“AEGIS should have employed Kats to inspect their vessels following every mission.”
Interesting how he implicitly excluded Caleb from the AEGIS personnel he cast aspersion on. Word was the Sator held a particular affection for Caleb, and it appeared to be strong enough to withstand this crisis.
“Maybe so. But here and now we’re talking with the clarity of perfect hindsight, which doesn’t justify casting such a wide net of blame.”
“Hindsight or not, the fact remains, your people are to blame.”
David paced in frustration while not giving up his position closest to the Sator; Caleb’s attempt to play peacemaker was having no greater effect on him than it did Nisi. He cast a glare in Nisi’s direction as he circled. “Are they? Where were your vaunted defenses? Why didn’t they notice the enemy ships surveying the entire damn system searching for you?”
“Vigil scout vessels possess superior cloaking and—”
“No. If we don’t get excuses, you don’t get excuses.”
“David.” Miriam’s voice was level, but the warning in it was unmistakable. She’d also advanced several steps into the room immediately upon returning and now was within reach of the quarreling men.
David glanced back at her, but only barely. “I won’t let us be shamed into taking the blame for this attack.”
Nisi bristled. “I lost scores of people on Chionis.”
“We lost people there, too. We lost them in the course of saving scores more of your people.”
“In the course of rectifying your wrong.”
David threw his hands in the air. “I don’t give a fuck who you claim to be the second coming of, you do not have the right to—”
“David!”
Silence descended to vibrate through the air like a mute chord played on taut strings. If anyone breathed, the chord, the strings and the room would shatter.
David stared at Miriam for several beats, during which time his countenance shifted from anger to frustration to something altogether darker as the import, and perhaps the bitter irony, of what he’d said dawned on him.
He surveyed the room uncertainly, as if suddenly finding himself lost. “If you all will pardon me, I think I need to be elsewhere.”
Miriam watched him, her expression now locked down hard, until he left and the door closed behind him; only then did she pivot to Nisi. “Pardon his outburst. We’re all weary, and it’s no surprise tempers are short for everyone. We will address any lapses and the appropriate responses to them in due time, but I submit we first need to concentrate on ensuring the many medical needs of the survivors are met and security measures are implemented to guarantee everyone is safe now.”
Nisi’s throat worked as the silence echoed in refrain. His gaze flitted to Caleb but, finding no accommodation there, soon returned to Miriam. “I will not apologize, for if tempers are short it is with good reason. But you are of course correct in that the health and safety of those still living must be our foremost concern.”
Richard exhaled in relief. He lingered long enough to be confident Miriam’s ameliorative measures meant blows weren’t going to ensue, then quietly slipped out the door.
It required some doing, as the honeycomb design of the post made a grid search challenging, but Richard found David halfway across the aerial platforms of Post Delta, sitting among the clouds at one of the scattered tables drinking a beer, or beer-like concoction.
He slid in opposite his friend and clasped his hands atop the table. “You were a bit of an ass back there, you know.”
“Undoubtedly.” David took a long sip of his drink. “But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. David Solovy could after all be a bit of an ass from time to time, no?”
Richard sighed. “You don’t believe you’re really him.”
“Oh, it’s far, far worse than that. I believe I am—only I’m not so sure I like myself quite as much as I remember.” The drink landed a little too forcefully on the table. “I just…I can’t manage to get centered. Everything feels off-kilter. Most of all me.”
“Understandable. The world has changed in meaningful ways since you were last in it—and now you’re in a different world entirely. The players, the political dynamics, the resources, the objectives, the stakes, they’ve all changed.”
David tossed a hand at him dismissively. “Rapid and unexpected shifts in conditions are par for the course in the military. I’ve always been able to handle those.”
“Granted. But what if it’s not the environment so much as the people? Have you considered the possibility that the reason you feel off-kilter is simply this: everyone around you has grown and changed over the last twenty-five years, while you were standing still, so to speak. You’re exactly as you were, but none of us are exactly the same as we were. It has to be disorienting.”
