The Knife's Edge (War Eternal Book 3)

by M. R. Forbes

  Steven stopped the stream, quick thoughts opening the ship's data storage and pushing it there. He wasn't sure why he believed his brother, especially when he had been so willing to believe he was a traitor before. No, he knew why he believed that. Jealousy. It was easy to accept Mitchell as a turncoat. It let him be the better brother for once. This was something else.

  Besides, he had nothing else to lose.

  He opened a channel across the fleet.

  "This is going to sound crazy, but I want all of you to turn off your implants immediately. That's an order. You'll receive further instructions through the EMS."

  He didn't wait to hear them argue. He moved through the menu of his receiver, unlocking the security that prevented the crew from taking their receivers offline and then shutting his own down.

  The information vanished from behind his eyes. There was nothing but the unadulterated view of the world. He blinked a few times, jarred by it. Had he become so accustomed to the overlays that he barely saw what lay beyond them anymore?

  "Did you do it?" he shouted to his crew on the bridge.

  "Affirmative," they each said.

  He had no idea if the others would comply. He couldn't worry about it. He stood and hurried over to Rock's seat. With his p-rat off, he would have to use manual controls to get the Carver into hyperspace.

  He slid aside the cover that kept the manual controls from being accidentally activated and then put his thumb to the screen. He was authorized immediately, and he quickly used the numeric keypad to the left of the screen to enter the short-code that would get him to engine control. At the same time, he used his other hand to turn on the fleet-wide emergency messaging system.

  "Coordinates: 6-39-15, 4-8-22. Godspeed."

  He punched the same coordinates into his own engine override. Moving through hyperspace without calculating trajectories was dangerous. It was all too easy to collide with another celestial body. These were coordinates he knew well. Coordinates he knew weren't safe, but what choice did they have?

  The fleet's mission had been to destroy the installation on FD-09 and then head out to a second target in Federation space - a military outpost that served as part of a supply chain leading towards Alliance territory. It was a target that was bound to be well-defended. He hadn't planned on running into so much trouble here, and he had just told his remaining ships to move into even more.

  The ones who had listened to his first order, anyway.

  He hit the start code. He could hear the soft hum as the hyperspace engines came online. He expected he would be hearing from Admiral Hohn any second, as he was breaking at least two intergalactic treaties regarding surrender. He could only hope the Federation would hesitate to fire with their own crews on board.

  When he didn't get a hail from the Samurai, he opened a channel himself.

  "Admiral Hohn," he said.

  The Samurai didn't respond.

  "Admiral Hohn."

  The hatch to the bridge slid open. Captain Rock filed in, flanked by the Federation Admiral. He was a narrow, sharp man with olive skin and dark hair, his years weathering his features. He didn't look happy.

  "This is improper," Hohn started to say. "You-"

  "Admiral," Steven interrupted. "Tell your fleet to shut down their neural implants immediately."

  Hohn drew back in shock. "What? I intend to inform the Council of what you've done here and have you tried for the atrocity you've committed on innocent people, not to take orders from you."

  "Damn it, Admiral," Steven shouted. "Do it, or-"

  The Tetron ship appeared at the corner of space, near the halo caused by FD-09's atmosphere. The motion caught Steven's eye, his acute vision immediately recognizing that he had never seen anything like it before.

  "John, grab him," he said.

  "What?"

  Steven lunged from his seat, heading towards the Admiral. Three more Federation officers were behind him.

  They all began reaching for their sidearms.

  39

  Everything happened so fast, it seemed to Steven as if it all moved in slow motion.

  Four Federation officer's hands were moving to the pistols at their sides. Captain John Rock was recovering from his shock, lunging for the foremost officer, Admiral Hohn. Steven was diving towards them, aiming for the two soldiers to Hohn's left, a path that would see him crossing behind Rock's tackle.

  At the same time, the viewport scattered blue lines that illuminated the room ahead of him, as the Federation ships started to open fire once more. If he could have seen out the viewport, he would have seen the first of his fleet's ships shoot away into the void.

  A heartbeat passed. John's body was a blur in front of his own, hitting the Admiral hard and knocking him aside while Steven hit the middle of the two officers, catching them off-guard and pulling them to the ground. He rolled awkwardly away from them before reversing course and desperately reaching for a dropped sidearm.

  He looked up, finding his eyes level with the barrel of the remaining Federation soldier's gun.

  He felt a tug as the Carver lurched forward. A moment later the bridge was bathed in the white hue of compressed starlight.

  The soldier in front of him froze, dropping his gun. Steven scrambled forward on his hands and knees, grabbing it before the man could realize what he had done.

  "Don't move," he said, aiming the gun towards him and the other towards the two soldiers. He glanced over to where Rock had fallen, finding him straddling the Admiral and pinning him to the ground. "John?"

  "We're going to be executed for this, Admiral," Rock said.

  Steven swallowed heavily. What the hell had he just done? How had everything gotten so out of control so quickly? How many of his men had escaped?

