by David Ryker
“You’re right,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry.”
He heaved a sigh. “It’s okay. I just—”
“Let me finish.” She squeezed his hand in a crushing grip. “I’m sorry that a punk-ass bitch like you was ever allowed to wear a Marines uniform. It’s an insult to everyone else who’s ever served, and it’s a fart in the face of your fellow Jarheads. Now deal with it, princess, and tell Quinn what he needs to know so we can get started on this!”
Schuster blinked at her stupidly, his red eyes itchy. Now that he’d said what he was feeling out loud, and heard her response, rough as it was, he realized she was right. He’d been scared plenty of times in the war, and in prison. Sometimes it had turned out that he had a reason to be afraid, but in every case, he’d survived, often with the help of his fellow Jarheads.
She was right. He had to do it, which meant he had to talk to Quinn and the others.
“You get off on being right, don’t you?” he sighed.
Gloom grinned. “Obviously not, or I’d be in a constant state of sexual gratification. So you’re ready?”
“In the morning.” He stretched and let out a yawn that he’d been holding in for three days, the kind that made you light-headed and invited the sandman to come and pull you down into the depths of sleep.
She rose and bent at the waist to kiss his forehead. It was almost enough to pull him out of his spiral toward sleep, but not quite.
“Thank you, Dev,” she whispered. “Seriously. I know this isn’t easy for you. History will remember your courage.”
With that, he laid down on his side on the sofa and was instantly asleep. He dreamed of a monster creature with a head that was half Butch Kergan and half Dr. Toomey.
11
SAN FRANCISCO – ONE WEEK LATER
Quinn fought back a wave of unreality as he stepped out of the airship and onto the tarmac of the hangar in what used to be Dr. Toomey’s private lab in the middle of the bay. It seemed like a lifetime ago that they’d last been here, exhausted and nauseated by Toomey’s infrasonic weapon, watching helplessly as he got away in FUBAR and Drake’s soldiers came to collect them.
“S’like déjà vu all over again,” Ulysses said from beside him. “I get the creeps jest bein’ here.”
“Imagine what it’s like for Dev,” said Quinn.
Ulysses nodded. “That bubba’s tough as nails. He’s an honorary Southern Saint, far as I’m concerned.”
He and Quinn had taken a break from their seemingly endless meetings with the military officials Drake had assigned to work with them, so that they could come to the island and be there for Schuster’s first day with his new team of engineers. Drake had handed Toomey’s lab over as a starting point for the technological brainstorming that needed to be done to prepare for the assault on Oberon One.
Only Quinn and Gloom knew just how much of a challenge it was for Schuster to be here. He’d taken Quinn aside the morning after they got to New Richmond and told him about a series of dreams he’d been having—dreams in which Sloane was trying to tell him something, and Kergan was watching him from afar. Just listening to his account had given Quinn a case of the creeping willies, which made him even prouder that his former sergeant was still willing to do what he had to do.
Not that there was really any other choice, other than to head out in conventional ships with conventional weapons and hope that they made it to Oberon before Kergan and Toomey could put their plans in place.
Without going into details with Drake, Quinn had insisted that Schuster be put in charge of the effort to build the new tech for the assault, just as he’d insisted that he himself lead the mission. The other Jarheads had, of course, volunteered, as had Ulysses. Amazingly, Drake hadn’t balked at any of it.
Now, Quinn and Ulysses were met by a pair of men in black fatigues and berets who scanned them with handheld devices as they reached the door into the rest of the facility. The device turned green and the men in black saluted as the doors slid open.
“Cain’t git used to that, man,” Ulysses said once they were down the corridor and out of earshot.
“What?” Quinn asked. “Saluting?”
“All of this military stuff.”
“Oh, come on. I bet you would have made a good Marine.”
Ulysses grinned. He’d let his hair and eyebrows fill in over the past month, and he was already starting to look younger and less menacing because of it. The natural blond hue of his new hair was a bit of a contrast against his copper-colored skin.
