"JonB."
At the sound of her voice the Beta looked up at her from the floor, where he was holding Katra’s upper arms while Carlton inserted a small tube into the left side of her chest. There was blood everywhere, and Jantine saw at least a dozen ugly holes on her bare skin.
"You bith. You fuggin bith!"
The warm feeling in her mind was gone, replaced by a simmering anger Jantine knew all too well. If the Omegas wanted to play games with all of their lives, so be it. She still had a mission to complete.
Carlton bent forward and blew into the tube, and Jantine watched Katra’s chest expand. The Gamma’s eyes snapped open, and she gave a strangled cry while trying to sit up. Only JonB’s genetically enhanced strength kept her from injuring herself further, and whatever Carlton injected her with next kept her from trying again.
"JonB, help me get her into one of the sleeping areas. There’s a lot more I have to do if we’re going to save her."
Jantine shook her head.
"Artemus can do that. I need JonB here."
JonB crawled away and let the Delta reach in to collect her in a gentle, cradling embrace. Jantine didn’t turn to watch Carlton leave, keeping her attention instead on the blood-stained scientist. She assumed there would be some shuffling of positions behind her to allow the Delta access to the corridor, but she just didn’t care how the other mods worked it out.
Jantine sat down in the second pilot’s chair and examined the controls. "Which one of these can I use to find the sleepers’ container?" she asked. "And why are we spinning?"
The last sliver of Earth’s cool blue sphere slipped above the forward window as JonB reclaimed his seat and started studying the panel. He was silent for almost thirty seconds then pulled out his handheld from a thigh sheath. He frowned, and started tapping.
"Well?"
"I just need to . . . but that’s not . . . Commander, it’s gone!"
"Explain." The sinking feeling was back, but this time Jantine was fairly confident it wasn’t forced on her by the Earther.
"That’s just it. I can’t. I mean, a fragment of the slug must have hit us when the decoy exploded, and that’s what set us to spinning. But the container, it’s just gone! We—I mean, the Omegas—tracked it clear of the debris field, and I should be able to pick up its trail from here. But there’s nothing. No wreckage, no bodies, no trace whatsoever!"
"Scientist JonB, could the container have landed safely while we were escaping the Redstone dreadnaught?" Crassus’s unexpected question focused Jantine’s fear into something she could work with.
"No. If it was out here, the shuttle’s sensors would pick it up. I’ll need a few minutes to input Malik’s pilot program into their core, but I don’t have any idea of where it could have gone. I just don’t know."
Jantine’s patience ran out, and she got up out of the chair and walked over to JonB. He gave out a small cry when she spun the pilot’s chair around until he was facing her, and she saw her own fear reflected in his eyes. But she didn’t have time for fear anymore, or for any of his hypotheticals. She needed answers, and she knew of only one way to get them.
"Don’t tell me what you don’t know, JonB. Tell me where they are, and where we’re supposed to be going. Crassus?"
"Commander."
The Delta was a solid presence at her side, and the pulser he had trained on the Earther captives gave her something solid to focus on.
"Have Artemus prepare a secure location for our prisoners. I don’t care if the Omegas interfere, they can rot alongside them for all I care right now."
"But Commander Jantine, the Builders are—"
"I also don’t want to hear any more about ‘the Builders.’ I am commanding this mission, and I will see us safely down to the surface without any more ‘help’ from them. Am I clear?"
Crassus was silent, and she could almost hear the thoughts forming in his head. When she started to feel a warmth building inside her mind, her hand pulser came out and was leveled at the female captive before she could even blink.
"None of that. Not now. If you have something to say, use your mouth!"
The woman nodded, and pulled her hand away from her bloody face. The Omega was still crouching in the entrance to the compartment, face impassive. She’d seen them angry before, and what passed for a smile. But whatever this expression was, she didn’t trust their new "voice" enough to believe anything they had to tell her.
"We haff to leaf."
"What?" It took Jantine a moment to understand what the human woman was trying to say with her broken nose, but after a few words it was easy enough.
"We have to leave. Now. There’s enemies out there trying to kill the Alpha. You have to—"
"Boss," JonB interrupted. "I found something, I think. There’s a flight plan in the core for someplace called the Harrison Institute, in Central North America. Oh, and I can confirm the impact earlier. There’s damage to our primary drive systems, but everything should hold together during reentry."
"Are you crazy? North America? You’ll be shot down in seconds. Mars. Set course for Mars. . ."
The human’s voice trailed off when Jantine waved the pulser in her face. But Jantine was still waiting for the rest of JonB’s report, and when several more seconds passed without it, she prompted him.
"And the sleepers?"
The lights in the compartment came back up, and Jantine felt the ship’s engines kick in. There was a momentary adjustment as the compartment’s gravity returned, and Jantine wished JonB had a stronger sense of his environment as she wiped falling body fluids away from her face.
"Still no trace of them. But with more time, and better equipment . . ."
Jantine turned back to the front of the cabin and saw the stars swing by until the planet was back in sight. The second part of what the Earther had said finally fell into place, and with great effort, Jantine released the firing studs and lowered the pulser.
