Aurora Renegades

by G. S. Jennsen

  Quick as lightning, Morgan had shoved her fully onto her back and hovered above her, hands splayed on either side of her shoulders. “Are you saying I wasn’t enough to satisfy you? Because if you are, I might take it personally.”

  “I’d say the jury’s still out.” Such a lie, and she suspected Morgan knew it. “You should try again, and we’ll see how I feel about it after.”

  Morgan lowered herself down until the length of their bodies touched. She placed a gentle yet insistent kiss on Brooklyn’s lips. “Be careful what you wish for, Marine.”

  34

  SENECA

  Cavare

  Division Headquarters

  * * *

  Graham’s door was open, but he stood behind his desk, facing the window and studying a screen. Richard hesitated before rapping his knuckles on the frame to announce his presence.

  Graham turned around and waved him in. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Oh?” Richard asked as he sat down. They’d continued on with a veneer of business as usual in the days since Graham had divulged the details of Operation Colpetto, but an air of tension had developed between them nonetheless.

  “Laure Ferre was murdered, along with all the people in his office. I guess Montegreu finally decided she wanted him dead. As to why everyone else present was also killed? I suppose it makes it easier for her to do whatever she wants with the remains of his organization but…hell, she is one psychotic woman.”

  “And now you figure you have a burgeoning Zelones problem on Krysk.”

  “I can only hope it’s burgeoning. More likely it’s already full grown. I thought you might want to take a trip and see what you can learn on the ground there.”

  Richard grimaced. He did view Montegreu as his responsibility, and the news of her murdering a bunch of people stirred up plenty of outrage. But some things were more important, with a great deal more lives—legitimately innocent lives—at stake.

  “I can’t. That’s why I’m here. I need to take a leave of absence for a couple of weeks. Possibly longer.”

  Graham nodded solicitously. “Because of Colpetto?”

  “No. I mean, I won’t deny it would be a good idea for me to take a step back and give myself time to…make peace with everything. But no, it’s not why. I need to do something for Miriam—help her on a project. I know, conflict of interest. Again. But it’s not for the Alliance, or at least not the new Alliance government and…it’s not contrary to Seneca’s interests….”

  He gave Graham a rueful expression. He wanted to fill his friend in and believed Graham would keep the information confidential, but he was sworn to absolute secrecy. “I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything further. I wish I could.”

  “No problem. This arrangement has always been dependent on your personal interest in continuing it. What about Will?”

  At first Richard hadn’t understood why Will had reacted in such a vehemently negative manner to the revelations of Colpetto. Until he realized he’d never truly internalized the fact that Will’s home—where he’d been born, grown up and given his allegiance—was and had always been the Senecan Federation. Will felt betrayed by his government, an institution he’d devoted his professional life to serving and protecting.

  The flash of clarity had made for an odd moment, if a far less traumatic one than learning Will’s true profession. He had sensed the world shift a hair off-kilter…but once there, balance had been restored. Once he’d understood, he’d been able to help, even while still struggling with his own outrage. On the flip side of a far more honest conversation, a shower, alcohol, sleep and a lot of venting, Will’s anger had faded to low-grade umbrage.

  “He’ll be staying. I may want his help a day or two here and there, but he’s not abandoning you, too.”

  “I’m going to operate under the assumption you’re not abandoning me until you tell me otherwise.”

  Richard huffed a breath. “Fair enough. Before I go, I’ve received a few tidbits of data and a crappy image of someone who’s high up in the OTS chain of command. The information suggests he’s from Earth, but I don’t have access to Alliance security databases any longer. Besides, you have better files on the people who matter on Earth than the Alliance does.”

  “Why would you ever think such a thing?” After a beat Graham’s exaggerated façade of innocence broke, and he laughed. “Pass it on. Maybe we’ll strike gold. Tessa’s beginning to make an impressive amount of progress infiltrating OTS channels in the last few days. She should be able to match it to someone, or at a minimum to additional details on this someone.”

