“Then it’s a good thing I do.”
“It is. I mean, you found me hidden away deep in the mountains, didn’t you?” She kissed him, long and deliciously slow, before climbing to her feet to scrutinize the copse on the off chance there might be a breadcrumb or a directional arrow.
He jerked his head toward the pack. “I brought you fresh clothes if you want to shed those.”
“You’re not getting in my pants right now. You’re injured.”
“Not what I meant—”
She winked at him. “I know. I do want to change, but I’m so filthy I’ll only ruin the new clothes, too. Maybe we’ll happen upon a stream or something and can both get clean.” She gestured to the now-dried blood on his clothes.
“Hazard of being a dragonslayer.” He re-secured everything in the pack and closed it up then stood and slung the sheathed sword across his back.
She smiled to herself, watching him while he couldn’t see her do so. In another time, another life, with another person she would’ve tossed a string of expletives in his direction for what he had done, kicked him out the airlock and held a grudge towards him for the rest of her life for daring to touch, to alter, her beloved ship.
But this wasn’t another time or another life, and he wasn’t any other person. Now she was able to get out of her own way long enough to see past her blind spots and recognize he had been right to act as he did.
Her heart, perhaps even her soul, palpitated with this…sensation. She had called it love, but she had called feelings ‘love’ in the past. Feelings which weren’t this.
She recalled the bottomless, powerful emotion, the dushevnoye volneniye bleeding out of her mother’s voice and shining through the anguish on her father’s face and considered the possibility this was but a hint, a small tease, of what her parents had felt for each other.
It terrified her. It made her throat convulse and cut off the oxygen to her brain, leaving her unable to process a rational thought. It made her want to run away from him, all the way to the other end of the universe if necessary, before this damnable ‘feeling’ got any stronger. It made her want to protect him, to grab him by the hand and run away with him to the other end of the universe, to somewhere the evils of the world would never beset him.
It terrified her, but she had no choice. She could no longer fathom walking away.
So when he turned to her, she merely pointed to the mountainside. “Lead the way.”
37
EARTH
EASC HEADQUARTERS
* * *
LIAM GLOWERED OUT THE WINDOW of his office. From the top floor of Logistics he observed four other buildings, the bustling courtyard below and a sliver of the continuing clean-up effort at the bomb site.
It was a more expansive view than he’d enjoyed on Deucali, where no military building stood higher than five stories. Yet in the corners of his vision the walls undulated menacingly, as though they plotted to close in and suffocate him if he let them out of his sight.
It was all falling apart, and no matter what he did he couldn’t seem to wrangle it back under control.
Why did God-damned aliens have to show up? Now, in this year, this time—his time—when they had so many millennia to choose from? They were ruining everything. Ruining his carefully devised plans and with them his hopes for the future, for redemption, for vengeance.
He wanted to grind every Federation world into dust beneath his boot as his army blazed a trail of blood and corpses all the way to Seneca. He wanted to storm their inner sanctum and fire a laser into the skull of their Field Marshal while their Chairman watched, then fire a laser into the skull of their Chairman. He wanted to burn their bodies on a pyre and carry the ashes back to Deucali and spread them on his mother’s consecrated grave.
Instead he struggled to simply keep his head above water, overwhelmed by a crumbling northwestern force which had proved unable to even penetrate Federation space. His northeastern force had gone unashamedly renegade and the southern fleets were unwilling to budge beyond minor shoring up of Earth and the First Wave worlds’ defenses. The politicians, the press and the public were demanding to know how he proposed to fight these aliens and thus far neither he nor the new Prime Minister had been able to pacify their clamor.
He didn’t want to fight the aliens. He didn’t give a flying fuck-all about the aliens, except insofar as they interfered with his plans. His sole solace was a deep suspicion these aliens would surely reach Seneca before long. If it became impossible to burn it himself, at a bare minimum he could witness it burn from afar.
Once the planet lay in smoldering cinders, then and only then might he consider fighting the aliens.
The door slid open behind him, jerking him away from the window. His jaw ground his teeth roughly against one another as Miriam Solovy invaded his personal sanctum.
Ever since her daughter was purportedly ‘cleared’ of involvement in the bombing, she had been insufferable. Marching around his facility like she was the second coming, ordering his people around like she was in charge.
“Solovy, have you not the basic decency to request permission before storming into my office?”
“Your secretary was absent, and I hadn’t the time to wait.”
“I haven’t the time either. What do you want?”
Her smirk curdled his stomach. “In that case, I’ll spare you the niceties and come straight to the point. Your brief leadership tenure has been an unmitigated disaster. You send our forces against meaningless targets, wasting resources we need in order to fight the alien invasion while refusing to send them where they can be of actual use. You neglect the monumental threat these aliens represent to the point of outright dereliction of duty in favor of lobbing ineffectual taunts over the Federation border.”
