“Not for me. No. What’s your name?”
“Gavin Yoster.”
“They won’t sacrifice anything for me, Gavin. But I believe they love Earth and know how much they owe the Solomons. If Earth bows to the Guard like every colony in the Collectorate, our history ends. Chancellors become another race of indigos.”
More nods. “True words,” the fatherly merc said. “I might be living in-between now, but I was born a Chancellor. Philadelphia Redux. Earth can’t become like the colonies.” He looked around. “Most of us here were stationed out there. Anyone want Earth to be another one of those shitholes?”
A strong round of “no” followed as the mercs bought into Sam’s plan. The next part, however, proved more delicate.
“As we establish these alliances, we will be prepping a combat mission to rescue many Solomons in hiding and kill the assassins who are tracking them. We will focus our efforts in the eastern quadrant of the NAC. We …”
A bald woman who resembled Pat during her merc days raised a hand. “Beg your indulgence, Miss Pynn. There are twenty of us. We’re not sufficient to handle a quadrant of Boston, let alone a fourth of the NAC.”
“I agree. You’ll receive specific coordinates for your first strike. Better yet, you won’t be alone. The Solomons we’ll be rescuing are heavily armed. From there, we’ll be banking on our alliances to use a tactic called strategic multiplicity. I’ve been told it’s taught in Tier III UG training as something for peacekeepers to protect against when fighting colonial insurgencies.”
“Yes,” the father-figure said. “Two cells strike, inflict damage, merge as one, move on to the next target. In the meantime, other cells become inspired. Before long, disparate cells unite to become an unstoppable virus. Works in theory, but indigos were never smart enough to pull it off.”
“But we aren’t indigos,” the beast replied. “My only question: Where are these other cells?”
Samantha hated to hold back, but the next few hours would be delicate enough without making promises she couldn’t keep.
“I can’t tell you my source, but I have it on great authority there are hundreds of cells in the NAC alone. Worldwide, thousands.”
“Solomons?”
“Yes.” Eyes turned suspicious. “Well-armed. Fighting for their lives. Fighting for their families. Does anyone have a problem with this?”
“No.” Father-figure seemed to speak for everyone. “We have a job. We’ll get it done. But they’d best know what they’re doing. Any of them shoots at me, my flash pegs are coming in hard.”
“Understood.” Sam held her breath waiting for the question she truly did not want to answer, but no one asked. They didn’t need to know the ultimate destination of this fight, and she wasn’t confident anyone – merc or Solomon – would survive to reach it anyway.
“I have purchased three Scrams, a requisitions transport, and a dozen slatpods with carbedyne underbellies.” She saw eager smiles. “I know. Tourist rovers. But I think they provide agility. We are also reprogramming a Recon tube. You’ll have body armor as close to Guard spec as we can purchase.”
Father-figure introduced himself as Joseph Doltrice, former Guard special operations captain, and continued:
“From where I stand, you’re sparing no expense and you’re giving us the best chance to prevail. Can’t ask for more. Only question: What’s the command structure?”
Merton nodded. They had discussed this at length.
“Naturally, Miss Pynn’s orders are inviolate,” he said, “but she is not experienced in tactical planning. She prefers former officers with the most battle experience to take lead. We ask you to determine the chain of command and report to us.”
Sam interrupted. “Your rank will not impact your credit share, but we can’t have everyone working for themselves.”
“Fair enough,” Doltrice said. “We’ll sort it.”
The orientation went better than she imagined. No one asked about Michael or his fellow insurgents; Sam didn’t want them to know about her emotional investment. She didn’t want to tell them how her exchange of messages with Michael via admin stacks the past two days had firmed her resolve. They didn’t need to know he would be the source of their first-strike coordinates.
She left the cottage with Merton, who expressed surprise at the meeting’s success.
“I’ve heard stories about mercenaries,” he said. “Erratic, easily angered, capricious. At first blush, I’d say you hired well. They seem a reasonable lot, especially given what we’re asking.”
