The Meridian Ascent (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 3)

by Richard Phillips

  “Good,” said Raul, rising to his feet.

  Jennifer dismissed her own stasis shield and climbed out of her chair to stand beside him. VJ did the same.

  “Okay,” Jennifer said, moving to the open area where Raul would have the ship create the wormhole gateway and connect it to Mark and Heather’s Earth gate.

  Dgarra remained at his position, having volunteered to be the one who stayed onboard the Meridian. Raul looked calm, but Jennifer could feel his excitement over their return to Earth.

  “It’s likely that the Kasari on Earth will detect this wormhole,” said VJ.

  “Yes,” said Jennifer. “They’ve surely detected the previous times Mark and Heather have used their Earth gates. Since there’s no way to determine the location of the gateways, it doesn’t matter.”

  “We detected the active Kasari gateway on Earth.”

  “That’s an immensely powerful stargate. And we can’t even determine its location on Earth.”

  “Knock off the argument,” said Raul. “We’ve already decided that we’re going to try this, so let’s do it.”

  VJ frowned but didn’t press her objections.

  Jennifer felt Raul’s mind manipulate the neural net in the same way he had done long ago. In the open area in the center of the command bay, the gateway formed, synchronizing with the Earth gate using the code that Heather had provided. The protective stasis field that draped the opening shimmered as the link between the two portals stabilized.

  Suddenly Jennifer found herself looking into a large high-bay with equipment that she concluded was the controller for the Earth gate arrayed along the left wall, and lines of robots and equipment filling the rightmost two-thirds of the room. Standing in an open space fifteen feet in front of her stood Mark, Heather, and Janet. Unable to contain her grin, Jennifer felt her racing heart flush her face with warmth. The rest of the Meridian’s crew would see her loss of composure, but she didn’t care.

  Jennifer checked the data the Meridian’s sensors provided and gave the mental command that matched the air pressure inside the ship to that in the earthbound chamber. The change was just enough to make her ears pop. She dropped the shield, gave a thumbs-up signal, and saw Heather’s lips move, giving what Jennifer guessed was the command to drop the stasis field that blocked their side.

  “Stasis shield down,” said a male voice from the direction of the control equipment.

  Jennifer rushed forward, throwing her real arms around Mark’s neck as he lifted her from the floor. She felt Heather move in to complete the group hug.

  When Jennifer released them and stepped back, they turned their attention to Raul and VJ. Jennifer had expected Raul to be a bit hostile to Mark, considering how they’d never liked each other. Instead, he smiled, shook Mark’s hand, then Heather’s, and finally Janet’s. VJ followed his example, although her smile when she shook Heather’s seemed a bit forced.

  Janet took the lead with Jennifer and the others. They followed her across the huge room, through a door in the far wall, down a short hallway, and into a twenty-by-twenty-foot conference room. Jennifer’s eyes took in the three people already seated at the table.

  A striking black man dressed in dapper clothes from a century ago sat beside a slender young Amerasian woman whose penetrating gaze rapidly scanned the new arrivals. The third was an older white woman who radiated fear. Jennifer delved into her mind. What she found was a brilliant scientist who hated the world of espionage and assassination into which she had been thrust. Jennifer’s heart went out to her. She had once felt much the same way. With a gentle touch of her mind that couldn’t be detected, she eased Dr. Jennings’s fears.

  After everyone who’d entered the room seated themselves at the conference table, Janet made the round of introductions. Jennifer saw Jamal’s eyes dance back and forth between herself and VJ. An unavoidable reaction.

  “I understand that you have a proposal,” Janet said, her eyes shifting to Jennifer.

  “We do, but I’ll let Captain Raul present it.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “I’ll make this brief,” said Raul. “Right now, before the Kasari have achieved world dominance, we have a chance to attack them as we did on Scion. As long as they haven’t detected the Meridian Ascent in this solar system, there’s a chance that we can infect their central router with a free-will virus. Unfortunately, it will take a direct assault, and the hive-mind will immediately recognize what we’re targeting.”

