by Terry Mixon
Kelsey stood outside her mother’s hotel room and dithered. She had a lot of nerve coming here after what happened at the ceremony. Kelsey was going to catch hell, even though she was the wronged party here. Her mother would never admit fault. That simply wasn’t how she worked.
Well, time to start the fireworks.
She turned to her guard commander. “There’s going to be yelling. Things will get broken. I’m a Marine Raider. She’s not going to hurt me. Under no circumstances are you to come inside that apartment unless I signal for you to do so or you see blood seeping out from under the door. Is that understood?”
The man looked deeply unhappy, but he nodded. “Yes, Highness.”
Kelsey pressed the buzzer on the door and waited. Moments later, her mother yanked the door open and glared at her. “Finally. Get in here and leave these people outside. The time for childish behavior is over.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Kelsey stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “I can’t imagine how you expected this to go, but I’m not the little girl you abandoned all those years ago.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her mother said. “I didn’t abandon you. You came to visit as often as you liked. I blame your father for turning you against me.”
“Then you’d be wrong.” Kelsey put her hands on her hips and stood there, not wilting under her mother’s glare. “I know what you’ve done. What’s worse, I know who you did it with. There’s no unseeing something like that.”
Her mother shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I did was come back to make sure you were okay. A daughter needs her mother after a trauma like you went through.”
Justine Bandar had no conception of what Kelsey had been through. They’d decided that the public didn’t need to know the gory details of her implants or how she’d gotten them.
“You cheated on my father. How could you?”
Justine Bandar threw up her hands and started pacing. “How can you ask me that after he cheated with the help? Worse, how could you stand by that bastard in the first place?”
“Call Jared Mertz a bastard at your peril,” Kelsey said in a low, dangerous voice. “I like him far better than I like you at this particular moment, and I don’t see that changing.
“As for Father, he admitted what he’d done and paid the full price for it. You’re still busy denying everything and hoping no one realizes the true extent of your betrayal. The fact that you’d had no idea he’d slept with Jared’s mother while you were sleeping around doesn’t exactly help your position, either.”
Her mother started to say something, but Kelsey held up her hand. “I’m not finished. I’ve seen the train used for escaping the Palace. Nathaniel Breckenridge showed it to the people that rescued me from Ethan.
“Maybe you never realized it, but it records every trip. I’ve seen exactly how many people you’ve slipped into your rooms over the years, and how long your infidelity went on. Do not try to pull the wool over my eyes. I know who you are now.”
Her mother dropped into a comfortable looking chair with an audible huff. “That changes nothing between us. I’m your mother, even if Karl isn’t your father. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
Kelsey shook her head. “Maybe not, but it severely limits my sympathy for you when you go after my brother.”
Justine Bandar’s eyes hardened. “He is not your brother. Jared Mertz killed your brother. He’s a monster.”
Kelsey shook her head slowly. “You really should watch the news more often. I killed Ethan.”
Her mother waved her hand as though she were dispersing smoke. “So those idiots on the news said. I don’t believe it. You’re not capable of something so terrible. Your father convinced you to take the heat off his precious by-blow. You don’t need to lie to me.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Kelsey said coolly. “Ethan was mad at the end, paranoid and dangerous. I gave the order that let Ethan run to his death.”
Her mother blinked. “What?”
“The flip point he ran through went to an area of space filled with deadly radiation. I kept my mouth shut and let him go.”
To her credit, her mother looked horrified. “Why would you do that?”
“Because he was going to start a civil war that would kill more people than either of us can comfortably count. I loved him, but it was him or the Empire. I’ll live with the consequences of my decision for the rest of my life, but I wouldn’t change it.”
“Ethan was your brother.”
“Ethan was a mad dog that had to be put down,” Kelsey said regretfully. “I don’t know when he became a paranoid monster, but you don’t leave unexploded ordinance lying around where anyone can set it off. He was the heir, and the Empire wouldn’t have survived him ascending to the Throne.”
Her mother’s frown intensified. “Did you kill him so you could take his place?”
That actually made Kelsey laugh bitterly. “Hell, no. I’m still so disgusted with things that I’d have happily renounced my claim and become a commoner. I have important work to do that doesn’t involve egomaniacal senators or other nobles. Political back biting is one thing I could cheerfully live without.”
“Why not just capture him?” Her mother finally sounded somewhat normal, just a woman hurting for the loss of her son.
“He was too far away and had a destroyer with him. If I’d warned him, he might have been able to escape. I’ll admit that was a low order probability, but he’d just poisoned Father and blamed me, so I wasn’t feeling very forgiving.
“Which brings us back to you. I counted eighteen different lovers over a period of decades. That’s a little more serious than an ill-considered fling. Yes, it’s between you and Father, but it hurts me, too.
“If you want to continue having a relationship with me that doesn’t involve shouting and recriminations, I’d lose the chip on your shoulder.