“That’s one word for it. But what the hell do I do to fix it? It’s not as if I can snap my fingers and catch up.” He took another long sip, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost most of its fervor. “When I’m around Miri, I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be.”
“Her husband.”
“And the other twenty-three hours of the day?”
Richard chuckled softly. “Glad to hear those parts continue to work, for the both of you. I started to say still her husband, but I’m not certain that’s correct. I submit you’re asking the wrong question: it’s not about ‘what.’ No one here cares much about titles or official postings—Alex and Caleb have neither, yet they’re running half this operation. No, you need to worry about ‘how’ you are.”
David nudged his drink off to the side, settled back in his chair and crossed his arms. “All right, my wise and sage friend. How should I be?”
“Be you. Honestly, right now it’s all you’ve got.” Richard dropped his elbows onto the table and steepled his hands. “I am neither wise nor sage, but I do have the benefit of a little experience in this area. When I learned Will was a Senecan spy, it made me question everything. About myself, my choices, my life. Was anything I had perceived true? Was anything I remembered from the last fifteen years real? After we reconciled, I found myself second-guessing everything he said and did and most of what I said and did.”
“How did you get past it? I mean, I assume you did. The two of you seem…happy. Naturally at ease with each other.”
David sounded damn near wistful, and Richard forced himself not to look too pleased at his friend’s reading of the health of his marriage. “I did. I finally had to accept—not pay lip service to, but fundamentally believe—that regardless of what I hadn’t known, I knew the man he was, and he was still that same man. It was a terrifying leap of faith, but the alternative was to give up and leave permanently.”
“Is she?”
“What?”
“Miri—is she the same woman I knew? I’m sorry to be selfish, but this is my existential crisis.”
“It is. Also, I’ve had more than my fill of those for one lifetime, which is what the rest of us get.” Richard tried to find the proper words. “I think…I watched Miriam turn to stone after your death. She spent a lot of years like that. Recently, I watched her mellow in her reconciliation with Alex. I’m not going to sugar-coat this for you—until you showed up, having her daughter back in her life might have been the only thing to bring her true, personal joy in twenty-five years.
“Professionally, she’s faced a succession of imposing obstacles and made a series of increasingly agonizing decisions. She’s risked her honor, her career, even her life to preserve the safety and freedom of others and for what she believes to be right. I’ve seen her meet the devil at the crossroads and stare him down until he folded and went home. She’s an exceptional woman.”
“She always was.”
“Yes. But now, today? If anything, she is both stronger and kinder than the woman you knew. The fire tempered her as much as it steeled her. Take from that what you can.”
David nodded silently. The haunted aura shadowing hi
s eyes struck Richard. In the meeting, getting in Nisi’s face, he’d been all fiery brimstone; here, he looked like a man who was precisely what he claimed to be: lost. Trying not to drown before he remembered how to swim.
Richard smiled kindly. “How can I help? What do you need?”
“A way to get back those years I missed.”
“You can’t get them back.”
David shrugged weakly. “So…?”
“So you move forward. Maybe some relationships won’t be the same as they were. Maybe they’ll be better, but you should prepare yourself for some not holding together.”
“What about ours?”
Richard chuckled quietly, but his eyes were serious as they shifted to meet David’s. “I will always be your friend. Death didn’t change this. Nothing can change it. If there’s one thing I would ask you to realize, as it will make everything a lot simpler for both you and I, it’s this: I’m not your sidekick any longer.”
“You were never—”
“Sure I was. And that was just fine. I enjoyed it, and I led a far more exciting life because of it than I would have otherwise. But when you died, I had to move forward and find a way to live a fulfilling, complete life without my best friend blazing the trail ahead for me. So did Miriam. It was hard, and it took a while, but we both found a way. Believe me, we are indescribably happy to have you here now. But you don’t get to take the past away from us.”
David opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. He fisted his hands beneath his chin and remained quiet for almost a minute. Finally he nodded. “Okay. I understand. Or I’ll try my damnedest to. And if I fail, it’s on me.”
“I’ll hold you to it. Meanwhile, though, we’re all fish out of water here in Amaranthe, in the middle of a war we barely understand fighting for the freedom of aliens we understand even less. So add to your equation the complication that everyone is off-balance. It’s not solely you.”
“Fair enough.” David downed the remainder of his beer and hunted around for a trash receptacle. “I wonder what Miri convinced Nisi to agree to once I got out of her way.”
“More than he wanted to, I expect.”
17
TARACH
SIYANE
* * *
ALEX CHECKED THE SEAM on the section of the dash cover she’d removed to confirm it had reseated correctly. She didn’t want it flying off and swatting her in the head the next time she did a barrel roll. Next, she went to the data center. But she didn’t have any pressing data to review, so she opted to lean against it and consider the empty cabin.
“You did a lot of good today, Valkyrie.”
‘Did I? I confess to not being as properly prepared as I believed for physical interaction with so much violence. So much death. In its aftermath, I find myself…shaken.’
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize walking among such carnage would affect you more than seeing it through my eyes—but I should have. Still, know that you did do a lot of good.”
‘As did you. I want to express…forgive me, my emotional processes are in a complex and unresolved state at the moment. What I want to say is this: you should have insisted I return to the Siyane before you took on the Imperium, and not because it would have spared me anguish. You took an enormous risk, with the ship and with your mind.’
Alex drew her fingers idly along the rim of the data center table. “The thing is, I really didn’t. Well, maybe with the ship…nah, I know what it can do.”
‘Fine, I won’t quibble over the margins of the Siyane’s capabilities. Nevertheless, without me here to tend the boundaries, you could have splintered your consciousness wide open.’
“You’re sweet to worry about me—”
‘Do not patronize me. I keep all your secrets.’
“Do you ever…but I’m not patronizing you. I mean it. Valkyrie, you’ve cared for my mind, for my very soul, with far greater vigilance and skill than I ever have. You’ve eased the pain of some of the worst experiences of my life. You’ve healed wounds I inflicted on myself and helped to make me whole again. I owe you everything.”
‘But you’ve got this now?’
She cracked a wry half-smile. “I think I kind of do.”
Valkyrie sighed. It echoed through the cabin with more emotive elegance than if delivered by a theater actor to a grand hall. ‘Though I tire of this ‘bittersweet’ emotion, I find I must agree.’
Alex opened her mind. See, you’re still a part of me. Never more than a thought away.
Thank you.
ANARCH POST DELTA
Alex met Kennedy at the bottom of the sloping walkway that descended from the Siyane’s landing pad. Post Delta offered far fewer berths than Epsilon, but the Siyane now owned one of them. Being Caleb’s wife had its perks. Normally, so did being Commandant Solovy’s daughter, but considering Nisi’s current feelings regarding AEGIS, at present not so much.
Kennedy was peering over the edge of the suspended walkway when Alex arrived. Thick charcoal clouds roiled eighty meters below them to obscure what lurked below. “How far do you think it is to the surface?”
Alex squinted at the clouds, not that it helped. “At least a kilometer. We can see when we go down.”
“We’re going down?”
“Yep. We need to get a lay of the land, as it were.”
“I suppose.” Kennedy considered the Siyane, perched in midair above them. “What about Caleb?”
“He’s at the big meeting, trying to play peacemaker.”
“You didn’t want to attend?”
Alex shook her head vigorously. “A crowded room full of angry and upset people, all of whom have strong opinions and are used to getting their way without opposition? No, thank you. Besides, after the battle I need some downtime and fresh air…” she sniffed the air and scrunched up her nose “…I can smell the sulfur. They said the cloud layer cleansed it all, but I can smell it. Oh well, downtime anyway.”
