Aurora Renegades

by G. S. Jennsen

  Stanley, you still there?

  I am. This is a most interesting experience.

  My brain is an interesting experience? Well, yes, I could see how it might be.

  I will not disagree. However, what I meant is being in your brain is more different from being connected to your brain than I expected.

  She idly observed the increasing number of well-dressed businesspeople who passed her on the sidewalk on the way to their daily duties. I don’t really have a response to that.

  It’s fine. I will be exploring for a while, I think.

  Hey, just because I agreed to let you hitch a ride, it doesn’t mean we no longer have boundaries.

  You keep telling yourself that, Morgan.

  Oh no, her brand of humor had finally worn off on him. This was going to be a nightmare.

  Annie had shared her ideas on how to transfer an Artificial’s consciousness into the neural structure of a Prevo with Stanley. Since the Devon/Annie connection had been severed and firewalled, they required Abigail’s assistance in order to effect the transfer. But Morgan’s connection to Stanley, at the time, remained intact. It had been…not a simple matter, but doable without additional equipment in any event.

  The military was never going to let her fly again, Prevo or no. So she’d burned out the ware—but not until Stanley successfully transferred his higher consciousness into the cells of her cerebral cortex.

  She’d left Gianno a note explaining she’d severed the connection, promising not to disclose all the Noetica secrets she knew, sharing a few secrets of her own as a goodwill gesture and threatening to share a few more with the world as a warning. Then she’d resigned her commission and high-tailed it off Seneca before anyone was able to tell her she couldn’t actually do any of those things.

  They might come looking for her, of course. But she was playing a bet.

  After the Marshal mentioned knowing Morgan’s mother, she’d had Stanley do a little research; what he’d found had been most enlightening. Now, she was operating under the theory that deep down, Gianno still retained some aspect of the philosophy she’d clearly once espoused—that she still respected the notion of taking control of one’s own destiny. Of freedom.

  And freedom was what Morgan now had. Trapped in her head, Stanley had a measure less of it—but she also believed he’d come with her in part for the promise of it.

  Morgan, you devious, crafty woman.

  She chuckled quietly and turned left at the next intersection. Damn, Devon, what took you so long? I thought you were never going to show up. I was getting lonely.

  You? I doubt it. But none of us are going to be lonely for long.

  What did you do?

  Besides upload the consciousness of an Artificial into my brain cells? Gave a copy of the files on Noetica and the technology underlying the Prevo connection to a friend of mine on Earth.

  She paused on the sidewalk, recalling her conflicted feelings about Fedor glimpsing even a portion of the Prevo technology. Why?

  Because our best protection is knowledge. Information is supposed to be free. We’re not meant to be a state secret, Morgan—we’re meant to be the next evolution of the human species.

  It’s time that evolution began.

  Apogee

  An Aurora Rhapsody Short Story

  * * *

  BACK COVER BLURB

  “Its leaders believe the Alliance is powerful enough to be both—a democracy on election days and a dictatorship on every other day—but they’re wrong. No government should be so powerful.

  It’s time someone demonstrates the error in their thinking.”

  The Earth Alliance rules 82 worlds, controlling an empire that spans a third of the Milky Way. But when its leaders stray too far from the democratic principles on which it was founded, one colony—one group of daring rebels—will risk everything in order to reclaim their freedom.

  Set a quarter century before STARSHINE: Aurora Rising Book One (Aurora Rhapsody #1), APOGEE tells the story of the fateful decisions and critical opening moves of the First Crux War between the Earth Alliance and the Senecan Federation, the repercussions of which will ripple forward across decades and shape the world of Aurora Rhapsody forever.

  “The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.”

  — Ralph Ellison

  SENECA

  Earth Alliance Colony

  Cavare, Capital City

  October 2297

  Moonlight cast the man’s wife’s skin in ghostly silver as he placed a soft kiss on her forehead. He hadn’t meant to wake her, but she stirred before he could slip away, blinking to reveal bleary, unfocused irises.

  “It’s okay, Frannie, don’t get up. I’ll be home in a few days.”

  She nodded sleepily, mumbled, “Love you…good luck at the symposium,” and rolled over. When her breathing evened out in slumber once more, he tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the hall to crack the door to his daughter’s room. A mess of curls poked out of the bedcovers to fan out on the pillow. He smiled to himself and eased the door shut.

  He didn’t attempt to sneak a peek into his son’s room. The boy had developed preternatural senses and would be wide awake in an instant. In truth he’d probably awoken the instant there was a sound in the hallway…but if so, he didn’t emerge to inquire as to the reason for his father’s early departure.

  It was for the best. At fourteen, his son was not only no longer a child but also disconcertingly clever, and he would likely pose too-astute questions the man didn’t dare answer.

  Once outside he tossed his bag onto the passenger seat of his skycar. The first steel-hued rays of dawn breached the mountains in the distance as he lifted off.

  Twenty minutes later he stepped up to the security checkpoint entry for the Alliance outpost military base on the periphery of Cavare and waved his palm at the identity check. The officer on duty examined the readout briefly. “You’re cleared for entry, sir, but may I ask what your purpose here is today?”