  He waved the guns at the soldiers. "Get up. Go over there." He waved them towards Admiral Hohn. "You can let him up."

  Rock climbed off the Admiral, backing away to where Steven was standing. The Admiral rose slowly, looking around at the bridge.

  "What is this all about?" Hohn said. "How did I get here?"

  "Relax, Admiral," Steven said. "You're okay. Just relax."

  Hohn eyed Steven suspiciously. "What did you do to me?"

  "I didn't do anything to you. Let me guess, you don't remember how you got here?"

  "No."

  Steven felt like he could cry. He wasn't sure if it would be out of relief or fear or sadness. He had taken a chance on trusting Mitchell, and his brother hadn't let him down. Considering Mitchell had told him an alien threat was trying to take out the human race, he really wished he had.

  "You're on the Alliance battleship Carver," Steven said. "We surrendered to you, and you came aboard the Carver to formalize. We received information that suggested we should get the hell out of the area, so I did."

  He said something to his officers in Federese, a mashup of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. They responded with the same tone of confusion.

  "Fleeing after a surrender is a serious offense, Admiral," Hohn said.

  "So is attacking the Admiral of the surrendering ship," Steven replied.

  "I didn't-"

  "You did," Rock said. "We can show you the security footage if you'd like."

  Hohn looked stricken that he might have broken convention.

  "It's okay, Admiral," Steven said. "You weren't yourself. Did you see the ship that appeared in front of the planet?"

  "I didn't see any ship."

  "Did your ARR pick it up?"

  His eyes twitched, and then grew wide.

  "Where did that come from?" Hohn asked.

  "I'm not sure yet. All I can tell you is that it isn't an Alliance ship, and whatever is flying it was able to use your neural implant to commandeer you."

  Hohn laughed. "Not Alliance? You expect me to believe that? This is a deception, isn't it? I won't tell you anything."

  Steven shrugged. "I'm not going to ask you any questions. You don't know what's happening any more than I do. Captain Ro
ck, can you replay Captain Williams' message?"

  "Yes, sir," Rock said, returning to his station. A few moments later Mitchell's message played through the loudspeakers for a second time.

  "The Marine who took credit for the Shot?" Hohn said. "You want me to believe anything he says?"

  "You witnessed it yourself. Why do you think you can't remember anything from the moment it fell out of hyperspace?"

  "You could have struck me on the head. I wouldn't remember the last few minutes that way either."

  "I'll take you down to Medical, assuming it wasn't destroyed. You can run the tests for injuries yourself."

  Hohn rubbed his head. "You say we attacked you?"

  "Yes. I think the only reason you got your head back was because we left the area."

  "What happened to the rest of my fleet?"

  "I don't know. They were firing on us. Under enemy control, I would guess."

  Hohn said something else to his men.

  "I should like to see the security footage you have mentioned. I'm not convinced this isn't an elaborate trick of some kind. What was the Alliance doing in Federation space? Why did you attack a farming colony?" He began to shout as he finished, breaking off sharply when he realized he was losing his temper.

  "Captain?" Steven asked.

  "Just a minute," Rock replied.

  He navigated awkwardly through the manual screens. It was obvious to Steven his friend hadn't kept up with the override sequences the way he had.

  "A show of good faith," Steven said, taking the two guns and placing them on the ground behind himself. Hohn bowed slightly to him for the gesture.

  "Here we are," Rock said. "I'm opening a public channel so you can see it on your receiver."

  Admiral Hohn's eyes twitched as he watched the stream. When it was done, he bit his lip and shook his head.

  "You have my apologies, Admiral. I don't understand everything that is happening here, but I would like to hear more of your story."

  Steven met Hohn's eyes. He could sense the remorse and respect. He bowed to the Federation Admiral. If what Mitchell had said was true, and he had every reason now to believe that it was, the days of conflict between the Alliance and the Federation would have to end right now. There was a much bigger, much worse threat facing them, one that they had barely escaped.

  They needed to spread the word before it was too late.

  40

  The room was dark. The drones lay just behind the now open hatch, no sign of damage to their frames. Something had caused them to stop functioning. What?

  "This is extra creepy," Boomer said, sweeping his headlamp through the room.

  It appeared to be the Gold Dragon's central command station, a room filled with work stations fronted by screens where trainers could sit and watch the company's actions from the comfort of the base through the eyes of drones. Mitchell could still remember the weeks immediately following his assignment to Greylock when he had been shipped off to a similar remote planet and whipped into even better shape. The trainers were usually former company members, too old to get out on the field, but plenty young enough to tell you how stupid you were and how everything you were doing was wrong.

  He smiled involuntarily at the reminder.

  "Something funny, Colonel?" Teal asked.

  "Memories," he replied.

  He hadn't known Elle back then, but her name was whispered among the trainees. Untouchable, both in the cockpit and out. Sexy as the experimental Black-fin.

  "This is clearly a dead end," Boomer said, finishing his sweep. "That's the only way in or out. I don't know what happened to the drones. Strange coincidence, I guess."

