Rubicon: Aurora Resonant Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 8) Page 19

  “Didn’t we just send—”

  “We did.” He shrugged. “It’s been a challenging couple of days.”

  “The master of understatement, as always.” Her eyes darted back and forth as she reviewed the list. “This doesn’t seem too bad. Only the grenades are arguably critical, and I can borrow some from Alliance Supply Ops if needed. They always overstock everything.”

  “True. One more thing. It’s not on the resupply list because I continue to be of the opinion we don’t need them, but the IDCC locker on the Columbia is down a Reverb. You might want to have an MP take a look and try to determine if it was stolen. I don’t relish the idea of one of those devices being loose among the troops.”

  “How many does the report say are accounted for?”

  “Three.”

  Her chin lowered, taking her focus to the floor. “None are missing. Three is how many we brought.”

  “The initial supply report was wrong?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He waited, but she didn’t elaborate. “So it wasn’t wrong?”

  “It’s…one Reverb is out on loan. I thought I’d be able to reacquire it, so I included it in the initial number. But I haven’t had the chance to follow up on it yet.” She nodded sharply. “My mistake, sir. I’ll take care of it ASAP.”

  “It’s on loan to someone in the fleet? In that case, it should have been checked out and recorded in the system—in IDCC’s system, then transferred into AEGIS’ system when this operation began.”

  She glanced toward the door, a distinct sense of longing in her bearing. “I loaned it out to a…colleague for a non-IDCC matter during the OTS unrest. I expected it to be returned promptly, but events intervened, emergencies emerged and the opportunity didn’t arise. As I said, I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’re assisting in off-the-books operations by non-IDCC personnel? Harper, why would you do such a thing? You could lose your job over it.”

  Her jaw locked into place. “Sir, respectfully, as you’re not my commanding officer, why I might have done so is…none of your business.”

  “And if I’m asking as your friend?”

  “Then it’s definitely none of your business.”

  He drew up in his chair, more concerned now than he had been when he’d discovered the anomaly. He knew her horrific experience on the Akagi with O’Connell had affected her in ways that went beyond simply shaking her faith in the military chain of command. But what could be so problematic that she blatantly refused to tell him?

  “Under AEGIS Enabling Directives, during an active conflict I technically am your commanding officer. I can order you to reveal this information and report you to your superiors for disciplinary action if you refuse.”

  “Commander Lekkas is already aware of the circumstances in question, sir.”

  That should have been the end of it. The IDCC RRF was a military organization in only the loosest sense. In a real military Harper’s relationship with Lekkas would be verboten, for starters. But as things stood, what the IDCC did or did not choose to punish wasn’t his concern.

  But it bugged him how she was willfully keeping something from him. They’d grown to be closer friends during the AEGIS training and development push—or he thought they had—and he didn’t like it.

  Regardless, the problem was still the problem. He sighed. “Will you tell me who has it? I’ll take care of getting it returned, and then I won’t have to worry about it being out there unwatched.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Dammit, Harper. Don’t make me order you.”

  She stayed silent. Now he was both concerned and annoyed. “Captain Brooklyn Harper, I am ordering you to reveal the name of the individual you provided with a Reverb then failed to record the transfer to. AEGIS Directive 23B compels you to answer.”

  Her jaw twitched. “Caleb Marano.”

  He sank back in the chair, trying not to visibly scowl. Why must it be him?

  Because he was precisely the kind of man who would use a highly dangerous, possibly lethal device for a secret, off-the-books operation, that was why. Malcolm had tried to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but time and again he proved himself the loose cannon Malcolm had first judged him to be.

  “What did he use it for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He stared at her in dismay. “I think you’re lying. You’re not great at it. Why are you protecting him?”

  “I gave my word, sir.”

  “Captain.”

  She lifted her chin. “I am exercising my right under IDCC Charter Implementing Resolution 11C to remain silent—” She blinked and turned away, biting down viciously on her lower lip. When she looked back at him, her face had blanched. “Sorry, sir. The last person I witnessed exercising their right against self-incrimination was Captain Gregor Kone. O’Connell shot him between the eyes for it.”

