Aurora Renegades

by G. S. Jennsen

  But close enough to the truth would do.

  He gazed down at the remote eVi hacking tool—they called it a Reverb. Initially developed by Division, as he understood it, the Prevos had uncovered and procured the technology quickly thereafter. The IDCC RRF possessed two of these fearsome little devices, one of which he now held in his hand.

  The smart worm it was programmed to inject into the man’s eVi wouldn’t activate for another twenty hours, removing any chance of suspicion falling on him.

  The door to the prisoner wing closed as Devon departed, and Caleb stepped up to Winslow’s cell.

  32

  ROMANE

  Connova Interstellar Offices

  * * *

  Alex picked her way through the splintered remains of a door into the Connova Interstellar offices. A bot vacuumed up shards of glass coating the floor; all the windows had been blown out, leaving the warm, late-morning breeze to circle freely through the room.

  “Scoot to the left a little?”

  Startled, she did as requested.

  “Thanks.” Noah squeezed past her lugging a hefty quantum box, which he carried to the cabinet in the far wall.

  “Ken, are you in here?”

  A head popped up from beneath the other side of a large desk in the middle of the room. “Over here. Rewiring.”

  Alex tip-toed through the mess. “Did you get bombed by OTS?”

  Noah grunted as he worked to position the box inside the cabinet. “Nah, this is just collateral damage. The building across the street kind of…exploded. We were in transit and missed the show.”

  She glanced out the absent windows. There wasn’t a building across the street, so she went over and peered down. Ah, rubble. Lots of rubble. She nodded understanding and moved around the back of the desk to squat next to Kennedy. “I need to talk to you about Mom’s ship. She’s intending to send it up against the Earth Terrestrial Defense Grid.”

  Kennedy secured a length of photal fiber weave into place. “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “She sent me a message asking if the adiamene could withstand it. I said ‘maybe.’ ”

  “ ‘Maybe’ isn’t good enough!”

  Kennedy scowled at her. “I guess yelling is an improvement on vacant stares, but don’t yell at me. ‘Maybe’ is the best answer I have.”

  “Sorry.” Alex grimaced; her head was suddenly throbbing. It felt as if her brain was banging rudely against her skull, demanding to be set free. She pinched the bridge of her nose as the familiar scratching need reemerged to tear at her throat, her chest, her eyes, her soul.

  She breathed in slowly, carefully…then out equally so, and with a lot of help from Valkyrie the sensations faded into the background. Not gone, but quieted enough she could ignore them for now.

  “Are you all right?”

  She opened one eye to cringe at Kennedy. “You remember how much it sucks to get off Skies+ after you’ve been doing a bit too much of it for a while? Quadruple…no, quintuple that, and for like, I don’t even know how long it’s going to last. But yeah…” she drew in a stronger breath and lifted her chin “…I’m all right. Swear.”

  Kennedy scooted out from under the desk to prop against the rear wall. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad?”

  Alex contemplated the shattered windows, but no easy answers were to be found in the splinters of glass. “I almost did, back on Messis I, and again on the Siyane. But I was…embarrassed? And part of me didn’t truly want help until it was too late and I was out of options. So I convinced myself you had more important things to do, such as help my mother win a war. I’m pretty sure I had a thousand more reasons that would ring hollow and sound pathetic now.”

  She reached over and squeezed Kennedy’s hand. “Sorry.”

  “Caleb?”

  “Merciful. Extraordinary. My savior. Most importantly, still here.”

  “Hmm.”

  Noah waved an arm at them on his way out the door for more equipment. “Oh, forgive her already. Then she can also help her mother win the war and get my dad out of prison and we can all party properly.”

  “What? His dad’s in prison?”

  Kennedy winced. “For helping me, no less. Hello, guilt trip. I gave a speech from his place on Aquila to this group of Alliance manufacturing luminaries. The authorities arrested him for harboring a fugitive. I guess it’s supposed to put pressure on me to surrender, or recant, or something? I feel guilty as hell about it, but I’m not going to do any of those things.”

  “Is his dad safe?”

  “Hopefully? Lionel said not to worry about him and concentrate on unseating Winslow, so that’s what we’re trying to do. Well, and clean up.” Kennedy chuckled. “So, forgiveness. If you’re good, it is, as Noah says, ‘all good.’ Are you good?”

  Alex gazed tremulously at the ceiling. “I am reeling and scrambling and vaguely terrified, but yep, I’m good.”

  Kennedy regarded her critically, eyes narrowed, for another moment, then shrugged. “Okay. The problem with the adiamene question is two-fold. One, we don’t have a way to conduct real-world tests on the effect of an impact as powerful as multiple lasers from the grid will generate. The sims say the hull will start to fail at seven simultaneous hits of four hundred kilotonnes of directed energy.

  “But the other complication is, we’ve seen that the adiamene itself manifests characteristics above and beyond what all the chemical formulas and sims say it should. So it will be stronger than the sims say, but I don’t know how much stronger and I have no way to find out.”

  Kennedy pushed herself to her feet and offered Alex a hand up to join her. “But in addition to the formidable hull, the Stalwart II has the strongest defense shields we can produce. They’re easily double the strength of those the rest of the Alliance has deployed.”

