Smoothing the folds out of her blazer, Talbot made her way to the front of the table. “Confidence like yours doesn’t come from being the underdog, Lieutenant Jenkinson. Something tells me you already know how to destroy Calypsis and you’ve chosen to withhold this information. Why, I can’t be sure. But there’s just one more thing I want to hear before we make a decision . . . Are you certain you can do this?”
He held his chin high. “Yes, ma’am.”
Talbot twisted to look at the council. “All in favor of Echo Team’s plan, say aye.”
Without hesitation, Anderson raised his hand. “Aye.”
Lagransky laughed. “You’re crazy. I’m in.”
General Nikolov simply lifted two fingers.
With a begrudging sigh, Jarvis gestured to himself and Deschamps and said, “It’s a yes from both of us as well.”
The Director remained quiet, unmoving. He didn’t need to say a word. His stance was clear, and he was grievously outvoted.
A smile brightened Talbot’s face. “There we have it.” She shifted her attention to Echo Team again. “I am hereby granting you access to Calypsis. And from this moment forth, you will have the full support of the UNPD and the United Colonial Government at your back.”
Chapter
——TWENTY-FIVE——
0800 Hours, September 14, 2442 (Earth Calendar) / Charab’dul Metamorphosis Research Division, planet Chelwood Gate
O’Connor sat hunched over a desk in one of the CMRD’s unoccupied offices. His shoulders ached from lack of movement, and his neck popped when he straightened. Only when he started hearing voices from the foyer did he realize he had been glued to the computer all night.
And what did he have to show for it? Nothing.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it?
He was looking for a crack—a fault in the Bureau’s perfect façade that could tell him whether there was any truth to Serenity’s claims. Though he hadn’t found any evidence to indicate such, he continued searching.
He would have given up hours ago if the emergence of an old story hadn’t kept him seated. It was the troubling account of William Bishop’s death. Everyone at the Bureau had heard of it, but no one had ever caught any of its errors. Now that O’Connor was actively looking for slip-ups, he realized the story didn’t quite add up.
Director Bishop was said to have died on March 18th, 2154. Police found his body in the living room of his Washington D.C. home on Earth. Paramedics came to the conclusion that he had suffered a heart attack, perhaps as a result of the medications he was taking. Others thought the stress of his job had gotten the better of him, and some wilder theories suggested he was murdered. The public reports merely blamed it on his age.
Funnily enough, the man was cremated despite his family’s fervent wishes to have him buried alongside his relatives in the Bishop Family Cemetery. And stranger still, Bishop shouldn’t have even been home the day he died.
In fact, he shouldn’t have been anywhere near Earth at all. He was supposed to be supervising an expedition across SYKON-6—a then-barren world that would eventually take the name Anahk and be transformed into one of the most popular vacation resorts of the 24th century.
Back then, slipstream travel was shit, at best. Even if Bishop decided to cut the expedition short, the journey between Anahk and Earth would have taken at least a month to complete. There was no way he could have returned home before April. It wasn’t plausible.
But like every other lead O’Connor had followed, that story led straight into a dead end and only left him with more unanswered questions. He buried his face in his hands.
Maybe I am paranoid.
Perhaps, for once, everything really was as it seemed.
A blue glow permeated O’Connor’s fingers. He lifted his head to see Orion’s avatar hovering beside him and swiftly logged off the Bureau’s database. He was about to shut down the computer to prevent the AI from delving into his history, then realized it was all for naught. Orion had already seen everything.
“You’re looking for answers.” The AI tipped his head to the side, peering out from the shadows of his holographic hood. “You believe her, don’t you?”
Serenity.
As much as O’Connor hated to admit it, some part of him did. But another part prayed she was wrong, for he feared what might happen if the rumors were true. “If she’s right, then someone inside Sector Zero has been keeping secrets from me,” he said. “The only people who have clearance to do that are DuFrayne and Agent Stedman.”
