by Amy DuBoff
“Uh oh.” Karen’s brows drew together. “What happened?”
“Well, I reached out to him earlier, right after I spoke with you. It was the middle of the afternoon local time on Coraxa, so he was in his office. I expected it to be a civil call from one leader to another, but he laughed when I told him.”
“That doesn’t sound very mayoral.”
“To say the least.” Connors sighed. “I emphasized that the situation wasn’t going to go away on its own, but he still seems… reluctant to take it seriously.”
Karen rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t think it would be a problem. He always seemed so level-headed while I was growing up.”
“Age can do strange things to people.”
“Or maybe he was never the leader I remember him being as a kid.”
She had fond memories of her youth, and, admittedly, there was never much conflict on Coraxa. The biggest issue they’d ever faced in Tribeca was having too many traveler visa applications during the peak summer festival season. Someone in Mayor Korwen’s position needed to be a friendly face, a mediator, not a person responsible for addressing extreme safety concerns related to planetary affairs. Perhaps his years of such low-stakes governing had made him blind to a genuine crisis.
“Where do things with Coraxa stand now?” she asked.
“The FDG will be arriving with its shipment in three hours. At this point, I’m not positive he’ll offer any local assistance. If he doesn’t, the number of conversations we’ll need to have to get that equipment installed in time would delay us—to the point that I don’t know if we could complete the install before the Dyon ship is due to arrive.”
Karen swore under her breath. “Do you want me to talk with him? I don’t know if it would make a difference, but maybe hearing from a local would help.”
“At this point, I will happily explore any option. Please, do what you can.”
She nodded. “All right. I’ll get back to you soon.”
Ugh, Mayor Korwen… why are you being difficult? She wiped her hands down her face.
She had no idea how best to approach him. He had always been a fixture in the small Tribeca community. With the town’s economy built primarily around ecotourism, his role as a leader amounted to sporting a friendly face for visitor’s brochures more than any real civic responsibility.
She wasn’t sure if years of dealing with such minimal concerns had made him soft, or if he was just in denial about the danger his world now faced, but she couldn’t allow Coraxa to be in harm’s way. If she had to go to her homeworld herself to make sure it was protected, she’d hop on the first available ship.
Having never spoken with the mayor directly, Karen contacted the reception desk at Tribeca City Hall and requested a transfer.
“Who shall I tell him is calling?” the receptionist asked. “This line is marked as Gilbert Jern. You don’t sound much like a Gilbert.”
“No, I’m using his office. My name is Karen Carter,” she replied. “I’m the press secretary for President Connors of Alucia.”
“This is a Nezaran access code.”
“It’s complicated. Please, I need to speak with Mayor Korwen right away.”
The receptionist took a slow breath. “One moment.”
The line went quiet for five seconds, followed by a beep, as the video call connected on her monitor.
“Hello?” an older man answered. His white, bushy eyebrows were even wilder than Karen remembered.
“Mister Mayor, my name is Karen Carter. I grew up in Tribeca.”
The mayor placed a pensive hand on his chin. “Philip and Martha’s daughter?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “There aren’t many half-Torcellan children, let alone two in one family. I remember you and your brother.”
“That’s us.” She smiled. “Well, I’m working with President Connors now on Alucia, though I’m currently on assignment on Nezar. I understand that the president has already reached out to you regarding a security threat to our system.”
“Ah, yes.” The mayor scoffed. “And you thought if I heard from a local, I might listen closer to what was being said?”
“Forgive my frankness, sir, but this isn’t a matter of opinion. An alien ship the size of Nezar is three days from entering the Alaxar Trinary. If it arrives, and augmented shields aren’t active on Coraxa, the planet is at extreme risk of destruction. All you need to do is authorize the installation of the equipment upgrades at the generator outposts.”
“There are two key facts you’re not taking into account, young lady.”
Karen resisted rolling her eyes. Oh, this will be good.
“First, I’m the mayor of Tribeca—I don’t speak for the whole planet.” He leaned forward toward the camera integrated in his monitor. “Moreover, Coraxa isn’t a Federation world. Are we to trust that this equipment installation doesn’t come with strings attached?”
“Membership status in the Federation has nothing to do with this. Why would you turn down protection from a threat?”
“All I see is a holographic image. For all I know, this is a ploy to give the Federation a backdoor into taking over Coraxa to exploit its unique properties. There might not be an alien ship at all!”
Karen stared at him with disbelief. “You think the Federation would mislead you like that?”
“I know nothing of the Federation, other than they deal in wars and try to sway entire civilizations. Coraxa is a small, peaceful world. We need no part in such things.”
“I can appreciate your position, Mister Mayor, but time necessitates that I be blunt: if the Federation wished to take over Coraxa, they would simply take it. Allowing them to install equipment doesn’t change anything, other than protect the planet from the real threat.”
“I don’t appreciate your tone.”
“Well, I don’t appreciate you refusing to participate in this project.” Karen glared at him. “I recommended President Connors reach out to you because I thought you would be able to help. I see that I was sorely mistaken.”