“I was almost too cocky for the Saints,” he said. “Wouldn’ta lasted two minutes in the Marines. I ain’t built fer takin’ orders, in case y’never noticed.”
Quinn feigned shock. “You don’t say.”
The corridor they were in led to the lab area that Schuster had commandeered as the base for himself and his team. The door slid open as Quinn and Ulysses approached, and with it came the sounds of a heated argument. Quinn could see two men and two women, all wearing suits and lab coats, gesturing at Schuster in outrage, and his command instinct kicked in.
“Stow it!” he barked “Report!”
The team of four all flinched and looked in his direction, apparently just now realizing that they had company. All of them looked like they appreciated being given orders about as much as Ulysses did, but Quinn didn’t care.
“Who the hell are you?” yelled the man closest to Schuster, a middle-aged fellow with a bad haircut. “This is none of your business.”
“I’m the guy who’s leading the mission you’ve been recruited to work on, and I’m not going to stand by and watch anyone go after the man who’s in charge of the tech details. Is that clear?”
Ulysses gave them all a menacing look. “Y’all deaf? Man asked yuh a question.”
One of the women, a tall brunette who looked to be in her twenties, propped her hands on her hips. “Your man has no credentials to speak of,” she said. “You expect us to answer to some soldier who never crossed the threshold of a college in his life?”
The others murmured their agreement. Before Quinn could react, Ulysses was crossing the space between them and the white coats, cracking his knuckles.
“I ain’t in the habit of repeatin’ m’self,” he said in a low growl. “My friend over yonder asked y’all if it was clear who was in charge here.”
Their eyes went wide, but all of them quickly nodded agreement. Ulysses turned to face Quinn, dropping a wink that almost made him laugh in spite of himself.
“All yours, hoss,” he said as he ambled over to where Schuster was standing.
Quinn joined them, ignoring the others for the moment.
“Report,” he said again.
Schuster shot a glance at his new team before turning back to Quinn. “Looks like we’ve got everything we need here to do what Sloane did on Oberon. We can’t really do any more than that without the element, but it should be enough to get us there and put up a hell of a fight.”
“You there!” called the guy with the bad haircut. “What is this all about, anyway? The Defense Ministry contacted us individually and ordered us to show up at these coordinates and keep our mouths shut, under penalty of incarceration.”
“That’s classified,” said Quinn. He jerked a thumb at Schuster. “All you need to know is what this guy right here tells you.”
Meanwhile, the second of the men, a short, bald fellow, had wandered over to a nearby alcove off the main lab area, apparently oblivious to what was going on around them. Quinn sighed. It was like dealing with raw recruits.
“You’re not getting paid to snoop around!” he called. “Keep your hands to yourself!”
“This looks like Prometheus tech,” the guy said as he ran his hand over a panel on the wall. Then he snapped his fingers and looked directly at Quinn. “This is the place from that video! I knew I recognized you!”
“The man said—”
Before Ulysses could finish his threat, Quinn dropped a hand on his shoulder
to rein him in.
“The military approach isn’t working,” he said quietly. “Let’s try diplomacy, see how that goes.”
Ulysses shrugged. “Your call.”
Quinn turned back to the others. “The Tribunal asked you here because we have a top secret assignment that needs the best engineering minds the world has to offer, and you’re it.”
“We know,” the brunette woman said impatiently. She pointed to the woman next to her, who looked to be in her seventies and was wearing a light exoskeleton on her legs. “Dr. Ladouceur here is from the Sorbonne Tower in Paris. Dr. Jackson’s company owns dozens of weapon patents, and Dr. Lakshmi—” (the bald man waved at the mention of his name, but continued poking around the panel) “—is the world’s leading nanotechnology engineer.”
Dr. Toomey might argue with you on that one, Quinn thought but kept to himself. “And who are you?” he asked.
