“Alex, you’re first.” Her mouth opened, but Caleb cut her off. “You’re injured. No arguing.” He took the canister from Eren, wrapped Alex’s hand around it and gently nudged her toward Mesme. “Go.”
Mesme didn’t hesitate, surrounding her in light as she struggled to stay on her feet unaided. They vanished.
It got easier to breathe then. She would be safe.
Alarms erupted to peal through the hallway. He grabbed Eren by the arm and yanked him flush against the wall. “When Mesme gets back, you go next. I can hold them off.”
The Anaden frowned. “No, I can—”
“Do what? Scowl them to death?”
He patted his belt. “I brought a parting gift for your captors.”
A Watchman sprinted around the corner nearest them. Caleb spun, arm outstretched. The guard’s neck had snapped before he finished the motion, and a rush of diati leapt across the open space like a spear blasting directly into his head.
He blinked, dizzy again. And worse. The modest dose was the drop to send the dam brimming over. Too much too much.
Eren gaped at him, vivid golden eyes wide. “Well, that explains that.”
Caleb leaned on the wall and pressed his fingertips to his temples in an attempt to regain equilibrium.
Breathe in. Out. “Does it?”
“No. Not at all. By Hades, Caleb!”
A series of pounding, quick thuds approaching garnered their full attention. The next second a heavy mech rounded the corner.
Four arms consisting entirely of plasma cannons aimed at them and launched their barrage.
Caleb flung both arms forward. His skin ignited, and he became the fire.
The energy from the cannons slammed into a solid barrier of diati. As the mech continued its barrage, the barrier advanced until it enveloped the walking weapon. The deadly arms crumpled. The hulking torso crumpled, too, followed by the multi-jointed metal legs.
Cracks materialized in the walls to splinter down the hall as plaster fragments rained from the ceiling and the jagged, twisted remains of the heavy mech toppled to the floor.
Caleb stumbled as the diati rushed back into him. His hand found a brace, and he stared at an equally stunned and now dust-coated Eren.
Mesme reappeared before either of them spoke, essence empty save for the small canister spinning at the center.
Eren grabbed the canister and thrust it against Caleb’s chest. “Whatever this black magic you’ve got going on is, you’re a bloody wreck right now, and if you try to hold off what’s coming, you’ll destroy the station and yourself with it. Get out of here, and leave the station destroying to me. I will see you again.”
Before Caleb could protest, Eren sprinted down the hall and disappeared around the corner.
We must make haste. Mesme surrounded him, and he was too rattled to move or protest or do anything other than allow himself to be carried away. The hall and cells of the facility faded in a shimmering haze of light.
An instant later they were replaced by the cabin of the Siyane. Home.
Alex had gotten herself to the cockpit and into her chair. He rushed to join her, then knelt and hugged her close, belatedly hoping he didn’t burn her.
She gave him a wan but unsinged grimace and tapped her temple, an indication Valkyrie was giving her an earful.
He chuckled unevenly, trying to find the headspace where they were free and safe and he could be at peace.
She checked over his shoulder. “Mesme, why are you still here? Go get Eren!”
Caleb sighed. “He’s not coming.”
“What? Why—”
The viewport lit up as an explosion rocked the facility. The left wing of the facility ruptured and broke off to tumble into the void as cascading blasts tore through the heart of the structure.
“Oh. But…he’ll be all right.”
“I assume so.” He offered her a weak smile. His body was crashing, though the rampant buzzing in his head suggested the diati wasn’t of the same inclination.
‘We should take advantage of the diversion and escape.’
Alex nodded. “Go, Valkyrie. Anywhere.”
Mesme churned in perversely increasing distress about the cabin as they accelerated away.
It had already been such an absurd day, and Caleb’s mind was reeling so outrageously, it really wasn’t that much of a surprise when a shadow cast by nothing drew up beside Mesme and spoke.