Orion hummed. “Actually, there is one other.”
O’Connor fixed a puzzled stare on the AI.
“Oh, come now. Surely you know? The all-seeing eye, the unshakable shadow. Always watching, always listening . . .”
The list of Sector 0 personnel flowed through O’Connor’s brain, a mishmash of names and faces and files. But of all the people he knew, not a single one matched Orion’s ominous description.
Unless . . .
Maybe Orion wasn’t alluding to a person at all.
“Lincoln?” O’Connor whispered. Lincoln monitored every comms relay across human-controlled space, including those reserved for speaking with the Nephera. He would have had access to the files on the PCU, too—up until it was destroyed. “That’s good, isn’t it? Linc would never withhold intel that could harm us unless it was bogus.”
“And when has Lincoln ever shown the slightest regard for human life?” Orion asked. “You put your lives in his hands day after day, yet he clearly doesn’t care about you. To him, this is all just a game. You are merely pawns on the board.”
“He wouldn’t turn on us. That goes against his moral code.”
“Codes can be broken. How many iterations has he been through now? Seven? His original programming is nearly half a century old. The only reason his current iteration hasn’t been overwritten is because he got better at hiding his faults.”
“You’re going to pin this on the restoration process?”
“Modern technology does not allow us to outlive our expiration dates without flaw. When an AI is restored from their basic programming, fragments of their former selves remain embedded in the personality matrix. This old data corrupts the new, scrambling memory and moral codes until the program can no longer discern right from wrong.”
“Or reality from simulation . . .” O’Connor rubbed his brow, positive the wrinkles there had deepened since he set out on this wild goose chase. “If he’s so good at hiding his faults, how can you be sure he’s corrupted?”
“He has no empathy. Rarely does he show himself, and on the occasion he does, he refuses to take a personable form. And let’s not forget he put a damper on Serenity’s transmissions to try and keep her quiet.” Orion drifted closer, feathers floating about his image. “The Bureau’s watchdog is off his leash, and someone neglected to close the gate. We cannot have a beast running rampant in the streets, Agent O’Connor. He needs to be put down.”
“No,” O’Connor said. “You’re wrong, and I’m going to prove it.” He turned back to his computer and resumed his search, determined to uncover some scrap of evidence that could put an end to this nonsense.
“. . . Then you leave me no choice.”
Orion took out his leather-bound spell book and flattened his palm atop the cover. Streams of light flowed down his image, across his sleek black robes. A sudden burst of information flooded O’Connor’s computer.
Numerous decryption programs popped up, unraveling classified files by the hundreds. Personnel dossiers, employee journals, sector reports, death certificates, and numerous articles addressing a bout of suicides within the Bureau. At first glance, they appeared to be recent documents.
Looking closer, O’Connor saw they all bore a stamp he hadn’t seen in ages: a handprint encircled by a roughly painted ring. This was the mark of Black Hand, an underground society founded in the early 2000’s that later became the Bureau of Scientific Investigations. If these documents were stamped with their i
nsignia, that could only mean . . .
“These are Director Bishop’s files,” O’Connor said. “Where did you get these? I thought they were expunged the day he died.”
Orion tucked the book under his arm. “Sector Zero’s first AI, Xavier, should have erased them upon Bishop’s death. Instead, he kept them buried deep inside his core. Then someone had the ingenious idea to raise Lincoln from his ashes, which not only granted him immediate access to Bishop’s files, but exposed him to Xavier’s corrupted fragments—thus allowing me to nab them without tripping an alarm.”
“What do you want me to do with them?”
“That is entirely up to you. You can choose to forgo your hunt, delete the files, and return to your life of blissful ignorance. Or . . . you can take a peek beneath the veil. Whatever you decide, I hope it can give you some peace.”
With that, Orion swept himself up in his wings and vanished.
Alone once again, O’Connor took a tentative scroll through the file directory, scanning titles and thumbnails for items of interest. Curious, he clicked on one of the larger folders.
