Aurora Renegades

by G. S. Jennsen

  A clover-hued dress billowed around her legs in the gusting wind. Once upon a time the dress would have complimented her lovely green eyes, but now….

  Her lips rose in a tentative smile as radiant white irises stared back at him. “Hi, Devon.”

  He breathed in and swallowed past the panicking coward of a lump in his throat. “Emily?”

  Vancouver

  EASC Headquarters

  Alex reached the top floor of the shiny new EASC Headquarters tower—new to her anyway—and strolled with increasing curiosity across the atrium.

  The décor, the ambiance, it was all…pleasant. Warm, bordering on welcoming. Had the Alliance military bureaucracy’s sensibilities changed this drastically in a year? Or had hers?

  The door to her mother’s suite was open, and she walked in without trepidation. Her gaze swept around the office appreciatively. “This office is fantastic, Mom. So much better than the old one.”

  Miriam fretted over the antique texts on the bookcase, rearranging them just so, then just so again. “That’s right, you didn’t get to see it before you went back through the portal. I agree. It is fantastic, and I’ve missed it these last weeks. Thankfully, Major Lange kept it locked up tight, and no one dared try to take it for themselves.”

  The better for their health, she suspected. “Have you installed Thomas in here yet?”

  “No, but don’t think I’m not considering it.”

  She chuckled. “I’m not surprised. How did the hearing with the Ethics Council go? I assume well enough since you’re here.”

  Miriam considered the texts with a critical gaze; presumably deciding they passed muster for the moment, she went around to her desk to fret over a few more objects.

  “Embarrassing—for them. The number of allegedly moral people in leadership positions who lined up to kiss Winslow’s feet out of sheer cowardice is shocking. I think perhaps I’ll be encouraging a number of retirements in the coming weeks. It’s time for new blood in the ranks.”

  “Good.” Alex stopped in front of a visual of her dad on the wall. He was smirking at the cam, the picture of self-assured, roguish charm.

  Recent events had been marred by destruction and death, by so much darkness, yet she imagined he’d have found a way to add needed levity, were he here.

  “David would’ve been a much better leader for Volnosti. And oh, how he would have relished the fight.”

  “No, he would’ve been a more entertaining leader. Mom, I’ve seen the footage from your showdown with Winslow at the Assembly. You were spectacular, and I bet Dad would’ve rushed to cede the stage to you then proceeded to watch on in awe.”

  A pleased, if slightly wistful, smile grew on her mother’s lips. “Maybe so.”

  Alex, with the recent breakthroughs the Prevos and…Abigail have made, I expect to soon be able to revisit the difficulties involving your father’s neural construct.

  I don’t…I mean that’s great to hear. You should absolutely work on it.

  But?

  I’m not quite ready to have my father in my head again yet. I need some time.

  I understand. It’s possible there will be other options. But we’ll consider the best approach later.

  Thank you.

  “How was Abigail’s funeral?”

  Her mother grimaced. “What do you want me to say? It was solemn and reverential, as such things are meant to be.”

  The shadows of those lost to them crowded in to stifle the air in the office, and Alex wandered out onto the patio in the hope of brightening the mood.

  It was a chilly afternoon, but too nice not to be outside. Beyond the patio, shuttles and skycars sped across the Strait to and from the mainland; the waters sparkled beneath a sun unmarred by clouds. People strode purposefully across the courtyard, as if trying to reassure themselves normality had returned.

  A few seconds later her mother came out as well, and they sat at the small table nestled amid blooming morning glories and astilbe. Absurdly delightful, all of it.

  The fresh air and sunshine had the desired effect as she idly surveyed the surroundings. “Is it true a fistfight broke out during one of the Assembly hearings yesterday?”

  “It is. Much gnashing of teeth both preceded and followed the scuffle, complete with wailings of the sky falling and predictions of the end of the world. It was all rather overdramatic.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Don’t they realize? Never mind, obviously they don’t. They’re politicians. But the sky isn’t falling—the world is turning. It’s a new dawn.”

  “I suppose we have no choice but for it to be. Regardless, the only way through is forward, come what may.” Miriam studied her thoughtfully. “I have very belatedly learned you single-handedly destroyed the OTS hideout on Romane. How did that come about?”

  Alex fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “I did. It was the right thing to do—for someone to do. But, admittedly, I was not…entirely of sound mind at the time.”

  “What do you mean? Were you drunk? High?”

  A childish panic seized her chest, which was simply ridiculous. “‘High?’ Like on a chimeral or something? Why would you think that?”

  Miriam stared at her deadpan. “Alex, I may have been a lousy mother when you were growing up, but I was not a stupid one. Who do you think arranged for those charges to be dropped against you and Mr. Tollis in…2309, was it? In San Francisco?”

  “I, uh, never knew. Okay, um….” She huffed a breath. Back then she was so certain of her cleverness…and had assumed her mother didn’t care enough to pay attention. “I guess it’s way too late to say thank you?”

  Miriam shrugged mildly, as if to say ‘not necessarily.’