  “I am not O’Connell. His actions violated every law and ethic we abide by and I believe in.”

  “I know, sir. I didn’t mean to imply….” She reinforced the stoic pose. “I am exercising my right under IDCC Charter Implementing Resolution—”

  “Stop, Captain. Please, just…stop. I’m not going to arrest you, and I’m certainly not going to shoot you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me what transpired?”

  “No, sir.”

  He planted his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers together. Whatever had happened, it was serious enough to require extreme secrecy in the planning and the aftermath. With Marano involved, again, not a surprise. It was also serious enough to lead Harper to jeopardize whatever friendship they enjoyed, as well as her standing within AEGIS, rather than reveal it. Serious enough that Malcolm now felt a moral if not a legal duty to uncover it.

  He wasn’t a trained investigator, but surely he could puzzle this out.

  She’d said she’d loaned the Reverb to Marano during the OTS unrest, and events had intervened to stop the man from returning it prior to he and Alex coming to Amaranthe. It left a narrow window of time.

  Malcolm personally saw Marano at IDCC Headquarters after the worst of the unrest had subsided, and if the man hadn’t returned it then, it meant the operation had occurred later. But Marano was on Earth, onboard the Gambier, the next day. Shortly thereafter came the attack by the Anaden on Seneca, kicking off what he assumed were the ‘events’ she’d referenced.

  It was a very narrow window. No one on the Assembly grounds in London had shown up dead or disabled with a fried eVi, so the answer wasn’t there. If something happened on Seneca before the attack he wouldn’t know about it. On Romane, after their encounter at Mia’s office but before Miriam’s gambit in London? A lot of conflict transpired around that time, but most of the OTS terrorists had been caught and detained by then….

  His gaze snapped up to land sharply on Harper. “He didn’t.”

  Her chin dropped to her chest.

  Of course he did.

  30

  SIYANE

  PALAEMON

  ANARCH POST EPSILON

  * * *

  DEVON CONSIDERED THE SIYANE’S MAIN CABIN with an aloof countenance, as if he were an art critic judging a gallery—which he was not. “Not bad. So you and Caleb pretty much live here?”

  “Lately.” Alex took her own look around, but she was critiquing the current state of the cabin.

  They’d returned to Epsilon barely an hour before the transport from Aurora arrived. Despite how well the varied trips had coincided, it nonetheless felt as if time had been lost, so she’d asked Devon and Mia to come to the Siyane as soon as they landed. Alien introductions could wait; they needed to get to work now.

  It wasn’t often there were…seven people on the Siyane at the same time. Add in the virtual presence of multiple Artificials plus the diati, and it was getting a mite crowded. She wasn’t expecting Mesme to show up, but if it did the Kat would have difficulty finding the physica
l space to be ethereal.

  She projected her voice above the conversational murmurs. “Do we want to go to one of the meeting rooms in the Epsilon complex? We’d have more space.”

  Noah headed for the kitchen area. “Nah. There’s beer here, and we’re all friends. Or friendly.” He tossed a bottle to Caleb—then after some hand-waving, to Devon, and by the time he was done everyone had a bottle.

  Noah and Caleb crashed on the couch, acting as if they were spectators planning to stay out of the way. Kennedy perched on the edge of the kitchen table beside Devon’s girlfriend, Emily, while Alex, Devon and Mia gravitated toward the data center.

  Devon frowned. “We’re one short of a Noetica Convention. Where’s Lekkas?”

  “Allegedly, overseeing a performance check-up on the Eidolons. Now that the docs have finally let her get back in a cockpit, though, I’m not sure she’s getting out again. Ever.” Alex propped against the edge of the data center. “All right, enough small talk. There’s a war on, and we need to help win it.”

  “It is what we were made for.”

