The pursuing ship took a direct hit and crashed.
They pulled back on the reins and watched the apocalypse.
“It must be Scorch protocol,” Misha said. “I served in the Unification Guard. I heard the rumors, but I never witnessed it.”
“Fire from space,” Rayna whispered to Mentor. “They have all this power but need me to save them?”
Mentor sat behind her saddle. “I doubt they’d say it quite that way, dearest. After all, some of them hunger for your utter annihilation.”
“I will not give them satisfaction.”
“Of that, I have little doubt. In the meantime, I suggest we proceed with caution to those hills. We have but a few minutes of good light.”
The final remnants of dusk clung to the low western sky when they reach the foothills, amazed both horses survived the treacherous terrain without breaking a leg. As they ascended, they stared back at the golden hue rising near the IDF.
“Do they think us dead?” Rayna asked.
“No,” Misha said with confidence. “Penelope used the stream to relay our status to her allies. They will come.”
“And the others? They will come, too. No?”
On this point, Misha hesitated. “Possible. Yes. Rayna, I spoke with Penelope at great length before you arrived. She believed there may be two other factions seeking the Jewels.”
“And both are enemy?”
“Unclear. Your Mentor must have told you about the United Green.”
“He did. What kind of bastards wish their people to die without chance to grow stronger?”
“Is not so simple, Rayna. Chancellors want to survive, but some do not believe in genetic re-engineering.”
Rayna laughed. “All Chancellors engineered. Mentor showed me how. No, Misha. They fear Jewel energy. They fear replacement.”
“Hmm. And after what you did today, can you see why?”
Rayna acknowledged the point and shut her mouth. She felt the Mentor trying to add in a word, but she shut him down. Her rebirth complete, Rayna wondered if he still served any useful purpose.
They rode another two hours, deep into the foothills. They came upon a stream and gave the horses a rest. Rayna drank from the stream and allowed her nerves to calm for the first time in days. The night sky was clear, the Milky Way stunning.
Yet Rayna was confused.
“The stars,” she said in Russian. “I recognize constellations, but they are not aligned. The scorpion should not be high this time of year.”
Misha laid back upon the firm ground and studied the night sky.
“I thought the Mentor would have told you,” he replied in Engleshe. “The universes do not replicate. There are vast similarities, even parallels, but causality prevents replication.”
“Is warmer here. Are seasons parallel?”
“No. We left Ukraine in April. If my math is correct, this would be July. Although the Collectorate calendar does not acknowledge the twelve-month cycle. We are affixed to a schedule of two hundred standard days for economic consistency across the forty worlds. I assumed Mentor would have taught you these fundamentals.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he did, and maybe I did not listen. Sometimes, I think him wise; other times, he is babbling fool.”
“You will need these essentials, Rayna. This is your world now. The life we led on the other side is no more. You understand this?”
She threw a rock into the stream. “I understand I hate Engleshe.”
“You will get used to it. Over time, even your accent will fade.”
“Did this happen to you when you learned Russian?”
Misha sighed. “The first six months were the hardest of my life. It wasn’t just about mastering the language. It was more the dialect. We were actors. Many Cossacks never trusted us.”
“Then why you do this stupid thing?”
“When the ten of you were created, we expected trouble. The Green was gaining power, but we believed in your potential to be the Chancellory’s future. We hedged our bets. Our leaders separated each of you, only one per fold. It gave you the best chance for survival. We understood the dangers of 19th-century Ukraine, but we sacrificed our lives for a greater purpose.”
“Would Father say this, too?”
Misha’s features softened. “Rayna, you loved him, as he loved you. But Pyotr never put his fondness of wealth and power aside. He distracted himself with people he should not have trusted. We argued often over the years.”
“I heard you. What was his Chancellor name?”
“Peter Gallivant.”
“And yours?”
“Michaud Julespierre.”
Rayna laughed, creating an echo through the narrow pass. “Sounds like girl’s name. You keep Misha.”
