“Terrific.” She curled her hands behind her head and stared up at the sky. “We can start planning while we wait. First, we’ll need….”
FOUR MONTHS LATER
EARTH
EASC HEADQUARTERS
The gleaming façade shone in the late morning sun, radiant and glittering in a way only newness could exhibit. Tiers of steel and glass rose in staggered, winding levels to soar into the sky. A work of functional art, the offset floors allowed for both gardens and landing pads to blend seamlessly into the design of the structure.
It was, Miriam had to concede, a far more attractive building than the one it replaced.
Construction of the new EASC Headquarters Tower had been completed while she was away. It didn’t officially open for business until the next day, but most of the equipment and furnishings had already been transferred from the temporary quarters in the Logistics building, and her new office reputedly awaited her presence.
She almost walked in the entrance brandishing a smile. Luckily she realized her error at the door and donned a stern countenance.
A lieutenant sat behind the front desk testing the functionality of a control panel, but on spotting her he leapt to his feet with a salute. “Admiral Solovy! Welcome, ma’am. We were told you wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow. Allow me to show you to your suite.”
“I assume I take the center lift until it goes no higher, correct?”
“Um, that does sort of cover it. But—”
“Then I shall show myself up, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Beginning tomorrow there would be two additional security checks between the lobby and the top floor, but this trip required solely her personal security code. She stepped off the lift into a bright, open atrium. The marble floor felt suitably firm beneath her feet; the secretary’s station loomed with appropriate intimidation over prospective guests.
Beyond the atrium was her office. She entered her security code a final time and stepped inside.
The desk she’d ordered had arrived ahead of her, as had the matching shelves. Everything had arrived, down to the white-silver tea set she’d purchased a few days earlier. Her favorite visual of David, Alex and herself—taken in 2298 on the lawn of their home in San Francisco—was even loaded into the display atop the desk.
The chair wasn’t new, for she’d become accustomed to the one she’d claimed in Logistics. She eased into it and spun slowly around—then was quickly back on her feet and moving to the window.
Except it wasn’t a window; it was a door. She had a garden.
Well, perhaps ‘garden’ was stretching the term a bit. She had a patio decorated in shrubs, flowering morning glories, astilbe and a small table with two chairs.
Beneath her the entirety of the EASC complex spread out. Tiny forms scurried about from one building to the next, and in the distance ships landed at and departed from the spaceport with ordered regularity. Ahead of her the waters of the Strait crashed against the parapets.
Well. This was simply lovely.
“I heard you were in the building.”
She turned and motioned Richard out onto the patio. “I only just arrived.”
“Word travels fast, especially when it’s in panic. They were expecting you tomorrow, I believe.”
She draped her arms atop the railing as he joined her. “I wanted to get settled in while it was still quiet. We’ll see how the practicality holds up under duress, but I have to say so far I’m pleased.”
Richard chuckled lightly. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you.”
“How was Romane? More to the point, how was your first vacation in…ever, was it?”
“Not ever, merely the last decade…or two. And it was very relaxing. That’s what vacations are supposed to be, right? Relaxing?”
“That’s the rumor.”
She nodded. “Then yes, it was relaxing.”
“Did you spend the entire visit meeting with the governor and her administration?”
“Only half the visit. I also toured several art galleries, attended a horrifically tawdry circus performance and spent a great deal of time…not worrying.”
“Otherwise known as relaxing.”
“Yes.” She straightened up from the railing but kept her hands atop it. “And now it is time to get back to work.”
“Much of the unrest on the hardest-hit colonies has eased with the improvements in services. Now it’s mostly squabbling over what to build next, where and for who’s favor.”
“What about the Order of the True Sentients?”
Richard grimaced. “They will be a problem, I fear. They’re extremely well-funded, and we haven’t yet managed to find out by whom or what. But after all we’ve faced, they and their ilk seem like pests rather than real trouble.”
“I gave the subject some thought while I was…relaxing. We confronted the greatest threat to our existence humanity has ever seen, and we defeated it. But a year ago we couldn’t see it coming; our most skilled forecasters could never have predicted it. What else is out there on the horizon that we can’t see?”
She shifted to lean against the railing and meet his gaze more directly. “You and I know the true extent of what Alex and Caleb discovered beyond the portal. I fear we’ve seen but a small glimpse of the dangers which may await us—dangers for which we are woefully unprepared.”
“Granted. So?”
“So, I intend to see to it that we get ourselves prepared. We can’t sit on our laurels and be caught unaware a second time.”
“True enough. I’m glad the task is in such capable hands.”
“Flatterer.”
“I’m trying to hone my skills. Speaking of, have you seen Alex recently? I haven’t talked to her in a few weeks.”
“We had a nice dinner before I left for Romane, in fact. She and Caleb have been on Seneca the last week or so helping his sister move into a new place, but I believe they are headed to Atlantis to meet Kennedy and Noah for a long weekend.”
