“The second reason is this: today, of their own volition, the Katasketousya fight at our side. We’re here in Amaranthe because they asked for our help. Our former enemy asked for our help, and we gave it. Now, they help us in return.”
She had the rapt attention of everyone in the room now; she shouldn’t waste it. “We have never had any desire to annihilate or subjugate the Katasketousya, and we certainly don’t desire to do either to you. We turn even enemies into allies if we can, but we will destroy them if they leave us no choice. We fight to live on our own terms, and for the right of others to do the same. We’re not perfect, but we are always trying.
“I realize we seem an unknown quantity to you, but how risky can lending us a measure of aid be? You know more about us than you think. You know how the Katasketousya created us and our universe, and why. Humans and Anadens share more than just a genetic history. We are you, if only your evolution had not gone tragically wrong. We’re the you that you could have been.”
Nisi stared at her with a sudden, disturbing sharpness, and his indigo eyes flared to crimson—for barely a second, then the flare was gone. She’d hit a more sensitive nerve than she’d intended. Interesting.
He stood and went to gaze out one of the windows…and she saw her chance to close the deal.
“Sator, we are not here in Amaranthe to serve as your tools. We’re willing to fight this battle because it’s the right thing to do—because humans have never been able to stand idly by in the face of blatant injustice and oppression—but we are not yours to use and discard. If you open your doors to us and welcome us as partners, however, you will never find stronger allies. We won’t fight your war for you, but we will fight it with you. Help us, and we will defend you and your people to our own, very permanent deaths.”
Silence hung thick in the air for several seconds, punctuated only by Caleb surreptitiously winking at her.
Nisi nodded deliberately at the window, then pivoted to her. “What do you need?”
AFS STALWART II
MILKY WAY SECTOR 53
“Monitored but ostensibly full access to their information databases, as well as a promise to develop joint missions based on their intel. Medical assistance as needed, with the possibility of sharing the science behind some of their medical advances—though the last part was a little vague, so I doubt they mean regenesis.
“Most importantly in the immediate term, landing and lodging privileges at one of their bases, Post Epsilon. It’s one of their smaller locations, but it’s planetside on a habitable world named Palaemon, so you can get people off ships and put ground underneath their feet.”
Miriam Solovy’s smile carried far more enthusiasm than usual. “This is astonishing, Ms. Requelme. And you earned all these concessions simply by talking to him?”
Mia chuckled. “Yes. I think I simply made the case you didn’t realize you needed to make.”
Caleb was beaming—which was nearly indistinguishable from smirking—at her from across the table. She suspected he’d enjoyed the meeting with Nisi quite a lot.
The commandant crossed her arms atop the table and relaxed into them. “Well, however you accomplished it, thank you. Excellent job, I mean it. Please, stay if you can. What can be given can be revoked, and I will welcome your help in forging a more amiable relationship with the anarch leadership.”
Mia had accepted the likelihood of this being a long-term engagement when she’d agreed to come. And now that she was here, embroiled in the machinations and the intrigue of a foreign universe and its foreign peoples, she probably couldn’t leave it behind anyway.
“Of course I’ll stay. An office or meeting room at Post Epsilon to use as a central workstation wouldn’t hurt. This shouldn’t be widely shared, but they have usable teleportation gates connecting all their posts, so I’ll have convenient access to Nisi from there, as will you.”
“Take your pick of the available working spaces and accommodations. I’ll begin making arrangements for us to establish a footprint there right away. The Sagittae Gateway battle took a toll on everyone. They need a respite.”
Mia suspected Miriam could use a respite as well, but she also suspected the woman would be the last person to allow herself one.
18
PALAEMON
ANARCH POST EPSILON
MILKY WAY SECTOR 17
* * *
ALEX TAGGED ALONG ON THE MINI-TOUR Mia was given of Post Epsilon. Officially, she was filling in for her mother, while Miriam prepped for a brief return to Aurora. Unofficially, she was on a reconnaissance mission.
Their tour guide was no less than the Administrator of Post Epsilon, a Barisan named Latro Udiri-jun. He was taller and thicker than Volya, but also somewhat friendlier.
A collection of midrise buildings were arranged across the surface of an expansive body of water—larger than any one North American Great Lake, but smaller than the Mediterranean. They’d been assured on their arrival that the sea was too small to gen up hurricanes or other life-threatening natural disasters, and calm weather patterns kept the water placid much of the time.
Broad walkways made of a spongy, water absorbent tile connected the buildings to one another and to the numerous landing pads ringing the complex. None of the pads were wide enough to accommodate anything larger than a frigate, so transports and shuttles would be seeing regular duty.
The most important attribute of the post, at least to start, was the housing being made available to them, though Alex had declined lodging in exchange for a guaranteed landing pad. All told, four hundred twelve rooms and a handful of suites were theirs for the taking. Not enough for more than a fraction of the AEGIS personnel to stay here at once, but enough to devise a reasonable rotation schedule and get everyone some fresh air and downtime.
