by Jay Allan
He definitely didn’t want to hurt her. But more to the point, he wasn’t at all sure he was even capable of doing so…
…because he was emotionally compromised. Badly.
His training, his rules of engagement, his experience and the teachings of his superiors and his mentor all told him he should take control of this vessel and use it to get wherever he needed to go. Only he wasn’t going to do it.
Another in an already fairly long line of rules discarded in the face of Alex Solovy.
*
Two hours later he still lay awake. He pondered the nonsensical, suspicious events leading to this new war and how they might have occurred; he considered his options going forward. But mostly he brooded about the alien ships at their portal and the dark feeling of dread which had taken up permanent residence in his gut since witnessing them.
He heard her come up the stairs, her steps slow and a bit uneven. She didn’t come over right away; it took a minute before her faint outline appeared on the other side of the privacy screen.
“Caleb, are you awake?”
He considered whether to let his muscles tense, to confront her again or to hide behind feigned sleep. But the situation would be no better come morning.
“No.”
There was no breath of amusement in response. “I’ll drop you on Romane tomorrow.” Her voice sounded flat and toneless, belying the significance of her words. “It’s the last independent world still somewhat nearby. I’ve shifted our route and input the new destination.”
“I’ll have to backtrack a bit, but…it’s fine. I’ve been able to put the report in front of some ‘important’ people on Earth, so they can wait another day for me. We should be at Romane by late morning. Of course you can take a hardcopy of the data and the report when you go.”
He pulled the screen back, leaned against the wall beyond the edge of the cot and attempted to meet her gaze. Her eyes were so sleepy and unfocused it was difficult. Her hair was a tangled mess, tumbling to cover half her face and down over bare shoulders. She wore a white tank and navy shorts; the dark material was wrinkled and hung unevenly above her frankly remarkable legs.
He wanted very much to hug her. Instead he softened his expression. “Why did you change your mind?”
She gave him a tired, half-hearted smile. “Turns out I’m not very good at keeping prisoners.” She couldn’t keep up the smile, and it faded away. “I understand why you feel you need to go home—I understand you need to help protect your people. And you don’t owe me anything so….”
“Only my life.”
She made a valiant effort at rolling her eyes. “True, but I did try to kill you before I saved you, so it’s likely a wash.” She started toward the stairwell, but not before a sad, almost desperate shadow passed across her expression. “I’ll let you get some sleep. I just…thought you’d like to know.”
“Alex, why did you really want me to go to Earth with you?”
The words had spilled forth unbidden…and the answer suddenly seemed the most important words in the universe.
In her weariness she revealed a series of pained, frustrated emotions in her eyes and the quirking of her lips. Finally her shoulders dropped, as though she had given up. On what, he couldn’t say.
“Because what we saw terrifies me, and I didn’t want to face what it might mean alone. With you here, it all somehow seems a little less daunting. You…you make me believe maybe we have a chance. Intellectually I know you can’t do any more than I can to stop what’s coming but…but still you make me feel…safe.”
She squared her shoulders and stood up straight. Proud. Defiant. “But it’s fine. I’m a big girl, and I’ve spent twenty-three years facing challenges alone. I’ve got it covered.” She nodded sharply to emphasize the statement and started down the stairs.
“I’ll go.”
She froze, one foot hovering above the second step, and whipped her head over to him. “What?”
What, indeed. “I’ll go to Earth with you.”
“Are you serious? We went through all this drama and angst—enough to fill a smeshnoy soap opera vid—and now you’re just—”
He raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Do you want me to go with you or not?”
“Well yes, but—”
“Then quit bitching.” He gave her the smirk he had already figured out drove her nuts.
She stared at him for a second—and burst out laughing. It was uncontrolled, weary and beautifully genuine.
When she had minimally composed herself she gestured to the cockpit. “I’m going to go revert our route back real quick….” Halfway there, she paused. The dim light faded to darkness near the cockpit, and her profile was a shadow against blurred stars.
“Thank you.”
He merely nodded in response. After a breath he drew the privacy screen closed, lay back on the cot and closed his eyes.
What was he doing?
Following her, apparently.
When he had stood there and watched her, hair all tousled and tangled, gaze sleepy and unfocused, defenses worn away, defeated and near to broken but standing proud nonetheless…he had realized he simply wasn’t ready to let her walk out of his life.
Okay. Going to Earth, then. To Earth Alliance Strategic Command, in point of fact—
His eyes flew open.
He had an idea.
*
“Sorry if I disturbed you, sir. I realize it’s very late there—or very early, I suppose.”
“It’s fine, Agent Marano. None of us are getting much sleep at the moment. Has there been a change in your circumstances?”
“Of a sort. I’d like to propose a new option.”
“I’m listening.”
“First I have a question, and I’d appreciate your honesty when answering. Did our government authorize the assassination of the Alliance Trade Minister?”
“To my knowledge it did not. As far as I’m concerned everything about the assassination is wrong…but events have moved beyond it now.”