“Good. I’m glad they—”
Miriam held up her hand to silence him. She stared at the message that had come in, searching for the correct reaction. Anger? Fear? Pride? Exasperation?
She settled on the last one, went to the little patio table and sank down in one of the chairs.
“Miriam, what is it?”
She shook her head and laughed. “I’m going to kill her.”
At Richard’s questioning look she called him over and projected the message to an aural.
ATLANTIS
INDEPENDENT COLONY
Kennedy sighed in contentment and curled up against Noah’s chest. The sun’s rays streaming in through the open windows warmed her bare skin, and she kicked the sheet off so as to give the rays more fulsome access. “Mmm…can we not leave this room today? Or even the bed?”
Noah’s chest rumbled beneath her in a soft chuckle as he played with her hair. “We’ve got drinks, so we’re set there. Eventually we’ll need food, but this is why room service exists. So yeah, I think we’re good. Who needs sun and sand and surf when we have this.”
“Not me. Besides, we have sun—and we can see the sand and surf, should we manage to approach the windows.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” His hand trailed lazily down her back, evoking a pleasant murmur from deep in her throat.
“Alex and Caleb will be here today…sometime. They would probably appreciate it if we put clothes on.”
“Probably. Have you heard from them yet? I’d like a little warning, say, three or four hours, so I can….” She shuddered beneath his hand as it drifted lower.
“Not yet. I’m sure they got distracted by—” As if on cue, a message from Alex arrived in her eVi. She opened it with only a fraction of her attention, the rest being occupied by Noah’s increasingly roving hands.
Then she bolted upright in the bed. “I’m going to kill her. I mean it this time. I am well and truly going to kill her.”
<
br /> Noah raised up on one elbow. “They’re not coming?”
She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and flopped onto her back with a groan. “No. No, they are not. And you won’t believe where they are heading.”
SIYANE
METIS NEBULA
The Siyane hovered in the thick nebular clouds at the edge of the clearing, out of sight of the Alliance and Federation vessels patrolling the perimeter.
The portal was closed, occupying an invisible point at the center of the empty void in the heart of the Metis Nebula. Its activation would give the watching ships an extra few seconds to prepare for their destruction of any alien vessel that might emerge. The patrols gave the area a wide berth lest they get caught in the explosion of metal and plasma which would accompany such activation.
A few modifications had been made to the Siyane in the months since the Metigen War ended. For one, the cockpit had been rearranged a bit. Caleb’s chair received an upgrade, hers moved to the left, and they occupied their seats as equals. Many of the sensors and scientific equipment received upgrades as well and now included a number of new features.
They had even made room for Caleb’s bike down in the engineering well. It turned out Division secured it after Volosk’s murder as part of the crime scene, at first as evidence then later for safekeeping. And who knew? They may need it. On a planet’s surface, perhaps. Or on a space station….
Oh, and there was Valkyrie.
It hadn’t taken long for the combined processing power of three Artificials enhanced by the neural imprints of some damn clever humans to result in a host of technological leaps. The list of ways they were changing the world was long, but most relevantly for the Siyane was the radical miniaturization of quantum boxes and hardware circuitry. What once filled a large room now fit between the interior walls and bulkhead of a small ship.
Abigail had protested the final stage in her loss of Valkyrie, contending she needed the Artificial to assist in the rebuilding of Meno, and in the rebuilding of a human brain. But while quantum communications were able to span the universe—this universe—in an instant, they could not penetrate the portal. Alex needed Valkyrie with her where they were going. She had of course kept that detail to herself, instead arguing the need to get Valkyrie out from under government control.
A compromise had been reached which, while very expensive, did have the benefit of at least partially satisfying the bureaucrats as well: a complete copy of Valkyrie was constructed and an image of her neural net flashed to the new machine.
From the time the new Artificial was activated, it and Valkyrie began diverging, and in a matter of weeks they could no longer be considered the same in any meaningful way. Valkyrie professed no misgivings about the situation, explaining that she intended to view her mirrored copy like a sister. In fact, she was somewhat enamored with the notion of having a sibling; as Alex was an only child it would be a wholly new experience for her.
Caleb grasped Alex’s hand in his, and she stood to join him at the viewport. After a moment she halfway faced him, eyes dancing in delight to match his own. “Ready to see what’s out there, Mr. Solovy?”
“Hell, yes, Mrs. Marano. Beyond ready. Show me this supposed ‘adventure.’”
“Knowing we won’t die simply by going through doesn’t take the adventure out of it?”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and yanked her closer for an ardent, tantalizing kiss which ended far too soon, then murmured against her lips. “No, it does not. Now let’s do this.”
She reluctantly disentangled from his embrace to ensure all the systems were in order. “Valkyrie, how about you?”
“You are taking me to explore other universes. I am ready.”
“Okay, then.”
The aliens had asserted no one should ever come looking for them—but she had never agreed to that particular term of surrender.
She reached down and sent the gamma signal.
