Dissonance: Aurora Renegades Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 5) Page 21

  It would have taken the tugs some time to bring the Rasogo II facility to the coordinates, but it was a short fifteen-minute superluminal trip for them. They nevertheless reverted to the impulse engine a hundred megameters away. It would be a shame to waste the cloaking shield by announcing their arrival in a noisy burst of exotic particles from the warp bubble termination.

  Morgan studied the regional map as they neared the coordinates. On a galactic scale, they were still quite close to Romane, with Pandora 1.2 kpcs distant toward the Galactic Core and Earth a bit farther away in the opposite direction from the Core. Prime real estate—or it would be were there anything of value here. But there wasn’t. No planets, no asteroids, not even a star within three parsecs.

  Space was screwy that way. You could encounter a vast swath of void right in the heart of civilization.

  “Perfect place to hide something you don’t want found.”

  Morgan nodded agreement and stood to go grab a water before they got too close to whatever waited at the coordinates. It wasn’t a long walk—four meters to the small refrigeration compartment embedded in the rear wall. “And it’s a far more convenient jumping-off point for incursions than New Babel.”

  “You’re one hundred percent convinced Olivia Montegreu is behind all this, aren’t you?”

  “I am. You heard the prisoner.”

  “The ‘eyes,’ sure. It’s hardly definitive proof, though. As I understand it, glowing eyes are all the rage these days. Everyone under the age of thirty is either a Prevo or wants to pretend they are.”

  Morgan chuckled to herself. We’re meant to be the next evolution of the human species. Devon had done a fine job of kickstarting exactly that, no question.

  On the one hand, most of the kids out there Harper referred to weren’t truly Prevos; they had simply boosted their brains with quantum processing from a ternary computer. On the other hand, this alone constituted the most significant advancement in human capabilities since the invention of eVi technology over two hundred years ago. They may not be legitimate Prevos, but they were undoubtedly something more than ordinary humans.

  “True. But I’d be willing to bet none of them control anything like…this.” She enlarged the visual scanner screen.

  The space station hidden in the void was a gargantuan complex the size of a small city. There were no outward frills, no ornamentation one saw on commercial stations designed to make them appear welcoming and safe, but it was nonetheless elegant in its functional design. No tori spun, which meant gravity plates must be in use—if in excess of a fraction of the station, at great expense.

  “Damn.” Harper leaned forward intently. “It makes sense Montegreu wouldn’t entrust all her assets to the safety of New Babel, or any single location. Still…I wonder if she’s here.”

  Morgan continued forward until they ought to be in visual range, but the station remained all but invisible. Only the light of docking bay force fields and several arriving and departing ships marked its location.

  She slowed the ship to a stop. “We should be safely hidden, but watch the radar just in case. I’m going to try to find out.”

  “How?”

  She flashed Harper a playful grin, then leaned over and kissed her. It was an impulsive act and something she never would have done under normal circumstances. But it felt…right.

  “I’ll be back.” She settled into her seat and closed her eyes, leaving Harper looking visibly confused.

  Directly ahead 2.341 megameters.

  The quantum space shifted, hazy and indistinct, then she was inside the station. In marked contrast to the exterior, it was brightly lit, if no less utilitarian in design. She had landed in a lab, chimeral development by the looks of it.

  She departed it, trying to locate the command center or administrative offices. They should be…up? It was human nature to situate them ‘up.’ Even if Montegreu was no longer definably human, she would have been when she built this place.

  Morgan drifted through the ceiling like some kind of apparition. Packaging lines, storage. The station felt sparsely populated—by humans. Many of the operations were automated, and bots floated everywhere.

  On a hunch, she followed a man dressed in notably expensive clothes who moved like he had somewhere he needed to be. He took a lift guarded by tight security, followed by another one, and finally arrived at a level which sparkled and shone on a scale far above the rest of the station.

  “Ms. Montegreu, you wanted to see me?”

