I said don’t…oh, never mind.
She forced herself to march back to the spaceport and up to her office, where she closed and locked the door then collapsed on the small couch.
The ‘perhaps another time’ was a polite attempt to soften the blow, but it wasn’t a true promise. The note was a rejection, plain and simple. And she’d done everything in the world to deserve it.
Wasn’t this what she had claimed to want? To remove him from her life in order to save herself? Without a doubt, except it hadn’t turned out to be true. Excising him from her life had done nothing to excise him from her thoughts, from her heart. And his continued absence only strengthened his presence everywhere else.
Last night, she’d lain in bed and decided to try to find a way to make peace with his choices about his own life and death. To explore whether she was able to live with the reality that one day he would be gone, and whether it was worth the cost that future would exact from her to have him in her life today. This morning, she’d gotten up and sent him the invitation to lunch. The tiniest first step in the exploration.
Now he’d slammed the door in her face, albeit in his always polite manner. And try as she might, she couldn’t hate him for it. She couldn’t even blame him for it. She’d screamed at him to leave her alone in no uncertain terms, and she couldn’t very well expect him to jump to attention every time she toyed with having a change of heart.
This was the path she’d chosen. Choices had consequences, and karma always got her due.
71
* * *
CONCORD HQ
Command
Alex paced deliberately around her mother’s office. “You should drop a bomb on the fucker’s compound on Pandora and be done with it. He stores his Artificial there—I’ve seen it—so there’s a good chance you’ll eliminate him permanently. Problem solved.”
“Alex.”
“I’m sure Richard can make it look as if a rival cartel did it or something.”
“Putting aside how what you’re suggesting is called ‘murder,’ no, the problem won’t be solved. The Gardiens will continue to exist. In fact, they may well be emboldened by the untimely demise of their leader.”
“Then leak how they tried to kill you under false pretenses. They intended to commit their own murder and blame it on regenesis for political purposes. In fact, why haven’t you done this already? Hell, don’t leak it—hold a damn press conference and tell the world.”
Miriam sighed. “I did consider it. But I don’t have the time to embroil myself in domestic conflicts. The Rasu are out there infiltrating my space as we speak, and every action I take has to be devoted to stopping them. Let the intelligence agencies and law enforcement sort out Mr. Vilane and the Gardiens. Now that we know the truth behind their propaganda, I believe they’ll do so. Have a little faith in Richard.”
“I have all the faith in the universe in Richard. I still prefer we drop a bomb on the thug and bring a swift end to his machinations. Then Malcolm doesn’t have to risk his life to uncover evidence—”
Miriam stopped halfway to refilling her teacup. “Is Malcolm seriously going through with that dangerous infiltration plan he and Richard concocted?”
Alex cut her eyes at the ceiling. “Yep. He’s going undercover as a full-on Gardiens convert in an attempt to get close to Vilane and learn the organization’s deepest, darkest secrets.”
“He needs to be on the bridge of the Denali commanding the AEGIS fleets against the Rasu.”
“In fairness, I think he’s doing that, too.”
“Hmm. A command role does come with a criminal lack of sleep.”
“So I’ve noticed.” Alex huffed a laugh. “Just promise me you’ll do what you can to bring these terrorists down.”
“I will do everything that is both appropriate and within my purview to bring these terrorists down. Good enough?”
“While keeping yourself safe?”
“Oh, I believe the armed guards Richard has glued to my backside are taking care of that quite well.” Miriam leaned against the front of her desk and considered Alex with a touch of amusement. “Now, can we change the subject? Where are you off to today?”
“Rasu hunting. Not to pick a fight, don’t worry. We’re going to swing back by NGC 55 and do a closer inspection of their galactic ring, then investigate other Rasu-controlled galaxies to see if they’ve erected similar structures elsewhere.”
“Ah, yes. Your father mentioned that he talked to you about searching for Rasu weaknesses.”
“Weaknesses are probably a bit further down the line. First, we need to understand what the nakher they think they’re up to. Then why, then how it makes them vulnerable. At least, this is the plan. But let me know if you change your mind about bombing Vilane, because if you do, I want to watch.”
PANDORA
The glittering tower rising dramatically from the sidewalk blended in nicely with its neighbors in the Avenue—all glass, gleaming metal and curved edges.
After deep-diving CINT’s intel, Malcolm knew a great deal more about Enzio Vilane than he had a few weeks ago. For instance, he knew that this wasn’t the Rivinchi cartel headquarters, which Vilane ran out of an appropriately scruffy-looking converted warehouse in the Boulevard district. Nor was it his personal residence, which thanks to the Noetica Prevos they now knew was located a scant two blocks away.
No, this was the Gardiens’ center of operations, from where Vilane pulled the strings of his puppets across dozens of human worlds.
Malcolm had dressed in civilian clothes, complete with a fashionable breton over his close-cropped hair, in an attempt to not be recognized while not looking like he was trying not to be recognized. God, he was terrible at undercover work. But today of all days, he had to get it right.
Beaumont rattled off a litany of minutiae about the Gardiens, the building and the leadership now meeting there as he guided Malcolm through a series of checkpoints, up a lift and through yet more checkpoints. The Presidio should have this level of security.
