The Altreian Enigma (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 2)

by Richard Phillips

  “What can’t you wait for?”

  Eileen knew that this kind of banter about their situation made Denise uncomfortable, so she shifted to Jamal’s original question.

  “We were just talking about how Janet Price should be arriving soon.”

  “I don’t know what good that will do.” Denise seated herself in a chair across from Jamal’s workstation. “I wish I hadn’t lived to see these terrible times. And the terrifying truth is that they’re about to get much, much worse.”

  A message-received alert sounded, drawing Eileen’s eyes to her workstation. Its contents were exactly what she’d been waiting for.

  “Janet has just arrived. President Suarez is bringing her down here.”

  Jamal stood up. “To the conference room, then?”

  Eileen rose to follow him. “Might as well get this over with. Our news isn’t going to get better with age.”

  Jamal wasn’t a big fan of being kept waiting, even if it was for the Mexican president and Janet Price. When they finally did walk into the conference room forty-seven minutes later, he had to force himself to stand, if only in deference to the man who had given his protection for these last few months and for the operative who, along with Jack Gregory, had saved his life a dozen years ago. But he shook their hands and said his greetings, taking that time to study the leader of the Safe Earth resistance.

  Janet caught his gaze, looked deep into his eyes, and smiled. She could see right through him. Twelve years had passed since this tall, athletic woman and Jack Gregory had fought their way through a laboratory to pull Jamal from the sensory-deprivation tank where his brain was being scanned by Steve Grange. He had to admit, she still looked damn good. And she clearly could break his hand if she wanted to.

  “Sorry for keeping you waiting,” she said, releasing her grip. “President Suarez was kind enough to let me clean up after my journey. Fat suits are a bitch.”

  Then it hit him. Of course she had been heavily disguised, what with half the world hunting her. Jamal felt his annoyance fade away.

  “Understandable.”

  President Suarez took his seat at the head of the conference-room table, and the others followed suit with Jamal, Eileen, and Denise on his left, and Janet Price on his right. The president leaned back, curiosity painting his handsome face as he looked at Janet.

  His English was flawless. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you, but what enticed you to risk yourself by making this journey? And why are you so eager to see my three guests?”

  Jamal arched an eyebrow. The fact that he and Eileen had sent the message that had brought Janet here was probably something that they should have informed their host of before now. Uncomfortable, but it was time to confess.

  He cleared his throat. “Mr. President, that would be because of a message I sent by way of Senator Hagerman.”

  “I played a part in this, too,” Eileen said.

  Denise Jennings pursed her lips but remained silent.

  “Wait just a minute,” President Suarez said. “You sent an e-mail message from this facility to Senator Hagerman without my knowledge or permission? What exactly were you thinking?”

  Jamal clenched his teeth but failed to stifle his retort. “We were thinking that we are the best in the world at what we do. Of course we didn’t send an e-mail. We hacked his computer and placed a single line of text there, something that only he would understand. The fact that Janet is here should tell you that we know exactly what we’re doing.”

  To his left, Eileen leaned forward, her black eyes blazing. “And we had a good reason for doing it, as you’re about to find out.”

  Before the red-faced president could respond to these double-barrel outbursts, Janet leaned forward, pulling all eyes to her.

  “Mr. President,” she said, “rather than argue, I recommend that we listen to what they have to say.”

  Again Jamal marveled at the power that radiated from this woman. Even President Suarez visibly calmed beneath her gaze. For several seconds, her suggestion hung in the air. Then the president leaned back in his chair.

  “Very well,” he said, sparing a scowl for Jamal. “I suppose being cooped up in a bunker for several months could make anyone lose their sense of propriety. Janet, since you’ve made the trip here, perhaps you’d like to guide this discussion.”

  “Certainly,” she said, turning her attention to Jamal. “What does this have to do with the Grange holographic data sphere?”

  Jamal shook his head. “Absolutely nothing. I just referred to that to get your attention.”