  No reliable images of Olivia Montegreu existed, but Abigail had described her accurately, if insufficiently. Ageless, pale, blonde and inappropriately thin, her skin now spangled in an intricate web of fine gold glyphs. They were so extensive Morgan could not conceive of how they would have been implanted…unless her Artificial had grown them completely from within. Disturbing notion.

  The effect was to make her entire body glow, soft and subtly, giving her an almost angelic appearance. Ironic, as the truth was the polar opposite.

  The woman’s glittering irises—golden to match the glyphs—darted about, tracking unseen data. “The mission plan for New Orient is ready.” She took a disk from a tall stack on her desk, pressed her thumb to it and handed it to him. “Assemble the team. They move at 2300 Galactic.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The man pivoted and left. Morgan noticed the dramatic relaxing of his shoulders once he reached the lift. He had to be a trusted lieutenant, but Olivia still terrified him. Much as she imagined Olivia terrified everyone who crossed her path.

  Rather than retreat to the ship immediately, Morgan backed out to the perimeter of the station, noting dozens of turrets and proximity sensors as her mind floated in space outside the structure. Calling it well defended understated the matter.

  A brute force assault would fail. In another two months the IDCC—which was to say she, Mia and Devon—might develop the technological tools necessary to succeed, but that was in the future, and this was today.

  Return.

  She opened her eyes. “She’s here, at least for the moment.”

  “What the hell did you do?”

  “Oh. Guess I haven’t gotten around to talking about this particular trick.”

  Brooklyn stared at her deadpan. Not horrified or panicked by confusion, merely awaiting an explanation.

  “We—Prevos—can project our consciousness into this special quantum dimension. We call it ‘sidespace,’ not that it matters. And we can use it to observe other locations. I’ll explain the specifics later, but first we need to deal with the here and now, okay?”

  Harper’s brow creased briefly, then she jerked a nod. “Okay. Tell me what you saw.”

  Damn, she was impressively…impressive. Nothing frightened her, or frightened her away.

  Morgan gave her an apologetic smile. “Thanks. I promise I will explain it better later. Montegreu is inside, but the defenses are as robust as you’d expect. IDCC forces aren’t strong enough to infiltrate the station, not yet. If we had a few of those negative energy bombs we used against the Metigens, we could blow the whole place. But the IDCC is going to need a far larger budget to be able to afford those…and everyone on the station would die, not just Olivia Montegreu. So I guess that idea’s out either way.” Oh, the responsibilities of command.

  She met Harper’s still intense gaze. “Your Alliance friend Colonel Jenner is hunting Montegreu. Contact him and tell him to get his ass here yesterday, and to bring the cavalry with him.” Then she frowned. “Wait. No. Not the entire cavalry. How good a special forces Marine is he, really?”

  Harper shrugged. “Exceptional. Maybe even one of the best there is serving right now. But how do you know he’s hunting her?”

  “Devon. Annie, whoever. Tell Jenner whatever you have to tell him in order to get him and…not his cavalry, but his best people, headed this way.”

  She smiled again—this woman was making her do that far too frequently; her cheeks were starting to get sore. “We can’t leave. We need to
keep eyes on Montegreu. So I’ll be up here—” she tapped her temple “—for a while.”

  ARCADIA

  EARTH ALLIANCE COLONY

  Malcolm sat in his small office at the Alliance Forward Naval Base on Arcadia doing nothing except being troubled.

  Olivia Montegreu was acting in too many places at once, creating far more incidents than his team hoped to track, much less prevent. If he hoped to catch her and bring her to justice, he was going to need a serious influx of backup and resources.

  But on this particular morning, Montegreu wasn’t even the source of his concerns. It should have been a welcome change, but it turned out to be closer to the opposite.

  Pamela Winslow had won the election; immediately thereafter she’d begun issuing executive orders prohibiting a variety of activities related to Artificials, designed to ‘bridge the gap’ until more draconian legislation was able to be passed by the Assembly.

