Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  Keva ran to the belly hatch that led to her ship. They needed speed. Wilmur had probably already beat them to Red Sky. Even with the faster traffic lanes, they couldn’t outrun slip drive.

  So, what was he doing?

  The mind worm wasn’t giving them any information he didn’t want them to see, and he was playing it very close to the chest.

  It all came down to control. Countermeasures within countermeasures. Damn, Keva almost missed Ajian.

  “Where are you going?” Hale shouted.

  Keva slipped through the belly hatch, Dottie prepared to follow. “Whatever is going down, it’s happening now, or at least very soon.”

  “How the hell do you know that? Dammit, Keves!” Hale slammed a hand against the hull as she disappeared down the ladder into her ship.

  “ILO, prepare for takeoff as soon as the Tencendor is clear of atmo.”

  “Understood. A fleet of military vessels just arrived from slip speed.”

  Dottie dropped the last few feet and jogged to catch up to Keva. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Keva didn’t think so. “The military might be contracted to the Elite, but that doesn’t mean that they work for the Elite. The military is a separate entity.”

  “Then, who keeps them in check? There is a check and balance system in place.” Dottie’s tone was very high and mighty.

  Keva spun, anger rising in her chest. “Who checks and balances the Elite? Or the Families? You think there’s a check and balance system in place for the military? How well is it working? What have they been doing?”

  Dottie took a half-step forward. “They’re here to keep the peace.”

  “What peace? We’re not at war. We haven’t been at war. There are no invading forces here. The only people we have to worry about protecting ourselves from are the Elite.”

  Shaking her head, Dottie curled her lip. “You’re judging an entire class of people on the actions of one man.”

  “I’ve seen the universe the Elite made. You have, too, or did you forget Kalamatra? The people living right next to the heart of a star, stuffed inside a fusion reactor that’s slowing eating away their organs. People are going to die out here, life isn’t all Elite parties and social politics.” She spun on her heel and headed for the bridge again. “The terrans who are about to be bombed are the people who matter right now.”

  “We don’t even know—”

  “What?” Keva demanded, turning on her again. “We don’t know it was the Elite? Yes. We do. Wilmur and Poe admitted to it. Multiple times. We don’t know how many people are going to die? So what? Does it matter how many? What number would be acceptable to you? Poe was only concerned about it because she didn’t have readily engineered replacements available. So, what else don’t we know?”

  Dottie opened her mouth.

  “We know,” Keva said, overriding her because damned if they had time for ideology, “that these sick fucks are trying to reprogram humans, the lowest of us, the ones on the bottoms of their boots. They’re trying to reprogram us to obey.”

  “I am not arguing with you that this isn’t bad.”

  Keva pulled herself back. She shouldn’t be yelling at Dottie. It wasn’t her fault, and…they didn’t have time for her to indulge in her anger. “We’re approaching a situation where we need all hands on deck.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Of course she didn’t. “I need you to be useful, do something other than hiding away with your sociopathic AI brother and tinker with electronics. You’re going to have to act like there’s no option left anymore, and if you can’t do that, you’re going to die.”

  Dottie visibly bristled. “I’m not useless.”

  “Then fucking prove it,” Keva said as she turned around, “I don’t know if any of us will live through this. It’s up to you whether your last moments have any meaning or not.”

  “You have a very low opinion of me.”

  “In the few weeks I’ve known you, I haven’t exactly gotten to know you well. All you do is hide away and nurse your broken heart. Yeah, I get it, Eddqin dying was rough but you know what, a hell of a lot more people are poised to die in way worse conditions than he went and if you aren’t going to help them, well Dottie, you’re right. I don’t have a very high opinion of that.” Keva sighed, wishing she wasn’t having this conversation now, heading into what could be a battle.

  Dottie jerked like she’d been slapped.

