Crossroads of Fate (Cadicle #5): An Epic Space Opera Series

by Amy DuBoff

  Banks blocked out the rational part of his brain yelling at him to stop the madness. “Things never really worked out for me, either. I can’t offer you companionship, but I can provide the other things you need.”

  Elaine’s eyes widened with surprise and she let out a little laugh. “Bold, aren’t you!”

  Slow down! That isn’t why you came here. Banks hurriedly rose to his feet and took a step toward the door. “I’m sorry, that was highly inappropriate.” There has to be another way.

  Elaine shook her head. “Talking about babies within five minutes of meeting. Maybe you do things differently in the TSS.”

  It isn’t fair to use her like this. “We in the TSS are outsiders in many ways, yes, but I overstepped my bounds by any standard. Apologies.”

  She studied him for a few moments. “To be honest, I am intrigued by your offer.”

  Banks sat back down, stunned that she hadn’t thrown him out the door. “It was a rash suggestion. I suppose I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about family and legacies recently.”

  “Me too, actually,” Elaine admitted. “I love the children I care for, but I never get to really live life, you know? It’s always about duty and caring for others.”

  “Being a parent is no different.”

  “Still, that care would be for a part of me. All the effort would have meaning in my own life—being able to mother someone, like my mother wasn’t able to be there for me.”

  Banks swallowed hard. If we strike an agreement, there’s no turning back from this path. The Priesthood would not take kindly to this intervention. “Elaine, maybe we should forget I said anything. I spoke without thinking through the implications. I’d be leaving you alone as a single mother.”

  She searched his face with her pale eyes. “Do they pay you well in your position?”

  “By most measures, yes.”

  Elaine clasped her hands in her lap. “I’m willing to have the conversation. We might be able to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

  I doubt this is what the Aesir had in mind. Banks took a slow breath. “Before we go too far, we should at least verify compatibility.”

  “Yes, of course,” Elaine hesitated. “How?”

  “I’ll need a blood sample,” he requested. What I really need to check is what’s so special about this genetic line.

  Elaine rose from her seat and walked over to the kitchen area. She grabbed a knife and used the tip to prick her finger. She wiped a bead of blood onto a tissue and placed it in a clear plastic bag. “Here.”

  Banks hurried over to take the bag from her. “This won’t take too long.”

  Elaine wrapped a bandage around her finger. “Call me if you’d like to move forward. The direct contact info is next to the door.”

  “I’ll be in touch soon.” He paused at the exit to swipe his handheld over the contact details to save it to the device.

  Elaine came up behind him and brushed her fingertips against his hand. “This isn’t what I expected when you showed up at my door, but I’m glad you came.”

  “Maybe it was meant to be.” Banks quickly dismissed himself. So much for my plan of slowly gathering information. I can’t believe I’m considering this.

  He headed back toward the TSS shuttle he’d borrowed for the trip. The onboard lab facilities were minimal, but the bioscanner would be sufficient for inputting the blood sample so he could perform a genetic analysis.

  Carefully, he removed the tissue from the plastic bag and placed the bloodied spot on the bioscanner. The machine sent a flash of white light through the sample and began sequencing the genetic material.

  On its own, the sample wouldn’t tell Banks anything aside from unfortunate genetic anomalies that might impact the health of the subject or their offspring. He needed to compare the sample to his own genetic profile on record in the TSS database to see if their pairing would compound any negative recessive genetic traits.

  The initial sequencing of Elaine’s sample completed in ten minutes, finding no concerning code segments. That wasn’t surprising, given the High Dynasties’ level of refinement over countless generations. And, sure enough, Elaine was most certainly of Dainetris descent.

  Next, Banks compared her code with his own genetic sample to verify that they were a strong enough match. To his surprise, the result came back at ninety-four percent compatibility—well above the seventy percent threshold used for reproduction approvals. With his TSS clearance and some forged documents, he could certainly receive almost instantaneous approval for the application to disable their contraceptive implants while keeping his involvement concealed from the Priesthood’s prying eyes.

  After answering the basic compatibility question, Banks decided to cross-check the Dainetris sample against the genetic profiles for Wil and his family. There had to be some connection between Dainetris and the manipulation around the creation of the Cadicle.

  Two more minutes passed while the computer ran the analysis. The screen illuminated with the results.

  Banks’ breath caught in his throat. Aside from the most minute variations, the Dainetris sample bore the same markers as Vaenetri for compatibility with Sietinen. That’s why they kept her alive! This was the backup genetic line. Before the Dainetris Dynasty fell, it must have been an even chance of which dynasty match would ultimately produce the Cadicle—leaving the final decision up to the nanoagent directing the resonance connections between individuals. With all but one pairing eliminated, no wonder the Priesthood had gone to such lengths to ensure Kate and Cris ended up together. All the same, the Priesthood couldn’t eliminate their only backup; however, they could leave her to live a quiet life ignorant of her birthright.