  He canted his head at the young man. “Check your screen again, Lieutenant.”

  The lieutenant’s brow furrowed, but he instinctively obeyed the implied order. “Uh, right. Sir. You’re cleared for…whatever your reason is for being here.” Squared shoulders preceded a crisp forward hand motion.

  It wasn’t unusual behavior for the man, as an Intelligence agent, to visit the Earth Alliance’s largest military base on Seneca, and he’d done so multiple times for legitimate reasons. And as an Intelligence agent he wasn’t required to disclose the purpose of his visit to anyone who challenged him.

  He gestured a thanks and walked through the checkpoint, a wry smirk hovering on his lips.

  My purpose is to start a war. Have a nice day.

  LUNAR SSR CENTER

  Seneca Stellar System

  He didn’t gape at any of the other passengers on the military shuttle. Tension radiated off the soldiers to vibrate in the air so thickly he now inhaled it with every breath; he didn’t have to inspect them to realize they were on edge and prepping for a fight.

  Personally, he hoped the fight wouldn’t commence until he was airborne again. He wasn’t a soldier—though he could impersonate one if need be—and this day was going to be difficult enough without wading through close-quarters combat.

  His visit to the military base had been a brief one. On his arrival he was quickly directed through several dark service hallways to a small landing pad and ushered onto the shuttle. He assumed this meant his traveling companions were also members of the resistance, but no one had so much as spoken a greeting during the forty-minute trip.

  The Lunar Special Support and Research Center sprawled across a region of the moon that had been largely spared the brutality of relentless asteroid bombardment over the millennia, at least compared to the rest of the satellite. The test fields of the research facility stretched for hundreds of kilometers beyond the Center itself, and the crimson beacons denoting their various boundaries flickered against th
e otherwise ashen surface.

  The shuttle dropped through the first of multiple force fields. The outer barrier protected the Center from meteoroids and other minor space objects that would burn up harmlessly if the moon had a natural atmosphere. Next came the triple-layer fields keeping the artificially generated atmosphere inside. The layers were a redundant safety measure, as a failure of the system would be catastrophic to the facility’s equipment but more so to the people working there.

  Even the multiple redundancies did little to assuage his disquiet, and he allowed the soldiers to disembark before exiting the shuttle. If it weren’t for the paved surface beneath his feet and the structures visible at the opposite end of the platform, he would have sworn he was treading into open space and without so much as an environment suit to protect him. From here the discreet shimmer of the force fields provided only the slightest blur to the blackness of space and its expanse of stars.

  He liked to believe he could handle virtually any situation he encountered, no matter how dire. But everyone had a weakness, and he’d never managed to get comfortable with open space…maybe because he couldn’t control it.

  On taking a step away from the shuttle, he was promptly overwhelmed by the expected but still unpleasant sense he was about to float off into the void. A wave of dizziness threatened to take hold, and he searched around for a signpost, anxious to get inside something, anything.

  He grabbed a passing officer by the arm. The man jerked away and leveled an intimidating glower at him.

  “Excuse me, I’m sorry. I need directions to Lab EE12c.”

  The officer scowled at him for a beat then jerked his head. “See the last building on the left? The building behind it.”

  “Thank you.” He hurried off in the direction indicated, toward the illusory but nevertheless seductive shelter.

  The notion that one of its colonies would go to war with the mighty Earth Alliance, eighty-two worlds and fourteen billion people strong, was as ludicrous as the proposition that man would discover a means to circumvent special relativity and develop starship drives capable of velocities far exceeding the speed of light.

  No one had believed the latter possible until it was achieved. So, too, would it be with the former.

  “This is what we’re counting on. The Alliance hasn’t faced a successful colonial rebellion in a hundred fifty years of extra-solar expansion. It no longer believes such a thing can be accomplished, but we’ll turn the Alliance’s hubris against it. The slow response of its goliath bureaucratic machinery will give us time—time to get more ships out of production and into space as well as time to subdue any lingering resistance and gain full control of the government and military on Seneca.”

  Darien Terzi sounded as if he were trying to convince himself of the validity of the plan more than those present, Brigadier Eleni Gianno mused. She hoped the strength of his conviction did not fail him when the blood started flowing.

  She clasped her hands at the small of her back, adopting a comfortable yet formal posture. “The military will not be as difficult to secure as one would expect. Eighty-three percent of the enlisted and seventy-one percent of the officers Commodore rank and below are Senecan-born. If presented with a persuasive argument for independence and an assertive demonstration of leadership, they will fall in line.”

  Terzi nodded in acceptance. “And the higher ranking officers? The ones rotating through on a tour of duty?”

  “They will not be so amenable. But we know who they are. Given the recent unrest, there’s never been a wider rift between our people and theirs. When we make our move, they will be detained and held in a secure location until we can put them on an Earth-bound vessel and send them on their way.”

  A laugh bubbled up from somewhere behind her left shoulder. “Your plan may work for most of the officers, assuming you’ve got enough muscle on your side, but General Castillo is a first-class prick brandishing an ego far larger than the impressively sized gun he carries. I doubt he will agree to go quietly.”

