Jess nodded, eyes on her. “I heard you’ve been up to something.”
Nani shrugged, uncomfortable with the attention, a fact which Jess found both completely in character and odd at the same time, considering all that had happened.
“You could say that.”
Bianca scoffed. Said to Jess: “Don’t let her fool you. Everything is thanks to what she’s done.”
Reluctantly Nani admitted it. “I guess, yes.” She sighed. “I knew when we got back Lindin was going to give us hell. Lock us up. And I knew, no matter what, we could not get distracted with that. The Kel had invaded Earth, for crying out loud. There was no way we could let things fall into the Bureaucracy Trap. I was scared of going to jail, but I also couldn’t stand the idea of them sitting around in infinite discussions about what to do or not do. I knew what needed to be done and I had no patience for anything else.”
Nani had definite fire. A new passion.
“So I reacted the opposite way I might’ve usually. Instead of being meek I jumped down their throats as soon as we got off the ship. I don’t know where it came from, it was hard at first, but I went with it and I haven’t looked back. It was a conscious decision, inspired a little bit by you.” She paused, a little of her shyness peeking through. “I was just pushing for what I knew was right.” At that she shrugged. “Of course I had help.” She touched Bianca where she sat beside her. “And none of it would’ve worked without Zac. With him backing us up they could hardly say no.”
Every time anyone mentioned Zac Jess snapped back to worry and now here she was again, fretting over what happened back at the house. By now he and Willet could be captured or even worse.
Nani was talking. “There was just,” she shook her head. “There was no time. The Kel will find a way here We can’t hide and wait. We need to become the aggressors. We need to attack the Kel, a completely unexpected move and one that just might work. We fight them there, not here.”
Jess bounced Ereena and got a giggle. Her joints were stiff but getting better. Whatever forces she’d been channeling at the end of the fall saved her, but there were aches, and as she bounced Ereena she winced and Ereena saw it. Her giggle stopped and she reached a tiny, concerned finger toward Jessica’s ouchy face.
“I’m ok,” Jess said, soothingly, put on a smile and touched her nose to Ereena’s. Ereena grinned, happiness restored, and as Jess looked into her beautiful blue eyes, so close they merged into one, smelling the wonderful smell of clean baby, Ereena’s soft skin against her own … she felt the pang of her secret. Something she hadn’t yet told the others. Something she was still coming to grips with herself.
She was going to be a mother.
She looked wistfully into Ereena’s blue mono-eye.
I’m going to have a little baby like you.
Everyone always told her what a good mother she’d make. There didn’t seem to be any question of that. Only, that incredible milestone was about to happen now. And suddenly, on top of everything else rocking her world, further and further and still worse every day, Jess was about to have her own little Ereena.
I’m going to be a mother.
She blinked and looked up.
“So we’re gearing for war,” Nani was saying. “A counter-assault. We’re making one-way, programmable devices, Icon mounts, if you will, for the entirety of both Dominion and Venatres powered armor. Skull Boys and Astake alike.”
Jess had heard a little of this.
Nani nearly sighed. “Based on my analysis of Kel forces we have an advantage. The Kel don’t use autonomous units. No robots. Soldiers and tanks; that’s their model. Our powered armor falls into a size class that gives them both a strength and a durability advantage over the Kel soldiers, yet makes them more maneuverable than the larger Kel armored units. Our suits should be able to engage both. There are no guarantees, but based on numbers, ours against theirs … we can win a war on the ground. The real Kel power, of course, is not on the ground. It’s in space. And that’s our challenge. They control the sky in a way we can never touch, but I have ideas. I can create certain types of havoc with the Reaver in support of the ground effort but, in the end, just having a solution for defeating their ground units …
“We gain little to nothing by winning that war.”
Jess waited.
“So, the bigger part of the assault, and the more challenging, will be phase two. Units will be dispersed across the globe. Scanners I’m constructing will then locate and range ships in orbit and, if it works, program a second set of coordinates into the armor, based on those scans, that then allow the Skull Boys to jump aboard target craft. We’ll take as many Kel starships out as we can, possibly even control some of them—I’m working up modules for that as well—and cripple their entire space-based response.”
Even Ereena’s mouth was open in a little “wow” shape, eyes wide as Nani spoke—sensing Jessica’s own impressed take of what the blonde girl was suggesting.
“That …” Jess nodded her head slowly. “That would be incredible.” She looked around the room; settled back on Nani. “It sounds like we might actually be able to do this.”
Nani demurred again, bits of Shy Nani showing. “If it works,” she cautioned. “There are so many tricky parts to this, not least of which are how static the target ships remain as we execute that move. It’s almost like it all has to happen at once, in huge coordination, before they have a chance to begin reacting.
“This whole thing could be a colossal failure.”
“It won’t be,” Bianca said. The details of what Nani proposed were no doubt complex, and iffy, but if they didn’t develop an answer to the Kel then Anitra’s day of reckoning would not be far away. “It will work,” Bianca assured her. “This plan is amazing, Nani. And the soldiers here, the Dominion, the Venatres, they’ll pull it off. We’ll defeat the Kel.”