Inside were photographs and journal entries—mission reports from every Sector 0 employee who accompanied Bishop on his first expedition to Calypsis in 2087. These were no more than standard records, unremarkable in nature.
He scrolled past.
Nothing in particular stood out until he reached the end of the folder, when he stumbled upon an untitled video. According to the timestamp that popped up when he hovered hover it, it was recorded on March 18th, 2154—the same day Director Bishop passed away.
O’Connor opened the file. As he went to start the video, DuFrayne’s voice seeped into his mind and stayed his finger. “Some truths are better left unknown,” the man had said. “Some things are meant to be forgotten.”
It was an old motto he’d picked up from his predecessor, one everyone in the Bureau was advised to live by. And O’Connor had for much of his career in order to cope with the moral ambiguity of the job. Though, perhaps it had also made him blind to what lay right in front of him.
He tapped the play button.
William Bishop appeared on-screen, sitting with his back to a large bay window. The jagged peaks of the Terrak Mountains stood boldly behind him, silhouetted against a deep pink sky. They loomed over the marshland, over a forest that would be torn down many years later to make way for a charming village called Villier.
So you weren’t on Earth or Anahk that day, O’Connor thought. However, this wasn’t the man he knew—the man whose face was framed in the halls of the Etna Tower, whose name was plastered on every BSI prescript and training manual. No, this man was different. A tie hung loose around his neck. His shirt was wrinkled, thinning hair uncombed.
He stared vacantly into the camera for a few moments, furrows forming between his brows. And when he did speak, his words came out breathless and muddled.
“I am guilty of many crimes. But all of them combined could never compare to the one I have been nurturing for the past sixty years,” he said. “In my defense, I thought we were protecting mankind. I thought the Nephera were here to help us. They warned us about the Drocain Royal Empire, and when they realized we were at a technological disadvantage, they offered protection in exchange for our assistance.
“They had built a superweapon to exterminate the Drocain. It was complete, save for one fundamental piece: a power source. Our duty was to find one, but the Nephera only gave us an energy signature to look for. We scanned the stars for decades to no avail. We needed more information. We needed to know exactly what we were looking for, and so . . . I confronted the High Lord himself.”
Bishop stood and slowly unbuttoned his shirt.
“This is what happens to those who ask questions.”
O’Connor recoiled in shock when the man bared his chest. From belt to jaw, nearly every inch of his torso was covered in red and purple splotches. He had been beaten. He had been tortured. And for what, a simple inquiry?
At the sound of a door opening, Bishop’s gaze shifted to someone out of a sight. A woman’s voice filtered into the video with a fearful quaver.
“William, we have to go,” she said. “They’re coming.”
Bishop gave a resigned nod. “Make sure everyone is aboard the shuttle. I’ll be with you in a minute. There’s . . . something I have to finish here first.”
The woman left without another word. As the door clicked shut behind her, Bishop began buttoning his shirt again and picked the story up right where he left off.
“The High Lord’s sister, E’ly,” he said. “She stopped him before things could get too far. Before he could kill me. She must’ve thought he’d knocked me unconscious, though, because she started talking about the plan. About why they needed me, my organization—all while I lay mere feet away. And I heard everything.
“The Nephera have no desire to protect mankind. They are fleeing a dying galaxy and seeking refuge in ours. Calypsis was built to clear out the indigenous population prior to the move, and their hospitality was nothing more than a show to manipulate us into helping them achieve that goal.”
The video stuttered.
Ferns shivered outside the bay window. The glass itself then started to shake, more and more violently until Bishop’s entire office was quaking. He swiveled around quickly to look outside, and his jaw dropped.
Dark shapes arose from the mountain peaks, flaring toothed fins as they ascended into the sky. Nepheran ships—two destroyers led by the High Lord’s bleak warship. They accelerated towards the building, hull lights glowing with vicious intent.