  “Shields.”

  “I know, I know, shields can’t withstand that level of energy, but they can mitigate it.”

  “Shields.” Alex began wandering around the room, haphazardly half-dodging debris. “Shields, shields—”

  Abruptly she froze mid-step. Input, function transformation, reflection output.

  Yes, that’s how the cloaking shield works. Simple, after a fashion.

  But isn’t the inverse of the reflection—run a test model of that, killing the noise but keeping the atoms—

  Was this what it meant for her mind to be awake and her own again? To be free of the fog and ethereal haze?

  Done.

  Now prism—dipyramid form—the folded inversed reflection of the data, of the whole fucking space—

  And was this also the parting gift her forays into the elemental realm had bestowed on her? Had her too-lengthy hours spent drowning in starstuff given her the singular perspective needed to solve this riddle? Had they given her the ability to be fully alive in this space—unquestionably the real space—yet able to sense, to intuitively see as an embedded overlay, all the others?

  “Alex? What about the shields?”

  She closed her eyes and let the result of Valkyrie’s modeling unfold in her virtual vision. Reflections of reflections until what was hidden became revealed.

  Valkyrie, do you see it?

  I do. I confess I never would have thought to approach it from this perspective.

  But this is how they do it—this is how the Metigens access all those extra dimensions we’ve seen them use. And I think we can recreate it.

  I think perhaps…yes.

  Get started on the math. Devon?

  Devon: Holy shit, that’s deep magic. Brilliant…wait, what?

  Alex: The fourth face of the dipyramid—we need to derive the equations necessary to funnel data—atoms, matter, energy—from the input to the location of the fourth face. Or the fifth, but we can start small.

  Devon: Riiiiiight. Yep. We’ll help. Just as soon as Annie understands it and explains it to me.

  “Hello, Alex….”

  She grinned at Kennedy’s mystified
expression, then impulsively reached over and hugged her. “Thank you. Thank you. You are the absolute best. I’ve got to go.”

  “Go where?”

  Caleb, meet me at the Siyane. And hurry.

  “I’ve got to get to the Stalwart II before it gets to Earth.”

  INTERMEZZO V

  MOSAIC

  Enisle Seventeen

  Species Assignment: Human

  The next created space in the Provision Network which Aver visited was fully populated with stars, galaxies and the breadth of astronomical phenomena. His routine broad sweep scan, however, returned a number of surprising features. Characteristics he hadn’t yet seen.

  Similarities to Amaranthe.

  Further study suggested this space, alone among those he had encountered, was structured on an intra- and intergalactic scale nearly identical to Amaranthe. Nowhere was this more true than the region where the gateway opened.

  What possible objective were the Katasketousya pursuing, to create such an anathema of nature?

  The supradimensional wave he had found in each of the active created spaces led across this galaxy to a broad swath of systems hosting a moderate level of technology. Loud, wasteful, immature technology, but sufficient to support effective interstellar travel. Initial readings hinted at a Tier III-C civilization, or possibly even III-B. Certainly the most progressed he’d encountered in the Provision Network thus far.

  He ignored all the noise for now to follow the supradimensional wave to its destination.

  His instruments identified nine planetary bodies in the system, with a significant asteroid belt between the fourth and fifth and multiple planetoids in distant solar orbit. He measured the third planet’s location at 1 AU and noted it had a single satellite at 0.0025 AU distance.

  Assigning to chance the familiarity of the system strained the laws of probability.

  His eyes showed him an ordinary garden world orbiting an ordinary G2V yellow dwarf. Habitats and instruments swarmed in multiple orbits above the planet, but much of its terrestrial land and waters remained uncovered and exposed to open air.

  It was not a place his eyes recognized as familiar. But his databanks carried thousands of millennia of data in them. Buried in this sea of data were images of the Anaden homeworld from a distant past, before his ancestors had transformed their origin planet into an endless city.

  Was he observing a replica of Solum?

  IDRYMA

  I took some pleasure from entering the Idryma as a reinstated Analystae. No longer an exile, per Lakhes’ decree, circumstances and necessity. I nevertheless refrained from displaying said pleasure in any physical luster or oscillation, as the cause for the Conclave session was dire indeed.

  Gloating was not a favored comportment, and it would not aid my re-integration.

  Iapetus began pronouncements as soon as Lakhes entered the chamber. “I say again, this is nothing more than our Human troublemakers continuing their spasmodic gallivanting through the Mosaic. Their recent acquisition of new, in my opinion ill-advised, knowledge has simply spurred them to greater haste.”

  “Demonstrably incorrect, Iapetus. They returned to Aurora directly from Enisle Twenty-Seven and remain there now.”

  “So certain of this, are you, Mnemosyne?”

  “I am.”

  “Given this information—” Lakhes moved among them rather than come to rest at his usual position “—we are facing one of two possibilities. The first is that a ship from one of the Enisles has discovered their gateway and traversed it. Seven species possess the interstellar travel technology necessary to do so. Two of them have knowledge of the portals. The second possibility is that a ship from Amaranthe has entered the Mosaic.