  “So having a Prevo on staff is working out, then?”

  Graham looked pained. “Don’t get me started. I guess. So far. Ask me again when we prevent an OTS attack and have terrorists in custody.”

  “Will do.” He stood and reached over the desk to shake Graham’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “Always.” Graham brought a hand to his jaw, looking uncommonly thoughtful. “Earlier today I heard we were suddenly diverting some of our adiamene output—and a few of our new prototype ships—to a covert location. Your leave of absence wouldn’t have anything to do with those moves, would it?”

  Richard had always prided himself on his poker face. “Sorry. I don’t know anything about that.”

  Senecan Federation Headquarters

  It disturbed Graham more than a little to find Vranas available to see him immediately upon his arrival. It was ten o’clock in the morning; there should be Cabinet meetings, or at a minimum meetings with advisors. There should be strategy sessions, updates from underlings and a variety of other urgent comings and goings. Instead, the Chairman was simply sitting alone in his office.

  The sight reaffirmed his reasons for coming. He kind of wished it hadn’t.

  Vranas motioned for him to enter and closed the door behind him. “I’d offer you a drink, but, well….”

  “The sun’s still on its upward trajectory, sure.” He hesitated for a second, then sat in one of the guest chairs and dropped his elbows to his knees. “Nothing urgent demanding your attention this morning?”

  “Not as of yet, small favors and all.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Vranas merely raised an eyebrow in question.

  Graham exhaled. “Let’s see. There’s the fact Olivia Montegreu is in the process of surrounding the Federation with planets and assets controlled by her—I realize that’s my problem, which is why you should be dragging me in here to demand I do something about it. I’m sure you’ve been briefed on her attempt to steal Advent Materials’ Rasogo II facility and get her hands on a shit-tonne of adiamene. Luckily she failed, thanks to the IDCC’s response team—another small issue you need to be figuring out what the bloody hell to do about. Is the IDCC our ally or our enemy? Do we need a treaty or an embargo?

  “OTS is blowing up buildings from here to Nyssus and back again, yet another thing you ought to be chewing my ass over, or Gianno’s ass, or somebody’s ass.

  “Oh, and the new Earth Alliance Prime Minister is picking a fight with pretty much the entire galaxy, including us. For now, we seem to only be third or fourth on her hit list, so we’ve got a small reprieve. Which is a damn good thing, as it appears we require the time to get our act together.”

  Vranas frowned; he looked genuinely perplexed. “I don’t understand. You came here to see me because you want me to yell at you?”

  “I want you to do something. Anything. We’re in serious danger of finding ourselves caught in the middle of several galaxy-sized messes, all at once, and you’re just…sitting here counting the minutes until afternoon tea. I don’t know what’s fuzzed up your head, but you have got to snap out of it, for everyone’s sake. For all the people out there’s sake.” He blinked. “Sir.”

  “Ha. Was wondering if you’d bother to remember that formality.” Vranas swiveled his chair around to stare out the windows. “I think maybe the Metigen War was the last great battle I was prepared to figh
t. I’ve been doing this too long. Even though I’m not, not in the grand scheme of things, I feel old. Tired.”

  He looked tired, too, but Graham had piled on enough and then some. He worked to soften his tone. “Listen, Aristide. If you want to step down and not run the next election cycle, no one will fault you, least of all me. You’ve done far beyond your share.

  “But right now you are Chairman of the Senecan Federation, and you’re taking our ‘hands-off, minimal government’ approach a mite too far. We need leadership, dammit, more than usual, and I believe you can provide it. I’ve seen you do it a hundred times.”

  Vranas ran a hand down his face. “You’ve certainly cleaned my clock right and proper.”

  “Yeah, well, you can fire me later.”

  “Likely not. Can’t guarantee my successor won’t.” He squared his shoulders. “I won’t answer ‘what’s fuzzed up my head.’ It doesn’t matter, because you’re correct. So while you’re here, do you have any ideas on how not to end up in another war with the Alliance?”