Alpha. She said enemies are trying to kill the Alpha.
"JonB, Get us down to the planet as fast as possible, but at least 100 kilometers away from any population center. I don’t care how close it is to this Harrison Institute, just make sure that we aren’t observed."
"You got it, boss. Plotting an insertion now."
Jantine turned and left the compartment, and she heard Crassus fall in behind her. She pointedly ignored the Omega’s questioning stare, thankful that she was small enough to squeeze by without having to touch it. Crassus wedged himself through as best he could, but Jantine was too busy retracing her steps down the corridor to care.
By the time she reached the bottom, the shuttle was shaking as it reached the outer fringe of Earth’s atmosphere. But even this momentous occasion was dwarfed by the sight of the second Omega sitting in the cargo area, staring with longing eyes at the small figure floating in a blue-green suspension matrix inside the sleeper unit.
From the reverence the Omega was showing, Jantine knew what the prisoner said had to be true. Jantine took a step closer, and then another. She couldn’t quite bring herself to touch the gently humming sleeper unit, but seeing an Alpha in person for the first time, under these conditions, shook her worse than the violent motion of their descent.
What am I supposed to do now? Someone, please tell me what I’m supposed to do.
The acrid smell of burning plastic stung her nose, and JonB’s excited shouting was barely audible over the much more immediate sound of Crassus’s basso.
"Commander Jantine, I think something is wrong."
The shuttle lurched, and Jantine pitched forward into the sleeper unit. She hit her head on something, then fell to the deck as if pushed there. Then the shuttle stood on its nose, sending her sliding back up the blood-slick ramp.
Discarded micro-slugs scratched her face as the sounds of JonB’s screaming came closer. Another change of direction slammed her into the wall, and then she was tumbling head over heels back down into the bay.
"COMMANDER!"
Shelters, ration packs and spare energizers rained down on them both, and Jantine tucked her chin into her chest to shield her eyes before something hard and heavy hit the back of her head.
Her last sight before everything went black was of a tiny, six-limbed figure sailing away from a ragged hole in the hull, waving its arms madly as it fell.
BOOK TWO
Mira
MIRA PICKED HER WAY ACROSS A BROAD FIELD OF scorched grain. She’d heard this part of North America described as "rolling fields of gold," but she and the gennies had done more than enough rolling for the day.
We’re alive. That’s all that matters. I’m just hoping the miracles continue and we can find some sort of shelter before too much more time passes.
The column of smoke rising from the downed shuttle behind her was an apt summary to her day so far, and the craters their unplanned landing had left across the countryside would remind the Earth for years to come of the day the gennies came home.
Jantine was watching the sunset from one of the few untouched high spots on the horizon. Even dressed in shapeless brown coveralls, the gennie had an air of command Mira had tried to present for years. Out of her suit, out of her uniform, Lt. Commander Harlan was a rapidly fading memory, one being replaced by Mira the gennie-come-lately.
Mira reflexively squinted against the light of the setting sun, and she discovered another benefit of her changing biology. There was an extra layer of moisture sitting on her eyes that counteracted the harsh light, and though it was still a bit painful to stare at, she could now make out details on the surface that were hard to see even in space.
Despite the chaos of their crash, and the knowledge that she was fast becoming Fleet Enemy Number One, Mira found the open field around her very relaxing. For a change, the only thoughts buzzing around in her head right now were her own, instead of those the Omega had jammed into her brain. But like the column of smoke at her back, there were things about the current situation that needed to be addressed.
As she approached Jantine, she could "taste" the uncertainty lurking underneath the iron barrier of control the young leader maintained. She didn’t know if it was a reaction to Mira’s presence or that the girl never really relaxed. But three hours of downtime was all the group could afford; it was time for Jantine to make her decision.
One of Mira’s new memories suggested that Jantine preferred that people just started talking instead of announcing themselves first. It was paired up with an image she’d always associated with authority: that of her father sitting behind his big desk with a stern look on his face.
"Janbi says it will fly. I have my doubts, but after his display in orbit I believe he means it."
A tiny smile played at the edges of Jantine’s face, but her mind was full of pain and loss. Jantine’s record of today’s events was written in blood, and although she’d brought most of her people down alive, she was agonizing over those she’d failed to save.
Part of Mira wanted to smile at the gennie’s discomfort—she was the enemy, after all. But the extra memories in her head were pushing her to project a feeling of well-being, even though Jantine had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t welcome such efforts.
Not from me, anyway.
Jantine kept staring at the horizon. A layer of deep blue sat above a band of orange framing the distant tree line, and the clouds above were painted in purple. Evenings at flight school in Colorado had offered similar vistas, but Mira could now compare them to memories of a dozen different horizons on as many planets.
The original is definitely better. And she’s seeing it for the first time. I just wish she could enjoy it.
"Katra?" Jantine’s question was terse, but the sense of concern behind her words supplied the context Mira needed.
"Better. An hour in the shuttle’s bio-bed dealt with most of her internal damage. We had to tweak it a bit to handle . . . her particular attributes, but the system worked just fine in the end."