  She planned to cut off all relations with the newly formed IDCC on the basis of it being controlled by Prevos. She didn’t call them Prevos, but the implication was clear. Restrictions on importation of a variety of quantum computing equipment and products had been proposed, lest they contain components which might be used to create a sentient neural net.

  To top things off, she’d accused the Federation of secretly supporting the expansion of the Zelones cartel, citing reasons bearing little relation to reality.

  It wasn’t his business—not until such time as he was ordered to start enforcing the new laws. But when the day arrived…could he really do it? Could he carry out orders he believed were morally wrong? Or worse, the alternative: could he defy orders? Commit insubordination or, if worse came to worst, sedition?

  He didn’t know a damn thing about Artificials. But he did know about Prevos—he knew Alex, and he couldn’t help but feel he knew Mia, though he probably hadn’t the right to feel it. He knew they’d enabled the defeat of the Metigens while risking their own lives in the process, saved the entirety of humankind and demanded no power in return. Were they frightening, something new and unfathomable? Maybe in the abstract, but not in the flesh.

  It was all a disaster in the making. Terrorists were attacking anything associated with Artificials, whether it be research labs, businesses who used them or Prevos themselves. Now the Prevos were fighting back, or someone was. An OTS protest of Suiren Corp on Demeter the day before had been disrupted by EM grenades, frying every eVi in a hundred-meter radius. No one had died, but dozens had been taken to clinics.

  His train of thought was interrupted by a holocomm request. He blinked in surprise when he saw the sender. Less surprise than he would’ve had prior to the referral contact from Lekkas, but surprise nonetheless.

  He accepted it immediately. “Harper. It’s good to hear from you.”

  “Good to be heard from, sir.”

  “I’m not your superior officer any longer. You can call me Malcolm.”

  She shrugged in acceptance. She appeared to be on a ship, but he wasn’t able to tell anything else about her surroundings. She looked good, though. Healthy. “I’d say you can call me ‘Brooklyn,’ but no one does that. Listen, I learned from a—” she glanced at something or someone to her left “—reliable source you’re hunting Olivia Montegreu. Is it true?”

  His team was covert in the formalities, but there wasn’t a genuine need for it. And she’d already been informed. And he seemed to be adhering to fewer bureaucratic regs every day.

  “I’m leading a task force with that singular goal, in fact. Thus far all we’ve accomplished is cleaning up the bodies and wreckage left in her wake, however.”

  “I know where she is right now.”

  He leaned forward in his chair. “Excuse me?”

  “She has a secret station in dead space near Romane. And as of right now, she is in residence.”

  The news of the attack on Advent Materials’ Rasogo II facility and the IDCC response had made the rounds, and he didn’t have to be a genius to connect the dots. She was working on Romane. The attack had occurred in Romane space. Montegreu was an all too believable suspect. “You’re working for the IDCC.”

  She shrugged. “Leading its ground response forces, actually. I hope this isn’t a problem for you.”

  He shook his head, if a tad weakly. “I understand why the independents think they need to be able to defend themselves, given everything that’s happened in the last year. Everything happening now. I only….”

  “I’m protecting people, Malcolm, not attacking them.”

  “O’Connell was a traitor and a psychopath, Harper. He did not represent the Earth Alliance military.”

  “Maybe not, but given what I’m seeing on the news feeds these days, he could have represented more of the government than you think.”

  He grimaced. “I don’t have a good response to that, so let’s just leave it alone. Talk to me about this space station.”

  “Admiral, it will require us to go to Romane. To work with the IDCC.”

  Miriam Solovy gave him a dismissive wave. She seemed busy bordering on distracted. And…hard, displaying a steel in her eyes and determination in her expression beyond what he’d seen in the past.

  “Winslow’s overblown rhetoric aside, the IDCC is not our enemy. Not yet. In the absence of regulations or an Executive Order prescribing our interaction with the organization, you may interact with them as you see fit to protect the interests of the Earth Alliance. Needless to say, eliminating Olivia Montegreu is in the highest interests of the Earth Alliance.”