  Keva advanced on her, anger taking over and pushing her into attack mode. Adrenaline spiked in her system and when she looked at Dottie all she could think of was the unsure girl she had been the first time she’d been on Terra Qar. She’d run and now the weapon she could have stopped in its tracks if she had completed her mission was about to kill thousands of people. This was all her fault, but facing that guilt would crumble what strength she had left, so she took it out on Dottie.

  Keva slashed her hand through the space between them. “I have no idea what we’re heading into. It could be murder and mayhem. The bomb could go off while we’re there. We could all die. We could all be altered by some DNA rewriting weapon. I don’t know, but I can’t protect you.”

  “I’ll take care of myself out there.”

  “Like hiding during a bar fight? That’s great for a scrape and scuffle, but what we’re facing, it’s war.”

  Dottie took in a ragged breath. “Why did you bother to save me?”

  Keva breathed for a long moment before whispering, “Because you asked me to, but I’m seriously starting to regret it.”

  Dottie’s chin quivered slightly, but she raised her head, straightened her shoulders, and balled her hands into fists. “I may not be a soldier like you, Keva, but I am a fighter.”

  “Good.” That’s all Keva could say. She hoped Dottie would survive, but as they drew closer to Red Sky, the more she realized she’d made a terrible mistake in bringing Dottie out here. She hadn’t saved her from anything.

  “Keva,” ILO said over the intercom, “I’m breaking away from The Tencendor and we’re running for Red Sky.”

  “Thank you, ILO.” Keva turned away, not knowing what else to say to Dottie. Or what to say to ILO, for that matter. If they all died here, ILO would never know the freedom she dreamed of, of the freedom Keva promised to give her.

  “The Obsidian Baron is currently in orbit as well.”

  “He brought his whole damned ship?”

  “He brought a warship, Keva.” ILO voice was strained. “And there are guns on it. Very powerful guns.”

  Crap. “I thought the military was here.”

  “They are. They dropped out of slip drive just ahead of The Obsidian Baron.”

  What had taken him so long to get there?

  Unless he didn’t want to tip the military to the fact that his ship possessed slip drive. Had that actually worked in their favor?

  “What’s the military doing?”

  “Just sitting there. No shuttles have been launched, no ground teams, no fighters.”

  That was odd. Keva breached the bridge and sank into the pilot’s seat.

  Dottie slipped into the copilot seat and pulled up the manual access system.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What you need me to,” she said coldly. She glanced out the plasteel windows, then to the screen on her left before punching in more numbers. “If what you say is right, then the military has the protections up to keep people out. I’ve been studying this while I’ve been ‘grieving.’”

  Keva wanted to feel bad, but she didn’t.

  “If we just go in there, the ship will be disabled. But, if I can hack into it…”

  “Even I haven’t been able to hack into their control system,” ILO said, irritated.

  “I don’t just hide in your engineering bay for fun, you know. I fix things,” Dottie said with a slight flip of her head as she continued to type furiously, her focus on the three monitors in front of her. “Just trust me and let me do what I�
�m good at.”

  Keva breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t meant to lash out at the other woman, but her emotions had gotten the better of her, and it appeared to have worked. Dottie was rising to the occasion, and if they were astronomically lucky, they might just make it out.

  The Obsidian Baron hulked large in the Black, dominating the view. Eight larger vessels, each distinctly military, loomed in the background, noses pointed toward Bittermoon, the little moon where Red Sky had settled.

  A sky elevator rose from the settlement far below on the planet’s surface and met the small dome of a station just outside the atmosphere ring. The glistening silver sheen of a force field surrounded the moon.

  Several smaller ships, sturdier, hardier, more formidable gathered around them.

  HUMP mining vessels.

  Keva watched calmly, nodding to herself. This was good. If they could just get the protections down, they could evacuate the settlement just in case they couldn’t disable the weapon.

  A shuttle left The Obsidian Baron and headed for the moon.

  “…are…ey…dd..ng?” Hale’s broken voice came over the speaker.