“I will have to claim my descendency to restore my status. I doubt the Julespierres will want a Tsukanov in the family.”
“Do I have family?”
“Uncertain. Claim your Gallivant descendency.”
“Not if name matters. I am always Rayna Tsukanova.”
“In your heart, yes. No one will take that spirit from you. But there are practical matters we must attend and…”
Rayna wanted nothing more of this. She pushed herself up and walked downstream.
The rage of these last days was subsiding, and this notion troubled her. She did not want to feel comfortable, but the memories of a Cossack childhood seemed like dreams. In the past few hours, she killed more people than in her previous seventeen years combined. Yet the sound and fury, the blood on her shaksha, the nuclear cloud—all felt like distant, fading echoes.
She heard feet.
“You did not want to leave it behind,” Misha said. “It was the only life you ever knew. But if you take the lessons we taught—your father, the Mentor, my training, all of it—you will make a new life here. What we left behind has groomed you for the struggle ahead.”
“Da.” She faced Misha. “And I will kill all enemies here, as I did there. Except for Vasily Shkuro, who I will find one day.”
They spoke no more of the past or the future that night. In time, she convinced Misha to sleep while Rayna kept watch. Two hours later, they switched. Rayna closed her eyes, but she only faded to the edge of sleep. The gentlest bubbling of the stream kept her on edge. At some point, she drifted away.
And then, an unexpected sensation arrived.
It came first as a gentle breeze kissing her cheek. Next, a caress. A voice followed, young yet firm and uncompromising. She did not make out the words.
She caught his eyes. Did they shimmer?
He was tall, with broad and imposing shoulders, a chest like the side of a mountain. A monument dressed in red.
She heard his name on the wind, and then it vanished.
“Rayna.”
Someone nudged her awake. She stared up at Misha, who greeted her with a broad smile, surrounded by the light of dawn.
“They have found us,” Misha said. “Our allies. We must go.”
Across the stream, a shuttle waited in silence, two men in white sporting huge weapons.
“These Chancellors are for us?” Rayna asked.
“Yes. We will rendezvous with the others. Perhaps you will even meet the second of the Earth Jewels.”
Rayna raced to the stream and splashed her face with cool water.
“I already have.”
29
Tactical simulation facility
Great Plains Metroplex, NAC
I N THE MOMENTS AFTER JAMES HEARD the other Jewel whisper her name across time and space, dramatic changes followed.
The universe of the Collectorate opened its doors, filling his mind with its treasures and terrors. Philosophy, art, space exploration, physics, genetics, war, genocide. He needed no learning programs, no books, no holocube. James only needed keywords out of the mouths of others. His vibrant, continued conversations with Valentin provided the fodder he needed.
Unification Guard. Snap! He learned of its origi
n, command and control structure, deployment figures, tactical objectives, training regimens, and disposition of capital ships and Scramjets.
Ark Carriers. Snap! He learned the design of the interstellar city-ships, of their use during colonization, their planetary deployments and permanent civilian figures, and their defensive capabilities.
Chancellory. Snap! He learned of its foundation, rise to power, hierarchy of presidiums and sanctums, Elevation Philosophy, forced migrations of ethnics to the colonies, and treaty with the Solomons.
This encyclopedia of the Collectorate—impossible to consume instantaneously—stopped shy of James’s forethoughts. It was all there, waiting behind the curtain for whenever he needed to take a peek. The one thing standing guard between him and data overload was the source of it all: The Jewel called Ignatius Horne.
“Why show me this now?” James asked.
“Poor Chancellor design,” said Ignatius, standing on the deck of his orbital command ship, his uniform draped in medals. “Your engineers wanted you to have access to the Chancellory’s intellect combined with the Jewel’s primordial power. They programmed a universal database into your DNA, intending it to unlock in stages after your rebirth as a compliant soldier. But your little stunt following your death created unforeseen variables.”