  "We'll have to go visual only," Socks said. "I think we're clear, Colonel. No reason to hold up the retrieval team any longer. What do you think?"

  "How much of the complex do we have mapped?" he asked Boomer.

  "Most of it. Maybe eighty percent?"

  "Okay. Yeah, let's get the-"

  The hatch slid closed.

  "I have a feeling that wasn't supposed to happen," Cormac said.

  "Oh, you think?" Boomer replied, moving over to the door. He banged on it a couple of times, but it didn't open. "Emergency circuit must be flipping out. I bet it zapped the drones on the way through."

  "We'll need to wait it out until Sleepy gets the power on," Mitchell said.

  "I hope it isn't long," Cormac said. "You know I hate tight spaces."

  "Your berth is a lot smaller than this."

  "It isn't the size, Colonel. It's not having the option to leave." He paced over to one of the seats and fell down into it, closing his eyes.

  Teal joined Cormac at a second workstation. "Sleepy said fifteen minutes. We should get power any second now."

  Mitchell returned his rifle to his back and stretched his neck. He hated that they were losing time like this, but what could he do? He moved into the room, walking past the stations in search of what? Nothing really. He just needed something to do. To stay busy and keep his mind off the passing seconds.

  Slow.

  Steady.

  He reached the front of the room, and then turned and looked back at his team. They had all found somewhere to sit, their postures relaxed. They were good soldiers, easy to work with. He hadn't expected much when the Knife had insisted on his people and his ship. Mitchell was happy to be pleasantly surprised.

  He was about to return to the group when a red laser light landed on his forehead from the other side of the room. His initial thought was to duck and roll, to avoid the sniper fire that he expected would follow that kind of sighting. Except he could see the source of the laser. A small sensor embedded in the wall. No. Behind it, somehow spearing its light through the plastene. It spread wide, casting a grid over his helmeted head and traveling down, scanning him.

  "What the hell?" he heard Cormac say. The others looked and then stood up.

  "I thought the power was out?" Socks said.

  The laser finished its scan. A soft hiss followed from below it, and a second hatch that had been blended into the wall slid aside. The corridor beyond was lit in dim emergency lighting.

  Cormac laughed. "Secret passage. Cool."

  "Form up," Mitchell said. He peered into the corridor. It was long and made of thick stone. It traveled two hundred yards before turning left.

  He started down it, pulling his rifle from his back once more. He cradled it in his arms as he led his squad along the corridor. It continued on again at the left turn, moving deeper into the earth. They traced it, following as it looped back beneath itself over and over in a spiral that brought them further below the surface.

  "I want to make a joke out of this, but I'm coming up blank," Boomer said.

  "I've never seen anything like this before," Teal said.

  They reached the end of the tunnel at the same time the ground shivered. A heavy metal door sat in front of them, scorched and scuffed and burned. There was a hole in the center of it big enough for them to crawl through. Mitchell could see the door was nearly half a meter deep.

  "Somebody wanted to keep people out pretty bad," Boomer said.

  "Somebody wanted to get in pretty bad," Cormac added.

  "I don't get it." Teal approached the hole, kneeling down to shine his headlamp through. "If the Gold Dragons had this little secret room or whatever it is, why did they need to break in?"

  "How do you know whoever killed them all didn't break in?" Mitchell asked.

  "I don't, but it would have taken either a long time or a big-ass tool to burn through this much metal. What's it made of anyway?"

  Mitchell knelt down next to Teal, shining his light on the innards of the door. He recognized the liquid metal in an instant.

  "Tetron," he said. "I don't know what they call it, but this is what their bodies are made of. It looks like it's dead." He hoped.

  He turned his head to sweep the room. He could see the dark mop of hair on a dead soldier, and beyond it a large, rectangular box. It wasn'
t made of the Tetron metal, but it was still obvious what it was. A computer mainframe.

  "Wait here," Mitchell said, a sudden burst of an undefined emotion washing through him. The hair on his arms began to tingle, and he had the sudden feeling that they hadn't stumbled across this room.

  It had been waiting for him.

  41

  Mitchell climbed through the slagged doorway, careful not to catch his fatigues or his exo on small, sharp protrusions. He ran his fingers along the smoother sections as he passed, feeling the slick cold of the Tetron material. Touching Origin had always given him a shock.

  He reached the other end and put his light on the dead soldier's face. He stumbled back a step. He had been expecting another Gold Dragon, peacefully put to eternal rest. This soldier was old, so old that the flesh had dried out and shrank tight against the frame, the eyes had dissolved with time, and the entire corpse was covered in a layer of dust.

  Mitchell leaned over it. Whoever this man was, he had been closed into the room whenever it had been created. He reached up and wiped some of the dirt off the uniform, revealing a patch beneath it. His breath caught a second time.

  Whoever this man was, he was wearing a uniform that Mitchell had last seen in an old photograph. A uniform he had never expected to see in person.

  This man was one of the astronauts who had gone into the future with Katherine aboard the Goliath.