  “You have it.”

  “Alexandr Prokorov appears to be ahead of schedule on constructing his Frankfurt wormhole gateway. He’s now targeting early October for portal activation and plans to keep that a secret until after it has been activated to send a friendship message to the Kasari.”

  Janet arched her left eyebrow. “How confident are you in that?”

  “Very,” said Eileen. “If I were still at the NSA, I’d be telling Admiral Connie Mosby the same thing.”

  Janet stared hard at Eileen. “We aren’t without resources. Do you mind telling me how you’re able to gain access to this information when we haven’t?”

  “You may have superior tech,” said Jamal, “but as I’ve stated, Eileen and I are the best at what we do, and, as you’re aware, we’ve had lots of experience doing this type of work for the NSA. In this game, that kind of skill counts. We think we would be much more valuable to the Safe Earth resistance if you brought us directly into your operation and gave us access to some of your capabilities.”

  Jamal watched as Janet paused to consider his idea. The acceptance of their proposal was the main thing he and Eileen had hoped to achieve with this gambit, and they had one major factor working in their favor: Janet knew from personal experience that he wasn’t exaggerating their skills.

  A glance at Eileen revealed her eagerness; Denise’s flat expression revealed she didn’t share the sentiment. To Denise, joining the Safe Earth resistance was one more frightening change, just when she was beginning to adjust to her current circumstances.

  Jamal extended his hand across the table. “What about it?”

  Janet met his gaze and held it for long enough that Jamal began to feel awkward, but he refused to withdraw the offered hand. Not until she said no.

  As if reading his thoughts, Janet smiled and then shook his hand, sealing the deal. The fact that President Suarez posed no objection didn’t surprise him. Suarez would probably be glad to get rid of them.

  The president rose, as did the others.

  “Mind telling us where we’re headed?” asked Eileen.

  Janet smiled again. “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to wait and see for yourself.”

  Something in Janet’s tone put butterflies in Jamal’s stomach. He had the distinct feeling that his life was about to take a wondrous new turn. And right now, he was ready to embrace it.

  CHAPTER 31

  Jennifer barely suppressed the thrill she felt at reestablishing headset contact with Raul but somehow kept that feeling from crossing the boundary from the protected part of her mind to the Kasari-controlled portion. Her plan was working. She had taken advantage of the Kasari group commander’s obsession with recapturing the Rho Ship by feeding the hive-mind a protected memory of her headset’s ability to form a subspace connection with the vessel.

  She had felt the hunger in Commander Shalegha seep through the nanobot communications array embedded in her brain. Jennifer carefully avoided suggesting that Shalegha have her recall Raul and the Rho Ship. Instead, she had waited for the Kasari commander to give her that order. Her wait hadn’t been a long one.

  Now she followed Shalegha’s command to the letter, fooling both Raul and Dgarra into thinking that she was supporting the war effort by arranging for a secure rendezvous. The mental effort required to maintain these multiple levels of deception was placing tremendous strain on Jennifer, but that was just one more thing she
could put to good use. She let Shalegha feel her inner tension, knowing that the commander would interpret the emotional response as an impotent struggle against being forced into yet another betrayal of Dgarra.

  “Raul, it’s me.”

  “My God, Jen, it’s good to hear your voice in my head.”

  “What,” she said, “VJ isn’t good enough for you?”

  “Actually, that’s the kind of thing she would say to me. Maybe my simulation is better than I thought.”

  Jennifer felt Shalegha query her mind, seeking out her intent. Once again Jennifer let a subtle half-truth slide from her mind into that of the hive, that this banter was absolutely necessary to avoid raising suspicion within the other human.

  “You still there?” Raul asked.

  “Sorry. You just had me laughing. Where have you been?”

  “That little bombing run you had me do didn’t turn out so well. We’ve been working on repairing the ship ever since.”

  “Well, you sure saved our asses. Thank you.”