“It is good you have escaped intact. But I am afraid you now have a far larger problem.”
54
SIYANE
MILKY WAY SECTOR 7
* * *
“EBANATYI PIDARAZ!” Alex squirmed in agitation, complicating Caleb’s efforts to administer even the most minimal of first aid and clean the dried blood off her face, never mind determine if she’d suffered any internal injuries. “Valkyrie, get to a portal, now!”
‘We are already in transit.’
Do you not want to traverse the primary Provision Network Gateway? It is the destination of the Machim fleet.
“Exactly—and thus the one place we don’t want to be right now. We need to sneak into the Mosaic. Valkyrie, let’s ready a message to broadcast the instant we’re through. ‘Red alert. Anaden military forces en route to portal network in order to destroy it and everything in it. This means you, so get your zadnitza here with every ship you have. Time’s up.’ ”
He chuckled. Her mental faculties appeared to have bounced back just fine. “I’m guessing this message will be sent to your mother?”
“And whoever else is listening.” She winced as he tightened the medwrap around her wrist and secured it. “But yes, she’s the intended audience. Who else can mobilize tens of thousands of ships in a matter of hours?”
“Good point.” He gave up on the first aid for now and leaned against the data table beside her. Concentrating on tending to her had helped quiet the buzzing in his ears, but now it returned in spades.
He glanced down at his hand. The trembling was almost imperceptible, but he felt as if he’d overdosed on synthetic adrenaline, and there was no nanobot mixture to counteract this overdose.
He needed to focus on something else. Conveniently, an apocalyptic crisis loomed a few short hours away. It would do.
Mesme’s ‘acquaintance,’ the ominous shadow creature who claimed to go by the name ‘Miaon,’ had departed, but only after a hushed conference with Mesme. So Caleb figured Mesme knew more than it had shared. “How did they find out about the Mosaic?”
There has been the confluence of a number of factors, but the critical information was provided by a Katasketousya subjected to torture and threatened with death.
Alex frowned. “One of your own sold you out? Shouldn’t it have taken one for the team?”
How many times must I impart to you the concept that we are not fighters? Subterfuge and science are our ways, and we are not brave.
She dropped her head back to contemplate the ceiling, then grimaced and brought her hand to her neck. “That’s not true. You’re brave, Mesme.”
No.
“Yes, you are. You’ve risked everything you value—first to defy the Idryma and help us defeat their AI armada, then to protect us from the other Kats who continued to fear us. You did it again to sneak us into Amaranthe, teach us what we needed to know and get us the tools to act. You exposed yourself to help us retrieve the Machim data, and again to rescue us today. You’re one of the bravest beings I’ve ever met.”
Mesme quivered in the face of her words. She winked at Caleb, but he had heard the sincerity in her voice. She could never have forced herself to say it if she didn’t believe it. Still, it was an act of supreme kindness on her part, and he loved her all the more for it.
I…thank you, Alexis Solovy. I have only acted in furtherance of what I believed to be right. I do not feel brave, merely driven and desperate. But I will accept your reckoning on the matter.
Caleb laughed. “As we all do before the end, Mesme.” He star
ted checking her over anew, in part because it calmed him to do so.
Other than her wrist, no bones were broken, though several tendons and ligaments were stressed. She’d suffered moderate nerve damage, which was why she’d had trouble walking, but her eVi was busily shepherding therapeutic measures to address the damage. Her neck had a sprain, but he’d sneaked in a muscle relaxer injection while she was talking to Mesme.
She’d be sore and weak for a couple of days, but she was healing remarkably fast. Between her top-shelf cybernetics, boosted as they were by recent ware upgrades, Valkyrie’s integration into her nervous system and the regenerative traces of Akeso left behind from when it healed her infection, she would probably never stay injured for any appreciable length of time.
In fact, he had to wonder whether, if something didn’t kill her quickly, anything could kill her.