“They should be. I’m paying them a fourth of my estate.”
“Yes, your risk is enormous. Speaking of which, your sidearms were for show. Yes? You don’t intend to fight alongside them.”
“What am I supposed to do? Stay safe inside the compound?”
“You are not a soldier.”
Her blood heated. “I know how to kill. I’ve shot three men in the head. My father taught me to …”
“Many Chancellors know how to kill. It’s in our genetics. Whatever your father expected you to become ended when you crossed the IDF without him. Sam, I agreed to help you rescue Michael and his people because I expected you to be smart. In this case, smart means allowing others to execute the dirty business.”
She caught the scent of roses on a gentle breeze.
“That’s how old-school Chancellors work.”
Merton cleared his throat. “Yes, because it keeps them alive.”
“I don’t want to live without Michael.”
Merton curled his lips as if stifling a laugh.
“Love is a wonderful sentiment, Sam, but I’ve never known a Chancellor to place it before all else. It clouds judgment.”
“Or maybe it puts everything into perspective. Maybe that’s been the Chancellory’s problem all along.”
“Since we cannot rewrite the past three thousand years, we’ll never know. In the meantime, our new cook will be serving lunch on the veranda shortly. I suggest you break the news to the twins. You’ve come to mean a great deal to them.”
Her stomach knotted. “I know. But they can’t be anywhere near me once the fighting begins.”
Sam gazed up the long gravel path, past the rose gardens, to the main house. There, Brayllen stood alone on the balcony. Tall, almost a man, yet as vulnerable as a young child. Sam prepared to add another layer of trauma to his life.
39
Danielson Outpost
Appalachian Mountains
M ICHAEL NEVER IMAGINED A WEEK in the mountains would seem like a year. Time didn’t just slow down; it ran out of batteries. Monotonous patrols, heated arguments among leadership, brief and fitful sleep. And all the while, surrounded by an excruciating silence maintained since the dawn of humanity. They waited, hidden away like frightened roaches, as the reports rolled in.
Assassins killed three hundred Solomons worldwide. Chancellors turned in suspected insurgents. Millions demanded their Solomons sign a contract disavowing knowledge of the insurgency. In Europe and southeast Asia, three Solomon safe houses were breeched. Bodies were being stacked for incineration, and the peacekeepers would soon arrive to finish the job. And from the leadership? Michael sensed an unexpected streak of fear emerge in Rikard and Matthias.
“If our cells move too quickly,” Rikard said, “we risk fragmentation. We must have a unified endgame.”
“But the Guard is coming and …”
“We still have time to establish coordinated strikes. Trust me, Michael, we’ll move before the Guard clamps down.”
“What about Sam’s plan?”
She’d given him the bullet points in her third admin-stack message since they began communicating. She refused to stay far from battle, despite his pleas. Yet Michael was in no position to stop her. In truth, the plan made sense despite its insane objective. It fit the goal of reestablishing control before the Guard arrived and would prove the Solomons had more allies than enemies on Earth. Convincing the leadership was anothe
r matter.
“Michael, if Sam cannot pull together the other Presidiums on our timetable,” Matthias said, “all she’ll achieve is an end to her family name and greater fear among our sympathizers.”
“You said it yourself, Matthias. We can’t win without tipping the balance in the Chancellory. If we fight the assassin teams and the peacekeepers head-on, they’ll kill us all. Dude, seriously. I get it. You don’t want to lead your people to the slaughter. But that ship already sailed, if you get my speed.”
Each hour of inaction tormented Michael.
“We’re not a damn army,” he told the leadership. “But if we don’t act like one before they see us coming, we’re done.”
Rikard admitted his communications with other continental leaderships revealed the same developing schism within the ranks. As many wanted to bide their time as wanted to strike.
