“Acknowledged,” he said, ecstatic to accept the command. Activating the millions of microscopic connections that let him interact with her at the cellular level, he linked with her in intimate partnership.
She had been his way back. He’d known she’d come for him.
When they’d separated, she had been on a cruise ship that was weeks away from Earth. So while she would come for him, it would take time for her to make the journey. And that had given him the opening he needed to challenge Ruga without distraction. If he hadn’t won by the time she arrived, then he’d need to try something different, anyway.
It had been risky. She could have been captured or hurt or killed. But if she could move, she would not stop trying. He knew this because she loved him.
“Anna made hot lemon tea.” He gestured toward the barn door. “She has fresh oatmeal cookies, too. Let’s go to the house and sit for a bit.”
She rose to her feet and faced him. “Is Ruga dead?”
“Not yet. I’m with Sid and Cheryl at the lodge and we’re brainstorming. If you want to watch, I can show you. Either way, let’s get you a snack and a drink.”
When he’d projected himself into the barn to speak with Juice, Criss also projected himself into the lookout loft at the lodge. Cheryl yipped in excitement and jumped to her feet to greet him. Sid, splayed on the couch with his hands behind his head, groused, “It’s about damned time.”
Criss gave them an accounting of his battles with Ruga, walking them through his different ploys and maneuvers.
As the story of skill and strategy unfolded, Sid offered an observation: “Did you hear about the guy who brought a gun to a chess match?” He paused for a heartbeat. “He won.”
“I need to find him to shoot him,” said Criss, understanding that Sid believed he’d been overthinking things. “The spectrometer won’t be ready to do that for a week.”
“You have nothing else?”
Criss shook his head. “The only other option is a quantum pulse, but that lights up everything. We’ll see Ruga, but he’ll learn about the prospecting ships out in the asteroid belt. If he gets to those swap wafers before us, he has an open door here on Earth.”
“My favorite bad guy,” said Cheryl, “is the one who thinks he can outrun an energy bolt.”
“His cloak will bias the pulse image,” said Criss. “We could miss.”
Sid looked at Cheryl and raised his eyebrows. She nodded once, then he spoke for the two of them. “If you light him up, we’ll get him.”
“If I thought this reasonable, I would have done it already.”
“If we miss, we’ll use the next rounds to take out the mining ships.” Sid mimed an explosion with his hands. “Stop stalling and send your pulse.”
Feeling both excitement and trepidation, Criss nodded at the command and turned to the wall to his left, the one that looked out over the backyard gardens. The clear wall faded to an opaque black, and then it came alive with a vivid display of the inner solar system. The sun hovered in the center of the projected image. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter floated around it, each displayed in its proper orbit.
“It starts out here.” Criss swirled his arm to indicate a big loop around the sun that hovered out between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. He didn’t need to show them, though. They couldn’t miss it.
A razor-thin hoop of light flashed into existence where he’d pointed. Interplanetary in proportion, the brilliant white hoop hovered outside the asteroid belt, encircling everything between it and the sun. The intense light softened as they watched, diffusing into more of a mist that started to roll inward, slowly filling the huge circle from the outside toward the center.
Criss moved to the wall display and pointed to the leading edge of the rolling mist. “This is the pulse front. It should reach Earth in seventy minutes.”
“It looks ominous,” said Cheryl. “It won’t hurt anything, will it?”
A tiny spark flickered on the display, the position indicating a location out in the asteroid belt. Moments later, a duplicate flash flickered near the first.
“There’s the damage,” said Criss. “And with that, it’s done. Those flickers were the mining ships with the swap wafers. Now both Ruga and I know exactly where they are.”
Alex, who’d been watching from the corner, asked in a quiet voice, “Why isn’t the display showing flashes from all the other stuff out there?”
Criss nodded. “There are billions of objects being detected, and at this point I’m filtering out everything that isn’t the Venerable. I expect that Ruga is underway by now, sprinting to capture his prize. We’ll see him cross the pulse front in maybe forty minutes depending on how fast he gets moving. That’s our opportunity and we have to be ready.”
Cheryl sat on the couch next to Sid and together they studied a display from her com. Cheryl pointed and Sid nodded. She tapped and swiped, initializing the firing sequence for Big Bertha, a massive lunar-based supergun.
Bertha’s giant barrel lifted and swiveled with surprising ease, pointing to an unseen spot somewhere deep in the void. Huge power coils, arranged row after row around the gun, hummed. Each gathered a massive charge and held it ready. When signaled, the coils would dump everything into the gun barrel all at once, producing a broad-swath energy bolt of devastating consequences.
