“All this time, everyone has constantly been telling me how brilliant and resourceful Marlee is. Everyone was right, and I was blind not to see it, but I have to believe it now, because it means she’s too smart to die. But she is suffering. So I’m going to Namino one way or another. If you care at all about Marlee, you’ll help give me the best chance possible of reaching her.”
“Dammit, Caleb, you are not being fair. You know how much I care about that girl.”
“I do. So help me.”
David groaned and cast his gaze to the ceiling. “Come with me.”
Consulate
Mia looked up from the latest in a long line of panicked dispatches to see Colonel Odaka standing in the doorway. Finally! She motioned him into her office. “Thank you for coming, Colonel. I realize you’re busy.”
“We all are, Senator. It’s no trouble.”
She only vaguely remembered the man from the formative days of the IDCC, but part of her job was making every person feel as though they were an old friend. She shook his hand warmly and dragged out a welcoming smile. “It’s good to see you again, sir, though I regret it must be under these circumstances. Can I get you anything to drink?”
He shook his head tersely, retaining a rigid military stance. “No, thank you.”
“Very well. I won’t waste your time, then. What can you tell me about what happened on the Okshakin raid?”
“To Fleet Admiral Jenner, you mean.”
“And any other of our personnel who are…unaccounted for.”
“He’s the only one. Three of our men suffered moderate-to-severe injuries, but they are recovering. Several of the Godjans were injured as well, but the doctors say they should all live.”
“Colonel.” Her nerves were increasingly frazzled, and she worked to steady her voice. “Please. What happened?”
“Jenner—the Fleet Admiral—was helping an injured team member reach the extraction point, which by that time was coming under heavy fire from Savrakath military personnel. He pushed the injured team member ahead of him through the wormhole and onto our DAR vessel at the same instant a grenade detonated in proximity to the open wormhole. The Prevo, Major Rodriguez, was rendered unconscious by the blast, and the wormhole destabilized then shut down, cutting us off from Savrak. Before the wormhole closed, however, the explosion ripped through the hold of the vessel. This is what caused most of the injuries. By the time Major Rodriguez regained consciousness and was able to survey the scene via sidespace, he found nothing but flooded rubble and…no sign of Fleet Admiral Jenner.”
She fought to overcome the suffocating tightness growing in her chest. These were just details; they didn’t fundamentally alter what she already knew, which was that Malcolm was missing. “And further investigation?”
“Has found nothing so far. We’ve had Prevos surveilling the rest of the Savradin Governmental Hall, as well as the military facility locations we’d previously tagged. And the Savradin hospitals. And the prisons. Nothing.”
The room got colder, and she tried not to visibly shiver. “Thank you, Colonel. Please continue active surveillance, but I think we need to assume the Savrakaths have taken him prisoner and are holding him at a secret location of which Concord is not aware.”
“We’ve searched very thoroughly, Senator.”
She forcefully bit back a snappish response. Breathed in through her nose. “Nevertheless. Given the circumstances, I’m declaring this a diplomatic matter.”
“Yes, Senator.” He turned to go, then pivoted back. “I’m sorry we lost him. Marines aren’t supposed to leave a man behind. If he’s somehow…if we’re able to locate him, I can have a rescue mission primed and ready to move in ninety minutes.”
You’re damn right you can—and will. “We haven’t lost him, Colonel. But thank you. I’ll keep you informed, and I ask you to do the same.”
After Odaka left, she took a minute, then another, to recompose herself before sending a conference request to Ambassador Darhk.
The Savrakath kept her waiting for twelve minutes before appearing on the holocomm wearing decorated military attire and standing in front of an ostentatious painting of himself receiving a medal.
His voice hissed shrilly, setting her nerves on edge. “Senator, don’t you think the time for diplomacy has passed? You attack our sovereign soil at will. Understand that we will have no compunction about doing the same to yours in retaliation.”
“The time for diplomacy never passes, Ambassador, for we must strive to keep open a path back from the cliff. I recognize that you and I cannot end this conflict today, but I’m contacting you with an interim proposal. Return any prisoners of war you have captured as a result of the raid on the Okshakin facility and refrain from taking any violent actions against Concord, and we will cease further offensives on Savrak soil.” She didn’t have the authority to make the offer, but right now she didn’t give a damn.
“POWs? What POWs? One of your soldiers fell during your illegal incursion. He did not survive his injuries. If you agree to return the Godjan criminals you kidnapped, we will consider de-escalating our response to Concord’s hostilities.”
A shrill, high-pitched noise rang in her ears, and she tried to tell herself she hadn’t heard the ambassador correctly. Or he was lying, jockeying for a superior negotiating position. He must be. Her vision blurred, and she discreetly placed a hand on her desk to steady herself. “If any Concord soldiers were in fact killed as you claim, we demand their bodies be returned for a proper…” her voice cracked “…burial.”
Darhk bared his teeth, and a dismissive, sneering sound escaped through them. “Alas, your combatant was burned beyond recognition in the devastating fire that consumed the Okshakin facility as a result of your raid. We disposed of what little remained—”
She cut the connection a nanosecond before her legs gave out beneath her, and both hands slammed roughly to the floor to poorly brace her fall.