  She regarded the source of the comment with mild curiosity. Aristide Vranas was the ex-Mayor of Seneca’s capital city, Cavare. He had been deposed when the Alliance sent in its lackeys to take over key government postings three months ago in the aftermath of the worker riots. If asked to consider the question, she would conclude she liked the man. He possessed an unpretentious, easy charisma and a dry sense of humor that never got in the way of a fundamentally earnest nature.

  “I doubt he will agree to go at all, which is why I will be forced to disable him and may be forced to kill him. But either way, that’s on me.”

  He gave her a small smile in lieu of a reply before returning his gaze to the window.

  They were gathered in a small conference room in a remote corner of the Lunar SSR Center. This close to the precipice, meeting groundside held too many risks—too many Alliance loyalists skulking the halls of power.

  Terzi had taken up pacing the length of the room. As the director of the Senecan field office of the Earth Alliance Ministry of Intelligence, he had as much to lose as she did. The sole difference between her fate and his if this venture failed would be the locations of their confinement until their executions.

  On his next pivot he directed his attention to Vranas. “Aristide, when we’re done here I want you to get back to Cavare then stay out of sight until it’s time to go public. Local Alliance officials will suspect your involvement, and we can’t risk them grabbing you. I assume the speech is ready?”

  “The speech has been ready for years, waiting on the proper moment for its delivery to arrive. Let me worry about the public. You worry about the logistics.”

  If Terzi took offense at the barb, he didn’t show it. “I have agents tailing the provisional mayor and governor. When I give the word, both will be taken into custody. We’ll keep them isolated until I can get them on Gianno’s ship to Earth. Fucking interlopers.”

  He dragged a hand down his face. “Once we declare we are cutting ties with the Earth Alliance, coordination and proper timing are crucial. A number of things must happen in the first hour or we will lose control of the situation. But the pieces are in place, and we’re as ready as we’re going to be.” He looked to them for confirmation and received it.

  Vranas asked the most obvious and consequential question. “When?”

  Gianno responded. “The Alliance First Brigade from Arcadia will reach its closest point to Seneca in three hours. We want it to be close—that timing you mentioned. If we miss this window, we won’t see a better one for six weeks so….” She lifted her chin. “I advise we go now.”

  “Agreed. Give me a minute to arrange a few matters.”

  Eleni moved to the window beside Vranas. A sea of stars gave way to Seneca’s familiar profile as the moon continued onward in its perpetual rotation.

  “Have you ever been to Earth, Brigadier?”

  “No, I haven’t. I did my off-world training on Arcadia and Messium.”

  “I attended a convention there four years ago. Lovely place. Enormous sapphire-blue oceans everywhere you look.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, as I suspect the only way I’ll ever step foot on Earth at this point is for a military tribunal, and I don’t intend to allow that to happen.”

  Terzi reappeared next to her, and she abandoned the view to focus on him. The hour was late, and the time for talk to give way to action was upon them. “Has your agent arrived? I need to brief him and go over the ship’s capabilities, but we’re now on an exceptionally tight schedule.”

  “He’s waiting outside. I’ll ask him to come in.”

  The man who walked in bore a closer resemblance to a banker or a corporate executive than an Intelligence agent. Neatly styled, wavy black hair complemented a distinguished jawline and iced-cobalt irises. He carried himself with quiet, resolute confidence as he approached her and extended a hand. “Ma’am.”

  They continued sizing one another up with practiced eyes as they
shook hands. “A pleasure to meet you, Agent…?”

  “Marano. Stefan Marano.”

  Director Terzi and Brigadier Gianno departed after showing Stefan to the hangar bay, and he took the opportunity of a few minutes alone to study the reconnaissance craft. The muted bronze hull appeared to draw in the light surrounding it, giving it a faint lustrous sheen. Sleekly aerodynamic, the frame’s edges cut sharply enough he made a note to give them a wide berth.

  He did reach out to run his fingertips along the body, however, enjoying the smooth coolness of the material. Senecan designed and constructed, it was not merely more elegant than anything the Alliance produced, it was better than anything the Alliance produced. Faster. Stealthier—

  The air shifted around him, heralding a new guest. A woman joined him beside the ship; he continued his inspection of the hull while inspecting her in his peripheral vision. Dressed in standard-issue Earth Alliance BDUs, she was nearly as tall as him and muscular in the way most young military officers were, with shoulder-length dark hair bound back in a tight tail.

  He acknowledged her with a casual nod. “I admittedly don’t know ships, but this is a hell of a good-looking one.”

  “First of her kind, and I get to fly her.” She stuck out a hand. “Commander Helena Lekkas. I’ll be your pilot for the operation. Also the weapons officer, navigator and mechanic. You know, now that I think about it, why is it you’re coming along?”

  Ah, so she was a smartass. It seemed to be a hazard of the piloting profession. He was fine with banter, but not until he controlled the relationship dynamic.

  “Because this is a top-secret Intelligence black operation outside the purview of the military. And you’re not the weapons officer—I am. Any more answers will have to wait until we’ve departed.”