“There’s no consensus anywhere,” he told Michael. “If we gave orders to confiscate the weapons lockers and activate the silent contact circles, we might not have enough numbers among our own people. We’ll lose the battle as soon as it begins.”
“Don’t they understand this is the only chance we got? We’re gonna be full citizens or we’re gonna be dead.”
The arguments raged, and the unity they seemed to share in the first days of their seclusion now splintered. Michael knew how the vote would go if push came to shove; the majority wanted to strike. Yet most did not want to break ranks with the leadership. After all, Matthias and Rikard put themselves on the line long before most others joined the movement.
“I understand their hesitation,” Maya Fontaine said on the balcony while sharing a pipe with Michael. “They’ve spent years plotting in the shadows. They saw themselves as champions of the underclass, and they likely thought they could talk their way into equality. You see this conflict in them? Yes?”
“See what?”
“In their minds, they are hardened men. Warriors, killers. But in their hearts, they are politicians. Their hearts are leashes.”
“Let’s say that’s true. What do we do about it?”
“Demand they call a vote.”
“If they refuse?”
She pulled hard on the pipe and held the smoke inside.
“Slice off their heads, I presume.”
The smoke petered out in short bursts as she laughed.
“Maya, you are one scary gal. But you’re right about the vote. We have to force their hand. Sam is putting everything on the line for us, and I can’t stop her. I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna sit on my ass.”
He thought Maya looked younger and renewed in bright sunlight. She was far removed from the knife-wielding animal at Entilles. Maya kissed him on the cheek.
“There’s that Michael spirit. Charge in there now and make your demand. At the very least, you’ll have Carlos on your side.”
He sighed. “Great.”
Carlos Rivera had not let off on his vitriol since day one, demanding a full-frontal attack, regardless of the consequences. At one point, he suggested rivers of blood in the streets would turn Chancellors squeamish and lead to negotiations. Michael wondered whether Carlos had a death wish.
As it turned out, none of this mattered.
Michael entered the common room to find a half dozen Solomons huddled around a security holowindow, discussing data with feverish passion. He stepped in between them.
“What is it?”
Raimi Inhofe, whose work allowed them to establish limited outside communication via stream amp, described flickers rising from the mountains nearby.
“It’s our tracking beacons beyond the cascade. They detected human movement in the last fifteen minutes.”
The beacons formed a circular perimeter, acting as an early-warning system a kilometer from the outpost.
“How many?” Michael asked.
“Just five signatures, but cloaking baffles would disguise their numbers. The Guard uses them in urban warfare.”
“So, it’s them. They made us.”
“Possibly,” Rikard said. “But they’re so far apart. In this terrain, it doesn’t make sense. We have the high ground.”
“Maybe they want to draw us out and pick us off one at a time.”
“Or,” Matthias said, “they don’t know we’re here. They could be scouts. None are approaching from the west, which is the most difficult terrain.”
“What about our uplifts?”
Matthias pointed out the locations of the seven small ships they landed at various locations far from the outpost. The intruders entered the perimeter at least two hundred meters from the nearest ships.
“If they knew we were here,” Matthias concluded, “wouldn’t it stand to reason they’d go after our ships first? Try to sabotage them. Eliminate our means of easy escape.”
“And they have to know we’re tracking them,” Raimi said. “This feels off. Put yourselves in their shoes. Why would assassins approach an easily defendable outpost on foot in this terrain? Why not come riding in with a Scramjet and hit us with heavy rounds or a few energy slews? Destroy the building then take out the survivors one by one.”
Raimi overlaid the holowindow with progressive tracking since the beacons first picked up movement. All five on approach were moving east-northeast at roughly the same angle. Staying on that path, Raimi noted, would bring them close to the outpost.
Michael was no more qualified to make military assumptions than anyone present, but he knew Chancellors loved sleight of hand. He pointed to the southern-most target.
“Raimi, if he keeps this pace, how long before he reaches us?”
“From there, he’ll have to navigate a gorge. Maybe an hour.”
