Caleb came over to rest against the data center next to her. “Nor can the three of us manage the remainder of what would be required, such as subduing a cadre of Vigil officers and drones long enough to physically evacuate a facility full of frightened, possibly injured, possibly dangerous aliens who don’t speak the language. We can’t do it—but our people can.”
He gave her a pained look. “You should take him to talk to Jenner.”
“Seriously?”
“The Marines are bored. They need a reason to be here, and this is a good one. I’d say take him to Harper, because I guarantee she’d jump at the chance to run a real mission, but Jenner would have to approve it, so…take him to Jenner.”
She studied him suspiciously until he began to look sheepish.
“I never said he wasn’t a good Marine.”
“I know. He is. Not the point?”
“Kind of has to be. We’re fighting a war here.” He turned back to Eren, who was staring at them with a questioning expression, hands half-raised expectantly. “Alex will help you pitch the mission to an AEGIS ground forces team. They’ll take care of you.”
AFS SARATOGA
MILKY WAY SECTOR 17
Malcolm held up a hand as soon as she walked in. “If you’re here to yell at me—”
“Sadly, no.” She glared at him in blatant irritation nonetheless. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep, which gave her a bit of perverse pleasure. “I’m here about a mission Eren wants help on.”
“Eren? Oh, your Anaden friend. What’s the mission?”
“You’ll love it—rescuing helpless, innocent victims of the Directorate. But he’ll need to explain the details. I’m merely the broker. Can I invite him in here and trust you won’t grill him on his historical transgressions before you’ll agree to work with him?”
“That’s not fair, Alex.”
“It’s totally fair.”
“So you are here to yell at me. Fine. Do you really, honestly think I’m in the wrong on this?” He shook his head and straightened up in his chair. “Never mind. Of course you do—you have to defend your husband. Forget I asked.”
“Too late, and Caleb can defend himself quite well without my help.” She sighed. “What do I really, honestly think? I think Jude Winslow was a scumbag and a murderous terrorist, and I’m glad he’s dead. I don’t particularly care how he got dead, but I’m simple that way. I think his demise isn’t worth an iota of attention from people far better than him and definitely isn’t worth kicking off an inter-universe crisis over. I think it’s not worth destroying relationships over.”
He didn’t challenge her on any particular point, instead dragging a hand down his mouth to land at his jaw. “On a scale of zero to arranging a fiery dungeon in Hell for me, how angry at me is Mia?”
“She’s not angry at you, Malcolm. She’s heartbroken. So congratulations. Great job.”
Now his other hand joined the first to cover much of his face; his shoulders sagged. “That’s not what I…want.”
He did seem rather miserable, but it was his own damn fault. She crossed her arms over her chest and rested her weight on her back leg. “What do you want? For her to be someone other than who she is? Then why were you with her in the first place? Have you asked yourself why? Because it seems relevant.”
He opened his mouth to respond…then exhaled harshly and closed it again.
“Whatever. Not my concern. But if you want my advice, which you probably don’t, figure it out. Quickly.” She shook her head. “You and I have had our differences, but even during the worst of them, I never, ever thought you were an asshole. Shows what I know.”
His lips creased into a thin line as his countenance hardened. “No, if I were an asshole I would tell your mother—and I should. But I’m not in the habit of breaking up families, and it’s likely a moot point now anyway. AEGIS, and your mother, have bigger evils to fight. We all do. I get that.”
Alex clenched her jaw tight and turned away, studying the blank wall to her right as if it held some obscure secret. But her silence was its own giveaway.
“She already knows, doesn’t she? Am I the only person who didn’t know?”
Alex hadn’t volunteered the truth to her mother; they’d grown closer, but not that close. But it turned out her mother had never believed Jude Winslow committed suicide, and before she and Caleb left for Amaranthe, Miriam had broached her suspicion that one (or possibly all, Alex included) of the Noetica Prevos had eliminated Winslow. When Alex assured her it wasn’t the case, she’d gone straight to Caleb.
She shared none of this with Malcolm; she wouldn’t provide him more ammunition. “It wasn’t your business.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. I frankly expected better from your mother, but I guess she can’t exactly arrest her son-in-law.”
“Or maybe she realizes that sometimes good people need to do bad things to bad people to save other good people from the far worse acts the bad people would otherwise commit. Look, she wasn’t thrilled about it. But she was glad Winslow was dead. Admittedly, she felt far more guilty about being glad than I do, but it comes with the leadership gig.”
She almost cut herself off there, but she was pissed now. Again. “You know what else comes with leadership? The balls to make a decision when there are no perfect choices. When we find where the Directorate hides—and trust me, we will—who do you imagine she will send to take them out? It sure as hell won’t be you, because you don’t have the guts to kill the monsters.”
“Don’t tear me down to make Caleb look honorable and yourself feel better. I killed Olivia Montegreu without hesitation, up close and personal, and if Miriam sends me to eliminate the Directorate, I will be proud to do it.”