“I know you grew up here, and your parents have always been upstanding members of this community, but you left home long ago, Karen. You are now a citizen of Alucia, and I have no innate trust in you.”
This was a mistake. Karen took a deep breath. “I only want what’s best for Coraxa.”
The old man shook his head. “You have other worlds to worry about now.”
“The Alaxar Trinary will be united, whether you go along with this plan or not. The certainty, however, is that if you don’t cooperate, we will come by force, and you’ll have no say in the future dealings of the world.”
He scoffed. “You have no authority.”
If power is what motivates him, then I need to hit him where it hurts. Karen curled her lips, eyes narrow. “Not on my own. But, unlike you, I have made friends with very powerful people. They care about the system’s well-being, too. That equipment is getting installed, no matter what you do now. Whether or not you have a political future in Tribeca, however, is still up for discussion.” Karen folded her hands on the desktop. “So, I’ll ask you again. Will you facilitate the FDG’s access to the shield generation stations?”
The mayor sat up straighter in his chair. “When you put it like that, perhaps this is the time to start a relationship with the Federation on the right foot.”
“I’m so glad to hear you’ve reconsidered. The FDG techs will be in touch when they arrive. Select nine staff to serve as liaisons with the maintenance team at the stations—keep the reason for the installation need-to-know.”
The mayor nodded. “Fine. But if the Federation wrongs us, you’ll need to live with the fact that you did this to your home.”
“Yeah, I’ll know I saved my home. I can live with that just fine.”
CHAPTER TEN
Luke had told himself he’d get used to Ava going off on missions, but that was easier said than done. As the hours passed without hearing from
her, he found himself growing increasingly concerned that something was wrong.
This should have been a quick op—get there, blow the ship up, come home. Why the delay? He didn’t have an explanation.
Even Jack and Tess were quieter than usual. As much as he tried to dismiss his worry, it kept nagging at him.
“Should we have heard something by now?” he asked them as the afternoon turned to evening.
Tess turned around from her station. “I don’t want to feed any concerns you may have, but yeah, I kinda did expect there to be something on the local Net by now.”
“Blowing up a massive planet-ship is a pretty big deal,” Jack agreed. “Footage of that would be circulated as soon as it was available.”
“Unless they opted to keep it covert, so no one got freaked out about there maybe being others out there,” Luke replied.
The two lab techs exchanged glances. “Yeah, no,” Jack said.
Even Luke didn’t buy his own rationale.
“Just because they haven’t fired on the ship yet doesn’t mean anything is wrong,” Tess added. “And regardless, I’m sure Ava is fine.”
“Yeah, I know.” He slumped in his seat.
“Special assignments like this are always the worst,” Tess said. “I dated a warrior on one of the special ops teams for a while. I eventually got used to him going off on routine missions—protection detail, retrieval, what have you. But every so often, he’d go out and wouldn’t tell me anything about the mission. Whenever he said he was heading out but got really quiet after he told me, I’d know it was one of those… the sort that sometimes not every member of the team would come back from. I hated every second he was gone.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “When was this? You never mentioned him before.”
“We were only together for about five months, and it was before you and I met. I guess it never came up.”
Not sure if that was meant to be helpful, but it wasn’t. Luke turned back to his workstation. “Like you said, I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Sorry, I—”
Tess cut off when the door suddenly opened.
Major Widmore popped his head inside. “Good, you’re all here. I need you to do something for me.”
Luke came to attention. “Of course, sir.”
The major stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room.”
The three scientists nodded.
“The Arti-Sun weapon had no effect on the enemy ship,” Widmore revealed.
“Fuck! Really?” Jack exclaimed.
“Obviously, we don’t want word of that getting around. We have a new plan, which involves going aboard the alien ship to form a direct interface. If we can temporarily disable the countermeasures, we can use the Arti-Sun and end this.”
Luke’s stomach dropped. “Who’s going aboard?”
“Ava volunteered.” Widmore held up his hand. “And before you say anything, I objected, too. She made a clear case for why she’s the only person equipped to go, and I begrudgingly have to agree.”
Even without being a part of that conversation, Luke knew exactly what reasons she would have cited. And it did make sense… He hated that.
“What’s this favor you need?” Luke asked, trying to focus on the things that were within his control.
“I need you to go over the scans from the ship—I’ll get you access to the latest data collected on the Hellfire. Our plan hinges on being able to interface with the alien ship so Nick and Sam can hack it, but it’s unclear if we’ll be able to make a standard connection, either physical or wireless,” Widmore explained. “I’d like you to apply what you’ve learned about the structures in Gidyon to see if you can devise a backup method of interfacing with the Dyons’ systems.”
Tess looked at Luke across the lab. “We could use the Gidyon debris.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and look at the logs from the headquarters hack to isolate the signal that activated it.”
“I should be able to establish a datalink on that frequency,” Jack said.
Widmore smiled. “Sounds like you have it handled. We’ll need your solution in twelve hours.”
Luke sighed. Of course they do.
But it was for Ava, so they had to make it happen.
* * *
With her team in transit, all Ava could do was wait for their arrival. However, sitting around idly wasn’t her style.