Mia had quietly claimed a suite, as had Kennedy and Noah, and the remainder were to be rotated among the flag officers and Council members. Her mother had dismissively declined to reserve one for herself, but Alex assumed decorum would dictate one of the flag officers give up their space any time Miriam required it.
Recreational and common spaces dotted the open areas between the larger structures. There were three dining areas adjacent to the lodging, as well as special kitchen facilities for the less humanoid aliens.
But the real work of rebellion was done in a group of buildings spanning the rear third of the complex, where their tour guide had to request special clearance from Post Satus to let them inside. Still, once they were inside, offices and meeting rooms dominated the interior. Hardly revolutionary stuff.
Alex finally started paying attention when they entered a wing of tech and medical labs. She paused to press her nose to a small glass window and peer into what appeared to be the primary lab on the left side of a long hallway.
Rows of Anaden-sized capsules were wired into databanks. Friendly looking mechs with white ceramic casing floated about, and a couple of Anadens worked at stations scattered among the capsules.
She glanced over her shoulder at Latro without stepping away from the glass. “This is your regenesis center, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us something about how it works? A high-level overview—no state secrets or anything.”
“No, I cannot.” The Barisan opened the door a crack and peered inside. “But I may be able to retrieve someone who can. Give me a minute, if you please.” He disappeared inside, closing the door behind him.
Alex shrugged at Mia. “I’m assuming we all want to know how this works?”
“Oh, yes.”
Latro returned accompanied by an Anaden man in a classic lab overcoat; she guessed some things were simply practical, no matter the universe. His gaze took in their presence with clinical scrutiny.
“I am Dimou ela-Erevna, director of the regenesis facility here at Post Epsilon. I’ve been authorized to share a little information with you—a little, you understand.”
Alex tried to look grateful. And she was, in
a way. “Of course. I think our first question is the big one. How does it work, in broad terms? Imaging the neural activity of a functioning brain is one thing, but transferring a consciousness, whole and complete, from one body to another is something else altogether.”
“On the contrary, all it requires is a deep and thorough understanding of the way a mind—not merely a brain—functions.”
“Okay. We don’t have that, though we’re getting there. You obviously do. Hypothetically, given the similarities in Anaden and human genetic structure, is regenesis something we could aspire to achieving one day?”
“Not the two of you, no. Not any Human currently living. Why, you ask? The answer is in the technical details of the process, which I can’t share in detail, rendering the point moot.”
Valkyrie and Mia simultaneously blasted her with warnings to not say whatever she was thinking, leading her to physically bite her lower lip to keep her mouth shut.
Mia cleared her throat and flashed Dimou her most charming smile, which really was pretty damn charming. “Sir, even general concepts will be welcome. We’re frankly in awe of your capabilities, and we only hope to begin to learn—to be enlightened.”
Alex bit down harder.
Dimou studied Mia briefly before falling for the flattery. “Our embedded…cybernetics is the closest term you would understand…include within their structure the technology needed to transform the sum of a functioning mind into quantized data suitable for transmission and delivery to matching hardware embedded inside a cloned body. Once a network is in place, the transmission itself is a trivial matter.”
Alex peered with forced nonchalance into the lab through the open door behind the director. Her focus moved deliberately across each part of the room to allow her ocular implant to capture visuals in as great of detail as practicable. “Quantized data…do you mean qubits? Qutrits? However high the order, this is what you’re talking about, right? Information encoded in quantum form.”
“Yes. Now I can’t say anything more. I’m sorry.”
“We understand.” She flashed him a smile, though she couldn’t hope to match Mia’s performance. “Thank you for your time. As soon as Latro returns, we’ll be on our way.”
Mia was staring at her curiously as the door to the lab closed behind the director. “What was that?”
“That was me asking a few questions, since we all want to know how it works.”
“In principle, certainly, but it’s hardly a pressing concern. He’s right. We can’t do it, not yet. You were asking for another reason.”
She felt the faintest tickle of another’s mind at the edges of her own and shook her head. “Mia, don’t look. You have plenty of concerns to handle without delving into mine. This isn’t your secret to bear, and you don’t want it to be.”
Tiny waves broke against the parapet of the meandering walkway, occasionally spraying Alex’s feet and ankles with a bit of icy water. The crisp air was a few degrees warmer than the water, but still chilly. Ahead of them a cargo ship descended to land on one of the larger platforms. Farther in the distance, a transport departed. The work of a rebellion proceeding apace all around them.
“Do we know why they built the post on the water?” A jagged line of umber and sage on the horizon confirmed there was land, and not too far away.
Mia nodded. “I was told the only landmass in the habitable zone is populated with some nasty wildlife, of the aggressive and large variety. Luckily for us, the wildlife doesn’t fly—or swim.” She peered over the edge of the walkway into the water below. “Allegedly.”
Alex gestured to one of the weapons turrets ringing the complex, spaced periodically between the platforms. “Hopefully those can point down, too. Just in case.”
