Birthright: The Complete Trilogy

by Rick Partlow

  "So, he left me behind as well, to take care of you." His eyes became softer, if that were possible. "He realized there was a strong possibility that one of his former subordinates would try to take advantage of the system of duplicates he'd left in place, so he created me to clean that up for you as well. Believe it or not, he bore no ill will to any of you, and he had no wish to leave things a mess for you. That's why I'm here, that was my purpose, my raison d'etre. I hope I've succeeded.

  "Robert wanted me to relay one thing to you once I'd accomplished my task. He wanted you to know that he always considered you the only real family he had, and that you are the only thing from his previous life that he would carry with him." He reached out towards a control, pausing to look into the video pickup one last time. "Be happy, Kara." The image froze on his hand deactivating the recording.

  Kara squeezed her eyes shut for just a heartbeat, forcing back the tears that threatened to betray her. Robert was insane, he'd done terrible things. But he'd still been the closest thing she'd had to a brother. She shut off the projector and finally looked at Deke. His face was frozen in shock, as hers had been a few minutes ago. Finally, after several seconds, he blinked away the fog and met her eyes.

  "What..." He shook his head and tried again. "What the hell do we do now?"

  "General Murdock's ship has officially been reported as missing," Kara told him, not exactly answering the question. "All his personal files are open to me; he apparently left an official recommendation that I be promoted to full Colonel and take his position as the head of the DSI."

  "Jesus," Deke breathed. He shrugged as if he were throwing off the incredible strangeness of it all and assessing it logically, then looked at her sidelong. "There'd be no one better at the job than you, love. But is that what you want?"

  "I'm not sure it matters," she said, leaning back again in her seat, the back of her head resting against the wall behind the chair. "I'm just a Major...no way they bump me up two grades and stick me in that slot."

  "Don't bullshit a bullshitter," Deke scoffed, grinning shrewdly. "Everyone knows that the Bulldog has dirt on the people who get things done. He wouldn't have bothered to leave the recommendation if he didn't think it would be followed." He raised a hand to forestall her objection. "Yeah, okay, this wasn't really Murdock, but he knew everything Murdock knew."

  "Yeah," she admitted, tossing the idea around in her head. Then she laughed softly. "This is nuts. He was a duplicate. We should tell the President."

  "We should tell no one," Deke countered firmly, face and voice turning totally serious. He grabbed her hand again. "Whether or not you take the job, I don't think anyone else needs to know about this." He snorted. "I don't think anyone else would want to know, honestly."

  Kara considered that for a moment, then had to admit to herself that he was right. The President had people like Murdock around so that she didn't have to know about things like this.

  "Einarsson is the last duplicate," she told Deke, trying to put off the decision she knew she had to make. "I figure he's the one that gave the Tahni the security codes for the Thaddeus Moore."

  "No surprise," Deke said with disdainful shrug. "Guy's an asshole. You want me to go kill him?"

  "No," she decided clinically. "He's no danger now, without a command. And he'll probably wind up on psych discharge soon enough if Murdock..." She shook her head. "If the other Murdock was right about them being unstable."

  Then she had to force herself to really think about the situation. Was there anyone else she would trust to hold Murdock's job? Anyone she'd be willing to work for?

  But I was whining just a couple days ago about leaving this life behind, settling down someplace simple...

  "I want to do it," she told Deke, going with her heart. She leaned over to kiss him, darting in quickly, then pulling back to meet his eyes. "And I want you there with me. It wouldn't be any fun otherwise."

  Deke laughed, then took her face gently in his hands and kissed her back.

  "Good luck getting rid of me."

  Epilogue:

  Caleb Mitchell looked out at the jagged lines of the Rwenzori Mountains, purple in the light of the rising primary star Eshu, and felt a lightness in his chest. The dawn light turned the fields at the foot of the mountain range a rich, golden hue and he could hear the shrieking cry of one of the local avian predators as it rode a thermal higher into the lightening sky.

  "It's a pretty sight," the man standing beside him said inanely, his smile identical to every other politician's smile he'd ever seen, from the Commonwealth President down to a small-town colony mayor.

  "That it is, Mayor Shoemaker," Cal allowed, breathing in the crisp, autumn air.

  "Call me Steve," the man insisted, the white smile almost splitting his ebony face in two. "So, how do you guys like the house? Is everything acceptable?"

  "The house is perfectly fine," Rachel said from behind them. Cal looked back at her as she walked down the steps from the back porch of the two-story home, constructed from local stone and brick. "Plenty of room for a family." She gave Cal a wink and he grinned broadly. They'd had the implantation done by the medical staff on Inferno, before they'd parted ways with the others. Eight more months.

  "Is the arrangement my brother wants with the Port Authority good to go?" Cal asked, casting a sideways glance at the Mayor of Toliara. "If he's operating a freight line out of Anansi for me, I don't want to be paying port fees every couple weeks." Kara had gifted them the cutter Aurora for "services rendered," and likely because she hoped they would help her out in the future if she needed it. And they might. But for the moment, they might as well make some money with it.

  "Oh of course, of course," Steve assured him, nodding vigorously. "I cleared everything with the planetary governor. So you'll take the job?" he asked, holding out a hand expectantly.

  "You understand," Cal warned him, "I won't be staying here forever. I'm thinking twenty, twenty-five years tops."

  Steve Shoemaker laughed, the sound more genuine than his politician's smile. "That's probably a long enough commitment to satisfy the City Council."

  Cal shared a look with Rachel and she nodded. He shook the Mayor's hand firmly.

  "All right, Steve," he said. "You've got yourself a Constable."

  Visit my author blog at: https://rickpartlow.wordpress.com/

  And my Amazon author page at: http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Partlow/e/B00B1GNL4E/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1