Dead? No…it couldn’t be true. He was always okay, somehow.
But it could be true. Darhk wouldn’t willingly trade away a valuable bargaining chip unless he never possessed it in the first place, would he? She suddenly felt uncertain. She’d misjudged the Savrakaths in general, and Darhk in particular, on several occasions during the protracted alliance negotiations, and now she didn’t trust herself to deduce what angle he’d choose to play. But no. He might not be willing to trade Malcolm for even a mountain of gold, but if he had someone of Malcolm’s stature in custody, he’d gleefully parade his prize captive in front of every audience he managed to conjure. There was no other rational explanation, was there? She forced herself to think it through a second time…no.
She grabbed her knees and pulled them tight against her chest. Dead?
Meno whispered gently in her head. Mia, I am so very sorry. But you know he will have—
Yes, a neural imprint. I know. Just like Miriam. I only…give me a minute.
She tried to breathe through a throat that had closed tight. There were things she needed to do. She needed to file an official Record of Death, then the next nanosecond start the paperwork required for an expedited regenesis procedure to commence. She needed to tell his mother and sister what had happened, but only once she was also able to tell them it was going to be fine. She needed to, needed to….
She needed to get it together. For him, and for all of Concord. She shakily pushed herself up off the floor, stumbled to the lavatory and splashed water on her face and most of her blouse.
Better? A little, which had to be enough. Concentrate on what she could do. And what she could do was use her clout as humanity’s representative to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and bring Malcolm back to her faster.
She went to her desk and began sending a series of orders where she had license and strongly worded requests where she did not.
8
* * *
CONCORD HQ
CINT Hangar Wing
The Ghost hangar resided in a far outer arm
of Command’s expansive docking pinwheels. The craft were primarily the result of CINT research, but CINT was a pseudo-military organization, and the Ghosts were decidedly military aircraft.
David cleared them through two security checkpoints where the guards didn’t so much as blink at their credentials, then paused outside a reinforced door. He glanced at Caleb, sighed, and entered a code on the door panel. It slid open.
Inside the hangar, twelve Ghost aircraft were lined up in two facing rows. Their long, narrow profiles and smooth adiamene hulls gave them the appearance of rockets more than ships. At the far end of the space, a force field shimmered brightly, obscuring the details of the space beyond it.
Caleb stopped and listened for several seconds but detected no footfalls or conversations; the hangar seemed to be empty.
David went directly to the first Ghost on the left row. “Allow me to try this one more time. You recognize what manner of Hell awaits you on Namino. Can you handle it?”
He suspected David wasn’t referring to the typical horrors of war, or at least not only. They’d rarely spoken in-depth about the nature of his connection to Akeso, but Alex had without a doubt confided in her father regarding some of the struggles it had brought. The man knew enough.
But now was not the time for a heart-to-heart conversation, and he couldn’t allow anyone to talk him out of this. “Marlee’s counting on me, even if she doesn’t know she is. I have to be able to handle it.”
“Caleb—”
“I’ll be fine.”
David diverted his focus to the hull of the tiny, sleek ship. “The Ghosts have some quirks to them—necessary concessions to boost their stealth measures and such.”
“Then send me the pilot training file.”
“I don’t have the file. To get it, I’ll need to break into the CINT server and—”
“And I don’t have time to wait for you to do that. I’ll figure out the quirks on the way. I know how to fly a ship.”
“I’m certain you do. Just be warned.” David dragged his hands down his face; deep creases had formed around his eyes in an outward hint of the strain the man currently functioned under. “What am I supposed to tell Alex?”
“Nothing. I’ll tell her once I’m gone. She doesn’t need to learn you were involved.”
“We’ll see how well that works out. All right.” He reached out and clasped Caleb by the shoulders. “Bring our girl back to us.”
“I will. I swear it. Take care of Alex while I’m gone—and let her take care of you.”
Consulate
The holocomm invitation startled Mia out of…she wasn’t sure what. She’d been reviewing the latest reports on the disaster at Namino like a good diplomat, searching for any news on Marlee like a good friend and employer. But somewhere along the way she’d drifted into a sort of daze.
She checked the sender…Dr. Sandal Boroshkov. Wonderful. This would be news about Malcolm’s regenesis! She hurriedly accepted the invitation. “Yes, Dr. Boroshkov? Do you have an update for me?”
The doctor cleared his throat awkwardly, struggling to maintain eye contact. “Um, yes…of sorts. Senator Requelme, you are listed as the estate guardian in Fleet Admiral Malcolm Jenner’s will.”
“That’s correct.” She nodded as added confirmation.
“I see. Well, the thing is…it seems his will contains a ‘No Regenesis’ clause. He added it to the will six months ago.”
Alex didn’t care for leaving her father and Caleb to the military wolves in the conference room. Not that they couldn’t fend for themselves perfectly well—even if neither of them was at their best presently—but she was feeling overprotective of everyone in her family. She wanted to hold them close and never let go of them again.
By the time she stepped off the levtram at the Consulate stop, she was a tad annoyed.