  “Understood, ma’am.” He paused, debating whether to broach the next point. “Mia Requelme is also there. Working for the IDCC.”

  “I’m aware. Are you asking me whether you have permission to cooperate with her as well?”

  “Well, given the circumstances of her departure from Earth….”

  Miriam stopped whatever else she was doing and sighed, eyes downcast for several seconds before rising to meet his gaze. “Colonel, there are matters in flux and plans in motion you don’t—can’t—know about. Perhaps later, if you’re willing, but for now ending the threat Olivia Montegreu poses must be your only priority. So I’ll say again—the IDCC is not our enemy. It is not…it is not my enemy, and it need not be yours.”

  She squared her shoulders and notched her chin yet higher. “I’ll make this simple for you, Colonel. I tasked you with hunting down Olivia Montegreu, and I’m reaffirming this now, verbally and by official record. I expect you to use your thus far exemplary judgment to do whatever you feel is necessary in pursuit of that singular goal, and I will stand behind any actions which result. That is an order, Colonel Jenner. Are we clear?”

  What in God’s name had he wandered into? And by ‘wandered into’ he meant forcefully elbowed and bullied his way in. “We’re clear, ma’am. In that case, we’ll leave straightaway.”

  36

  MESSIUM

  EARTH ALLIANCE COLONY

  * * *

  THE SPRAWLING EARTH ALLIANCE Northeast Regional Headquarters on Messium continued to show a few scars from the Metigen invasion, in part because once essential capabilities were restored Admiral Rychen had prioritized civilian reconstruction efforts over military ones. Cranes still swung above some of the outlying buildings, and scaffolding still adorned a wall here and there. But the base was up and running and busier than ever.

  He liked Messium, Richard decided as he abandoned the shuttle from the commercial spaceport for a brisk walk across the grounds.

  First impressions could be revised later, but he liked the muted hues and practical infrastructure and the way the air carried a hint of pine on the breeze. It bore little similarity to Vancouver, but it was nice. He thought he’d choose a hotel in walking distance of the base to make up for the many hours he expected to be spending indoors.

  He mysteriously cleared all the security checks on the base, and without so much as a second glance. Every query returned the same information: retired Naval Intelligen
ce, here to consult on a classified matter.

  That much was true, as far as it went. The fact his current position did not appear to be included in his file made for a curious deviation from standard procedure.

  The Communications and Data Building looked almost entirely new, and everything shone in the understated way the best military architecture did. He had to stop himself several times from saluting when he passed high-ranking officers. He wasn’t in uniform, because he no longer had a uniform.

  A wing in the back of the complex, designated simply “E-13,” was his destination. Here he encountered the tightest security thus far, with his name, fingerprints and facial and retinal scans checked against an approved list. But whatever the list consisted of, he was on it and was granted entry.

  Several conference rooms were arranged around a central atrium. All were equipped with brand new data nooks and interactive tables. Beyond the semicircle were a couple of offices.

  Most of the space, however, was dedicated to hardware. It reminded him of Annie’s lab at Special Projects, if both smaller and more modern. At the rear of the wing, one-way glass spanned the wall to look out on the verdant landscape.

  He found Rychen in the largest meeting room. The admiral stood alone, quietly studying a screen above the center table.

  Richard saluted this time, technicalities be damned.

  He was left a bit flustered when Rychen returned the salute then stuck his hand out. He accepted it, but frowned. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, sir. It’s been quite a few years. But I’m no longer serving—”

  “The Cross-Sector Security Conference on New Columbia, summer of 2318. I remember. And I’m aware of your situation. All I really care about is Admiral Solovy trusts you with her life, and I trust her with mine.”

  “As do I. Thank you, sir.”

  “I also know that without the actions of your husband, we likely would have fought the Second Crux War until we were unable to win the Metigen War, so you both have my personal and professional thanks.”