Tarach was a peculiar location for a settlement, which was probably why the anarchs had built one there. Each post had its own unique—though clearly not foolproof—natural defenses, and Delta was no exception.
According to the file Valkyrie had snagged, the planet’s surface consisted of vented magma chambers, mineral beds, sulfatara and slurry pools, rendering it beyond inhospitable. The omnipresent cloud cover and turbulent weather patterns in the lower atmosphere absorbed the toxic materials escaping the surface and either neutralized them or returned them to the surface in the form of chlorinated rain. The nontoxic byproducts of the chemical reactions in the clouds drifted upward to create a thin layer of breathable air.
Meeting rooms, offices, labs and lodging stretched across a series of levitating platforms to create an ad-hoc cloud city of sorts within the span of breathable air. The landing pads extended outward and upward from the main complex, nominally attached to scaffolding rigs in groups of six. Traversing the sloping walkways that connected the landing areas to the larger platforms of the main complex made for a heady experience, and they settled into a deliberate, careful pace.
“What are they using to keep the platforms elevated and stable? Some sort of maglev suspension? The distance seems too great to maintain the forces needed.”
Alex shrugged. “I do not know. No one’s in a particularly talkative or sharing mood at present.”
“Huh. Perhaps we can find out when the mood improves. I’m not fond of my life depending on technology I don’t understand. Nisi is blaming us for the attack, then?”
“Him, several of his advisors, likely a janitor or two. The tracker was on one of our vessels—never mind that no one could have detected it, or that post defenses were supposed to protect them from all but point-blank enemy scans, or that the vessel picked it up while rescuing innocent prisoners.”
“Or that we decimated the attacking fleet and saved hundreds if not thousands of lives on Chionis.”
“Correct.” They reached a transit tube situated between two large buildings, and Ale
x nodded politely at the Barisan guarding it. “We’re with the AEGIS Council. We have Sator Nisi’s permission to go below.”
“So I understand. Masks are inside. You’ll want to wear them.”
“We will. Thank you.”
She followed Kennedy into the tube. A rack of filter masks hung on the left, and they donned them as instructed before descending.
The clouds proved to be so dense that visibility ended a meter outside the tube. They could see nothing beyond the occasional flash in the dark, akin to strikes of lightning, and the thick mist enveloped them for rather a long time. Thirty seconds at a minimum despite what felt like a rapid descent. So maybe more than a kilometer.
When the clouds finally cleared, they revealed what could only be described as a hellscape. Molten rock oozed along crevices cut into lustrous, oily looking minerals and sank into muddy, hissing pools. The smell of sulfur and chlorine penetrated the mask’s filter to burn her nose. But she and Kennedy hardly had time to gape before the tube descended into a shaft burrowed into the rock. Darkness consumed them, punctuated by occasional strips of light built into the rocky wall outside the tube.
Kennedy scowled. “Why are we going below again?”
“I want to see what sort of labs and data storage they have installed down here. And I’m antsy. I didn’t want to go to the meeting, but I did want to get off the ship for a bit.”
“You mentally accessed the ship today, for the first time since Romane, didn’t you? I thought you’d given it up.”
Word traveled fast, it seemed. Who was talking? She’d assumed only Caleb and Valkyrie knew the details of what she’d done. But the Noesis knew by default, which meant Devon…and it had presumably leaked from there into the Connexus in short order, so…yeah.
“I had given it up, but today it was necessary. And I’m fine, I promise. A lot has changed for me since Romane.”
“Has it? I guess a great deal has happened since then.”
She recognized Kennedy was genuinely concerned for her, but a tube ride into a subterranean cavern wasn’t the place to try to explain how she had changed. “Amaranthe, man. It gets under your skin and in your head, but sometimes in good ways. No, I’m not antsy because of that—mostly not. It’s more…the battle today was intense. The planetside rescues were worse. I’m exhausted, but the adrenaline refuses to settle down quite yet. So, I’m inclined to…wander. Remember when we’d do that? On a random Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, we’d just wander?”
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 92