What does Mia want, Valkyrie? I need to be with Dad and Caleb right now.
I do not know. Meno has urgently requested your presence in Mia’s office, however.
Urgently? Was this about Marlee? God, please let it be good news.
Why didn’t she send me a message directly?
I do not know that, either.
The door to Mia’s office was locked, and she checked behind her to find the receptionist’s desk unattended.
Meno will let you in.
The door slid open, and Alex peeked inside. “Mia? It’s Alex. Did you want to see me?”
No response came. She stepped inside the office and spotted Mia huddled on the floor in the far corner against the wall. She rushed over and crouched down in front of the woman. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Mia didn’t respond. Her hair was wrent into a disheveled mess—a true rarity—almost as if she’d been tearing at it. A pair of dress shoes lay haphazardly near the wall a meter away. Her head was buried in her knees.
“Mia? Talk to me. Are you hurt?” At a loss for what to do, she reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder.
Mia’s head slowly rose to reveal tear-streaked, reddened features and bloodshot, impossibly desolate jade eyes. “He’s gone.”
“What? Who’s gone?”
Mia blinked, freeing new tears, and looked away.
Frustrated, Alex instinctively reached for the Noesis. Not the sprawling, public virtual overlay, but the bedrock underlying it that she and the Noetica Prevos had shared from their first moments….
She dropped the rest of the way to the floor in shock as the details flooded over her. No. Not him, too. How many more people would this damnable universe steal from them?
She wrapped her arms around Mia, drawing the woman against her chest. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
Mia sniffled past messy tears. “How could he do this to me? No regenesis? I realize he never truly believed that it could bring back a person’s soul, but…but why would he leave me all alone?”
“He always was such a dope.”
That got a sob-wracked laugh out of Mia, but it quickly evaporated into despair. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t think. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t….”
None of us can. All the oxygen has vanished from our firmament. Alex searched the office for answers. It was a ridiculous place to hunt for them, so no surprise when she found none. In desperation, she imparted the paltry wisdom she’d been trying to follow since returning from Mirai. “Focus on the breathing for now. Inhale in, exhale out. Everything else can wait.”
9
* * *
SAVRAK
Unknown Location
Antlia Dwarf Galaxy
Awareness fought its way through a haze of pain to the forefront of his consciousness. Entrenched training forced Malcolm Jenner’s eyes open.
A force field shimmered two meters in front of him, framed by dank, sallow walls and a hard, rough-hewn floor. The only light came from the force field, giving the space a ghostly, surreal feel.
Pain radiated in overlapping eddies centered on his head and his right shoulder. He cautiously turned his head to check his shoulder. Blood had dried around a ragged hole in his uniform, and the skin the hole exposed was swollen an angry, florid red with hints of jaundiced yellow.
He slouched against the rear wall of what he took to be a cell. His left arm was pulled up and away from his body. He tilted his head back to peer up, cringing as dull throbs radiated from the base of his skull and down his neck. A thick metal chain hooked into a brace on the wall led to a manacle clasped around his left wrist. His left leg was similarly chained, though not so stringently that he couldn’t stretch it out.
Confusion muddled his thoughts, and the pain made it difficult to concentrate. He ignored the worrying ache that flared in his chest when he inhaled, and tried to impose order on the confusion. To remember.
Water and fire.
Drowning even as he clawed his way forward to escape the flames.
Then nothing. But what about before?
Savrak. The rescue
mission on Savrak. An explosion had taken out the wormhole, the walls, the ceiling and the plumbing. His team! Everyone else had already reached the DAR, but the explosion would have torn through the wormhole into the ship itself. People could be injured; the ship could be disabled.
He tried to send a pulse to Colonel Odaka, but it bounced. He spent the next thirty seconds trying to send all varieties of communications to a multitude of recipients, but nothing got through. His eVi wasn’t loudly proclaiming critical damage to its core systems, so this likely meant the Savrakaths were employing a comm block on the cell.
Assessment time. He ordered his eVi to run a self-diagnostic to make certain it wasn’t the source of the comm problem then, assuming it remained functional, to begin a health diagnostic.
He made a reasoned assumption based on available facts that some Savrakaths had dragged him out of the flooding Okshakin dungeon, saving his life before locking him up in a cell. When? His clothes were now dry, so it had been several hours at a minimum. He checked his system clock. Over three days had passed? The self-diagnostic reported full functionality, confirming the bad news.
God, Mia. His heart panged at the thought of how worried she must be. She’d been so right—it had been idiotic for him to go on the mission—but he doubted this was providing her much comfort at present.
I am so sorry, my love.
He needed to get himself out of here and home to her. Somehow.
He glanced at his shredded shoulder again. He didn’t need the diagnostic routine to tell him it was in rough shape, and it didn’t look as though his captors had done a damn thing to treat it or even clean it up. If he died of sepsis, it was on them.
He tried to shift to a more comfortable position, and in doing so his body made known several additional, if less severe, injuries. He went to lift his right arm to feel for a suspected wound on the back of his head, but his shoulder shrieked in agony the instant his hand left the floor, and he let it sag loosely beside him.
Inversion (Riven Worlds Book Two) Page 6