  Alex burst out laughing, and after a weak attempt at a serious countenance Miriam joined her.

  When the laughter had subsided, Alex ran a hand over her mouth. “Anyway. No, I wasn’t high, not exactly, though the chimeral analogy is a bit more apropos than I’d prefer.”

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, with genuine conviction no less. “I am. Or at least I’m well on the road to ‘all right.’ But I wonder….”

  She reflected on the path they’d traveled to arrive here, littered as it was by a thousand missteps and mistakes, chasms hewed with loss and barriers erected in bitterness. In the months following the Metigen War, they’d healed the present but never really the past, because how could they? There was no going back.

  But this was a new dawn, dammit, and she vowed to treat it as such. “Would it be too much of a bother if I talked to you a little bit about what happened to me? I think I’d like to do that.”

  Her mother looked taken aback for the briefest second; then her expression grew gentle and she squeezed Alex’s hand. “Of course you can. I would…I would like it, too. Very much.”

  INTERMEZZO VI

  MOSAIC

  Enisle Seventeen

  Species Assignment: Human

  Aver moved among the primitives unnoticed. After donning a hooded cloak he resembled them closely enough to not draw attention, so long as no one studied his face for too long. Even then he might pass muster, as a minority of the individuals displayed facial and ocular adornments not dramatically different from his own.

  The surreal nature of his current experience baffled him. Though undeniably primitive, these creatures were Anadens.

  He’d terminated one’s biological functions and taken it to his ship to study it further, and while it displayed strange incongruities—several extra organs and no blastema node, for instance—a genetic test identified the being as a homo sapien sapien.

  What in the name of Zeus were the Katasketousya doing? It was unadulterated blasphemy, but what was their goal in it?

  He was growing frustrated with asking the same questions repetitively while achieving no resolution. Despite this vexation, he felt he needed to uncover the answers in order to fulfill his purpose. Uncovering them before exposing the Katasketousya malfeasance ultimately bette
r ensured a complete elimination of the problem.

  He suspected but would soon confirm that this manufactured species had begun to expand into neighboring sectors of this galaxy. Based upon the terrestrial technology he observed, they were the presumed source of the ubiquitous interstellar noise he’d detected en route.

  Had they encountered the Dzhvar yet? The absence of any evidence of them during his travel from the gateway suggested they had and had dealt with them accordingly.

  Unless the Dzhvar were never here. Exactly how faithful of a replication of Amaranthe was this, truly?

  Despite his admitted curiosity about the nature of these proto-Anadens, the details of their current state of development weren’t pertinent to the assignment, merely their existence. After he filed his final report they would be Eradicated, though the Erevna Primor was likely to insist on taking a few as samples to study.

  No. It was time to ascertain the Katasketousya plan and bring an end to this profane creation.

  He determined to return through the gateway and search the remaining spaces until he located their haven. There he expected to learn the full extent of their malfeasance.

  An Accepted Species had not been Eradicated in fourteen millennia, but for such treason that would be their fate.

  His diati stirred. Yet he had not called it into service.

  He frowned as it grew so agitated his hands began to glimmer a faint crimson. The diati only acted on its own initiative when there was a great threat nearby or when an astronomical event of tremendous significance was on the horizon. The latter seemed more unlikely than the former, but neither were very credible.

  Nevertheless, something was amiss. He tensed, heightening all his sensory pathways. Nothing definable leapt into his perception, but his diati urged him in the direction of a spaceport structure.

  The pull grew stronger as he neared the structure. He did not understand its meaning, but much about the diati had always lain beyond even the Primor’s comprehension. The relationship was a symbiotic one, and the diati had served the Praesidis Dynasty for a thousand millennia.

  Thus he did not question the pull, instead trusting it would lead him to where he needed to be.

  A security process blocked pedestrian entrance to the spaceport. Killing his way through would be a simple matter but promised to attract a level of attention he didn’t desire to be troubled with, so he concealed himself and floated upward, following the silent wishes of the diati.

  He reached the roof of the spaceport and found it clogged by a variety of small vessels. One abruptly launched at an almost horizontal angle, missing him by little distance. He hurriedly withdrew a span.

  The diati directed him to a vessel 52° around the circular roof. His entire body now pulsated from the power of its agitation. In his memory through two hundred seventy-one generations, he located no recollection of it acting so forcefully of its own accord.

  Sensing the vessel he approached was connected to the diati’s unrest, he removed a tracker dot from his kit and began closing in on the ship—when it launched over his head.

  He responded instantly, propelling the dot upward to link itself to the hull.

  Then the vessel was gone.

  He descended to the ground and made an effort to continue exploring the area, but the diati screamed in his head until his skull throbbed.

  Disturbed but obedient, he returned to his ship and prepared to follow the tracking signal.

  Aurora Thesi (Portal Prime)

  The intermingling of such sentiments as relief, joy and pride—a lavishness of pride in my charges—with apprehension, with dread at the rising shadow they could not see overtaking them, disconcerted me to an uncomfortable degree.