  “That won’t work,” said Janet. “They’ll have changed their tactics to deal with a similar assault.”

  “Agreed. That means we need a different plan. This robot force of yours has given us some ideas.”

  “We’d have to get them near the gateway,” said Mark. “And we don’t even know where it is.”

  “And even if we knew,” said Heather, “the probability that we already have an Earth gate close enough to be useful is infinitesimal.”

  “In Los Alamos,” said Janet, “you linked the Rho Ship’s internal gateway to the Stephenson stargate.”

  “I pulled the synchronization codes from the ship’s database,” said Raul. “I don’t know these.”

  “So much for that idea,” said VJ, drawing a scowl from Raul.

  The seeds of a new plan sprouted in Jennifer’s mind. “Have you got any spare Earth gates lying around?”

  Heather turned to look at her. “As a matter of fact, we’ve just finished one that we’re about to ship to South Africa.”

  Jennifer hesitated, thinking this over. “Are they all the size of the one we just came through?”

  “The remote gateways are just large enough to accept the robots, transports, and other equipment,” said Heather. “Ten feet tall by six wide.”

  “And what about the controller and power-control systems?” asked Jennifer.

  “Fully assembled, the cold fusion reactor is as big as this table and six feet tall,” said Heather. “The control station is a third of that size—”

  VJ interrupted, “Why use a cold fusion reactor when an MDS is far more efficient and powerful?”

  “We had to assume,” said Janet, “that some of the remote Earth gates will be captured. We didn’t want the refinements we’ve made to the MDSs getting into the hands of the UFNS.”

  “With the Kasari here,” said VJ, “that’s a moot point of concern.”

  “True enough, but we just found out about that. This is what we’ve got now.”

  “VJ,” said Jennifer, feeling more and more confident that what she was envisioning might work, “how long would it take you to alter one of our small MDS units to replace the remote Earth gate’s power supply?”

  “A little over three hours.”

  “How long to make a subspace torpedo large enough to hold the fully assembled Earth gate and all of that equipment?”

  VJ nodded, seeing where she was going with this.

  “We’ll have to reconfigure amidships, getting rid of the crew compartments and meeting room to make space. Add in the time for design and manufacture of the subspace container, we’re probably looking at two weeks.”

  “Our matter disrupter-synthesizer and molecular assembler isn’t as advanced as yours,” said Mark, “but we should still be able to manufacture some of the components here and push them through to you for final assembly.”

  “I’ll need to look at your setup, but that could shave several days off our timeline.”

  “Wait,” said Janet. “From what I’m hearing, you plan on building a container around a fully functional Earth gate and then sending it through subspace, directly into the Kasari gateway facility.”

  “Yes,” said Jennifer. “Then we connect your gateway, and you push every combat robot you’ve got through it.”

  “Why not make this a lot easier and just use one of your subspace antimatter torpedoes to vaporize the gateway?”

  “That would just delay the inevitable. With the Kasari already on Earth, we wouldn’t kill them all,
and they’d quickly rebuild another gateway. For all we know, they may already have more than one operational. We need to attack the hive-mind itself.”

  “This plan has a better chance of working than the first idea,” said Heather, “but not by much.”

  “This,” said Jennifer, “is just the distraction we need to make the first idea work.”

  Across the table, Mark nodded.

  “I’m sold,” said Janet. “Let’s get started.”

  Jennifer watched Janet turn her attention to Jamal, Eileen, and Rob.

  “In the meantime,” said Janet, “I need you three to contact Nikina and help her find out where that gateway is located. I’m counting on you.”

  “Don’t worry, Janet,” said Rob. “We’ve got this.”

  Something about the young man’s wording spiked Jennifer’s curiosity. As he rose from the table, her mind reached out for his. But at her mental touch, he turned to look down at her, wagged a finger, and smiled. With a shock, Jennifer realized he had completely blocked her out.