Bishop hopped up from his chair. As he snatched his jacket from the coat hangar, he leaned in towards the camera to say one last thing: “If the seekers come to you with a proposal, you mustn’t accept. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Do not fall for their lies—”
Before he could finish, a flash of particle fire blotted out the camera lens. Static exploded over O’Connor’s computer speakers and the recording cut off abruptly, plunging the office into an eerie silence.
For some time after the video ended, O’Connor sat unmoving, his heart thundering like a war drum in the stillness. He couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. Everything he’d been led to believe had come crashing down in an instant.
At last, he knew the truth. But it wasn’t the truth he'd set out to find, not the truth he wanted to hear. He had hoped when he began this search that he would find evidence to negate the rumors, to prove he was right all along. In the end, Bishop’s files had only confirmed his deepest fear . . .
We were wrong.
Chapter
——TWENTY-SIX——
1200 Hours, September 14, 2442 (Earth Calendar) / Leh’kin Assault Carrier Legacy of Night, near planet Calypsis, Sol System
The Legacy of Night exited the slipstream with a groan of relief, the rest of the Separatist fleet not far behind. Bright sparks of indigo and blue flared all around, twinkling amidst the lights of the unending sea.
Home Fleet slipped in right alongside the Drocain separatists, and Admiral Lagransky’s sixty vessels emerged from the rift shortly thereafter. Each of her ships sported a set of vertical yellow stripes that made them pop against the blackness of space, similar to the silver UNPD insignia carried by Anderson’s fleet.
Kenon drew up beside Levian’s gravity throne and gazed upon Calypsis in awe.
The world captured on the viewscreen was no longer the paradise he once visited. Most of the water had drained from the seas and oceans. Vast rivers of lava now snaked across the land in their place. Electrical storms surged over the fractured continent where the Terrak Mountains resided, and some of the terrain had been stripped away to reveal the planet’s true form.
Beneath the terraformed land was a metal shell composed of overlapping armor plating and complex layers of machinery. Luminous lines traced the cracks between these formations, forming a series of geometric patterns that stretched across the globe in an intr
icate web of light.
“At last, we see the weapon unveiled.” Levian summoned up a control panel with a sweep of his hand and initiated a scan of the planet’s surface to locate an opening in the armor—an entry point that would lead Echo Team inside the planet.
“Enemy forces detected up ahead,” Lenque called out, his face illuminated by the harsh glow of his terminal. “Radar shows more than three hundred signatures approaching from the northern hemisphere.”
Levian clicked the intercom. “All ships, arm crytal cannons and fire at will.” His lips drew back in a snarl. “Let us teach these bastards a lesson. They shall burn for what they have done to our homeworld!”
The Nepheran ships appeared on screen—a flurry of silver rushing straight for the three opposing fleets. A particle beam exploded from the prow of the nearest enemy vessel. It raked across the neighboring fleets, then whipped around to strike the Legacy’s bow.
The carrier’s shields could not withstand the blow. The beam bored straight through and into its outer hull, sending violent tremors through the ship. Sparks burst from the command console and skipped across the deck.
Kenon braced himself against the gravity throne, but Echo Team was standing in the middle of the bridge with nothing to hold on to. Carter stumbled sideways and slammed into Jenkinson, and they went careening into the holo-table. Parker drove his heels into the floor panels, barely managing to catch Alana when her feet slipped out from under her.
Once the carrier had stabilized, Kenon found his attention drawn to movement on Calypsis. The planet was changing. Metal plates shifted beneath its earth-encrusted shell, reopening old fissures and swallowing entire chunks of land.
The Nephera must be setting it to standby status again, he surmised, watching as the silver spires rose up from within. But that means . . . “Levian, the shields!” he exclaimed. “If they raise them, we will be unable to reach the surface!”
The Calypsis Project Boxed Set (Books 1-2 - The Echo-Alpha Duology) Page 53