  Raul paused as he took in her unexpected praise. “Glad it worked out so well, then. Am I to understand that you’ve been kicking Eadric and Kasari ass during my absence?”

  “We’ve been holding our own . . . barely.”

  “Well, that’s better than I expected. On the plus side, VJ and I have come up with a couple of nice upgrades to the Rho Ship that I think you and Dgarra are going to like.”

  She tried to resist asking but found herself compelled by Shalegha’s desire to know.

  “Like what?”

  “I think you’ll need to see for yourself. Have you got a safe place where I can set this ship down to take on supplies? We’re getting pretty low on food.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Dgarra was hoping you’d show up sooner or later. Hold on while I transfer the landing cavern’s coordinates.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “It better be. It’s deep within the mountains about five miles from the nearest exit to the outside world.”

  “Okay, then. Send away.”

  As Jennifer complied, the faintest hint of a smile twitched her lips.

  Group Commander Shalegha found that the Eadric capital city of Orthei was starting to grow on her. She stood still, the toes of her boots extending just beyond the balcony of this tower that she had transformed into Assimilation Command Central. The Eadric people had wasted a huge quantity of resources on turning their cities into architectural marvels. The multicolored glass spires rose into the sky, separated by airways. The widest of these were designated for air vehicles, but the vast majority were reserved for winged flight.

  None of these towering edifices had stairways or elevators. Open balconies served as launch and landing platforms for the winged occupants, while the Kasari were forced to use aircars to come and go. A hundred and eighty floors below her feet, the parkways that separated these buildings were testaments to beauty.

  Shalegha felt the southwesterly breeze that blew in off the Lillith Sea cool her skin as it passed through Orthei and continued on to the northwest across the mighty Doral Sea. Beyond those waters, the Koranthian Mountains towered above the warren of caverns that formed the subterranean home of the hated species.

  As she looked in that direction, she released a small flood of endorphins, savoring the warm feeling of satisfaction it produced. Within the next hour, the hijacked Kasari world ship would shift out of subspace to appear within one of those caverns, a technological feat that came from a synthesis of Altreian and Kasari technologies. How the humans had managed that was mystifying, but as soon as that ship was returned to its rightful owners, the Kasari would learn how this had been accomplished and incorporate that knowledge into the hive-mind.

  The world ship’s recapture was assured, assuming that General Magtal timed his arrival at that cavern to allow Jennifer Smythe to entice her human counterpart from the vessel. The price Shalegha had negotiated with the Koranthian general had been sufficient to ensure that he would play his part well.

  She turned away from the balcony and walked back into her command center, confident that today would see the stolen Kasari world ship in her hands.

  Jennifer knew this was going to be close. She would have one shot at stopping Shalegha from seizing Raul and the Rho Ship. Despite her knowledge of the Kasari plan and General Magtal’s complicity in it, she was helpless to alert Dgarra. If not for this chance to make things right, Jennifer’s final betrayal of the general, who had defied his emperor in order to place her at his side, would have shredded what remained of her soul.

  Now she and Dgarra, along with a half dozen of his engineers and fifty warriors, stood in a side passage that opened into the empty cavern, awaiting the Rho Ship’s arrival. Dgarra’s lead engineer had activated a portable stasis field generator to seal the opening. It would protect them from the shock wave that the Rho Ship would produce when it shoved aside the air in the cave upon emergence from subspace.

  She knew that General Magtal’s soldiers, who secretly waited in a side chamber, would have no such protection. The shock wave wouldn’t be powerful enough to seriously hurt them, but it might make their ears bleed and give them one hell of a headache. She sure hoped so.

  In her left hand, Jennifer clutched the pendant that Dgarra had given her when he made her his ward, as if rubbing the sharp trident-shaped piece of metal could summon an underworld god to release her from this terrible bondage. Since that wasn’t likely to happen, she would just have to roll the dice. In her mind she could hear the call of a ghostly croupier.

  Everybody place your bets. New shooter coming out.