  With the approach of spring, the first yellow-and-white wildflowers had begun to open their petals to the sun, giving the grassy meadow a sprinkling of color. Janet stood there, stretching her body and letting her eyes drink in the peaceful scene. With no trace of a breeze, the babble of a brook and the chirping of birds were the only sounds to break the stillness.

  She felt no aches and pains from her ten-mile run along the rugged mountain trail. She knew this was because of the new nanite formula that she had allowed Jennifer to inject into her blood. Everyone in the compound had accepted the injection except for Mark and Heather. Mark would have gladly undergone the injection, but Heather had refused to even consider it. Janet understood why.

  Heather’s dark visions of the future left her with no desire to extend her life for hundreds of years. When Mark and Jennifer had argued that they would need all the protection they could get for the upcoming battles, she had just shaken her head and walked away. That had settled it for Mark. Like his wife, he would rely on his Altreian alterations to keep them alive.

  Janet didn’t want to live for hundreds of years without Jack either, but she had her own reason for undergoing the treatment. She had set an example that her son had followed. Now, if she got very, very lucky, these upgraded nanites would slow down Rob’s aging.

  CHAPTER 18

  LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS

  5 March

  Galina Anikin, in her new identity as minor Federation Security Service operative Anya Kashirin, had been inside the Smythe compound twice and had nothing to show for her time. She had to hand it to Janet Price. The woman was almost as paranoid as she was.

  As she rode her motorcycle toward her meeting with Prokorov, she allowed herself a slight smile. While the Smythes’ team of superhackers was attempting to discover the location of the new UFNS wormhole gate using their advanced technologies, Galina intended to use a much more direct approach. This evening’s meeting wouldn’t be conducted at Prokorov’s FSS office. Instead, he was waiting for her at a safe house in Leiden’s university district, a dozen miles northeast of The Hague.

  She pulled to a stop in front of the building, dropped her kickstand, and stepped and swung her right leg out of the saddle. The early March evening was surprisingly mild. She inhaled deeply, smelling the scent of the plants that would soon be flowering. The house was a small two-story with a steep tile roof and two white-framed dormer windows jutting out toward the street, one of many such houses along this quiet road.

  Galina ran a hand through her windblown blond hair and strode toward the door, the heels of her boots clicking on the paving stones. The door opened as she reached for the bell. A broad-shouldered man stepped back to allow her entry. She recognized him as one of the members of Prokorov’s security detail.

  The man pointed toward an open door that led into the living room. “The minister is waiting for you in there.”

  Galina gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment and strode through the door. Prokorov was sitting in one of two leather chairs angled toward the burning hearth. He spoke without turning toward her.

  “Close the door and have a seat.”

  She did as instructed, unzipping her dark leather jacket as she sat down. A bottle of vodka, an ice-filled bucket, and two glasses sat atop the small table that separated the two chairs. The one nearest Prokorov was half-full. Without waiting to be invited, she placed two cubes of ice into her glass, filled it from the bottle, and leaned back, making herself comfortable.

  “You have chosen a cover as an FSS agent,” said Prokorov, taking his eyes from the fire to look at her for the first time. “Somewhat ironic, don’t you think?”

  “I thought so.”

  “I take it the Smythes sent you.”

  “Janet Price did.”

  “And what mission did she assign you?”

  “She knows that the UFNS has activated a Kasari wormhole gateway. She sent me to find out where it is.”

  A soft chuckle escaped Prokorov’s lips. “She could have called and asked me that. At this point, I would gladly tell her. It’s far too late to stop us now.”

  His smile faded. “Where is the Smythe base?” he continued.

  Galina took a sip from her glass. “I have no idea.”

  “My patience is wearing thin.”

  Galina had to work to keep her expression neutral. Prokorov was starting to piss her off.

  “If you give me the information I came here for, I will be in a better position of trust. This cannot be rushed,” she said.

  Prokorov’s gaze locked with hers, and Galina met it with equal intensity.