  “What’s going on?” Keva asked.

  “I’m trying to break through the comm interference,” ILO said, her voice sounding strained. “JIN and I are trying, but it’s…harder than it should be.”

  “Then, get ARO to help.”

  “No.”

  “Three AIs are better than two, ILO,” Keva gritted out. “If we can’t get to Red Sky before Wilmur releases Batch D-65 and leaves, everyone there is dead. Do you understand me?”

  ILO didn’t answer immediately. “Yes, Keva. I understand.”

  “Just…be careful.” Because, even with as desperate as the situation was, they couldn’t ignore what ARO was capable of. A rogue AI was not to be trusted.

  “I’m through,” Dottie shouted, raising her hands above her head as she stared out the window.

  Keva watched the silver glint over the atmospheric bubble surrounding the moon, waiting for it to drop.

  Wilmur’s shuttle entered the elevator ring.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Hale demanded over the intercom.

  “Nice to hear you, too,” Keva answered.

  “Can you tell anything about what’s going on from your link on Wilmur?”

  ILO chimed in, “The feed appears to have gone black, there may be interference.”

  “Or he may be overriding it somehow.” Keva gritted her teeth.

  What do we do? an unfamiliar voice hailed over the comm.

  Are we clear? a female voice demanded.

  The shields are still up!

  “ILO,” Keva said, “we need to still the chatter from the settlement.”

  The chatter disappeared.

  As did the silver sheen around the moon.

  “Nice job, Dottie,” Keva said. “Everyone, we’re clear to enter atmo. Get as many people out of Red Sky as possible.”

  “We have command affirmative,” ILO said.

  “Hale.”

  “Here,” he said.

  “I’m going after Wilmur and that bomb. You get as many people out of there as you can.”

  “And what are you going to do with it?”

  She didn’t know. “Let’s get everyone safe first, and then we’ll talk.”

  Hale didn’t reply.

  Keva turned to Dottie as ILO brought them into Red Sky. “So, have you ever defused a bomb before?”

  Dottie raised an eyebrow. “I think I might surprise you.”

  “Good.” Keva got up and headed for the cargo bay. “Keep those surprises coming.”

  26

  Stepping off the ramp at the back of the Scarlet Harpy, Keva expected to see chaos.

  What she saw was almost nearly the opposite.

  ILO set them down on the outskirts of the Red Sky settlement. The atmosphere was thin outside the protective atmo dome surrounding the town. Dozens of mining ships parked all around them.

  The Tencendor was just now entering atmo. Beyond her, the Obsidian Baron reigned heavy like an odd-shaped moon, Vulture IV not far behind it with a trail of other destroyer-class ships on either side of it.

  What the hell was going on up there?

  Men and women poured out of the large, boxy mining vessels and ran toward Red Sky, their green eyes blazing in the dark of the growing twilight.

  Keva joined them, Dottie close at her heels, her mask tight to her face.

  They breached the thin metal gate of the outer walls and ran under the protection of the atmoshield’s underdome.

  Dottie reached up to pull off her mask.

  Keva found a place just inside the gate and held up a hand to stop her. “We don’t know what they may have done to the air.

  Dottie re-sealed her mask and nodded. “Where are we going?” she asked, her voice muffled by the mask.

  “Did you see where Wilmur’s ship landed?”

  “Over there?” Dottie asked.

  “ILO,” Keva asked. “Did you get a trajectory?”

  ILO didn’t say anything.

  Shit. They were being jammed again. She pressed on her forearm and activated the communication chip and tapped ILO a message. Did you see the trajectory?

  After a moment, ILO replied, Sending general coordinates now.

  How general?

  He scatter-arrayed his signal.

  Crap. That meant that he could be anywhere within a two-block radius. We need to do better.

  I am scanning for anything that might indicate a detonation source.

  Well, at least there was that. Keva nodded to Dottie and led the way. “ILO says he’s somewhere just over there.”