Mira held back the words she wanted to say next, unsure of how Jantine would take them.
We Gammas heal fast, it seems.
Instead, she brushed her fingers across the smooth line of her now healed nose and waited for the proud girl to collect her thoughts.
Even while dealing with her pain, Jantine’s mind was remarkable. The Gamma memories told her she shouldn’t be able to sense whole images or thoughts, but Mira watched as Jantine replayed the frenzied action of the team’s journey through the Valiant over and over again, searching for anything she might have overlooked, any opportunity she’d missed to save a life.
In Mira’s opinion, there weren’t any, but Jantine’s unspoken pain was that her friends had died while she was paying attention to other things. Jantine was too new to command to understand that she couldn’t fix everything, a lesson Midshipman Harlan had learned when Jantine was still in the crèche.
Doesn’t mean you have to like it, though.
Mira wished she could speak openly with the girl. Tell her how it was okay to be afraid, or uncertain, as long as you understood what the right thing to do was and stayed the course. She’d had no mother or father to tell her these things, no older brothers to rub dirt in her hair or whale the tar out of some boy dumb enough to break her heart. Everything was new for Jantine, so everything hurt.
She decided to try a new tactic. If Jantine didn’t want a shoulder to cry on, perhaps she could use a friend. Mira walked up the small rise and took a seat beside her. From Jantine’s mind came an intense image of spikes shooting out of the gennie’s skin, and a cold mask fell across the girl’s face as Jantine put a wall up around her thoughts.
I should probably stop using that term. Never liked it much anyway.
"I don’t think we got off to a good start, Commander. My name is Mira, Mira Harlan. I was born about twelve hundred kilometers over yonder," Mira gestured off to the left in a generally southwestern direction, "and until a few hours ago I was a Lieutenant Commander in the System Defense Force. My life was primarily occupied with running training simulations for a crew just a little older than you are, and fixing whatever broke aboard the Valiant."
When Jantine didn’t interrupt, she continued, intentionally trying to distance herself from the Colonial’s guarded emotions.
"I’m not going to apologize for what happened to your people centuries ago. There really aren’t any words. What we . . . what Earth has done is monstrous. But I can promise you that there are still good people here. I don’t understand fully why you’re here, or what’s really going on with that little girl in the cargo hold, but we can’t stay hidden out here forever."
A smile spread across Jantine’s face. If anything, the setting sun made her even more beautiful, and Mira smiled herself at the thought of her brothers going ga-ga over the exotic off-worlder.
She’d probably kill Jim and Adam as examples to the others, but Sean might be able to keep up with her for a little while. Although come to think of it, Deb or Mar might be a better fit . . .
"You don’t talk like a Gamma. Most of them would be afraid to sit this close to me, and they certainly would never speak their minds without permission."
As Jantine spoke, Mira’s new memories confirmed them. The genetic caste system in the Colonies was ruthlessly insular, and all of the voices in her head were trying to get Mira to show proper respect to her "better."
From what Mira had learned in the Academy, Betas like Jantine were exceptionally
rare. Mainly because of the low Beta birthrates, but also due to the difficulties involved in taming new worlds. Only a handful of gennies made the cut—in general the Colonials were just a better variety of human being, one adapted carefully to their planet of birth on a world-by-world basis.
"Carlton said much the same thing. He’s not sure I am a Gamma, not really. Thanks to my new best friends the Omegas, I’m transgenic like the rest of you, but for the most part I’m still a baseline human. I mean, I’ve got these crazy empathic skills, and about a dozen lifetimes of memories telling me how to do just about everything. It’s like reading a book while someone else is speaking. I can’t concentrate on any one voice well enough to understand it, but I still have a basic idea of what they’re saying. I can almost hear your thoughts, but every time I try to project mine I get a massive headache and an even bigger scolding from a bunch of people who don’t even exist.
"From what Carlton says, there’s no real precedent for what’s happened to me, and it’s tearing him up inside that he can’t nail down a proper classification. Besides, he’s been pretty busy with Katra and the . . ."
This time, she couldn’t shut out Jantine’s spike of annoyance. It had flavors of anger, frustration, and fear, and for good reason.
As uncertain as Mira’s position was in the Colonials’ group dynamic, Jantine’s was based entirely on the fact that she was the best genetic fit to lead her people to Earth. Her life so far had been spent training for a mission to reunite the human race, with the full knowledge that she wasn’t expected to succeed.
In a way, Captain Martin’s plan has destroyed her life just as thoroughly as it has mine.
A kilometer behind them, in the cargo area of a mostly dead shuttlecraft, was an Alpha. A little girl locked into a centuries-long, dreamless sleep who would become their undisputed leader the moment she woke up, invalidating everything Jantine’s people had fought and died for.
If Captain Martin’s intel was correct, it was entirely likely that that sleeping child had no leadership training whatsoever, but short of waking her up and asking questions Mira had no way to confirm that. Her surface mind, the only part Mira could reach, was a blank slate. The prolonged hibernation seemed to have caused no damage, and it was equally likely that when fully conscious she’d have just the intelligence and personality of a normal eight year-old girl.
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