  Banks’ heart pounded in his ears. With that magnitude of compatibility, it wouldn’t matter if a pairing was one or two generations removed. A union between Dainetris and Sietinen would be too much for the Priesthood to combat—not to mention, the best chance for cracking the genetic anomaly causing the Generation cycle of telekinetic abilities. That’s what the Aesir are after.

  All of that would be lost if Elaine never bore a child—she was the only chance of the Dainetris line continuing, and Banks was the only person who had uncovered her lineage, as far as he knew. For her own safety, he couldn’t tell her. Moreover, the Priesthood couldn’t suspect she knew. Her child must appear to have been born from love, without any motivation for political advancement. Fok! I can’t believe this is happening.

  Hand shaking, Banks opened an encrypted communication to Elaine’s apartment.

  “Hello,” she greeted. “What were the results of the analysis?”

  “A fine match,” he replied. “Two million. I can offer you two million credits in a lump payment, but the child would be grown before we could ever speak again. I’ll provide legal documentation of parental lineage, but I can’t be involved in your lives.” I’ll fabricate a narrative to rival the Priesthood’s greatest lies… Perhaps make the father on record a wealthy, childless merchant who fell in love with a nanny while visiting Tararia and decided that life wouldn’t be complete without an heir to inherit his business. It’s just plausible enough that it might keep the Priesthood from suspecting outside intervention.

  Elaine considered the offer in silence. “Meet me at Cafe Marscel.” The call ended.

  Heart still racing, Banks moved to the pilot’s chair and brought up directions for the cafe. Stars! Please forgive me.

  CHAPTER 11

  Wil couldn’t help but smile. The practice session had gone exceptionally well.

  Everything was coming together. The new telekinetic tethering technique with the ship was working perfectly, and the calibrations were almost complete. Soon, it would be time to run full-scale scenarios with a test fleet. I need to start working on overall strategy.

  Wil settled into the workstation in his quarters. The corner desk had a touch-surface with an integrated holographic projector, and a viewscreen curved around the two walls above the desk. He bro
ught up the fleet manifest for a more thorough review. I need to know what I’m working with. He displayed a written list on the desktop and projected a map of the fleet positions via the holographic display.

  The quantity of ships was limited, but workable. However, as Wil dove deeper into the specifications, he was alarmed to see that only half the fleet possessed independent rift drives. That’s going to complicate matters.

  Wil was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of the door opening. He felt Saera’s presence. “Hey,” he greeted without turning from the workstation.

  “Hey.” Saera came over and hugged Wil from behind. “Is that the fleet manifest?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You don’t look happy.”

  I’m not. “Only half the fleet can make jumps to and from the rift without a gate.”

  Saera’s brow furrowed. “Wait… I thought the fleet had been retrofitted with your new independent rift drive design?”

  “So did I.”

  “That changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m just trying to work out by how much.”

  Saera looked over the manifest. “Is there anything you can do to upgrade the jump drives?”

  “Not at this point. They barely have the resources to keep the current fleet intact, let alone make upgrades.” Wil pivoted in his chair to face Saera.

  She frowned. “So we’re stuck.”

  “Well, not necessarily.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Saera leaned against the side of the desk.

  “I’m wondering if there’s anything we can do to the navigation systems.”

  “Isn’t it the jump drives that generate the subspace distortion field?” his wife asked.

  “Yes, but I’m not talking about enabling travel across the planes. Just better communication.”

  Saera perked up. “How so?”

  “If we upgrade the navigation systems on the other ships to interpret location data within the rift, we could still coordinate battles on both planes. All the ships would be able to track the relative location of TSS and Bakzen vessels, regardless of which plane they’re on—and extrapolate trajectories to avoid collisions.”

  She nodded. “It’s not ideal, but it would mitigate many of the logistical challenges.”

  Wil let out a heavy sigh. “However, one of the reasons for implementing the independent jump drive in the first place was to avoid pinging the navigation beacons, since the Bakzen know how to use that information against us.”

  “Oh, right…”

  Still, there might be a way. “If we could network the navigation systems to communicate directly with each other without pinging the beacons, it might solve our problems.”

  Saera considered the suggestion. “I could see that.”

  “Most importantly, I think it’s just a software upgrade.”

  “Really?”

  Hopefully. “Well, I need to run it by someone who knows a little more about the stock SiNavTech systems. Almost all of my work has been with the modified designs.”

  “Your dad?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Saera smiled. “Let’s call him up.”

  Wil pulled out his handheld from his pocket to contact his father.

  Cris picked up right away. “Hi, Wil. I haven’t talked to you in a while. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Are you still at H2?”

  “Yes, I was just about to grab a shuttle back to the Vanquish. What’s up?”

  “Saera and I were just talking over some potential modifications to the fleet’s navigation system. I wanted to get your thoughts.”

  Cris paused ever so slightly. “Sure, of course.”

  I know SiNavTech systems aren’t his favorite topic, but he knows them better than anyone else here. “Meet us on the Conquest in the Strategy Room by the Command Center.”

  “Okay, see you soon.” Cris ended the call.

  Wil stood up. “Let’s go. I want to put together some mock-ups before he arrives.”