  They turned the corner, entering onto the main street.

  Languid bodies sat, stood, and lay in the streets, laughing and talking to one another as if they didn’t have a worry in the universe, let alone a biological weapon about to detonate in their town. The miners spoke to the settlers in clumps and groups, trying to get them to understand what was going on, but they didn’t seem to care.

  “Are they drugged?” Dottie asked through the mask.

  “They’re certainly acting it.” Though why? To make it easier? So they wouldn’t fight?

  “Keva,” a woman called over the crowd.

  Keva raised her head but didn’t see anyone she should know.

  A woman broke through the crowd. She looked just like Karrow except for her eyeshadow, and several of her small braids were bright neon orange. Sparrow. She grabbed Keva’s arm. “It’s the rations. They were laced with something. I can’t get anyone to leave.”

  A miner just to Keva’s right knocked one of the locals over the head and caught her body as she slumped to the ground. He heaved her onto his shoulders and headed back to the parked ships.

  Keva gestured at him with a shrug. “I think they have the right idea. Let them take care of it. Where’s Wilmur and Batch D-65?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about a ship. Did you see a ship land?”

  “No, and I haven’t seen Wilmur either.”

  “I know generally where he is.” Keva moved to lead the way.

  Sparrow stopped her. “What kind of weapon is this? What do we know? Anything?”

  “It’s a bio-weapon,” Dottie said. “The delivery mechanism seems to require activation through bonding with water molecules and then evaporation before being dispersed through the air. The chemical reaction will need to be quite explosive to cause the necessary molecular cohesion. Whatever we’re looking for is going to be akin to a large bomb that will either explode and create a massive shockwave, or ignite a catastrophic chain of events for any human who breathes in the infected air.”

  Keva looked at her in surprise.

  “While you were out doing things, I stayed back and studied the data we collected through the worm and through ILO’s databases.”

  Well, good, nice to see the kitty cat unsheathe those claws a little.
“Okay. So, he would want to detonate it near your air purifier and water generator.”

  “Follow me.”

  Sparrow plowed a path through the crowd, which proved hard to do since the locals refused to move one way or the other to avoid being walked into. People clogged the streets making the way difficult.

  Keva kept looking back to see if Dottie was behind her, but the woman stayed close. The miners yelled, trying to get through to the locals, but the residents of Red Sky spoke in hushed voices, smiling as if they didn’t have a care in the world. The press of all those bodies warmed the red air, hitting Keva’s nose with the taint of sweat.

  Sparrow took them down the main street until the wall of buildings opened on the left. For as tight as the passage was, the air was a lot better, even through the mask. Keva almost took it off. After all, she would survive in the air just fine, like the miners and the settlers. Their bodies had evolved to become tolerant of the air. Hers had been designed for it.

  But she didn’t just in case Wilmur decided to release Batch D-65 and they couldn’t get out in time. The mask might be the only protection she had against the agent he released.

  The narrow street opened onto another wider street, this one packed with just as many people, though fewer miners had made their way this deep into the rough and rumble town yet. Here, a lot of the people were laying down, draped over one another.

  Keva stepped over three people piled on one another. “How many people are in Red Sky?”

  “Almost ten thousand. They’re not all in town. Some are outside the wall.”

  “Dottie,” Keva asked, gesturing for the woman to walk beside her since they had a little more room. “Do you think the underdome will protect them?”

  “Probably.” Dottie shrugged, walking around a group of people hugging each other and swaying. “I would say yes unless this gets into the water table.”

  “Red Sky doesn’t have a water table,” Sparrow said. “We have to generate all of our water and most of our air.”

  “Well, then, yes. The people outside the wall should be safe.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Sparrow said under her breath.

  That was about the only good thing.

  Keva spotted Hale and his crew on the far end of the street. Apparently, they’d decided to try to get people from deeper inside the town. She hoped that meant others would be following soon.