Nani took another drink. “I’m spending a lot of time going over all the data I have from our time observing them.” She leaned back, glass in her lap. A moment of exhaustion amid what Jess could see had been non-stop tension. “In addition to the core assault I may be able to disrupt their command and control, maybe even bring a few down. I don’t know.” Her gaze lost a little focus.
“Anyway,” she almost sighed. “That’s what I’m working on.”
Jess looked around the room. The others had become little more than spectators to this exchange.
Then Nani brightened, switching subjects. “I took a look at the armor you were wearing,” she sat forward again. “Amazing materials. Incredible.”
Jess had thought there was more to the old Kel armor than simple, archaic metal. It felt too light, too strong, too exquisitely crafted. Maybe it helped in the fall. Surely it didn’t hurt.
“It’s adaptive,” said Nani. “Slightly. You might not have noticed, but it adjusts to the wearer. You happen to be within its intended size range. And the sword,” she sat even straighter, amazed with what she’d found. “So far it’s stronger even than carbon nanotubes. At least in terms of hardness and tensile strength. Some kind of ceramic carbon lattice, acid proof, thousands of times stronger than steel. It would take a lot to break it. A lot.
“In fact, if you could break that sword … I’d say you were fighting something you had no business fighting. Especially not with a sword. It should never break, never dull.
“But the real interesting thing,” she said, “is that it wasn’t made for fighting at all. At least, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t its primary function.” Jess swallowed, realizing Nani had clearly divined the true purpose of the sword. “There are etchings on the blade, laser precise, and from what I can tell they’re an unlock sequence. Perhaps a combo to something? Maybe even coordinates. I’m not sure yet.”
Amazingly Nani had figured it out. Or maybe not so amazing. It was Nani, after all, and as Jess looked across that quiet little room at her, such a homey setting, she once again could not believe just how bright the young scientist was, how insigh
tful. A true genius among mortals. Maybe the etchings were obvious, maybe not, but Jess couldn’t help being impressed.
“Where did you get it?” Nani wanted to know.
“The sword and armor were left behind on that other world. Long ago, by a Kel priestess.” Jess looked to Darvon and Egg, the believers in the Prophecy, who knew at once the significance of that.
“Ah,” this was a different sort of epiphany for Nani. “I thought it had the marks of Kel handiwork. Advanced even for that time, but similar. Beyond even the Reaver materials technology. Close, but better. Maybe the Reaver is older than we think; maybe it came before this sword and armor were created.”
Jess nodded. “The armor just happened to fit me,” she said. “Adaptive, I guess, as you say. So I put it on and wore it. And I used the sword.” She looked directly at Nani. “To unlock a device. You’re right. It’s a key. The inscriptions are an unlock code. I inserted it into a gate, which worked like one of the Icons and led me back to Earth.”
Nani had another epiphany, an “ah” that came across her face. “Bianca mentioned you said something about a gate. The Kel used gates back around the time of the Reaver. Fixed connect points between important locations.”
Jessica’s mind drifted to other things, other problems, and for a moment she reeled at just how many problems faced her.
She had so many things yet to do.
“Do you think,” she asked, refiguring her question as she spoke, “the mechanism. On the gates. How much do you know about them? Can they be activated without the lock? Could one of these gate be forced? The one behind my house is off, I left it off, but the Kel were swarming. What if they find it?” The idea of the Kel going through to Galfar’s world … It was horrifying to imagine the slaughter that would occur.
But Nani was shaking her head. “Not as I understand it. If it’s like the ones in my records, the coordinate pair would be ruined if forced. It would have to be triggered by a successful unlock. Pretty secure. No way to brute force it without losing coherence.
“However,” she said, ruining the fleeting relief that teased, “if they could decipher the code, or even derive the coordinates or find another way around it …
“Anything is possible.”
Jess tried to hold to the calm. And again thought of Zac.
But her mind was running toward her next objective. Piecing together the next part of her never-ending plan.
“How about the sword?” she asked. “What if they got that?” This probably seemed an idle question to the others. For Jess it had grave importance.
“If they matched the two then, of course, they could open it.”
“I mean if they just had the sword.”
Nani shrugged. “If they had the information etched into it … I don’t know. I haven’t yet determined if they’re actual coordinates. I suspect they may be, but I’m not yet sure.”
“And what about the etchings. Could they be lost if the sword were damaged?” She needed them, needed the sword’s function as “key” far more than as blade or weapon.
“Like I said,” Nani snorted, “you’re not going to damage that sword.” Then: “I can’t think of anything you could do that would lose the inscriptions.”
These questions mattered only because Jess knew what she had to do next. Her conviction was already set. Her objective. The Bok could lead her to the Codes and the Codes were on Earth and the Kel owned the Earth and, worse, the Kel ran the Bok. Their chosen ones, last living connection to the Amkradus, and more than anything, more than anything else right then, Jess had to find the ancient Codex before anyone else.
And she knew where to start.
“How do these one-way Icons work?” she asked. “The ones you’re making for the assault.”