  Graham smiled. “I do. On that issue and that issue alone, we wait. We don’t do a damn thing.”

  “You’re serious. You chewed my ass worse than the nuns at my Catholic primary ever did for not acting—so you could tell me we need to not act.”

  “There’s plenty of other acting for us to do, don’t worry. But yes, I did. I have a sneaking suspicion something else is afoot with respect to the Alliance, and it would be a good idea for us to let it play out without our intervention.” He paused. “Or mostly without our intervention. If you’re serious about being back on the job, you’ll want to have a conversation with Gianno. I suspect when it comes to the Alliance situation, she’s taken a bit of her own initiative.”

  35

  ROMANE

  Independent Colony

  Independent Defense Consortium Headquarters

  * * *

  Morgan threw her feet up on the table in the break room, the better to study the list of potential recruits on her aural. The Romane government kept trying to give her an office, but she had no need of one. All the information she required at any given time resided in her head, her only legitimate workspace the flight hangar. So instead she wandered around the building and did whatever work she needed to do wherever she happened to be.

  She was already turning into a bureaucrat and administrator as things were. The minute she called an office home, her life was over anyway.

  She’d fired Olsen after the Rasogo II op, so now she had to find a replacement. Plus two more new pilots, as an additional set of fighters were due to be delivered next week. They wouldn’t be the new 2nd gen ships, thanks to Rossi being preoccupied at the hospital. But having now flown a 1st gen fighter in combat, she couldn’t really complain, for it was an order of magnitude more advanced than anything the Federation or the Alliance currently fielded.

  Theoretically, she had a target roster of thirty pilots and thirty-six ground troops to be stationed on Romane. The other colonies were being given some flexibility in determining their manpower needs. The recent wars had produced a lot of battle-tested combatants, some of which had left the military in the aftermath…though many of those who did so had no desire to return to a life of danger and violence.

  She heard the footsteps approach from down the hall long before they reached the break room, knew it was Harper by the light yet purposeful, no-nonsense gait. The woman always moved with economy of motion, never wasting effort when it could be put to better use elsewhere.

  A sly smile burgeoned on her lips…

  …which she quickly squelched when Harper slid into the chair opposite her and clasped her hands on the table. They were keeping their relationship—was that what it was?—secret for now. Or not advertising it. Not that casual displays of affection were something she did in any event.

  Of course, she also didn’t do relationships—with men or women. With anyone. So she supposed at this point everything had become subject to…reinterpretation.

  Harper rarely wasted words, either. “You and I need to take a ride.”

  “It’s working hours.”

  “This is work. We got some coordinates out of one of the prisoners. Technically out of his eVi—” At Morgan’s darkening expression, Harper raised a hand in protest. “Don’t worry, no torture was involved. Merely tech. But these may be the coordinates for where they intended to take Rasogo II.

  “Now, I don’t want to go in guns blazing before we know what we’re dealing with. So let’s take a ride.”

  SPACE, CENTRAL QUADRANT

  Independent Space

  The recon vessel was designed for two, a pilot and a tech operator, but it was cramped nonetheless. Still, given unmatched cloaking and an sLume drive, it served as the logical choice. The ship had been acquired, not built, and Morgan made a note to requisition a new, more modern design from Rossi.

  It would have taken the tugs some time to bring the Rasogo II facility to the coordinates, but it was a short fifteen-minute superluminal trip for them. They nevertheless reverted to the impulse engine a hundred megameters away. It would be a shame to waste the cloaking shield by announcing their arrival in a noisy burst of exotic particles from the warp bubble termination.

  Morgan studied the regional map as they neared the coordinates. On a galactic scale, they were still quite close to Romane, with Pandora 1.2 kpcs distant toward the Galactic Core and Earth a bit farther away in the opposite direction from the Core. Prime real estate—or it would be were there anything of value here. But there wasn’t. No planets, no asteroids, not even a star within three parsecs.