“How dare—”
“I realize you lost your mother in the First Crux War. I understand from where your hatred of Seneca stems. I have been there, and it is a dark, desolate place. For this reason and this reason alone, I am giving you the opportunity to resign voluntarily. Return to Southwestern Command and work to protect those worlds. You were competent at that task at least. But if you do not resign in the next twelve hours, know I will seek your removal from the Chairmanship and, if necessary, your discharge.”
He was in her face. He didn’t recall how he had gotten there. She was so small, such a puny little creature. “You bitch. What gives you the right to think you have any say in my command? You’re nothing but a glorified secretary playing dress-up. Go back to your tea party and let the real soldiers do the work.”
She didn’t flinch. People so small as her always flinched.
If anything her glare hardened further. “I gave you your chance. You are a disgrace to the Alliance Armed Forces and the uniform you wear. You aim to sacrifice millions on the altar of your delusional crusade and I will not allow it. I—”
His punch knocked her back a meter into the wall. His fist had moved of its own volition, carrying a rage and frustration all its own.
To his dismay, she didn’t fall. People so small as her always fell.
No tears pooled in her eyes; instead they flared golden amber as she rubbed her jaw and pushed off the wall to stand rigid straight. A peculiar smile danced across her lips. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and down her chin, but she ignored it.
“You should not have done that, Liam. Thank you for confirming everything I suspected about you. Pack your belongings, because you are finished.”
Then she pivoted and was gone, leaving him standing there aghast. Striking a fellow officer was grounds for censure, if not demotion or even dishonorable discharge.
She just made him so damn angry! She understood nothing—nothing about what it meant to be a soldier, nothing about what it meant to serve a higher purpose. Worse, she dared to be unapologetically arrogant in her ignorance.
Pulse thundering in his ears, his eyes darted around the office. Here only weeks, it held no personal attachment
for him.
He did not intend to be humiliated in public. He’d die before being dragged in front of a tribunal for crones to stare condescendingly down their noses at him and dare to judge him.
A cold certainty descended upon him, quieting the storm in his head. He had nothing left but the mission to which he had devoted his life. It had sustained him this long. It would not fail him now.
He would make Seneca pay. And after he exacted his just reward from Seneca, he would make them all pay.
38
ROMANE
INDEPENDENT COLONY
* * *
ALONE IN A QUIET ROOM for the first time in days, Mia sank against the wall and closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep for a week. If a little luck swung her way, after this last meeting she could sleep for six hours or so. It seemed a reasonable start.
The ‘strategy session’ had been a nightmare. Corralling, focusing and stroking the egos of two dozen egomaniacs and dysfunctional genius intellects so they didn’t storm out, or even better kill one another, was not a task she’d wish on anyone. She would be happy if millennia passed before she was forced to do it again.
But it just might have been worth it. Time would tell. Nudged and prodded when necessary by details Meno fed her from his study of the data on the aliens, the motley crew of billionaires and wunderkinds had eventually generated decent suggestions on how to fight them.
She grimaced. Her neck and the small of her back ached painfully. She elbowed off the wall while rubbing at her neck and went to find Governor Ledesme.
After several false trails she finally succeeded in locating her in an upper-floor conference room, where she consulted with members of her cabinet. Upon being alerted to Mia’s presence, the governor excused herself from the meeting and indicated for Mia to follow her to her office.
As soon as the door slid shut the woman spun around and regarded her with a mix of hope, desperation and expectancy. “Tell me you have good news, Ms. Requelme.”
“Possibly. The best news we’re going to have until we know a lot more about these aliens, anyway.” She handed over a disk, but knowing the governor’s time was now in even greater demand, tried to recite the highlights.
“Readings suggest the ships use a dynamic shielding system displaying an extremely high-frequency oscillation. Given those characteristics, it’s likely to adjust relative levels in different areas in reaction to threats. At its strongest the shield will be impossible to penetrate using our current technology, but if one were to bombard a superdreadnought with coordinated fire on one side to draw the shield strength, another ship might be able to breach the now weaker shielding from a different position and inflict some damage.”
She had begun wandering haphazardly around the office; she hoped the governor didn’t mind. “The ships are made out of a previously unknown material, but the closest analogue is lonsdaleite diamond. It’s certain to be extremely hard—harder than anything we can manufacture. If it were lonsdaleite, a pinpoint hit with a minimum of thirty MN force at an angle of 17-21 degrees should exploit its brittleness and cause it to fracture. No guarantees, but it’s worth a shot.
“Everyone—well eighty-five percent of everyone—agrees the aliens are communicating on a high terahertz band between 2.7-3 THz. On the disk are specs for several waveforms which may succeed in disrupting the terahertz signals to a lesser or greater extent. Direct them at a ship and see what happens.”
She paused for a quick breath of air then continued. “The arms of the small ships don’t appear to be critical for flight. Based on close examination of the images, we think it’s possible they direct and/or focus beams originating from the oculi located at their cores. So shooting the arms off won’t disable them but it could render their weaponry less effective.