“Dr. Goodman. I work for the Trilateral Restoration Agency. We use cutting edge technology to extend the kind of transformation that’s taken place here in San Francisco to other cities in the world.”
“All right, then, Dr. Goodman. You know the guy from the video? The old dude who did all the talking?”
“Yes.”
“His name is Toomey, and he’s the guy who single-handedly developed the technology that you’re using to transform the world. This was his place.”
Her jaw dropped a couple of inches, which Quinn took as a good sign. Ladouceur and Jackson exchanged a glance, while Lakshmi kept farting around with the panel.
“He did a lot more than that, too,” said Quinn. “He was behind the Prometheus site in Antarctica before it was shut down, which is why he moved here. And he’s out in space right now, plotting an attack against the entire planet with advanced technology. It’s up to us to stop him.”
“What about the aliens?” asked Dr. Ladouceur. Her exoskeleton moved her legs forward so that she was standing directly beside Dr. Goodman. “There have been rumors ever since that video with you and Toomey was released. Is it true, and if so, is he working with those aliens?”
“I’m sorry,” said Quinn. “That’s classified.”
“But—”
“Ask again n’git locked up,” Ulysses warned.
“That’s as close to a confirmation as I need,” said Lakshmi, his eyes and fingers still on the panel that had taken up so much of his attention.
Goodman pointed at Schuster. “That doesn’t explain him,” she said. “Why are we answering to someone with no qualifications?”
“Because I’m the guy the government told you was in charge,” said Schuster. “As my colleague pointed out, you’re more than welcome to get locked up instead of work with me. I’d just ask that you make that decision right now, because, as the old proverb goes, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is right now.”
Quinn nodded at his friend, impressed. He’d never heard such a tone of authority from Schuster before. It suited him.
“There it is!”
They all turned to Lakshmi, who was grinning now.
“Finally found the power activator,” he said absently. “Now let’s see what this does.”
“You probably shouldn’t—”
Schuster was cut off by a shooshing sound as two doors that had previously been hidden in the walls suddenly opened, in what seemed to Quinn like the blink of an eye. The first thought that entered his head was that he’d never seen a door open so quickly in his life.
The second thought that entered his head was that there were now two hulking, roughly humanoid automatons lurching their way through those doors.
The third thought was that each of the droids was aiming a pair of plasma cannons in the general direction of the scientists, and that they were almost certainly programmed to injure or kill anyone who was in Toomey’s lab without authorization.
The fourth thought that entered his head was Here we go again.
12
Ulysses saw it too, which saved Quinn precious seconds explaining the situation. Both men moved as one, rushing toward the white coats who were now staring, fascinated, at the robots that were about to kill them.
“Get down!” Quinn bellowed, an order they promptly ignored.
“They’re gonna fire!” Ulysses warned as the whine of a charging plasma cannon echoed through the room.
Both men dive-rolled to the floor as they reached the scientists. Ulysses took the left, tackling Goodman and Ladouceur and taking them down with them just as the crackling blast of super-heated matter filled the space where their white coats had been an instant earlier. Quinn dropped Jackson in the same manner, with the same results. Through sheer dumb luck, they had been standing behind a wide steel floor cabinet, which gave them at least the appearance of some cover.
Once they were down, Quinn rolled back up into a single-knee crouch, with Ulysses close behind him. Meanwhile, Schuster was sprinting between the two droids toward the goggling Lakshmi, who was frozen in place. Two seconds later, the pudgy scientist was on the floor and out of the direct line of fire—for now.
“Shut them off!” Jackson shrieked from the floor.
Ulysses glared down at the man. “Well, ain’t we lucky to have geniuses like you ‘round?”
“Stay down and shut up!” Quinn barked. “How do we stop them, Dev?”
“Don’t ask me!” cried Schuster. “This clown’s the one who fired them up!”