She rolled onto her back on the bunk in her temporary quarters. She had the room to herself, but it was less than three meters wide and four deep. If she spent another minute cooped up, she was going to lose it.
Ugh, there has to be some sort of gym on this behemoth of a ship, right? she asked Ruby.
>>Yes. Two decks down and aft. I was about to suggest we go.<<
Feeling a little antsy yourself?
>>Actually, my reasoning was that this is our only opportunity to practice intentional transformations before we enter the Dyon ship,<< the AI replied.
Ah, that’s a good point.
Ava hadn’t considered that part of the plan. With an electrostatic skin in place over her armor, the Dyon particles would be unable to latch onto her and secure her to the ground like they’d done on Gidyon. She’d been so focused on that physical element that she’d been neglecting the telepathic component.
When presenting the idea, she had brought forth the pertinent fact that she could resist succumbing to telepathic influence, unlike others. However, she’d forgotten why.
It wasn’t a unique resistance thanks to her own telepathic skills, or a natural ability. Rather, it was a byproduct of shifting to and from her Hochste state. While other Weres would potentially be able to minimize the effects of the telepathic influence by shifting, the key differentiator was the overlay of her telepathic strength. Though neither component was sufficient unto itself, the combination of the abilities was enough to break the Dyons’ telepathic bonds, and Ruby’s presence ensured that she would always be able to transform when she needed to.
Even with that winning combination, though, there were still risks. Ava had only transformed completely a handful of times before—mostly due to a lack of adequate practice space at FDG headquarters and on the Raven—so Ruby didn’t yet have sufficient data to regulate her physiology to its optimal performance. The only way to gather that data was to go through the exercise.
Tell me where to go, Ava said to the AI. We’ll kick everyone out of the gym and see what we can do together.
>>I suggest an empty cargo bay instead. It’s a much larger space,<< Ruby countered. >>Plus, the gym walls are padded, and that seems like an unfair fight against your claws.<<
So going up against riveted metal is better? I might chip a nail!
>>Since when do you care about that?<<
Ava smiled. I’m joking, Ruby. Seriously, though, I’ll need to be careful with any walls. I don’t want to break or dull these nice points. They’re too good for slashing.
>>I’m not sure what, exactly, you think you’ll be slashing over there on the Dyon ship, but I suppose this practice session will also be a good opportunity for you to exercise some self-restraint. Don’t drag your claws along the wall. Problem solved.<<
But what about trailing a nail as I advance toward my enemy, to strike fear into their hearts?
>>I think maybe you’ve been watching too many old videos with the crew on the Raven.<<
Don’t underestimate showmanship. It’s an art.
>>Uh huh.<<
Ruby directed Ava toward an empty cargo bay in the bowels of the dreadnought. The ship was enormous compared to the Raven—or most other ships she’d been on.
Despite its size, it managed to maintain the feeling of a place where people could live for an extended amount of time. Subtle decorations on the walls and furnishings in the common areas lent a communal atmosphere, which was evident in informal gatherings between groups of warriors.
Several individuals cast her an eva
luating look as she passed through the halls, and a few nodded in greeting. She smiled and nodded back, but none of the exchanges lasted for more than a second.
Do they know who I am? she asked Ruby.
>>Some might, but don’t let it go to your head. I suspect most of those looks are because the ship is so big—they can’t decide if they’ve seen you before or not.<<
Oh yeah, good point.
>>I did promise that I’d have a lot of those.<<
Ava chuckled in her mind. And you have followed through.
The corridor leading to the cargo bay access door was empty, aside from two workers making plans for after their shifts ended.
Should we be planning our own party?
>>Might be getting a little ahead of ourselves,<< Ruby replied in her mind.
I’m telling you, knowing that there’s a cake waiting for us would be extra motivational.
>>For you, maybe. I don’t have a mouth.<<
Vicarious enjoyment, and all that.
Ruby sighed. >>If that’s what gets you fired up, go for it. I think you already have another, more compelling, reason to complete this mission quickly.<<
Ava smiled to herself. She’s right. Luke is waiting for me. As much as she loved cake, Luke would win out every time. Interpersonal bonds trumped all.
Even so, the cake doesn’t hurt, she replied to Ruby.
>>If what’s happening in your brain right now just thinking about eating it is any indication, I would never stand between you and the real thing.<<
Upon reaching the designated location, Ruby got a lock override for the door from the ship’s EI, and they entered.
To Ava’s surprise, the entry led to a balcony overlooking the open space. The room stood three decks tall, seventy meters wide, and a hundred deep. Along the back wall, a massive hatch provided direct access for loading in cargo. Completely empty at the moment, it would provide unobstructed training ground to hone her transformation skills.
She descended the side stairway one story to the deck. Ready to give it a go?
>>Yes. Let’s start with a simple shift.<<
Ava took a deep breath and centered her mind. Her previous shifting attempts had been made while she was in an agitated state, specifically at times when she was angry. Such potent emotions clouded judgment, though, and she needed to learn to transform without losing her cool.