“Perhaps not. One more question. Does the government desire war with the Alliance?”
“They do after Palluda. That kind of slaughter can’t go unanswered. But before the attack? No.”
“This war—I believe it’s a trap, one which will leave us weakened and defenseless when the aliens attack.”
“What are you implying?”
“I suspect we didn’t assassinate the Trade Minister and I suspect the Alliance didn’t attack Palluda. I suspect everyone has been tricked into going to war against one another. And I hope to find us a way out of the trap.”
“Okay, now I really am listening.”
“Thank you. I want to act as an unofficial, off-the-record envoy to Alliance military leadership. If I can prove to them we didn’t start this war, perhaps we can end it.”
“Well, that’s a problem, because I don’t have any proof—beyond the word of politicians—we didn’t start the war. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried like Hell to find it. But all the evidence points to Chris Candela as the assassin, which makes it damn hard to deny it was our doing with a straight face.”
“You think he’s not responsible for the hit?”
“I think I can’t prove he’s not responsible because the Minister’s body became an Alliance state secret approximately two minutes after he ceased breathing.”
“What if you could?”
CHAPTER 35: Deucali
Earth Alliance SW Regional Military Headquarters
The QEC room always made Liam feel as though he was suffocating. It wasn’t so much the size—while hardly what he would consider spacious, it included a desk, a full-sized chair, a long wall for holo projections and plenty of space to maneuver around. But the three layers of six-centimeter thick sound-absorbing nanomaterial together with the active phase cancellation waves reverberating in the gaps between each layer created a hyper-silence in the air which was both unnerving and stifling.
Still, it was a requir
ed accommodation for EASC Board meetings, and these days it may even be necessary.
A large holo projection filled the back half of the room, creating a near-real representation of the view from his ‘chair,’ were he to be sitting in Vancouver. If he turned his head the holo followed his eyes, in a complete 360-degree circle should he desire to see if anyone stood behind his virtual presence.
As it had been for the last several meetings, the scene was rather chaotic. Aides bustled about and mini-conferences were underway scattered around the room. In the past it might have made him feel like an outsider, cut off from the real power. Today though, he simply couldn’t get worked up over it; he was in too good a mood.
After all, he had his war.
He made an effort to tamp down the smile he realized was growing on his lips as Alamatto called the meeting to order.
“Good morning. By now I assume everyone has transitioned to wartime protocols and procedures within their organizations. It’s still early yet, but we need to stay in front of developments. General Foster, if you would update us on the Arcadia situation?”
The Northwestern Regional Commander nodded solemnly. In Liam’s opinion, he should be handing in his resignation and crawling off in shame after allowing such a humiliating defeat to occur on his watch.
“Yes, sir. The casualties have risen to 763, but I don’t expect them to rise appreciably further. The damage assessment has been completed, and it is not good. We lost all the fighters stationed at the base and two of the four frigates which were groundside—the other two sustained significant but repairable damage. Seventy-two percent of the physical structures are a total loss. Temporary plasma shields have been placed around the headquarters building to enable it to retain some functionality. Most of the electronic systems were underground and are undamaged, thankfully.”
“What’s the status of the orbital arrays?”
“Sixty-four percent of the sensors suffered damage and are functioning at reduced capacity. Six of the fourteen plasma weapons—those facing the region the attackers approached from—were destroyed.”
“It’ll take months to replace those—and hundreds of millions!”
Liam rolled his eyes in the direction of the EASC Logistics Director. If ever there was a more whiny, pansy little bitch, he hadn’t met them.
Alamatto acknowledged the Director but kept his attention on Foster. “In the short term, the diminished planetary defenses are our largest concern. It’s my understanding a squadron is inbound from Fionava to provide active patrols in the system for now.”
“Obviously this initial setback is unfortunate. However, given no declarations of war had been issued at the time, we must not view it as a defeat. But we are at war now, and the important thing is to focus on winning it, as quickly and bloodlessly as possible.”
Liam leaned forward expectantly. “What’s our first front? We should have already moved by now, in my opinion. The 2nd and 3rd Brigades attached to the Southwestern Command are at full strength and on alert, ready to engage against any target identified.”
Solovy exhaled in the annoying, holier-than-thou way she had. “General, it would take a week for your ships to reach Senecan space. If you will send a squadron to Fionava to compensate for the one dispatched to Arcadia, that will be sufficient for now.”
“Well what are we doing, then? Sitting around with our thumbs stuck up our asses?” Dammit, now that his war was here, he needed to be in it. He had lobbied for one of the northern regional commands several times in the last few years, but had been unsuccessful. Maybe with Foster in a weakened position….
Solovy looked positively smug. “Far from it. While Admiral Rychen’s forces maneuver into position for strikes on Senecan targets—forgive me, General, perhaps you’d like to brief everyone?”
Alamatto smiled weakly. He seemed nervous and uncertain, even for him, and practically bowed in deference to Solovy. Liam briefly wondered what power plays may be at work in Vancouver.