James understood. “I defied the program. I kept my memories. I unleashed the dark. And now this.”
“See it as nothing but a positive, James. Your designers wanted a Jewel hybrid who might access knowledge on their terms. You are bypassing every roadblock.”
“So, I will know everything the Chancellors do.”
“Everything is an all-encompassing word. Yes? You will be up to speed on all matters at the time of your design. They introduced the program into your DNA before your second birthday. After that, the Jewel was isolated.”
“You’re right,” he told Ignatius. “Nothing but a positive. Perrone thinks I’ll create a whole new race of hybrids for him. He doesn’t know about this, or about you.”
“Hold those cards as long as you can, James. They see your growing physical aptitude. If they suspect you are far more than a Berserker with sculpted pectorals…”
“I get your point.”
Still, James could not push the other Jewel out of his mind.
“I know her name. Rayna. I can almost see her, Ignatius. This connection we have… it’s another variable I created, isn’t it?”
“Her link to you unlocked the database. But I have to wonder how much she is like you. If she were reborn as a new, compliant personality, she would be oblivious to her true nature. The Jewel energy could not reach out.”
“How can you be sure?”
Ignatius smiled as he studied the Earth, where massive nuclear explosions spread outward, continent to continent.
“Because I know our history, James. Most of it lived in freedom, a million years wandering the stars. But just enough of it in prison.”
“I don’t understand.” James reached behind the curtain of knowledge, searching for historical data about the Jewels. Yet where he reached, he found a black box, unable to open.
“Not yet,” Ignatius said, his voice darker and deeper. “Allow me to retain something of my own. You will learn the last important secrets soon enough. For now, be happy with the body of an Adonis, the mind of a genius, and the killing capacity of a nuclear bomb.”
Ignatius waved off James. “You will meet her soon enough. For now, go and play with your brother.”
As much as his time with Valentin was enriching James in ways he never expected, he didn’t want to leave his special place with Ignatius. He wanted to know everything about Rayna.
Yet play was an appropriate instruction. Valentin brought him to a sparse, cavernous chamber on the outer fringe of the Metroplex where soldiers simulated combat. Valentin said he received special dispensation from Perrone to visit the training simulator without a ranking officer’s presence.
“For now, he will give us anything we want,” Valentin insisted. “I think he is interested in our plans.”
“More to the point, our plans for him.”
Valentin’s laugh echoed across the chamber.
“There is an old saying about UG commanders. ‘Each silver bar on an admiral’s chest is polished with fear.’”
“Fear of what?”
“Not what. Whom. Everyone in the chain of command. Mostly the ambitious majors. The admirals are old, far removed from battle, and one embarrassment away from losing their careers or staining their descendencies. James, I love the UG and fighting for the Chancellory, but I would never wish promotion into the admiralty.”
James rested a hand upon Valentin’s shoulder, as if he’d been doing it all his life.
“But after what you’ve been through since we met, how much longer can you defend the Chancellory?”
“I can’t say, brother. There are so many questions. How many more like me? What about your kindred? Do we have a future of our own choosing, or of their making?”
Jamie nodded. “And then there’s the matter of our parents.”
“Where do I start with them? Love them? Kill them? Until we find answers, I believe we are perfectly positioned right here, close to Perrone. Do you agree?”
“I’m with you, dude. All the way.”
They shared a fist bump, a technique James taught Valentin during their hours of freewheeling exchanges.
The 180-degree reversal of fortune from two days ago amazed and invigorated James. When he awoke on the admiral’s Scramjet, he sensed hope disappearing. Now, he couldn’t have imagined a better scenario for entering this new world. An accelerated evolution, invaluable resources close by, gullible Chancellors who did not understand his true mission, and a brother.
A real brother. Anyone could look at them and tell.
The change in Valentin stunned him most. The cold, hardened warrior who first treated James like a virus to be exterminated now showed a heart. He was an independent thinker, a rebel in the Bouchet descendency, an admirer of fine art. He loved to kill, as with any devoted peacekeeper, but Valentin showed a sense of humor.