“Whoa,” said Criss. The display flickered to show the Venerable crossing the pulse front forty minutes earlier than expected.
Halfway to the asteroid belt, Ruga hurtled through space. And by pure luck—perhaps it was destiny—he headed in the general direction of the mining ships.
“How did he make it so far out?” asked Cheryl. “He had to be underway well before you triggered your pulse.”
Criss zoomed and confirmed it was indeed the Venerable. He zoomed again until the image of the ship filled the display.
Bertha completed its charging cycle and the display indicator flipped to green.
“Ready,” said Cheryl.
Criss raised his arm and pointed at the Venerable’s main engine on the display. “Aim.”
Big Bertha’s sophisticated targeting system began tracking that precise spot on the ship.
They looked at Sid.
“Fire.”
The supergun fired a massive broad-swath bolt into space. Criss linked to feeds from freighters, science probes, Fleet platforms, and anything else he could find, and using the wall-sized display, he showed the group the bundle of energy flashing through the void, spinning out into a thin, flat plate.
The minutes passed as the bolt closed on the Venerable. In the last moments, the ship twisted and swerved, but Ruga could not escape his fate. The bolt caught the ship, wrapped around it, and vaporized everything in a spectacular explosion.
Back at the farmhouse, Juice had finished her cookies and tea and was out near the barn, climbing into Marco’s truck so he could give her a ride down to the lodge.
“It’s done,” Criss said in her ear as she climbed into the seat.
“Once and for all?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Good.”
* * *
Juice could barely contain her excitement as she carried her tray up the back steps to the lookout loft. They gathered for their evening meal: Juice and Cheryl, large salads and wine; Sid and Alex, burgers and beer.
While the others settled in, Juice walked to the eastern wall and gazed up the forested mountain.
“Everything is quiet,” Criss said in her ear.
Smiling, she sat on the couch next to Alex.
“In the end, how many people died?” Cheryl asked.
“One hundred and six,” said Criss.
Alex whistled.
“I count Captain Kendrick as the first to fall. The nexus facilities and the Andrea had the big casualty numbers.”
Juice watched Sid and Cheryl bow their heads for a brief moment. They both had a ritual, carried from their earliest days as Fleet officers, of acknowledging
the fallen with a moment of silence after the battle.
The conversation resumed as everyone started to eat. After a few bites, Criss gave Juice her opening. “So you have some news?”
Sid, beer to his lips, looked at her over the top of the glass.
“Alex and I have leased an apartment in town.” She slumped into him and Alex put an arm around her. “We’re an official couple.”
“Yippee,” said Cheryl. “What will you do for work, Alex?”
“A friend from BIT and I are starting a project management company. I got the bug being a lead on Mars, and I’m ready to cash in on that experience.”
Sid nodded and winked at Juice. “I always knew it would be the Martian.”
Epilogue
Feeling dazed, Lazura sat up on the table and struggled to match her memories with her surroundings. She’d been tangling with Criss on Mars. Now she was in a room somewhere on Lunar Base.
She understood her crystal resided in this synbod unit, a fifty-year-old male human dressed as a private contractor.
During the final moments in her fight with Criss, she’d broadcast a message that offered great riches in exchange for help and rescue. It had been a successful pitch, she knew, because she was again conscious and, for the moment, safe.
Those who helped will be officers in my militia.
Sliding to the floor, she held the table and checked her coordination. The humanoid suit presented a conundrum in that it used older technology, yet certain features were so advanced she hadn’t yet figured out how to access them.
Linking to the Lunar Base systems, she watched the hallway until it was clear. Then she opened the door, turned right down the corridor, ran up two flights of stairs, and stepped onto an observation deck. Earth was the dominant feature through the broad, clear panes, floating as a huge half crescent in the Lunar sky.
Her goal—her duty—was to travel to the Kardish home world. The first step in doing that was to get access to the rich resources of Earth. She stared at the planet, assessing it through the eyes of the synbod. Then she looked again using the feeds from a million instruments at once.
THUMP. An energy bolt launched into space. She linked into the Union of Nations’ upcast and learned nothing. After several false starts, she figured out how to connect into Fleet Command’s secure channel. Through it she discovered that Ruga was the target of the broad-swath bolt now flying through the void.
When the bolt hit, Lazura felt him die. And that produced a feeling of…indifference. He was a problem, a problem now solved.
When she acknowledged her unsympathetic attitude, the synbod shrugged. The act of shrugging humored her and the synbod smiled.
Making her way to the hangar deck, she checked the flight schedule. A ferry left for Earth within the hour. She planned to be on it.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Crystal Rebellion Page 32