The ring exploded outward to fill with the still mysterious, luminescent plasma. Around it the patrolling ships reacted the next instant, rushing to take up a defensive formation.
Her hand slid across the HUD to the thrusters. With a touch she gunned the impulse engine to full power and accelerated into the portal.
AURORA THESI (PORTAL PRIME)
ENISLE SEVENTEEN
I considered the form lying inertly in the stasis chamber.
It appeared a stranger to me. I felt no kinship, no attachment to the body providing my life force. Memory my aspect, I no longer recalled having resided within it. Even so, logic and the reality of Katasketousym origins dictated I once did so.
To find oneself bound inside the confines of a small, frail body, rendered hapless by its myriad limitations, was anathema to me. I moved the stasis chamber into the deepest corner of the structure. The life support system was designed to function for perpetuity without my intervention. Unseen, it would trouble me no further.
I left the structure and its refuge behind to hover at the shore of my lake, finding myself uncertain of what to do next.
Exile.
Such had been the verdict of the Idryma Conclave. Exiled from their ranks in name, title and consciousness. Exiled from Amaranthe. My body retrieved from the krypti and relinquished to the dirt of Aurora Thesi.
A watcher with no subjects.
An Analystae with no dominion.
It would be far simpler if it were such a simple matter as this. But my task extended well beyond the rigid strictures of the Idryma. Aurora had been entrusted to me because I understood our purpose more deeply than anyone, save possibly Lakhes.
Histories. Futures. What was inevitable, and all that was not.
The Conclave called Aurora a failure. We would refocus our efforts on the other Enisles, Lakhes proclaimed, in the search for new and innovative prospects. We would try again, Hyperion declared, but ensure firmer restraints were in place from the beginning this time.
To invest time and effort in such an endeavor was foolish, risking all while invalidating the experiment from its inception. Interference may be acceptable in the other Enisles—but not in Aurora, whether this incarnation or any future one. No, the sole path to the answers sought was to serve as Clockmaker Gods, to create the universe then let it become what it dared. But Hyperion’s clumsy meddling had demonstrated a lack of understanding of this most fundamental notion.
The answers, I believed, still resided in Aurora. For what the Conclave was too insular to see—or too fearful to admit if they did see—was this: the uprising by the Humans had in fact proven the validity of the principal thesis underlying Aurora’s existence. Now was not the time to recoil as mettle failed.
This was the kairos. This was what we had wanted. The others might flinch and turn away, but I would not.
I extended, diffusing out over the lake and above the mountains. I was truly alone on Thesi now, as neither Hyperion nor any others would be venturing by to consort with an exile. I was truly alone in spirit now, my consciousness denied entry into the Idryma.
Before departing Aurora for the last time, representatives of the Conclave had placed spatial triggers at the Metis Portal, designed to pitch the apparatus into a dimensional singularity upon its opening from the other side. It had been a near thing, our—their—decision to refrain from destroying the portal immediately. Only my most elegant arguments had convinced the Conclave they need not permanently foreclose this avenue. Katasketousya appreciated the concept of ‘forever’ better than most species, and when presented with the alternative of the spatial triggers Lakhes had eventually been persuaded to not take such irrevocable action.
But the Conclave, eager to be rid of the troublesome Aurora and its equally troublesome Analystae Mnemosyne, had perhaps not paid sufficient attention to the details.
I was and had always been the First Analystae of Aurora. This meant I controlled all the apparatuses of the Enisle, observational and otherwise.
The triggers had been deactivated. I could
rearm them at any time, and should it become necessary—should the Humans or their scions attempt to launch an armada through the Metis Portal, one bent on wanton destruction of whatever they found—I would do so, regrettably but without hesitation.
But I was the First Analystae of Aurora, and this experiment was not over. Once a proud member of an underground resistance, I was now a rebel from the rebellion.
As the sea spread out beneath me, an alert transmitted the opening of the Metis Portal. I halted far above the waters and waited.
What emerged from the portal was not the feared armada. Instead, it was a single ship. A familiar ship. I felt a quickening in my atoms.
Clever, dangerous girl. I have been expecting you.
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FUTURE NOVELS PLANNED FOR THE AURORA SAGA:
AURORA RENEGADES
AURORA RESONANT
APPENDIX
A CONVERSATION WITH THE INTREPID HEROES OF STARSHINE
* * *
(This interview takes place near the end of the events of STARSHINE: Aurora Rising Book One)
EARTH
SEATTLE
Reporter: I’m here today with Alexis Solovy and Caleb Marano. These two individuals have been at the center of a storm of recent events. Now, amid rumors of conspiracy, murder and even aliens, they’ve agreed to go on camera and answer our questions.
First things first—how did the two of you meet?
Caleb: She shot me.
Alex: I shot you down. Then I shot you.
Reporter: Seems like a rather inauspicious start to a relationship.
Alex: Was that a question?
Caleb: I’ve had worse starts.
Alex: You have, seriously? I mean, I thought it was kind of memorable.
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 132