  Huh. So much had transpired since the Metigen War, she’d long since stopped thinking of herself, or any of the Prevos, in those terms. They had eclipsed their purpose to become so much more. But the fact remained there was again a war that needed winning.

  “Then let’s do it. Devon, how did you affect the real world from sidespace?”

  “The first time, the physical destruction was an accidental by-product of an intense, adrenaline-fueled act. So initially I didn’t think I was going to be able to replicate it on command. But Emily and I have been working on the process with Annie and Yves, and…it’s better if I start by showing you. Then we can dissect it.” He peered around the cabin. “I need something I can break.”

  Caleb detached one of the small arm cushions from the couch and tossed it in their direction. Devon caught it one-handed and quickly placed it in the middle of the floor in front of him.

  Alex screwed her face up at Caleb, but he just shrugged. She supposed it was about the least valuable item on the ship….

  Devon smiled at Emily. “You ready?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Alex, Mia, watch in sidespace through the Noesis, or I’ll have to destroy something else.”

  Valkyrie, record. She closed her eyes and opened her more fulsome vision.

  Nothing happened for several seconds—then abruptly a surge of energy burst outward from Devon’s presence to slam into the cushion.

  The cushion exploded in a puff of white stuffing and unwoven threads.

  Fascinating.

  How fascinating?

  I’m not yet certain. A moment.

  Alex blew a piece of white fuzz off her eyelashes. “That was damn impressive. Foregoing an in-depth analysis for now, it looked as if you forced apart the molecules comprising the material at the subatomic level. But it was very…violent, and we’re not trying to blow up our own ships. We are trying to blow up the enemy ships, which raises some interesting possibilities, but we’ll save them for another time. Right now, we’re trying to move.”

  Devon’s posture sagged. “I don’t know how to translate exploding things into moving them intact. Or moving myself, intact or otherwise.”

  Emily’s face blanched in horror as she rushed to Devon’s side. “Don’t you dare explode yourself!”

  Alex ignored their cuddling to project the flow Valkyrie had now constructed of the process they’d witnessed to a wide aural. She studied it, eyes narrowed, trying to transform the act into something that didn’t explode at the end.

  Mia came over to study its mirror image from the other side. Half-formed thoughts, questions and responses passed more between Valkyrie and Meno than between she and Mia, but it all blended together.

  Several lines of reasoning fell apart upon meeting reality, and her lips pursed tightly in increasing frustration. “We can figure this out, because we’ve really smart. Or the Artificials are. So, starting at the beginning. Valkyrie, you say sidespace uses wormholes. What is a wormhole?”

  Valkyrie helpfully provided the textbook answer. ‘A shortcut from one point in physical space to another point in physical space, created by linking the two points across nonspatial dimensions, where physical distance is not a factor.’

  When phrased in such simple, general terms, divorced from gigantic machinery and unfathomable distances, several disparate ideas snapped into place in Alex’s mind. “At the root, everything is about wormholes, isn’t it? Sidespace. The Kats’ flitting around through walls and force fields. Teleportation, whether by walking through one of the Anadens’ mirror gates or Caleb commanding diati. The Dimensional Rifter—oh!”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh.” She grinned at Mia through the dancing glow of the aural between them. “Isn’t it obvious? The answer’s been hiding in the Dimensional Rifter equations this whole time.”

  “True, the Rifter opens up a hole in the spatial dimensions. But we don’t want to be tossed out the other side in the middle of the void somewhere. Again with the violent.”

  Alex shook her head. “That only happens because the Rifter isn’t controlling the objects falling into the rift it creates. But we are in control. The point is, the way to crack open those spatial dimensions is right there in the equations. So we crack a rift open here, crack one open there, and step through. Easy.”

  Devon sipped on his beer. “Easy? If the Rifters are any indication, it’s going to take a lot more power than a couple of Prevos can produce standing around.”