“Jared and I have been to hell and back, and we’ve worked out our differences. He’s my brother in every way that matters. I can’t stop you from being a bitch to Father or me, but if you go after Jared Mertz, I will make you deeply regret that mistake. Am I clear?”
Her mother said nothing for a long moment, examining Kelsey’s face closely. When she did speak, it was much more calmly. “You’ve grown harder. You were always so soft when you were younger.”
“Hard times either toughen you up, or they kill you. The past is gone, Mother, and so is the little girl you could manipulate. If you want to continue having a relationship with me, you’re going to have to accept that. Grow. Up.”
Justine Bandar nodded slowly. “I can see we have many things to discuss.”
Kelsey turned toward the door. “It will have to wait. I’m shipping out in a day and a half and have far too much work to do before we leave. I’ll give you a chance when I get back. It might be several weeks or several months. You’ll just have to be patient. I’m far too angry to be reasonable, and so are you. We’ll talk then.”
She more than half expected her mother to try to stop her, but the other woman let her leave without a word. The guards surrounded her and they headed back to her air car. She only relaxed when she was on the way home.
Her mother probably thought she’d find a way to talk with her tomorrow, but Kelsey would be back on Persephone by then. She had a meeting with Carl Owlet and then they’d be leaving for Pentagar. Maybe by the time they captured the freighter, she’d feel a little calmer. Probably not, but one could hope.
Kelsey’s implants announced a message from Jared. She listened with interest as he explained what they’d discovered about the Imperial Scepter. Even though it wasn’t useful right now, it gave them a long-term goal that might bring the AIs down.
If they could subvert the prime AI, it could order its subordinates to surrender. Considering how badly the Old Empire had lost a straight up fight, they’d need to be sneaky in fighting this war. A full on confrontatio
n would be fatal.
She’d tell her father what they’d found and let him incorporate the details into his planning. Once they’d dealt with the freighter, they could map a more considered path forward.
Frankly, she had to admit she badly wanted to see the birthplace of mankind. Even in the condition it was in now. Her mind was already working the angles, and that beat the heck out of being pissed at her mother.
* * * * *
Justine Bandar considered the door that Kelsey had just closed with barely contained fury. How dare her daughter treat her this way?
The urge to shriek and smash furnishings was strong, but it wouldn’t serve her purposes now. If her little girl thought she could put her mother at arm’s length for months, she was wrong. A plan was already taking form in her mind.
She smiled, looked up a number, and activated her room’s com. She spoke in her most sultry voice. “Jackson? Justine Bandar. Are you free for lunch? Oh, and perhaps the afternoon? I have a favor to ask, and I’m willing to do anything to get it. Anything at all.”
* * * * *
Brandon made a point of visiting with each of the department heads that evening. He’d read their status reports for the last month, but he wanted to hear them tell him what was important to them. Some things didn’t make it into reports and he didn’t want them to have any unpleasant surprises on this mission.
The rush wasn’t anyone’s fault, but that didn’t stop him from resenting it. The stakes were so high. Failure might mean the death or enslavement of everyone he knew. No pressure.
The most interesting conversation was with Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Givens, the ship’s tactical officer. Since Captain Anderson had made such a big deal about how the fighters were their weapons, he hadn’t expected Audacious to be so well armed.
It might not pack the punch of an Old Empire superdreadnought, but it could take a couple of battlecruisers for a hard ride if the need arose. The missiles were a lot more capable than he was used to, and beams and battle screens were wholly new to his experience.
Tactical doctrine called for the carrier to have a protective group of cruisers—both heavy and light—and a screen of destroyers. In the Old Empire, they’d have more than they did now, but that would change as they acquired more ships.
Everything Captain Anderson had told him about controlling the ship was true. He could—and had—accessed the scanners from his bed. With his overrides, he could have taken the ship to battle stations and done just about anything that normally required being at a console on the bridge.
Watching the crew work with the ship’s computer was a humbling experience. He had a lot of learning to do just to understand what he didn’t know.
That didn’t mean that he had nothing to offer this ship, however. He took guilty satisfaction in making a list of things he could tweak to improve the way the crew worked together. Neither Anderson or her former exec had had the experience to see how sloppy some things were.
These were modifications that didn’t have a thing to do with implants, just interdepartmental functions. If either of the other officers had served as an executive officer, they’d have had a better grasp of what needed doing.
His experience still counted for something.
He spent a good part of the night at his desk working up a grueling training regimen for himself. He had a number of Fleet primers on how the implants influenced tactical and strategic operations. He also knew the basic functions—and the advanced ones—that he’d need to learn just to catch up with his peers.
Then there were the esoteric theoretical possibilities. He had a nephew that was a wizard with technology. He’d sent him an unclassified note asking what kinds of things he’d imagined were possible. The boy had been voraciously reading up on the civilian implant data, and had immediately send him back a long, rambling letter with tasks ranging from the mundane to the mythical.
The next wave of Fleet trainees would upend everything people like him imagined possible. Better yet, the first wave of people with implants—like Zia Anderson—would be in exactly the same boat.