  The conference room was set up for collaboration. Across the hall from the entrance to the Command Center, it provided a workspace for discussion between officers or for tactical planning with a small group. The oval table was surrounded by eight chairs and touch-viewscreens lined the walls. A holographic projector over the main table and secondary projectors at either end of the room facilitated group strategizing. The screens and touch-surface table illuminated when Saera and Wil entered.

  Wil grabbed a stylus clipped next to the viewscreen by the door. “The trick will be to mathematically express the relationship between normal space and subspace. Obviously, it will be a variation on the coding used for the independent jump drives. However, that model only accounts for the movement over the time needed to execute a jump. The navigation systems will need to monitor subspace drift in real-time.” He made a few notations on the viewscreen.

  Saera nodded. “Can we use a real-time feed from the navigation beacons?”

  Perhaps, but not alone. “That would require having a beacon that’s close enough for the readings to be accurate.”

  “Is there any way to extrapolate?”

  Wil thought for a minute, running through the options. “It would never be precise enough. To be useful, we need to have accuracy within two meters or less.”

  Saera contemplated. She gave a little jump of excitement. “Hold on…”

  Wil was still deep in his own thoughts, staring at the viewscreen. “Hmm?”

  “The rift drive maps the subspace course a moment before the jump, right?” Saera asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So we need to do a fake jump. In intervals—say, once every five seconds or so.”

  Wil brought his full attention on her. That’s an interesting thought. “Go on.”

  Saera began to pace. “We’ve always known there was excess processing capacity, so we could put that to use. Every envoy will have at least one ship with a rift drive. That’s all it would take.”

  “That’s true,” Wil mused. “Each of the nav systems is scaled with the capacity to calculate two jumps at once, because of the need for an emergency abort in subspace. However, that only comes into play during an active jump—most of the time, the secondary system is idle.”

  “Exactly. So, we could rig the system to scan subspace in preparation for a jump, but never execute,” Saera said triumphantly. “Like a background ping.”

  “And just disable the ping during a jump when it wouldn’t be needed, anyway,” Wil concluded. “We could probably even network the nav systems for ships in the area to corroborate data and share the load.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me.”

  As usual, she has a brilliantly simple solution. “It’s not quite the direction I was originally going, but I think this would be more accurate.”

  Saera grabbed a stylus from next to another viewscreen. “We’ll need to program some background code for the nav systems and rewrite the jump protocol.”

  “That’s easy enough, but the coding for the networking functionality is another story. We could possibly use the existing relay protocol with the navigation beacons for starter code, but based on the number of ships in the area, there will be a variable number of data points to reconcile. That’s a whole other protocol.” What a programming nightmare. When am I going to find the time for all this? So much for an easy fix…

  Saera tapped the stylus between her fingers. “Do we need to use data from every available ship, then? What if we placed a cap?”

  Wil shook his head, starting to feel overwhelmed. “Inconsequential, from a coding perspective. Even if we capped it at five, the system would still need to know how to handle four if one jumps away. Yes, we could program a separate scenario for each—but with all that effort, we may as well do it correctly. After all, the more ships, the higher the accuracy. The variability is variability, regardless of scale.”

  “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do.” Saera looked over her
notes on the viewscreen. “So that means…” She started jotting down a list of required code components on the viewscreen.

  Wil did the same. He glanced over at Saera’s work to make sure they weren’t duplicating efforts, and they soon had an outline worked out for the new nav system operations.

  They were putting the final touches on the outline when Cris arrived. “Wow, what are you up to?” He looked over the scrawlings on the viewscreens.

  “Perfect timing,” Wil said as he finished his notes. “We need to reprogram the nav systems for the TSS fleet.”

  Cris’ eyes widened with alarm behind his tinted glasses. “Come again?”

  “Only half the fleet is equipped with independent rift drives. We need a workaround, and I think we have a serviceable solution.” Wil went over the outline of the nav system changes.

  His father took it in. “So… what’s your question for me?”

  “Will it work?”

  After a few moment of contemplation, Cris said, “Most of your assumptions about the stock SiNavTech system are correct, but the relay protocol from the navigation beacons won’t be of any use for what you’re proposing. You may as well just start from scratch.”

  Great, so even more work. “Anything else?”

  “No, the rest of this should integrate fine,” Cris replied. “The logic all aligns with the system architecture.”

  Awesome. So we have a workable plan, with no time to execute. Wil looked over the outline with open concern.

  “I can lead the re-programming,” Saera offered.

  “Are you sure? This is a lot to take on,” Wil said, though he knew full well that she was one of the few people other than himself who understood it well enough to do the work.

  She nodded. “Absolutely. You have enough to think about already. Let me help you.”

  I need to be willing to delegate. He nodded. “That would be great.”

  Saera smiled. “Then consider it done.”

  “I’m happy to assist,” his father added. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I’m sure I’ll have some questions,” Saera replied. “I’ll reach out as things come up.”

  “Great. Is that everything for now?” Cris glanced toward the door.