  By nearly all measures, Humanity was succeeding in righting itself yet again. The challenge had been met and overcome, much as they had done time and again throughout their existence.

  This was why I believed in them: because when the worst of their species threatened to plunge them into darkness, the best of them rose to vanquish their own enemy and steer Humanity to the preferred path forward.

  Yet my pleasure at their triumph was marred by my knowledge of the Anaden lurking among them now.

  I could not track the Praesidis Inquisitor within Aurora. The vessel’s cloaking activated soon after it arrived there, and its concealment capabilities exceeded our most advanced technology.

  I had chosen not to warn the Humans of the Inquisitor’s presence during their crisis, judging they did not need a distraction they could do nothing to address. But what of now, as their apparent troubles ameliorated? I desired to allow them a respite, but I feared the time for respites had now passed.

  Yet what information might I impart? That a killer more dangerous than any they had previously known moved among them, and I knew neither this killer’s location nor a viable method of eliminating him?

  I had told the Conclave this may represent Humanity’s final test. If it were such, and if they were to succeed, they must do it by way of their own ingenuity. They did display an abundance of it, so hope remained.

  Should they fail—should the Inquisitor return through the Aurora portal—we were prepared to use all our resources to attempt to kill him, for he now possessed sufficient knowledge to bring the full might of a Machim fleet down upon the Mosaic. The fleet would eradicate the Idryma, and with it the stasis vault and thus the lives of all Katasketousya who called it home. All hope of a free future for any would be lost.

  Yet our likelihood of success in stopping the Inquisitor was not measurable with any degree of confidence. While we hurriedly constructed new offensive vessels and moved them here, the AI-driven vessels could not hit what they could not detect. Further, if the Inquisitor’s diati sufficiently protected his ship, no amount of firepower we directed at it would harm it.

  Finally, we dared not shut down the Amaranthe gateways, for this would disrupt the transfer of resources from the provision enisles, an act certain to quickly raise its own alarms and thus defeat the very purpose.

  I rippled in surprise at an unusual anomaly in the recording I viewed using a portion of my focus.

  While I monitored the overall situation in Aurora with only the slightest gap in time, I was now reviewing recent events from around the populated region. My hope was to detect the presence of the Inquisitor in some manner, preferably one which did not involve the death of thousands.

  In nine separate locations scattered in a two hundred parsec arc around Earth, fissures in the physical dimensions materialized and energy poured out from them into normal space. Then eighteen additional fissures opened in new locations.

  After twelve seconds, the energy ceased spilling forth—simultaneously across every occurrence—and the fissures sealed. Because space was almost entirely a void lacking any matter larger than atoms, none of the energy streams impacted objects before dissipating.

  Mystified, I reversed the recording, then paused it when energetic plasma cascaded out from nothing into space. What had caused these anomalies?

  The AI-enhanced Humans had discovered how to project a quantum consciousness beyond the physical dimensions, but none had begun to perceive how to manifest tangible rifts.

  And yet.

  When did this transpire? Shortly prior to the resolution of various political confrontations on Earth. Earth also represented the apparent focal point of the fissures, though they all occurred distant from it.

  I had already studied the salient episodes on Earth in some detail—but not those in the space surrounding it.

  I followed the trail of events as they backtracked into space. Admiral Solovy’s vessel was attacked by the planet below, yet not destroyed. Not so surprising. It was a source of encouragement to me that the Humans now created more resilient vessels with every passing day.

  …But this was not why it had not been destroyed.

  I watched the streams of energy—nine at first, then twenty-seven—vanish mere meters before they reached the vessel
. Not be dispersed, repelled or absorbed, but vanish completely.

  I went further into the past, until Alexis Solovy departed then appeared on the vessel in question.

  She possessed the operating code which drove our cloaking and dimensional displacement technology, having acquired it from the device hiding this planet. She had deciphered the cloaking operations, crudely so, and the Humans now used it widely in their armed conflicts and other machinations.

  But she, or any Human or AI, should require another millennia of scientific advancement to even begin to grasp the method by which dimensions were shifted, and another to accomplish it.

  And yet.

  Oh, you clever girl. Dangerous girl. Do you fathom what you have unlocked?

  PART VII:

  NATURAL SELECTION

  “Not much longer shall we have time for reading lessons of the past. An inexorable present calls us to the defense of a great future.”

  — Henry Luce

  41

  SIYANE

  Space, North-Central Quadrant

  * * *

  Humans imprinted far more of themselves on Artificials than they realized.

  Embedded in the core programming and algorithms they built were assumptions, biases and particular manners of viewing and interpreting the world around them. Some were deliberate, such as ethical and moral strictures, but most were so subtle, so ingrained into the human experience, they could not be pointed to or clearly defined.

  The experience of death—or rather, the observation of it as bystanders—had been with humans since before they evolved the mental capacity to comprehend it. In many ways, they still did not comprehend it. Over the millennia they had developed and discarded mythos after mythos to explain what it meant and what must follow from it. In time they had poked and prodded at it using increasingly sophisticated instruments and analytical techniques.