When the tour had ended, they were released on their own recognizance by Latro, albeit not before receiving a deluge of cautionary advice. Alex had coaxed Mia into the outing, because she needed another Prevo to bounce ideas off. To brainstorm with. To ramble to, and possibly to express frustration in raw terms.
The matters she now pondered lay so far past accepted human scientific knowledge it was laughable—and this wasn’t even about her father. She simply didn’t trust her or Valkyrie’s judgment on the plausibility of what she contemplated. Not enough to bet the future of AEGIS on it.
A splash of water made it as high as her hands, and she stuck them in the pockets of her coat. Her fingers brushed across the Reor slab in the left pocket; she carried it everywhere with her, under the theory that if she fiddled with it enough times, it would give in and reveal its mysterious secrets.
“So the fleet can’t use the gateways any longer.”
Mia shook her head. “No. Anarch scouts report a significant Machim presence at every gateway they’ve checked. The positioning gives them a major, arguably insurmountable tactical advantage in any encounter and creates a battle-before-the-battle trap should we need to use one for a mission.”
“A no-brainer move on their part, and they have the ships to spare. Losing the gateways isn’t a complete deal-breaker for us. Many of the important potential targets are in the Milky Way. It’s the Anadens’ home and the most heavily developed galaxy by a decent margin. Our ships can get across its breadth in around ten days, which isn’t ideal but is workable.
“But if we want to win, sooner or later we’ll have to go to Andromeda for certain. Also Triangulum, Ursa Major I and LMC, I expect. And the anarchs have a lot of assets in Pegasus Dwarf, where the Novoloume, Naraida and Volucri homeworlds are.”
“At max sLume speeds it’ll take us a minimum of three weeks to reach LMC, and that’s the close one. Triangulum will take something like nine months and Pegasus…almost a year.”
Alex nodded. “We need to reach other galaxies, plus it takes too long to reach other galaxies, equals we have to be able to open our own traversable wormholes.”
“Is that even possible? You’re the astrophysics guru.”
“Yeah, and I’m not quite sure.” She grimaced. “But I do know the proposition is all about dimensions, and dimensions is what us Prevos do.”
“Oh. I suppose it is. There’s no chance the anarchs can whip up their own makeshift gateways in short order?”
“Valkyrie?”
‘They cannot, though it is a question of material and financial resources before it becomes a technological one. My understanding is the gateways were constructed for two reasons: to ensure easy intergalactic travel by civilian vessels without the need for expensive wormhole drives on every ship, and to keep the details of wormhole drive technology a closely held secret of the Directorate.’
“Naturally.” Alex rolled her eyes. “Do the anarchs at least understand the technology?”
‘I cannot say with complete confidence. Given they possess teleportation gates, it is likely. But before we turn to them for yet more aid, we should consider the possibility that we understand the mechanisms behind wormhole creation better than we realize.’
She and Mia glanced at each other. “Do we?”
‘Consider sidespace. What if it is not a true dimension at all, but rather a matrix of wormhole bridges between two points?’
Her steps slowed, and Mia matched her reduced pace. “Valkyrie, you’re saying we’ve been unwittingly opening some variation on wormholes every time we use sidespace?”
‘When we first met Sator Nisi, you asked me to study the nature of the teleportation gate we traversed as well as our increasing ability to access sidespace independently of one another. After conducting a relational analysis of the commonalities in the two processes, I am saying it is conceivable we have been doing exactly that.’
Mia frowned. “Interesting concept, but since only our consciousness can make the trip in sidespace, it doesn’t help us much.”
Alex groaned. “Because we’re opening the wormholes in the wrong dimension!” She deflated as quickly as she’d perked up. “So how do we open them in a spatial dimension? We’re completely unable to affect the re
al world from sidespace.”
Mia stopped cold. “That’s not precisely true.”
“What?”
“Devon was able to do it. When we were attacked at the hospital by mercs sent to kill us by this—never mind, it doesn’t matter. All of the mercs were Prevos, and to defend himself he tried to blow apart the quantum entanglement of their Prevo connections. He accomplished that, but he also blew apart several nearby walls in the process.”
“No fucking way.”
Mia laughed. “Way.”
“How the hell did he do that?”
“I’m honestly not sure. It had something to do with generating sufficient power to break the entanglement bonds. But I was angry at him for hijacking my Prevo link to help fuel the process without asking, and it was a horrific week already and…I just didn’t care. Sorry.”
“No, it’s understandable. I would’ve pitched an epic fit if he’d done it to me. But…generating power seemed to be the key? Enough real, tangible power to force open a hole in a dimensional boundary?”
“It’s as accurate a summary as any.”
Alex turned to regard the cluster of buildings at the center of Epsilon. “We need to understand how he did it. Mom’s traveling back to deal with the Rychen fallout in a few hours—can I ask you to go along on the trip? I’m sorry, I know you just got here. But you’re the only one of us Devon trusts or even really listens to, and I think we need to get him here yesterday.”
PART IV:
SHATTERSHOT
“It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
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