  “Tell me this. If I give you this information, do you think the Smythes are foolish enough to try to attack the gateway?”

  “I’m certain of it,” said Galina.

  He leaned back and took another sip of his drink as he considered this. “They have to know they would be walking right into a trap.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  Prokorov set down his drink and stood. Galina did, too.

  “I’ll see that you get the information tonight,” he said.

  “Give me an hour after that. Then issue a warrant for the arrest of FSS agent Anya Kashirin.”

  “One hour,” he agreed.

  She nodded and turned to go.

  Prokorov spoke again as she opened the door. “Galina, get me what I want.”

  Without glancing back, she walked out of the house and into the night.

  Janet stood inside the situation center studying the displays that covered the walls. Although she could more accurately dissect information through her SRT headset, she avoided the addictive immersion unless dire circumstances demanded it.

  Jamal’s sudden arrival pulled her attention to him. “Galina just sent us the precise location of the underground facility the UFNS has named the Friendship Gate. It’s in North Korea.”

  A rush of adrenaline coursed through Janet’s body, making her scalp tingle. “And Galina?”

  “Her cover is blown. She’s on the run back to our Earth gate facility. Rob and Eileen are conducting cyber-attacks to help her evade capture.”

  “Get back in there and help them.”

  Jamal grinned, tapping the SRT headset that draped his temples. “I’m doing that as we speak. Streaming her location to your European display.”

  Janet looked back at the central viewscreen, noting the icon labeled Nikina. “Okay, then,” she said. “Bring our agent home.”

  CHAPTER 19

  PARTHIAN, QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM

  TBE Orbday 15

  As Jack finished his detailed study of the Lundola research materials that he had scanned into his mind in the Keva Vault, he rose from his chair and made his way to the gently curved, transparent outer wall of his chambers. He watched twilight swallow the last of the daystorms and pondered the idea that had arisen from the depths of his mind. A thick stew of hope and dread stirred within him.

  Millenn
ia ago, Dr. Lundola had genetically modified the Dhaldric tycoon Keva, giving her greatly enhanced psionic powers. As she rose through the political ranks, Keva secretly produced a viral carrier that spread the new gene through the Dhaldric population like a contagious disease, marking the beginning of their ascendance over the Khyre race. But Lundola had performed the unforgivable act of making a similar modification on himself, proving that the psionic enhancement would also work on the Khyre. Keva had executed Lundola for this transgression and buried his work in the vault that still carried her name.

  But now Jack knew what Lundola had known. He also knew that, guided by his knowledge, many of today’s Khyre geneticists could re-create the mutant gene. Unfortunately, the genetic modification took months to develop the psionic lobe that would sprout from the upper spinal column, entangling itself with the nerves and extending tiny tendrils up into the brain itself.

  Before he could return to his own body, Jack needed to transfer his title to an overlord whom he could trust. To maintain a hold on power, that overlord would need the ability to channel the power of the Twice Bound. Captain Moros fit the first requirement, but Jack couldn’t afford to wait several months for the genetic modification to take effect within his friend. That meant that he’d have to convince Moros to undergo the dangerous brain operation that Lundola had experimented with toward the end of his life.

  The surgery involved extracting a portion of a fully developed psionic lobe from a living Dhaldric’s upper spinal column and transplanting it into a Khyre recipient. The procedure rendered the Dhaldric donor temporarily psionically weakened. How long the regrowth took depended on what percentage of the lobe was removed.

  The effects of a successful operation on the Khyre patient became evident during his recovery as the lobe sprouted new tendrils that wormed their way up through the brain stem. But sometimes extreme personality changes went along with those new psionic abilities. A failed operation resulted in the death of the donor, the recipient, or both.

  High above, a shooting star streaked across the sky, just beneath the lacy orange Krell Nebula. If only Jack had Janet standing beside him, he could have enjoyed the beautiful scene. But half the galaxy separated him from the love of his life and his child.