“The oculi, however, may represent a structural weakness. They possess the same shielding as the superdreadnoughts though, and it’ll be difficult to manipulate the shield due to their comparatively small size. A substantial minority of the group believes the shield will go down while they’re firing, so perhaps a skilled fighter pilot can take one out and survive the encounter.”
Her shoulders sagged in exhaustion. “And that’s all we’ve got. I realize most of it is geared toward a firefight scenario, but hopefully you can use some of the ideas to adapt the array ware to our advantage.”
Ledesme smiled; a politician’s smile, but it seemed genuine. “This is marvelous, Mia.”
“It wasn’t only me or even mostly me, and you’re the one who convinced a number of particularly recalcitrant men and women to dig in, lose sleep and find answers.”
“Still, thank you.” The governor crossed to her desk. Though she must be losing sleep herself, her cream brocaded suit displayed not a whiff of wrinkles or over-usage. “So the question is, beyond your suggestion regarding the array, what do we do with this information?”
The woman had left behind a room full of advisors, of whom Mia was not one. “Are you asking my opinion, ma’am?”
“I am. Clearly there’s more to you than a successful businesswoman and you haven’t been afflicted by the disease of political blindness.”
The news about Messium had broken the morning before. Coupled with the vanishing of now eighteen colonies off the exanet, the citizens of the Milky Way were indeed beginning to panic. She’d had scant time to follow the news but had seen several reports of stampedes at spaceports and press conferences turned riotous.
“If it were up to me? I would very publicly provide the information to both the Alliance and Senecan militaries, as well as the leaders of the independent colonies. One, they need it—doing so could save lives. Two, it keeps Romane from being forced into picking a side. Three, it highlights the best aspects of Romane and its citizens—ingenuity, creativity, productiveness, intellect, generosity. It shows what individuals can do when given freedom and the fruits of their labor. Don’t be afraid to say that in the press statement because it happens to be true.”
Ledesme looked impressed. Mia wished she wasn’t too tired to properly appreciate it. “We maintain our freedom, strengthen our public profile as the best and strongest of the independent colonies, and shame both the Federation and the Alliance a little in the process. Coinciding with the fact it appears the blockade is cracking—I imagine those ships are needed elsewhere now—we stand to gain a great deal, assuming we live through this crisis. I’ll say it again, Ms. Requelme. You would make a skilled politician.”
“Well, if we live through this crisis, I’ll give it some thought. But for now I’m going to concentrate on the living part.”
“As are we all.” For a second the governor allowed her own weariness to show, and Mia had the idle thought perhaps one day they would be friends. “These are dark, difficult times. But here we stand. I’m sending you my personal contact address. If you should receive any new information, I’d greatly appreciate a heads up. No questions asked.”
“Absolutely, ma’am. Good luck. I believe you’re going to need it.”
With that she whirled and headed for the door, the first step in reaching her bed.
39
PORTAL PRIME
UNCHARTED SPACE
* * *
THE LUSHNESS OF THE FOREST increased as the steepness of the terrain eased. Colorful flora and fauna provided dashes of color to an endless pelt of clover grass.
The trees remained the primary decor, however, and they were increasingly fighting their way through dense woods. Though these mountains flowed at a moderate gradient rather than soaring up to craggy peaks, it was still high terrain.
“I killed my first man in some woods not unlike these.” Caleb didn’t peek over to see Alex’s reaction or determine whether she wanted him to continue. He needed to continue.
“It wasn’t as an agent. I was sixteen, working for the Senecan Wilderness Service for the summer repairing sensors and monitoring equipment. Late one evening, I was searching for a good place to camp for the night when I heard
a cry.”
Not a cry…a keening wail conveying agony to chill his heart.
“I headed in the direction it came from and saw a man kneeling next to the corpse of an elafali. It’s a species native to Seneca…the closest equivalent is probably an elk or a moose. They’re endangered—rare to begin with and weakened by colonization—but they have these gorgeous spiral horns the color of pearled coral so poachers hunt them as prizes. The horns and sometimes the entire skull are sold as trophies on the black market.”
The animal’s guts were spilling out into the dirt, gleaming a sickly yellow in the evening rays. It had not been a quick or painless death for the creature.
“So this man was in the middle of sawing the horns off with a gamma blade. I could move fairly quietly by then and crept almost on top of him before he saw me. He stood, keeping a hold on the blade, and told me this was none of my business and I should be on my way.
“I responded that hunting elafali was illegal and I needed to report him. It was my job, though I would have done so regardless. He took a step forward and said, ‘You don’t want to do that, boy. I’ll ask you one more time to be on your way or we will have a problem.’”
The trees began to grow thicker, creating shade and cooling the air. He considered suggesting she get out the pullover he’d brought her from the ship…but she didn’t look to be shivering, not yet.
“I said ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t ignore this,’ and he lunged toward me. The guy was big, twelve centimeters taller than me and thirty kilos heavier.”
In the dim light he hadn’t been able to tell how much represented muscle and how much fat, not as if it mattered. He was a skinny kid just beginning to build muscles from the physical labor the job entailed, and the man would have crushed him either way.
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