He hoped they’d never have to find out. Satisfied he’d patched up all the visible injuries, he kissed her forehead and stepped back. “Mesme, what do you know about the Machim’s plan? It’s time for details.”
Being aware of one hidden entrance to the Mosaic—the one in the Fylliot stellar system—the Directorate correctly assumes there are additional hidden entrances. Since they do not possess a way to locate them, however, their intent is for the fleet to traverse the Provision Network Gateway and destroy all spaces they find, save the Provision Enisles themselves.
“Really? Why not simply drop a massive bomb inside the Mosaic and call it a day?”
Several reasons. First, they perceive—again, correctly—that this course of action would risk leaving some unrevealed malfeasance to survive, and they strive to be thorough in their Eradications.
Second, they need the Provision Enisles’ production output. The service we provide is both unique and necessary, and for all its butchery, the Directorate can be pragmatic when pressured. Thus they will attempt to wrest oversight control of the Provision Enisles from us and enslave the Katasketousya required to continue the operation.
“Will they? Your colleagues—will they agree to run the Provision Enisles under the Directorate’s thumb?”
I believe so.
Right. Not brave. “What if they don’t? Can the Directorate keep the resources flowing?”
For a time, with diminished efficiency. Outside of collection and transport, the systems are largely self-sustaining. However, absent tending, eventually they will begin to fail. Admittedly, ‘eventually’ is measured in centuries if not millennia, so it is in the Directorate’s interest to preserve the Enisles for the present.
Alex started to pace around the cabin, but it soon morphed into limping, and she paused to brace against the couch wearing an annoyed scowl.
Caleb went over to her and grasped her gently by the shoulders. “Sit. Rest.”
“We don’t have time to rest.”
“You have time to rest your body. Sit while we plan. Give yourself what chance you can to recover.”
Her nose scrunched up in displeasure, but she limped around to perch on the edge of the couch cushion, then reached up and urged him down beside her. “What about you? You’ve been taking care of me, but you got dosed pretty heavily in there, didn’t you? Are you handling it okay?”
“Well…am I still glowing?”
“A little bit.”
“Right.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The Inquisitor who interrogated me wielded more power than the one I killed on Seneca. A lot more—and I took it all. Later, I ran into a couple of Watchmen, and what diati they had leapt to me without effort.”
When he opened his eyes, he found her gazing at him in concern and reassurance, but not fear. Never fear. So he didn’t hide his own fear from her. “I feel like I’m in danger of bursting from the inside…like I can’t possibly contain all the power, much less control it. But I will. It’s already better than it was, so all I need is some time to adapt.”
She touched his cheek and smiled softly. “I believe you will. Let me know what I can do.”
He placed a kiss on her palm and nodded, and she nudged him away. “Now up with you. I’ll sit if I have to, but you strategize better when you pace.”
“Then I’ll pace for both us.” But he’d hardly made it around the couch when she dove in to the strategizing. It seemed she’d been thinking for both of them.
“All right. I’d assumed they were going to blow the Gateway. But if that’s not their plan…I think we can use this. Mesme, can you change the wave configuration to activate the portals?”
No. The TLF wave system is built into their structure.
“Shit. You can move them, though, can’t you? Not the main portal, but the ones that are hidden—you can move the location where they open into Amaranthe. The Mosaic, while absurdly complex, is also strictly ordered and symmetrical, but the portals don’t open at evenly spaced locations here. They open where they’re needed, or into empty sectors. So you can move them.”
It is feasible to do so, yes.
“How feasible?”
Perhaps if you shared your idea.
She made to stand, then presumably remembered she was supposed to be sitting and sank back down. But she was on a roll, and he was frankly grateful she insisted on taking the lead. As soon as he’d stopped touching her, the buzzing in his ears and trembling in his hands had reappeared, and he could not make them stop.
“Our first and highest goal is to keep the Machim fleet—or any Anaden vessel for that matter—out of the Mosaic.”