“For several years Senecan Intelligence has maintained long-range passive hyperspectral scanners near significant Alliance assets, including Scythia, Messium, Erisen, Fionava, August and New Cornwall. They haven’t succeeded at placing any in range of Earth, but nonetheless, this has been one area in which their technology is superior to ours. We haven’t been able to do anything about the scanners, beyond obscuring signals where we can, for fear of provoking further hostilities. Obviously that is no longer a concern. Within the next two hours they will find every one of their scanners destroyed and their ability to eavesdrop on any strategic discussions or monitor troop movements effectively nulled.”
Liam sighed. He had to admit it was a smart tactic. A little too sneaky and clever for his taste, but arguably necessary. “And after that?”
“Here are the plans for the next four days.” A screen superimposed itself over the holo of the conference room. “For obvious reasons, this information will not be transmitted over the exanet, even secure channels, so please study it now.”
Alamatto gestured to one of the ‘guests,’ EASC Special Projects Director Brigadier Jules Hervé. “Brigadier, thank you for coming. Would you brief us on the status of Project ANNIE?”
Goddamn Artificial. Mere mortals should not be playing at creating life.
“Certainly, General. ANNIE was not scheduled to go live for another four months, but given the current circumstances we are working to accelerate the timetable—” the woman glanced around the table to head off premature objections “—while maintaining strict safety protocols.”
“During our testing, we’ve begun feeding it our existing data on the Senecan military—fortifications, assets, leadership, numbers—as well as historical data, and plan to compare its analyses with our existing tactical forecasts. We expect it to produce a number of refinements and likely valuable new insights. This will allow us to utilize some of its capabilities before formally bringing it online.”
Rychen spoke up. “And what does ‘bringing it online’ mean, precisely? I assume we’re not handing over the codes to the missiles, but what are we planning to do?”
Hervé adopted a more confident posture in her chair. She was an attractive woman, with piercing, intelligent blue eyes and rich mahogany hair wound back in a conservative braid. It was a shame she was a warenut.
“Certainly we will not be handing over the codes to anything bearing lethal capability. Once ANNIE is live it will receive real-time feeds of all military, war-related and surveillance data. It will also monitor news feeds and exanet traffic.
“To put it simply, it will look for patterns in the chaos. It will see what we cannot. We anticipate it to be able to alert us to impending attacks, secret troop movements and exploitable weaknesses in the enemy. For starters.”
Rychen nodded. “That does in fact sound useful—and safe. Might we be overdoing the safety precautions a bit?”
“Well, Admiral, the thing about synthetic neural nets is they display a habit of developing a mind of their own, so to speak. It’s best to keep them securely inside a high fence, because even if the core programming is perfect—which is a very big ‘if’—synthetics have been known to rewrite their internal code on occasion.”
Alamatto gave her an appreciative smile. “Thank you, Brigadier. It goes without saying we need ANNIE’s capabilities as soon as feasible, but of course we can’t sacrifice safety and security.”
Once Hervé had excused herself from the room, Alamatto turned to Solovy. “Admiral, when is your daughter projected to arrive?”
“She should be planet-side midday tomorrow.”
What?
“Good. We’ll tentatively schedule an audience for day after tomorrow, say 1500. Needless to say, if her claims prove to be accurate they are a significant concern we must take into account.”
“General, my daughter is many things, but fanciful is not one of them. I expect they will be exceedingly accurate. Unfortunately.”
Alamatto appeared to wilt into h
is chair. “Aliens, on top of everything else…but let’s not rush to any conclusions for now.”
Liam pushed aside the strategic plans screen he had been reviewing with half an eye—but before he could interrupt, the Logistics Director had.
“Excuse me, did you say ‘aliens’? Is there something we haven’t been informed of?”
Alamatto hurriedly straightened up; the expression on his face made it clear he hadn’t intended to let that slip out. “Our scientists are still examining the initial data, and I don’t want to send it to the larger group until they’ve evaluated it. It’s not an immediate concern.”
Liam jumped in this time. “Perhaps we would be a better judge of how immediate a concern it is.”
“You will be fully informed before we make any decisions on the matter. We’ll discuss it when the data is ready, and not before.”
He scoffed but settled back in his chair. Aliens? Two hundred years of extra-solar exploration, and no extraterrestrial life with intelligence greater than that of a canine had been discovered. No ruins, no artifacts, no trace of sentient life. If ‘evidence’ of aliens had suddenly materialized now, it had to be an attempt at distraction on the part of the Senecans. The timing was too fishy for anything else.
And who the Hell was Solovy’s daughter, anyway?
CHAPTER 36: Siyane
Space: Central Quadrant
“Ebanatyi pidaraz, u etogo pridurka poehala krisha!”
Caleb heard the outburst from the lower deck and hastily finished dressing after his shower.
The morning had been a little awkward for them both as they tried to figure out what these new circumstances, this new phase of their…relationship, he supposed, meant for them. That and he struggled with what and how much to reveal regarding his new mission.