whatever that meant. Katie had yet to figure out which country the music represented.

  “Betcha Underwood’s dog never tried eating his own safety net,” she muttered as she reached for her pet.

  The dog was floating butt-first just above the co-pilot’s seat. The netting that usually held him in place was bunched up all around him.

  His back feet were hooked into one end, while the other was clamped firmly between his jaws. The remainder of the net waved in the null-g environment, yanked this way and that as Fred worried at the material with his teeth.

  She reached for a corner when it floated her way, but Fred intuited her intent. With a whine, the basset puppy jerked his head back. The movement sent his hind legs forward just enough for him to make contact with the back of the co-pilot’s seat. With a shove of his feet, both dog and meshwork went flying toward the back of the ship.

  Katie sighed and followed. The netting Fred was teething on wasn’t hers; it belonged to Cobalt Mining. She’d intended to return it to the dock earlier in the week, but the order she’d placed for a baby seat hadn’t yet arrived, so she still needed it to keep Fred secure when she was maneuvering the ship—if he didn’t eat it first.

  Fred thought this was a fun, new game; she could see it in his eyes. His floppy ears haloed around him as he sailed across the small cabin, then flattened against the aft bulkhead when he bumped up against it with a muffled oof—Or was that a woof, she wondered—before she caught up to him and tugged at the material clamped between his jaws.

  Fred doubled down, emitting a cute baby growl, and Katie did her best to harden her heart against it. Then he proceeded to jerk his head back and forth, which made it nearly impossible for Katie to get a good grip, given that the stuff was slick with drool.

  “No!” she scolded. “You can’t eat your seat belt. Now, gimme!”

  He let out another growl as she tried prying his jaws open, and a great gob of slobber went floating through the cabin.

  Katie called out to the ship’s Synthetic Intelligence. “Goblin, release containment nano, please. Cabin bulkhead, aft.”

  The pre-diaspora music streaming from the communications console cut out long enough for the SI to acknowledge, and then it resumed. From the corner of her eye, Katie caught a flicker of light as a haze of glittering specks leached from the bulkhead to envelop the floating droplets. A slight breeze grazed her cheek, and she knew the ship was directing the airflow to recall the nano back into the fabric of the bulkhead.

  She returned her attention to her recalcitrant pet. “Well, at least you left your diaper alone this time.”

  She’d purchased a portable, shipboard dogbox—which amounted to little more than a strip of artificial turf with an automated pump that evacuated any liquids deposited—but at six weeks of age, Fred wasn’t yet trained to use it.

  Intellectually, she knew that Goblin’s containment nano coul
d just as easily herd any errant puppy pee into the ActiveFiber coating that layered the ship’s bulkheads, but the thought kind of grossed her out.

  Katie gave the cargo netting one last sharp tug, her feet planted against the aft bulkhead. It came suddenly free, which sent her rocketing back the way she’d come, her head rapping sharply against the short span of bulkhead that separated the cockpit from the tiny cabin.

  With a small groan, she dragged her hand through her shock of maroon curls, fingers poking at the tender spot the medical nano in her body was already in the process of healing.

  Schooling her face into stern lines, she shook the liberated material at him in mock-threat.

  “Bad boy, Fred! Bad! Your seat belt is not a toy!”

  Fred looked back at her with large, sad, brown eyes. It was a tactic Katie had discovered in recent weeks was her own personal kryptonite.

  She relented, gathering him up in her arms and placing a kiss on his forehead as she murmured gentle, scolding nothings into one floppy ear.

  Her thoughts snapped back to her surroundings when the music cut out once more and Goblin’s SI abruptly announced, {Warning! Unknown vessel approaching on an intercept heading.}

  Though startled by the unexpected intrusion, Katie’s training automatically kicked in.

  “Show me that ship,” she ordered as she shoved Fred into the co-pilot’s chair, securing him with quick, practiced motions.

  The view on Goblin’s main holoscreen altered to show the incoming vessel. With a muttered curse, Katie slammed herself into her own seat, fingers flying over the pilot’s board, bringing the drives online and sending the tug into a steep dive.

  Far from the nimble response she would have liked, the tug turned exactly as expected: like a bloated whale. She saw instantly that Goblin lacked the control authority to evade. The only hope she had to avoid collision was to release the load of metal ore she’d just secured to the back of the tug.