Given the size of the military force and the scope of the Machim—
“I know. We’ll get to that problem in a minute, but for now let’s assume we can stop them at the Provision Network Gateway today. We—or you, or other Kats—need to be able to get enough provision convoys through so people in Amaranthe don’t start starving. Also, people and ships from Aurora may need to be able to move back and forth.”
Caleb stopped his ineffectual pacing to stare at her, impressed. “You want to route ships through the other hidden portals, then move the portals after they’re used so the enemy won’t be able to track them down.”
She shrugged. “Well, Mesme? Will it work? Is this a remotely viable plan?”
Such actions will require a great deal of planning and careful effort, but within reason, yes. Do you imagine the Directorate will turn a blind eye to Provision vessels docking and delivering their loads while under an Eradication order?
“It’s not like Kats are piloting the vessels—they’re operated by shackled AIs. Plus, you said it yourself. They need the provisions. Anyway, we can worry about the finer points later. For the moment we just need to try to maintain the ability to do it. Priorities.
“Oh, and you’d better contact Lakhes, because somebody needs to move the Fylliot portal straightaway.”
She ran her hand through her hair, tugging it out of the haphazard knot she’d wound it into as she talked. “Now, about the cataclysm speeding headlong for the Mosaic, and how we can give my mother and AEGIS a fighting chance to defeat it.”
55
CENTAURI E
MILKY WAY SECTOR 22
* * *
CASMIR WATCHED FROM THE HANGAR OVERLOOK as the Igni missiles were loaded onto his Imperium and select battlecruisers. It was taking time, and his orders were to make haste. At this rate, it seemed the haste would have to be found elsewhere in the schedule.
The missiles consisted of two matter/antimatter cores surrounded by a shell of gas that, when subjected to an electromagnetic field, became highly ionized plasma. In order to guarantee the cores remained separated and the shell dormant until called into service, the procedure for loading and securing the missiles was rather more involved than simply rolling them into the ships’ weapons bays.
An unsettling tickle danced along his skin to forewarn him the promised Inquisitor approached. A second later a man in a midnight blue cloak over dark gunmetal tactical gear appeared beside him at the viewport.
Casmir gave him an aloof once-over. “You’re late.”
“I had to make a detour. Ziton elasson-Praesidis. Now, turn around, as we’re about to have an audience.”
“What—?” He pivoted just as representations of his Primor and the Praesidis Primor materialized in the room with them. He instinctively squared his posture. “Sirs. This is—”
“There’s no time for formalities, Casmir. Your mission is being modified slightly. You will be carrying one additional weapon into the Provision Network, to be used on one specific portal realm within.”
Praesidis jumped in then. “Ziton possesses the information needed to locate the correct portal.”
Casmir didn’t care for being the odd man out here, but Machims were not ones to throw petulant fits. “Are there special precautions I should institute with respect to this weapon?”
“So long as it remains safeguarded in the casing you will receive it in, the weapon will pose no threat to your fleet. A scientist, Dr. Fisik elasson-Erevna, will also accompany you to ensure its proper activation and delivery.”
He bristled at the thought of having two elassons on board his ship to ‘oversee’ matters, but he was more concerned about the increasingly bizarre turn the mission was taking. “Sir—sirs—what sort of weapon is this?”
There had been many names for this manner of weapon throughout history. Armageddon Machine. Ragnarok. The Final Solution. Doomsday Device.
The Directorate had elected to call this one the Tartarus Trigger.
It looked peaceful enough encased in a thirty-meter-long chrome cylinder, though the cage and braces surrounding the cylinder were a touch ominous.
“And this…device, what’s inside all this casing…creates a black hole?”
Fisik wore the perpetually condescending scowl of all elite scientists. “Not an ordinary black hole, Navarchos. The Tartarus creates a black hole that is not only self-sustaining but inflationary. If left unattended—if not countered—it will continue to grow in size.”
“For how long?”
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 35