Her lips curled up, but it wasn’t a happy expression. “Maybe, since she will have ordered you to do it. Your conscience would remain safely in the clear. For once, make a goddamn decision for yourself.”
His palms slammed onto the table as he stood. “Okay, that is enough. You and I have had our differences, but even during the worst of them, I never, ever thought you were a cruel, vindictive bitch. Don’t make me say ‘until now.’ ”
“Don’t try to lock my husband up for being a yebanaya hero and killing the man who killed Abigail.”
It was a rare moment when her and Valkyrie’s convictions merged so completely into a single articulation of will. Her glyphs flared brightly, and she imagined her eyes must have matched them.
He stared at her, and the hard lines etched into his face softened. “You’re genuinely afraid I will, aren’t you?”
She shrugged emphatically. Did he not appreciate the significant amount of authority he wielded these days? “I don’t know. You tell me, Earth Alliance Brigadier, AEGIS Director of Lots of People with Guns.”
“I’m not going to do anything, Alex. I…” he grimaced “…I guess I’m just full of hot air, huh? All braggadocio and build-up, no delivery.”
“Um….” Her brow knotted up in consternation.
He dragged his hands down his face, mostly covering the flare of redness at his ears. “Well, that came out wrong.”
The tension in the room, which had been building toward blows, eased to a manageable level as he peered at her through splayed fingers. “Truce? Can we please talk about the mission now?”
I apologize if I made this encounter more difficult for you. It is a peculiar sensation, to have one’s emotions escape one’s control.
It’s all right, Valkyrie. You weren’t wrong…and he needed the push.
“We can. I really don’t have the details, though, so can I invite Eren in now?”
“Go ahead. I assume it was your idea to bring this mission to me?”
“No. It was Caleb’s.”
41
MILKY WAY SECTOR 62
* * *
CASMIR ELASSON-MACHIM WAS UNEASY. His assured, focused demeanor betrayed none of his unease to the bridge crew. But he was uneasy.
Per
sistence on the part of Vigil operatives had finally paid off. The Katasketousya had missed a location tracker on one of the Provision Network delivery vessels, unwittingly revealing the location of a hidden portal into the Network. The location had been provided to Casmir, accompanied by a mission directive.
Here was their chance to cut the head off the snake, to eliminate the Katasketousya’s support structure and, perhaps more importantly, stop the influx of Humans at the source. With no reinforcements of people, materials or firepower and no home to retreat to, the small contingent of Humans here in Amaranthe would wither until they could be dealt with at the Directorate’s leisure.
Of course, he didn’t have a Tartarus Trigger to deliver this time. A new device was allegedly being constructed with due speed, but there was a reason why only one had existed in the first place.
Quietly and without fanfare or admission of disappointment, the Directorate had thus approved a mission to permanently and irrevocably isolate and disconnect the Human realm from the Katasketousya’s subversive Network and from Amaranthe, rather than its actual Eradication. Igni missiles would destroy the Humans’ portal, sealing them off in a solitary bubble of space forever.
From the Directorate’s perspective the practical effect was the same, if somewhat less satisfying than a rapacious black hole devouring the entire species.
The plan made perfect, logical sense. But none from the Directorate had been at the Provision Network Gateway battle. His Primor had viewed the memories of the engagement from the perspective of Casmir and other officers, but the Primor had not lived and died through it.
Casmir was loyal to the ends of the universe, and he worked to retain unconditional faith in the greater wisdom of his Primor and the Directorate. Yet a tiny, traitorous voice deep in the recesses of his mind whispered that his leaders did not properly respect the enemy. Did not properly appreciate the nature of the enemy’s insidious cleverness and audacity.
He had seen it firsthand and found he could not put it aside. The shock of being not merely outgunned but outwitted had made an impression.
But if he brooded too vehemently, his Primor would know his thoughts, were he to turn his attention in Casmir’s direction. So he hurriedly buried them beneath final mission preparation and orders, and he kept burying them until he was legitimately consumed by final mission preparation and orders.
With such dedication applied to the task at hand, he was soon satisfied all was in order. He began.
“Send the signal to open the portal.”
The wave propagated in a directed signal from his vessel, and out of nothingness sprung a large portal identical in appearance to the former Provision Network Gateway. The memory of its destruction remained vivid, and he ensured they hovered well back from the edifice.
“All vessels to full alert. Shields to maximum. Tactical, launch a probe through the portal.”
As before, the probe breached the plasma at the center of the portal ring. Nothing triggered to pierce the calm silence, and twenty seconds later the probe returned to transmit nominal readings. But that, too, had been true before.
“Squad MW T8-12, proceed through the gateway to a distance of 0.5 megameters and assume a defensive formation. Squad T8-13, prepare to proceed after them. Same directive.” He was sending a smaller force ahead this time—enough ships to test the area, but not enough to matter if they were destroyed.
Forty ships approached the portal in a long line, spread across the width of the ring. They vanished through the plasma…
…and nothing pierced the calm silence. He breathed out.
Squad T8-13 followed seconds later, and still all remained quiet. He nevertheless repeated the process again and again, sending larger formations through one at a time until only his remained. Twice, vessels returned through the portal to report nothing unusual on the other side.