At last they arrived at a set of shielded double doors somewhere near the top of the building. Beaumont drew himself up and checked the lines of his clothes, then nodded. “They’re ready for us.”
The doors opened to reveal a screen-lined conference room hosting a long, oval marble table at its center. A mere five of the chairs were occupied. At one end of the table, a man stood as they entered and came over to greet them.
Though Malcolm immediately identified him as the man from the Gardiens’ holo, the best holo technology could not capture every nuance of a person in the flesh. Vilane’s clothes were tailored but not ostentatious. Waves of dark brown hair softened chiseled cheekbones and an angular jaw, but did nothing to temper bright silver Prevo eyes.
Malcolm shifted his perspective a touch, searching for the resemblance to Olivia Montegreu…and found it, after a fashion.
Montegreu was moving, running for the still-open door while spraying the room in laser fire—
—she stumbled and crashed into the wall. Had Paredes tripped her?
Malcolm was on her in an instant to brace her against the wall. She kicked and clawed at her unseen attacker, skin and irises ablaze in caustic gold.
She fired anew, and the point-blank shot broke through his defenses, grazing his hip. He ignored the harsh sting to bring his Daemon up between them.
He wedged the barrel under her chin and pressed the trigger.
Blood and brain matter hit the wall behind her with enough force to rebound, coating him in it. Blood traced an outline of his form in thin air for half a second, then vanished as the shield incorporated the new material into its cloaking routine.
He stepped away and let her body fall to the floor. Her eyes stared up at nothing, now dulled to a lifeless green.
He suppressed a shudder as Vilane offered him a hand and a disarmingly charming smile. “Fleet Admiral Jenner, it is an incredible honor to meet you. I regret the unfair situation AEGIS has placed y
ou in, but I am, selfishly, thrilled to learn it has brought you to our cause.”
Malcolm worked to act grave and serious; under the circumstances, it wasn’t difficult. “I wish matters were not as they are, but I try to take the world as I find it and do what I can to improve it.”
“Spoken like a true hero. Come, let me introduce you to some of our leading advocates.”
The introductions drifted past Malcolm; he committed the names and titles to a note in his eVi so he could send them to Richard, but he spent his energy staying focused on Vilane.
He hadn’t expected the man to be so amiable. It was an act, of course it was an act, but Vilane was as talented at it as anyone he’d ever met. Well, except for Mia—he remembered then what the man had intended to do to Mia, and just like that, all sympathy or positive inclinations vanished. This man was a killer, and Malcolm would do everything in his power to bring him to justice.
“Philippe here has been keeping me in the loop on your conversations. I’m glad you were able to attend one of our meetings and listen to some of the stories of our adherents. I hope they made you realize you’re not alone in this struggle.”
“They did.” Malcolm clasped his hands behind his back at parade rest. “Mr. Vilane, I appreciate the kid-glove treatment, I do. But it’s not necessary. We’re both here for the same reasons. I want to help the Gardiens’ cause, and I’m prepared to step up to do it.”
“Music to my ears. Very well, I’ll file away the rest of the pleasantries.” Vilane’s smile suddenly seemed predatory rather than amicable. “Tell me, Fleet Admiral, are you willing to make a public statement for all the universe to hear? One that denounces regenesis and supports the Gardiens?”
Showtime. He’d reviewed potential strategies with Richard and rehearsed them in the bathroom mirror. Now he had to venture out on the tightrope and not plummet to his all-too-final death.
“No. Understand, I’m not ruling it out, but the consequences to my work will be substantial, and my first priority has to be protecting our citizens from the Rasu. So perhaps a more accurate answer is, not yet.
“But there are many things I can do for you behind the scenes. Introduce you to sympathetic persons in positions of power—great power, wielding significant financial resources. Whisper appropriate advice in the right ears.” He swallowed back the stinging acid burning his throat. “Pass along intelligence as it relates to regenesis legislation, funding and new labs. It’s fair to say I can do more as well.”
He strolled beside the table with a confident, measured stride. “But before I do any of those things, I need to be briefed on the full extent of the Gardiens’ plans. Your connections, field tactics, resources and intentions for the future. I need to satisfy myself that not only are the Gardiens and I are a good fit, but that your operation is one I’m willing to risk my career to support. I realize I’m talking about sensitive information not intended for public consumption. But I believe I’ve proved myself to be trustworthy—in my life, in my career and in my dealings with your people—and I hope you’ll trust me now.
“Once I have the information I need, I’ll know better how to help you and your cause. So what do you say, Mr. Vilane?”
The man studied him intently. His eyes and the deportment they conveyed grew closer to that of his mother with every passing second.
Finally, Vilane’s lips curled up, verging on a sneer. “Please, it’s Enzio.” He gestured to the table. “Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll begin.”
72
* * *
SIYANE
NGC 55
Alex’s head slammed against the headrest, only to snap forward twice as violently. The restraints kept her body from bouncing around the cockpit as the Siyane tumbled wildly.
Desperate to regain control, she reached out with her mind and dove into the ship’s circuitry.
Steering control. Fire thrusters to reduce spin.