He shouldn’t feel satisfied about that, but he did. Small and petty was fine, in private and limited in scope so that he didn’t let it bleed into his working relationship with the others. As it had already done.
About an hour and a half before he was due on the bridge, he gave up the pretense of trying to sleep and headed to the gym. To his surprise, he found Annette Vitter there lifting weights.
“Morning,” he said as he started stretching.
“Morning,” she agreed. “Are you feeling overwhelmed yet?”
He snorted. “You know I am. This is an impossible task, but I’ll get it done. The only question is how long that takes and how many mistakes I make along the way.”
She set her bar on the stand above her head and sat up. “No matter how badly you screw up, you’ll never reach the epic heights that Wallace Breckenridge managed on the same mission we’re trying to do over.”
Brandon stopped a second snort. Barely. “I could hardly do worse. That man screwed up by the numbers. At least this time we have a lot more ships and we’re on the same footing technologically.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she warned him, wiping her face with a hand towel. “Those people have been using implants their entire lives. Even our most experienced people still default to doing things manually. We don’t know all the tricks.”
“I was thinking about that earlier. We need to get a bunch of kids implanted and put them in simulators. They’ll adjust to the new capabilities far more quickly than we can, and they’ll come up with things we never thought of.”
The fighter pilot cocked her head. “You mean like full up ship simulators? I hadn’t ever considered that. I was only thinking about general tech.”
He nodded. “If we set up classes of kids, taught them the basics of ship operation, and let them play ship simulators in combat, they’d take to it fast. Make it a competitive game and they’d swarm to it.
“We have all the manuals of what tactics the old empire used, but we’re still short on knowing how they did a lot of things so naturally. The kids could teach academy cadets, who’d pick up a lot of what they were hearing.”
Vitter nodded slowly. “That’s a pretty good idea. I’d write that up and send it to Fleet headquarters before we ship out. It might make a big difference.”
“I probably will,” he said as he stretched his calves. “Do we have any idea what role we’re going to play in the ambush?”
“Yup. We’re the backstop. We’ll be positioned in the system on the other side of Erorsi in hiding. Once the freighter and any escorts go by, we’ll cover the exit. If someone gets away, we’ll make sure they don’t get any messages back to the Rebel Empire.”
“That seems a safe bet with this ship’s capabilities, not even considering the fighters.”
“Admiral Mertz isn’t the type to take chances if he doesn’t have to. It’s like Talbot always say. If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough.”
He laughed. “That sounds like a marine. Did you know him all that well before this mess?”
They fell into talking as he started working out. Maybe integrating wasn’t going to be as difficult as he’d feared.
Chapter Thirteen
Jared examined the layout of the task force via his implants. Everyone was in place at the Nova flip point. They’d make the jump into the hellish system and almost immediately to Pentagar.
If Ethan Bandar or Wallace Breckenridge had only known how close safety was, things might have turned out a lot differently.
“Take us through, Marcus,” he ordered. “Send a greeting to Omega and then take us to Pentagar. We don’t have a lot of time to chat.”
“Aye, sir,” the AI said. “The task force will flip in thirty seconds.”
His mental countdown went smoothly and they made gut-wrenching transition from Avalon to Nova. In just an instant of time, they travelled hu
ndreds of lightyears through the gravitational anomalies they called flip points.
The fact that this one was artificially created didn’t seem to change how it worked. It hadn’t changed in the months since the alien had used its station orbiting the black hole at the center of what had once been its people’s solar system to bridge the distance between not only it and Avalon, but also to Pentagar.
In practical terms, that meant that a fast ship could get from Avalon orbit to Pentagar orbit in a matter of hours. Once they had more freighters rigged up to stand the incredibly deadly environment around the black hole, trade would no doubt keep a stream of traffic making the journey.
“Omega sends his greetings and wishes us the best of luck with the ambush,” Marcus said. “I estimate five minutes until everyone is in place for the next flip.”
They could’ve done it faster, but there was no need to rush. Better to arrive in good order.
“Have we got any idea what’s on the other end of the rest of the flip points in this system,” Jared asked. “Other than Harrison’s World, of course.”
Omega had given them a map of the flip points it could detect using its linkage to the black hole. No one had really been able to explain exactly how that worked, though Omega had tried. The science was incomprehensible. Much like the fact the alien station had once created portals into other realities. Science fiction made real.
Just like the transport rings he’d gifted Carl Owlet with. The smaller pair made for a useful science experiment, but the openings were maybe a quarter of a meter. The larger pair was useful for people and cargo. Both had the range to take someone to the other side of the planet or even a ship in orbit.
Admiral Yeats wanted his own transport rings to make getting people and equipment to Orbital One easier. That was one of the projects Carl’s team was working on. They just needed to understand them first. That would take a while, even with Omega’s guidance.
Marcus’s answer pulled him out of his micro-reverie. “One of the flip points leads to Harrison’s World, of course. Admiral Yeats sent scouts through the other two. Those systems appear to have never to have been occupied by anyone.