  Kennedy nodded emphatically from the kitchen table. “An active Rifter uses on average thirty-two percent of a ship’s non-propulsion power, and the power requirements increase cubically based on the ship’s total surface area. We had to come up with new allocation and distribution routines to keep the older, non-AEGIS-built ships functioning while using a Rifter.”

  ‘I’ve now studied the mechanism used to exert force on the cushion. Alex, I believe we can generate enough to power to effect a small-scale proof of concept of your idea.’

  “Who’s we, Valkyrie? You and I?”

  ‘Not us alone. Annie and I agree the power requirements to move a body through a sidespace wormhole to a different location in physical space is in excess of what a single Prevo can generate. But it is approximately equal to the power four Prevos plus one-third of the power the Siyane’s LEN reactor can generate.’

  Alex swallowed. “I guess I can try—”

  Devon tried to wave her off. “I’ll do it. I mean, I am the only one of us who’s actually done anything like it before.”

  “Bullshit. I’m the one who came up with the Rifter equations, and I have…experience hanging out in intangible dimensions.” Caleb’s gaze locked on her from across the cabin; she gave him a reassuring wink.

  It wasn’t just for show, either. She suddenly realized—or possibly she’d known without noticing for some time—she was okay now. Better than okay.

  She wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened; presumably it had been while she was off doing other things. But she could feel the truth of it in a place deep inside that didn’t have a name, where she, Valkyrie and their connection to the universe met.

  Perhaps the conviction showed in her expression, because Devon backed off, raising his hands in surrender and retreating to the data center.

  She went over to where Kennedy half-sat on the kitchen table. “Here, hold my beer.”

  Kennedy accepted it with a smirk, and Alex returned to the comparatively open space in the middle of the cabin. “So I want to move…closer to the cockpit. Almost inside it, I think, but not quite. So about six meters. Valkyrie, can we do it?”

  ‘The distance traveled does not matter. Either we can generate the necessary power to move your physical body, or we cannot.’

  “And can we?”

  ‘I believe we can.’

  “Terrific.” She glanced at Mia. “Forewarning, Mia—also Devon and Emily—I’ll be tapping
into your Prevo connections through the Noesis.”

  Mia rolled her eyes a bit sheepishly. “I understand and give my consent.”

  Alex took a deep breath and switched to sidespace. “Get ready…and….”

  Now, Valkyrie.

  She jerked. Every muscle in her body tensed as the cybernetic pathways running through her body were set afire from the surge of power. The lights in the cabin dimmed, or maybe went out. She couldn’t be certain, for what she saw was the space inside the space—an alluring chasm of shifting light and vague shapes falling upside-down beneath her, or above her.

  If I step forward, I’ll fall in.

  Don’t step. Simply be where you want to be. It’s the same as moving in sidespace, but be there with your body as well as your mind.

  Yes, we should try to keep those two together.

  The ‘real’ world was a faint, insubstantial overlay upon the shifting chasm…but it wasn’t about seeing. It was about knowing, then doing. About intentionality. A point half a meter outside the entrance to the cockpit lay on the other side of the chasm. Her intention was to be there—

  —then she was.

  The heat dissipated from her skin, her glyphs dimmed, and the lights brightened.

  There had been no sensation of movement whatsoever. Wild. She started to take a step in the physical world—and grabbed onto the cockpit half-wall, woozy. “Whoa. That was…I think I need my beer back.”

  Caleb had leapt up, grabbed it from Kennedy’s outstretched hand and appeared beside her holding it in the time it took her to blink. Admittedly, it was a slow blink, during which she worked to reorient herself in her body and her ship.

  Their fingers intertwined as hers wrapped around the bottle while he continued to hold it. The corners of his lips rose. “You’re okay.” It wasn’t a question, but an affirmation.

  She nodded with increasing confidence, and he let go of the bottle and took a step back. His voice rose above the din. “That’s fine. Everyone can teleport now, but I want it known that I started it. I could teleport before it was all the cool new thing.”

  “If it helps, I still like your way better.”