He ran possibilities through his head and liked none of them.
“After that, we got what? Another three hours of sunlight?”
Matthias interjected. “What are you thinking, Michael?”
“If these assholes are hunting us, they’ll wait until dark. Raimi’s right about this place. We can defend it … when we can see our enemy. I’d lay you a hundred creds they’ll flank us and wait us out.”
Matthias frowned. So did the others. Nobody was buying it.
“They’re killers,” Michael said. “Killers stalk. They love that shit.”
“What do you propose?” Rikard asked.
He took a deep breath, fully aware of what he was about to do.
“We find out for sure. If there’s only five, we can take them out before sunset. No problem.”
“And if they’re wearing cloaking baffles?”
“Then we’re probably fucked, but at least we’ll know what we’re up against.”
Eyes dropped, but no one dissented. Michael saw their stunned dismay, as if the inevitable finally dawned on them. Rikard spoke.
“How many should we send?”
That Rikard deferred to Michael caught him off-guard.
“I’d say it’s pretty simple. We can’t put everybody at risk.” Michael pointed to a target moving on a trajectory just north of the outpost. “We go for that one. Don’t have a gorge to worry about there. We send a small team. Five. If it’s one assassin, we take him out. If it’s a whole squad, we do our best. Everybody else up here can hunker down and prepare for a shitstorm.”
Rikard stepped through the holowindow, close to Michael.
“We? Are you saying …?”
“Yeah, dude. I’m going. Just give me four other dumbasses.”
“Right here.”
They pivoted. Carlos Rivera was standing in the back – for how long, Michael didn’t know.
“About damn time we took on these cudfruckers.”
Carlos was a dicey proposition, but Michael didn’t care. There wasn’t time to be choosy. He offered Carlos a thumbs-up.
“Three to go,” he told Rikard.
“Michael, you don’t have to put this on yourself.”
“Sure, I do.” Michael recalled his litany of near-death escapes. “I’m like whack-a-mole. E
very time these assholes try to kill me, I pop up good as new. Maybe I’m lucky, or maybe there’s somebody looking over me. Either way, it’s gotta be me.”
40
Pynn compound
B RAYLLEN AND ROSALYN DID NOT take the news well. Sam made her best case for why they would be safer elsewhere. She insisted they would be placed in wonderful homes with Chancellors who were not in danger of being destroyed by the coming conflict. However, in the process of laying out their immediate future, Sam rushed headlong into a grievous error.
She realized the mistake, even as the words crossed her lips.
“You’ll be given a choice,” she told the twins. “Stay in your new home until adulthood in a few months or adopt their family name.”
Rosalyn’s expression turned sour. “We have a family name.”
“I know. I’m sorry. What I meant was …”
Brayllen clinched his fists. “They’re dead, aren’t they? Our parents are gone, and you knew.”
Brayllen stormed into the house, Rosalyn following in a stew. When Sam caught up to them, neither had settled. She found them in the observatory.
“I don’t know if your parents are gone,” she said. “But we don’t believe Brother James kept them alive. He’s an evil man. A monster. Look at the pain he’s caused so many people.”
Brayllen flailed his arms. “Then why didn’t you just come out with it in the first place? We’re not small children.”
“I’m not much more than a kid myself,” Sam said. “Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing. When I came to this Earth, my life was insane. It took me forever to figure out my place. Just before I arrived, I lost both my parents.” She reached for Brayllen, but he retreated, arms crossed over his chest. “I thought it would be easier if you had time to adjust before you knew the truth.”
Rosalyn, predictably measured in her response, rolled her eyes.
“Of course, they’re dead.”
Sam caught her breath. The words fell off Rosalyn’s tongue like an anticlimax. Sam didn’t have to say a thing before Rosalyn continued.
“We’re not as stupid or weak as you think, Samantha. The truth is, we’ve been wondering for weeks whether you’d confess.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 85