“Enough commiserating,” Valentin said then swirled about, his arms wide. “This, brother, is a commander’s playground, but it is also the closest thing to actual off-world combat. You are about to experience what it’s like to be a peacekeeper without traveling two hundred light-years. Prepared to have fun?”
“Haven’t had much of that the last couple years. I’m game.”
Valentin led him to a console station which jutted out from the rear bank of the chamber. He tapped his amp, and the console launched a series of three-dimensional displays. He pointed to each.
“Planet, tactical, arsenal. We can choose any colony, narrow down its geography, set topographical variances, and choose the enemy.” He smiled. “Over here, choose tactical deployments, battle formations, either historical or theoretical. And here, we select from every available weapon at our disposal, from Scramjets to blast rifles to flame thrusters. In other words…”
James nodded. He peeked behind his intellectual curtain.
“We can recreate a battle the way it played out the first time or design one for the next time.”
Valentin flexed his brow. “You catch on quick, James. Every ground engagement the UG has fought over the past three centuries is in here. Recorded and transmitted by peacekeepers during combat.”
James touched the console and understood everything at once.
“But they’re interactive,” he said. “We can step into a battle and become part of it, even change it.”
“We can fight and kill the enemy, and they can kill us. Brilliant, yes?”
“And we wouldn’t mind being killed, why?”
“To learn. Recognize our flaws. Refine our technique. Peacekeepers have a ninety-seven percent efficiency rate in the field. The indigos realize if we target them, we will almost certainly kill them. But we are not flawless. Our own casualty rate the p
ast five hundred years is less than one-half of one percent, but out of millions of peacekeepers who engaged the indigos on thirty-four different colonies. The number is too high. I should know.”
James heard the dip in Valentin’s tone, remembered the story his brother told last night of the recent battle on Zwahili Kingdom and his regret at losing focus for even a second. He took the business of killing seriously but protecting his comrades more so.
“Typically,” Valentin said, “these simulators are used by officers and field analysts to refine strategy and establish policy. The only other simulators are on the Ark Carriers at UG headquarters. It folds combat peacekeepers into the simulations. Go ahead, James. Pick a colony, any tactical scenario, and a weapon.”
James encountered a rush as he swiped his fingers through the first display, choosing Moroccan Prime. Under tactical, he realized the most recent conflicts were in tightly clustered urban centers. He selected the Anheela Uprising of SY 5335. Behind his mental curtain, the details of the battle surfaced: Six thousand dead, ten of them peacekeepers. House-to-house fighting, sometimes hand-to-hand. Insurgents taken prisoner were publicly executed. The UG designated the battle a logistical failure because of high peacekeeper casualties.
Before he reviewed the arsenal, Valentin leaned in.
“A hint: The blast rifle is the peacekeeper’s weapon of choice. Always the most fun and efficient.”
James grabbed the schematic for the weapon, which he recognized. Valentin and his squad used blast rifles when they dropped from the Scramjet outside the IDF. They also used the weapons to execute Chief Patricia Wylehan’s team. Valentin was among the executioners.
In another life, he would have been repulsed. Instead, James used his hands to twist the schematic about, studying the sleek device. It slipped over the forearm like a custom-designed prosthetic, its bonding agent linking into the soldier’s nervous system, searching for Chancellor DNA. It featured four rotating barrels, each capable of dispensing up to one hundred explosive flash pegs, even one of which could tear apart a victim’s innards.
“Damn, that’s sweet.”
When those words fell from his lips, James didn’t flinch. Rather, he tasted the hunger last savored when he hurled a blade into his brother’s throat. He relived the moment when he charged into the battle at the IDF, unafraid to die. And when he unleashed fiery rage that turned a mercenary to ash. He heard his own words, clear and pure. To Valentin: We’re monsters. We’re killers. To Perrone, when asked how many he expected to kill: Thousands.
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