  Raul, seated in his blue-tinted captain’s chair, turned to look at VJ. Her black leather uniform had seemingly gotten even more formfitting since the last time he really studied her. Maybe that was because she had managed to achieve an almost-lifelike opaqueness as opposed to the earlier ghostly transparency. Even her short, spiked-up blond hair looked so natural that he was sure it would feel right if he ran his fingers through it.

  Crap. Here he was thinking crazy thoughts again, probably because he was nervous about the maneuvers he and VJ would soon be executing. That and the fact that if they made the slightest mistake, they could materialize inside the cavern with a relative velocity that would send them crashing into solid rock. Or they might miss the cavern altogether.

  He just had to keep telling himself that they had done this before. For the Rho Ship’s neural net, this was a set of trivial calculations. Yes. That line of thinking was already making him feel better.

  VJ studied him. “Are you okay?”

  Raul frowned and straightened in his chair. “Of course I am. Why?”

  “For a second there, I thought you were going to be sick.”

  “Just focus on getting us down safely.”

  She grinned knowingly, then turned back to the semicircle of translucent displays that arced around her.

  “The calculations check out. If Jennifer didn’t make any mistakes with the coordinates and cavern dimensions that she sent us, we’ll be fine.”

  That comment gave him something new to worry about. Jennifer hadn’t taken advantage of her ability to connect to the Rho Ship’s neural net to make her calculations. How could he be confident she hadn’t made a mistake?

  “I want a full worm-fiber scan of that cavern. Verify all the numbers, pick an execution time, and then calculate the velocity vector we will need to match.”

  “I’m on it.”

  After a few seconds, VJ turned to look at him. “Jennifer’s figures are adequate, but I made some minor improvements. I am prepared to initiate the maneuvers that will produce the velocity vector match in twenty-seven seconds.”

  “Do it.”

  Raul settled down in the chair and wrapped himself in a protective stasis field as his mental countdown progressed toward zero. The plan called for a short subspace jump from the back side of the farthest of Scion’s moons, followed by a normal-space maneuver,
then another subspace jump into the cavern.

  He watched as VJ locked in the sequence and then gave him a thumbs-up, a uniquely human gesture that he had never seen Jennifer use. So how had VJ picked it up?

  As the last few seconds ticked off via his internal counter, Raul tensed and readied himself, not just for the intricate maneuvers, but for the prospect of seeing the real Jennifer Smythe again. That was something that made all these risks worthwhile.

  When the Rho Ship appeared, Jennifer’s enhanced eyesight saw the shock wave propagate outward as a cylindrical-shaped ripple in the air. But with the stasis shield sealing the opening where she and the Koranthians waited, the volume was muted to only the sound transmitted through the rock walls. As soon as it passed, Dgarra signaled his chief engineer to drop the stasis field. Then he and Jennifer entered the cavern together.

  Three steps in, the Rho Ship disappeared again, but that was to be expected. Raul had merely activated the cloaking mechanism after having transitioned out of subspace into an area of hostilities.

  Jennifer felt her mind reestablish the connection to Raul’s neural net.

  “You made it,” she said.

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  “I had faith in you.”

  Raul laughed. “That makes one of us. This place must be a mile underground.”

  “Almost two.”

  “Stay back. I’m lowering the ramp.”

  Jennifer placed a hand on Dgarra’s arm, and they both came to a halt, staring at apparently empty space in front of them.

  After several seconds Raul spoke again. “Okay. I’m coming out.”

  Jennifer nodded, and Dgarra stepped forward with her. When they stepped through the cloak, the air shimmered as if they had just stepped through a translucent mist, and Raul appeared at the top of the ramp that had dropped from the cigar-shaped starship’s midsection.

  Jennifer felt her heart climb into her throat as they approached Raul, suddenly aware that Shalegha had just sent General Magtal a message. She didn’t have to know the specific wording of that message to understand that Magtal and his warriors were on the move. If she was going to act, the time was now.