Perhaps his concerns were unfounded, or founded on a rash overestimation of his adversary. How clever could primitives truly be, after all?
“Traverse the portal and join our forces 0.5 megameters on the other side.”
The wall of plasma enveloped the Imperium, washed over them…and they left it behind.
Space here was not exactly the same as on the other side. There were no stars, leaving the plasma of the portal as the sole source of light. But this comported with their understanding of the status of the region as an interim area leading to additional portals, which led to the true foreign realms.
When the fleet had reformed in full, they locked on to the TLF wave streaming from the portal and moved out.
The darkness grew as their distance from the portal increased—then a blinding flare of light engulfed them and—
MACHIMIS
MILKY WAY SECTOR 36
Casmir awoke in the space between panic and pain. The memory of searing heat as his retinas burned out nanoseconds before his skin burned off fueled a deluge of primal terror to overtake him. He clawed at the capsule cover in a desperate attempt to get away—
—but there was no fire here. No blinding light, only soft, clinical illumination. No physical pain, only the graphic memory of it. Disorientation replaced the terror until comprehension took hold.
He exhaled slowly. It was far from his first regenesis or even his first to follow a violent death. But never before had the death come so unexpectedly and with such grandiosity. His mind arrived still embroiled in the throes of shock from dying in agony. It had not been a pleasant experience.
He followed the Curative unit’s instructions, allowing himself to be checked over and provided new clothing and ushered out of the lab.
In the minutes and hours that followed, the acuteness of the remembered pain faded and his mind reoriented itself to the reality of being alive once more. But try as he might, Casmir was unable to shake the dread that had taken up insistent residence in his gut.
The Machim Primor did not look up from his work when Casmir entered. He stopped three meters inside the office and waited.
“You failed in your mission.”
“Sir—”
“Twice now the enemy has caught you unawares and humiliated you and your forces.”
Or humiliated the Directorate—
The Primor’s gaze snapped to him, hostility animating his manner. The man had sensed the thought.
Heretical doubts exposed, Casmir now had no choice but to forge ahead. “Sir, they are outsmarting us. We have become complacent in our confidence in the supremacy of our own power, but we have not faced an adversary like this one before. It is incumbent upon the Directorate to recognize this fact. It is incumbent upon…you, sir, to recognize this fact. Only then will we be able to formulate a proper, effective strategy and defeat them.”
“You forget your place, Casmir. Continue to do so, and on your next regenesis you may find yourself demoted.”
He would not, could not, wilt under the force of his Primor’s stare. The future of civilization might very well depend on it.
“Your will is as always paramount, sir, and I accede to it with the utmost humility and respect. But right now, my job—the job you have entrusted to me—is to be the manifestation of the Directorate’s will, to act as the Directorate’s spear and defeat the enemy I am set against. It is my opinion that our usual strategy, which involves sending a disproportionate force to pummel the enemy until they are reduced to rubble, will not succeed against this enemy.
“I believe without hesitation that we can and will defeat them, but to do so we must objectively evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, then use this analysis to develop new, more finely tuned strategies that can succeed.”
The Primor stared at him in silence for a moment, then turned away, back to his work. “Unnecessary. We have denied them the use of the gateways, thus confining them to the Milky Way and slowing down their intragalactic movements. We will find them, corner them and destroy them like every other enemy we have encountered. They are not special, nor are they a meaningful threat, and we w
ill not quiver in fear of them.”
Casmir opened his mouth in search of an additional protest, but he’d already used his best argument.
“Report to Sagittarius Hub for reassignment to defense of our highest-value facilities.”
He nodded, resigned and, as he now realized was inevitable, cowed into submission. “As you wish, sir.”
No one could defy a Primor, save another Primor, and possibly not even them. No one should defy their Primor. The Directorate knew best how to lead them to victory.
42
AFS COLUMBIA
MILKY WAY SECTOR 17
* * *
HARPER OPENED THE LEFT-MOST EQUIPMENT LOCKER and dutifully counted the tactical vests lined up in neat rows. She entered the number in the open screen floating beside her then confirmed the number matched the previous check as well as the number reported by the automated system, which did a perfectly competent job of tracking inventory.
Of course, she hadn’t lent out any flak jackets on the sly for illegal clandestine operations, so it wasn’t a surprise the numbers matched.
She signed off on the supply check with her authorization and opened the next locker. Grenades, of three different varieties—
The hiss of the door opening was so near to silent, if the armory wasn’t quiet as a tomb she might not have heard it.
“Suit up.”
She tensed at the recognition of the familiar voice but schooled her expression before turning around to face Malcolm. “Sir?”
“I said suit up. We have a mission—a real one.”
She eyed him warily. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“I am angry with you. But we still have a job to do.”
The nightmares had been tamer last night, but she felt strangely off-kilter. Like she were standing on a cliff where the jagged cracks at her feet refused to commit, never breaking off to send her plummeting into the abyss yet never healing to become safe, stable ground.
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 66