Things were going south quick. Quinn knew that not only were their lives on the line, but if they couldn’t stop these things, the whole mission would be over before it even began. Think! Toomey probably had the droids’ controls programmed into his personal wrist device, which meant it was likely impossible to shut them down from inside the lab.
Another blast from the droid on the right sent Quinn and Ulysses back down on their bellies. Then there was a third blast, only this wasn’t plasma, it was bullets, and they were coming from the doorway. Quinn turned his head to see a pair of the black uniforms down in a shooter’s crouch, firing MAG-16 light rotary cannons from mounts on the floor. The air buzzed with the sound of passing armor-piercing rounds as they cascaded into the droids on the other side of the room.
“It’s th’ cavalry!” Ulysses crowed.
Except the shells weren’t slowing the droids; in fact, they barely even staggered under the barrage, turning in the direction of the two shooters and aiming their own weapons again. The charging whine filled the air once more.
“Retreat!” Quinn yelled, but it was too late. The blasts were on their way. They struck home, hitting both of the shooters square in the head and blowing off large chunks of the door frame around them.
Quinn’s heart raced. We’re in real trouble here, he thought. Beside him, Ulysses was frantically scanning the room, but no options seemed to be presenting themselves.
“Any ideas would be great right about now, Dev!”
Quinn waited a beat for an answer and got none. He risked poking his head above the counter for a peek. What he saw was the last thing he expected.
Dev Schuster was sitting on the floor in a lotus position, his hands palms-up on his knees with the middle fingers touching the thumbs, his eyes closed.
13
This time the white light was more familiar and easier to navigate, though no less beautiful than the last time he’d been to the astral plane. The peace of this reality was blissful, like floating in a warm bath that you could still breathe in.
“Finally,” said a familiar voice.
A ball of light formed in front of Schuster, still oddly warm, only now it was more humanoid than egglike, the way it had been the last time he was here. He assumed that meant he was able to understand this place just a little better this time.
“Sloane, I need your help.”
“No kidding,” the Sloane entity replied. “Once again, I’ve been attempting to contact you, but you’ve resisted so strongly that I’d almost given up.”
> “Yeah, well, your attempts at contact have translated into nightmares on my end,” said Schuster. “So excuse me for screening my calls. But I’ve got a situation right now that I need to deal with.”
“Indeed you do. The one known as Toomey is close to Oberon.”
Schuster wanted to roll his eyes, but he realized that in this place, he didn’t have physical eyes, per se.
“I know that,” he stressed in their odd thoughtspeak. “But—”
“Then why have you waited so long to contact me? You have to stop Toomey and Kergan from completing that Span receiver and bringing the Gestalt here from their position near Alpha Piscis Austrini, also known as Fomalhaut.”
Gestalt, Schuster thought. An appropriate term, even if it wasn’t actually in English but the non-language of thought. At least he’d be able to translate it when he got back (assuming he hadn’t already been blasted by a security droid, of course). Their enemy finally had a name.
The image of a glowing blue star appeared in front of him as the words Alpha Piscic Austrini appeared in his mind. It was beautiful, the cool color of twilight on snow. Schuster felt almost hypnotized by it, until it was abruptly replaced by an image of the ugliest, most ferocious-looking ship he’d ever seen.
“Even now, they wait,” said Sloane. “Once the wormhole opens, this ship will come through and attack. It will destroy your resistance, then it will head for Earth as the rest of the fleet assembles on the other side.”
The ugliness of the ship, and the situation, sunk deep into Schuster’s mind, and suddenly there were other images on front of him: the Jarheads, whom he considered his only family. And Gloom, standing in her signature cocky pose, hands on hips, a cynical half-smile on her perfect lips. He realized he had projected them himself.
“They are your world,” said Sloane. “But the rest of the world is someone else’s world also.”
The image morphed into the Earth as seen from space, except he could somehow see all the people on the surface, and in orbit. Each and every one of the twenty billion humans who shared the planet, every hair on their head, every pore in their skin.