Nani was only too happy to answer, to talk of what she’d done.
“They equip to a harness,” she said. “I’ve designed the pair to decohere as soon as they’re used, rendering them inert. Once the units go through they won’t be able to come back. We’ll have to go get them once it’s all over. Necessary, to keep the Kel from getting hold of the way here.”
“Can you specify arrival points on the other end?”
“That’s what I’m doing, yes. I’ve got files on the entire Earth, terrain, objects, etc. We’ll place them according to my last good info.”
Jess paused. “If I gave you a spot, could you make me one?”
Now it dawned for Nani where this conversation had be going. Bianca, too, and she sat up, just a little, expressions on the faces of the others changing as they began to see where Jessica’s questions were leading.
Nani’s answer came slowly. “I could, yes.”
“Good,” said Jess. “I’m going to need one.”
And Ereena, ever insightful Ereena, sitting there the whole time enthralled, watching intently and listening as Jess spoke, followed her gaze to the others, looked around the room …
Then turned her eyes back to the center of her universe. And, with an expression of the momentous on her young face, reached up and touched Jessica’s nose.
Jess made eye contact.
“That’s right,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to do.”
CHAPTER 14: REVELATIONS
“As you can see we’re still trying to come up with ideas,” said Drake. Fang had joined them, along with the SAS commander, Cooper. Willet stood with the small group of Earthmen, listening as they reviewed discoveries, their current intention to stage a covert op of some sort—though as yet they had no bright ideas—with the general objective of inserting what they called a Trojan into the Kel network. Control code, in essence, if they could complete it. That code was still being worked on, with gaps of information the hackers weren’t sure could be filled, making every aspect of the proposition a long shot. With the arrival of Willet and Zac, however, they were starting to think up ways they might actually pull it off.
Willet glanced across the busy room toward his tall friend. Zac was with another agent, answering questions as they tried to build a dossier. Everyone else in view was engaged in the deciphering and understanding of all things Kel.
“The Kel are not ignorant to this,” Fang was saying. The small group gathered at the table listened carefully. “At this point they know nearly everything. They know there are groups like ours operating around the world. The only thing saving us, really, is that they’re distracted. As Drake has said before, right now is the sweet spot. This moment in time. The Kel are unable to devote resources to catching our movements. Not yet, not to the degree they need to be doing. That time is coming but right now … right now we can move. As near as we can tell the Kel view is that any and all resistance efforts will only be able to inflict minimum disruption, and so their focus at this stage is on what they believe to be the bigger picture. Now may be our only shot.”
Willet leaned against the table. “If you can plant this Trojan,” he was thinking along with them, working to find a solution among the barriers. “Assuming we can create it. What then?”
“We use it. Insert controls, disrupt command. There are any number of things we could try.”
Willet shifted on the edge of the table where he leaned and crossed one ankle across the other.
“You should know a little more about us,” he said. “Maybe it will make a difference. You may already have suspected this, but Zac and I are not from this world. I’m sure you assumed that with Zac, but maybe not with me.”
There was a moment’s pause, but not the sort of step back Willet might’ve expected. These guys had been dealing with the fantastic since the Kel invasion, under extreme duress, and the idea of him being from somewhere other than Earth was not, in the current environment, that big a pill to swallow.
“Zac and I are from a world called Anitra. It’s a world of humans, like this one.”
Again the freedom fighters took that in stride.
“The point of interest,” said Willet, “is what’s going on there, on Anitra, even
as we speak. Zac and I came here to rescue one of our own. She was captured during the Kel assault; we had a more advanced ship and she and I were flying one of its fighters—”
“The wreck?” asked Drake, twigging visibly on this new bit of info. Several others around the table perked up as well. “We saw a human female being pulled from the wreckage. Is that who you were after? Girl with bright red hair.”
Willet felt himself standing straight away from the table only after he’d moved.
“Yes. Her name is Satori. We came for her.”
“So that was you guys.” Drake was connecting the dots. “In that different, faster ship. The big one.”
“The Reaver,” Willet nodded, heart racing at the mention of Satori. “The smaller craft was one of its fighters. That was us, yes. I got out, Satori didn’t make it.”
“She’s on the queen’s flagship,” Fang commented, not getting the deeper significance of that knowledge.
Willet took another involuntary step and stopped, surging with the news.
“You know where to find her?”
“We don’t have current info, but we know where they took her. I don’t think she’s been moved.”
“Is she …” Willet couldn’t finish the sentence.
But Fang didn’t know. “No data. Seems likely, based on what we do know, but no way to be sure.”
Drake stroked his chin, thinking, even as Willet’s heart went faster. Drake asked: “So that ship, the bigger one, and the fighter, those belonged to you? They came from your world? Anitra?”
Willet gathered his racing thoughts. There was nothing that could be done with this breakthrough info on Satori. Not yet.
“It did,” he nodded, train of thought shot to hell. What had he been about to tell them? “But not like you think. Anitra is hardly more advanced than Earth. Militarily, at least. That ship is a relic. It was found buried on our world. It’s ancient Kel. We have only the one. No more.”
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 16