  Space was screwy that way. You could encounter a vast swath of void right in the heart of civilization.

  “Perfect place to hide something you don’t want found.”

  Morgan nodded agreement and stood to go grab a water before they got too close to whatever waited at the coordinates. It wasn’t a long walk—four meters to the small refrigeration compartment embedded in the rear wall. “And it’s a far more convenient jumping-off point for incursions than New Babel.”

  “You’re one hundred percent convinced Olivia Montegreu is behind all this, aren’t you?”

  “I am. You heard the prisoner.”

  “The ‘eyes,’ sure. It’s hardly definitive proof, though. As I understand it, glowing eyes are all the rage these days. Everyone under the age of thirty is either a Prevo or wants to pretend they are.”

  Morgan chuckled to herself. We’re meant to be the next evolution of the human species. Devon had done a fine job of kickstarting exactly that, no question.

  On the one hand, most of the kids out there Harper referred to weren’t truly Prevos; they had simply boosted their brains with quantum processing from a ternary computer. On the other hand, this alone constituted the most significant advancement in human capabilities since the invention of eVi technology over two hundred years ago. They may not be legitimate Prevos, but they were undoubtedly something more than ordinary humans.

  “True. But I’d be willing to bet none of them control anything like…this.” She enlarged the visual scanner screen.

  The space station hidden in the void was a gargantuan complex the size of a small city. There were no outward frills, no ornamentation one saw on commercial stations designed to make them appear welcoming and safe, but it was nonetheless elegant in its functional design. No tori spun, which meant gravity plates must be in use—if in excess of a fraction of the station, at great expense.

  “Damn.” Harper leaned forward intently. “It makes sense Montegreu wouldn’t entrust all her assets to the safety of New Babel, or any single location. Still…I wonder if she’s here.”

  Morgan continued forward until they ought to be in visual range, but the station remained all but invisible. Only the light of docking bay force fields and several arriving and departing ships marked its location.

  She slowed the ship to a stop. “We should be safely hidden, but watch the radar just in case. I’m goi
ng to try to find out.”

  “How?”

  She flashed Harper a playful grin, then leaned over and kissed her. It was an impulsive act and something she never would have done under normal circumstances. But it felt…right.

  “I’ll be back.” She settled into her seat and closed her eyes, leaving Harper looking visibly confused.

  Directly ahead 2.341 megameters.

  The quantum space shifted, hazy and indistinct, then she was inside the station. In marked contrast to the exterior, it was brightly lit, if no less utilitarian in design. She had landed in a lab, chimeral development by the looks of it.

  She departed it, trying to locate the command center or administrative offices. They should be…up? It was human nature to situate them ‘up.’ Even if Montegreu was no longer definably human, she would have been when she built this place.

  Morgan drifted through the ceiling like some kind of apparition. Packaging lines, storage. The station felt sparsely populated—by humans. Many of the operations were automated, and bots floated everywhere.

  On a hunch, she followed a man dressed in notably expensive clothes who moved like he had somewhere he needed to be. He took a lift guarded by tight security, followed by another one, and finally arrived at a level which sparkled and shone on a scale far above the rest of the station.

  “Ms. Montegreu, you wanted to see me?”

  No reliable images of Olivia Montegreu existed, but Abigail had described her accurately, if insufficiently. Ageless, pale, blonde and inappropriately thin, her skin now spangled in an intricate web of fine gold glyphs. They were so extensive Morgan could not conceive of how they would have been implanted…unless her Artificial had grown them completely from within. Disturbing notion.

  The effect was to make her entire body glow, soft and subtly, giving her an almost angelic appearance. Ironic, as the truth was the polar opposite.

  The woman’s glittering irises—golden to match the glyphs—darted about, tracking unseen data. “The mission plan for New Orient is ready.” She took a disk from a tall stack on her desk, pressed her thumb to it and handed it to him. “Assemble the team. They move at 2300 Galactic.”