  “My tardiness was due to my acquisition of new data. I’m here to inform you now: both of these possibilities are in fact true.”

  A murmur swept across the Conclave members, an uneasy mix of excitement and terror.

  Lakhes radiated for calm. “A Fylliot from Enisle Thirty-Eight traveled to Amaranthe in order to search for his family, who was absent from the system at the time of the evacuation and did not accompany the migrators. His vessel has not returned. However, in the time since, another vessel has entered the Mosaic from Amaranthe.”

  “How? The gateway prevents it.”

  Lakhes revolved in a slow circle. “Having made the journey with its pilot during the evacuation, the Fylliot ship possessed the passcode for the Amaranthe gateway.”

  Iapetus pulsed loudly in agitation. “Are you suggesting the Fylliot was…what? Captured?”

  “And doubtless killed.”

  “We must lock down the gateways immediately—”

  I expanded in size as appropriate to my news. “It is already too late.”

  All those present directed their attention to me as I moved to the center of the chamber. “After visiting several Enisles in rapid succession, the vessel in question has traversed the Aurora portal. Here you may see it.”

  I projected the image captured by the monitors located on Aurora Thesi.

  “That is an Anaden vessel.”

  Lakhes considered the image with customary stoicism. “Yes. A Praesidis Inquisitor vessel to be precise. We can only be grateful it is not a Machim one—or a thousand, for I have never seen fewer.”

  True enough. Machim fleets did not scout; they did not temper their responses or bring to bear merely the force necessary to resolve a conflict. Instead they unleashed destruction with a magnitude of strength that ensured there was no second encounter.

  Iapetus escalated toward histrionics. “What does it matter? We are all doomed.”

  “Does ‘all’ include the species of Amaranthe?”

  “Those which long to be free, yes! It has all been for naught. All the millennia of work, all the trials, all the study, all the secrecy and preparation.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  Once again those present shifted to me. I sensed their residual animosity giving way to desperation. They would not care that I was the former exile if I provided them a reason to hope.

  “How can we expect the Humans to defeat the Anaden Legions if they cannot defeat a single, individual Anaden? Perhaps this is the final test for them, and the one they are most ready for.”

  “Ready for? They don’t know the slightest thing. They don’t know what to expect. A Praesidis Inquisitor will kill a thousand Humans before they begin to comprehend the enormity of the threat they are facing.”

  “They know enough.”

  Lakhes approached me. “Why do you say this, Mnemosyne?”

  I stared at the image of the deceptively small, innocuous vessel hovering silently before me. “Because if we are to have the feeblest glimmer of a chance in the coming war, they must.”

  PART VI:

  CONSONANCE

  “I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.”

  — William Ernest Henley

  33

  EAS STALWART II

  Space, Central Quadrant

  * * *

  Miriam spun a disk on the conference table surface. “What do we know?”

  Christopher clasped his hands on the table. “Winslow is in London today. She basically fled Washington to avoid a bevy of agitated politicos. She’s expected to give a speech to the European Trade Council this evening. It might be a good venue to target—public, with a live news feed, and off Assembly grounds. I realize Gagnon wants us on Assembly grounds, but I’m not at all certain it’s a good idea. I don’t trust him.”

  She couldn’t say as she did, either, but she kept it to herself, for the Speaker might be their best route forward. “What about Admiral Grigg? Any indication he’s wavering?”

  “Publicly he remains solidly behind Winslow. Privately, he’s had five meetings with advisers in the last two days and a visit from Chairman Anderson. If I had to lay stakes down, I’d say he won’t press the trigger. But it really comes down to how accustomed he’s become to his new
level of power.”

  “Which is why I’m not as confident as you that Grigg will balk. He’s long craved power. Okay, I want you to transfer to the Cantigny. If it goes badly for me, you’ll need to be in a position to press whatever advantage I will have given you.”

  “Miriam, I don’t want—”

  “Well, I didn’t want any of this, but here we are. Please, Christopher. If we both fall, this was all for nothing, and I won’t allow that to be the result.”

  He exhaled harshly. “Is that an order, Admiral?”

  “It is.”

  “Fine, then. But do not let her shoot you down.”

  “I don’t intend to. Now go—and keep the fleet out of harm’s way when I call her bluff.”

  “Jesus, Miriam.” At her glare he held up his hands in surrender. “All right. I’ll stop pointing out your clear insanity. Good luck—I know, luck is not a factor. Have a little anyway.”

  He saluted and departed, leaving her alone in the conference room adjunct to her quarters.

  ‘Her quarters’ still sounded strange to her ears. She’d served tours on ships before, but they were by and large decades in the past, and those quarters had been considerably more cramped and less private. These were rather…nice.

  If the circumstances were otherwise, she could almost begin to appreciate some of what Alex enjoyed about life on a starship; what David had enjoyed about it.

  But they were not, and any pleasure she took from the ship or her presence aboard it was soon chased away by an austere, muted sorrow.

  “David, why are we here?”

  He adjusted his grip on her hand and tugged her across the cavernous showroom floor. “There’s a ship I want us to look at.”