In the other half of her awareness, the walls designated ‘up’ and ‘down’ began to sharpen into focus.
Accelerate to location four hundred ten kilometers distant on vector -23° z.
Error. No accessible path to location.
Vicinity scan. Nothing but Rasu in every direction.
Manual control. She flew the Siyane—no, she was the Siyane—through the narrowest of openings between enemy vessels, twisting and diving and soaring, and occasionally jerking away, until finally a few stars began peeking through the morass of metal. She aimed for them and didn’t stop until no Rasu ventured within a hundred kilometers of her location.
“Ow.”
Caleb’s groan penetrated her consciousness, and she eased back into her body. ‘Ow’ was right; the back of her head throbbed, she had a nasty kink in her neck, and her shoulders and chest ached from where the restraints had cut into her skin. Bruises would arrive soon enough.
She lifted her head and peered over at him. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. No damage of note. What about you?”
The medical alerts her eVi scrolled in her virtual vision appeared to be fairly minor. “I’ll live to fight another day. Or later today.” She shrugged weakly. “Besides, if I was injured, you and Akeso would fix me right up.”
A delightful mien flitted across his features; the notion of being a healer was sitting nicely with him, she thought. “Yes, we would. So what happened?”
“We hit a Rasu coming out of the superluminal jump. No, it wasn’t there when I mapped the jump. In fact, most of these Rasu weren’t here when I mapped it.” She scowled at the viewport. “They’re on the move.”
‘You should have invited me along. I might not have been able to avoid the initial collision, but you wouldn’t have had to fight vertigo and nausea to steer the ship yourself.’
“Hi, Valkyrie. You were on a date, and I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
‘I can do both at once.’
Alex burst out laughing, which… ow. “Noted. Now that you’re here, though, please keep us away from these marauding ships while we figure out what’s going on.”
‘Of course.’
Caleb unfastened his restraints and came over to inspect her with his own two eyes. A hand ran gently up her arm, along her shoulder and across her chest. “Just a simple recon mission, huh?”
“Like we ever have those. I wasn’t expecting four million Rasu to be in this stellar system. There definitely weren’t four million of them when we were here a few months ago.”
Satisfied she wasn’t bleeding out, Caleb kissed her on the top of the head then returned to his chair. “Valkyrie, are they doing anything noteworthy, or merely milling about?”
‘I am not able to detect any particular activity beyond the normal comings and goings we observed on our last visit. I can confirm, however, the presence of approximately 320% more vessels in the system than we previously encountered.’
“Perhaps this is simply what Rasu expansion looks like. NGC 55 is near the fringes of their domain, but they’re obviously pushing in this direction. I said it before: they’re locusts. They grow and spread and multiply. When they run out of room to do so, they steal more territory.”
Alex shuddered at the imagery, but tried to focus her aching brain on the incoming readings. The Rasu’s Dyson sphere and stellar ring of platform stations still encircled the system’s star. Ships still arrived and departed from the platforms like worker bees ferrying food to their hive. On the whole, everything looked pretty much as it had on their first visit, only amped up by several orders of magnitude.
“They might have detected the spatial disruption from our sLume drive, or the Rasu vessel we hit might have detected the collision. Let’s vacate and go someplace safer—say, somewhere between stellar systems.”
‘Plotting a course.’
The sea of Rasu blurred away, and in a few seconds was replaced by a proper sea of stars.
Caleb disappeared, then reappeared swiftly with two bottles of water, handing her one. She greedily
sucked it down as she stood and went to the data center table. “Now, where were we, and why were we there? Let’s pull in the most recent data from the probes we left behind and see what we can learn.”
She splayed her palm wide above the table, and four screens materialized. Each one displayed data from one of the probes they’d placed to monitor the artificial ring spanning the galactic core at a nosebleed-worthy distance of 1.6 kiloparsecs.
“What do we have?” Caleb sidled up beside her until their shoulders touched, and out of nowhere a powerful wave of déjà vu crashed over her.
“It’s not as though the fate of the galaxy rests on the order of a couple of visuals. I only hope it’s enough. Maybe when decorated by some high theatrics on my part….”
He grasped her shoulder and shifted her to face him. “I have no doubt you’ll make them listen. You have a way of refusing to accept any alternative to getting what you want, and everyone else will find they’ve no choice but to fall in line.”
A corner of his mouth curled up. “I mean, you got me here.”
Her voice dropped to a murmur. “I did, didn’t I?”
They were already standing so close. His hand, still resting on her shoulder, drifted up and slowly, carefully tucked her hair behind her ear…then lingered along the curve of her jaw. She didn’t pull away, and the ticking by of endless seconds faded to insignificance.
The pad of his thumb drew softly over the hollow beneath her cheekbone. With a breath she began turning into his hand to place a kiss on his wrist—
—when a chime pealed through the cabin.
But there was no chime today, so she cupped his cheek and kissed him, long and luxuriously. Because she could.
His lips twitched against hers. “What else do we have?”
She rolled her eyes and reluctantly stepped away to refocus on the screens. “We have…the galactic ring is spinning.”
All Our Tomorrows Page 39