Dissonance: Aurora Renegades Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 5) Read online

“Do not share any details about my departure until the Prime Minister has left the premises, and then only with Captain Fletcher or Major Lange.”

  “Understood, Admiral.”

  She returned their salutes before traversing the half-step up and into the waiting shuttle. The door closed behind her as the late-morning sun reflected off the Headquarters façade.

  She exhaled deeply, trying to leave it all here…then moved into the small cockpit and perched on the seat next to Richard. “Thanks for the pickup. Encounter any problems?”

  He shot her a quick, reassuring smile as he banked above the Strait. “Plenty, but I wasn’t an intelligence officer for nothing.”

  “No, you weren’t.” She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Are you all right?”

  “I am. I must be.” She nodded firmly. “I’m just grateful Alex isn’t here to see the fallout from all this.”

  “On the other hand, the stream of obscenities she’d level at Winslow might be entertaining, and possibly unmatched in history.”

  She wanted to laugh aloud, but she worried it would trigger an avalanche. So instead she merely huffed a breath in response.

  When the ensuing silence lingered a bit long, Richard cracked his neck. “I’ve got one of the new scout ships waiting on the EAO Orbital. We’ll be at Messium by the morning.”

  Messium. The tense encounter had caused her to momentarily forget the most important part. She immediately opened a holocomm.

  “Christopher, I’m in the air but don’t want to access the system until I’m beyond Earth space. Did you receive everything?”

  “The Artificial is reporting receipt and integration of all records, protocols and security encryptions. The connection was cut twenty-three seconds ago on your end, for what it’s worth, but not before we gained all necessary access.”

  “We have control of the EASC network?”

  “No, Miriam. We have control of the entire Earth Alliance Armed Forces network.”

  49

  PANDORA

  INDEPENDENT COLONY

  * * *

  THE NEWS FEED PLAYED in Devon’s head as he unlocked the obscenely encrypted door to his apartment.

  “In the wake of the new legislation passed by the Earth Alliance Assembly, government officials have announced a ban on quantum component imports from any colony which has legalized the private ownership of Artificials or the use of what the Assembly termed ‘Prevo technology.’

  “This currently includes all colonies who have joined the IDCC, and depending on the outcome of the vote expected soon in its Parliament, may extend to the entire Senecan Federation as well.

  “In addition, Alliance officials have put those governments on notice that they will expect existing extradition treaties to be honored, including with respect to any Earth Alliance citizens located on those worlds who violate the laws passed today.”

  If the Federation extended legal protection to Prevos, it would be a huge win. There had been a flurry of activity on this front during the last week in the halls of government on Seneca. He’d been busy working to keep the Prevos there—and everywhere—safe, but he and the others had peeked in from time to time to monitor developments.

  Still, even if the legislation passed it didn’t guarantee their safety. On the contrary, an enraged OTS would mean greater risk for Prevos on Federation soil. But at least they’d finally have law enforcement backing them up.

  “A Federation spokesperson has issued a statement expressing concern over the Alliance legislation and indicating they will need to review it in some detail before addressing the matter. The IDCC, however, responded by requesting that their constituent colonies nullify all extradition treaties with the Alliance, in effect severing high-level diplomatic relations. Romane has already done so, and others are expected to follow suit in coming days.

  “In other news, the Prime Minister’s office has announced Miriam Solovy’s removal from the post of Fleet Admiral in light of accusations of sedition, dereliction of duty and conspiracy to commit treason. Admiral Solovy’s whereabouts are not being made public at this time.

  “We’ll have additional updates regarding the alleged death of criminal mastermind Olivia Montegreu at the top of the hour, but for now we return you to coverage of the bombing of the Astral Materials headquarters on Scythia. The organization OTS is claiming credit for the incident….”

  The reporter had left out ‘terrorist,’ a pejorative they’d been happy to bestow on OTS before today. He wouldn’t be surprised if the news organizations had been warned against using the term by the new administration.

  Devon huffed a laugh to himself. ‘Not being made public’ meant ‘we don’t have a clue’ in government-speak. Was Miriam Solovy now as much a fugitive as he’d been when he ran, if not more so? It looked as though it was rather more so.

  He wondered what she’d done to piss off the new Prime Minister…be a decent human being, most likely.

  Which she was. He knew it, and Annie knew it. They each knew it separately; knowing it together, it became irrefutable. He felt as though he were far closer to the woman than he was, thanks to all the leakage from Annie and from Alex before she’d left.

  Alex.

  She’d want to be told about what had happened, about what he suspected was soon to happen. Of this he was certain.

  For all Alex’s devil-may-care approach to life, which he truly, no-bullshit admired, she cared for her mother to a far greater extent than she’d willingly admit—even beyond their recent reconciliation. She’d want to know. And because she’d want to know, he thought Caleb would probably want to know, too. Of course, there was also that other thing Caleb would probably want to know in an ‘I didn’t want to know this’ sort of way.

  Devon was not the grand arbiter of what-should-and-should-not-be-known. He figured the more knowledge the better. So they should know.

  Maybe he could do something to fix that.

  He’d found the peculiar quantum waves while tooling around in sidespace last week. Curious, he’d tracked enough of them to determine they streamed in from across settled space to meet up with the TLF wave still coming from the inactive portal. They flowed alongside it but in the opposite direction.

  Back toward the portal.

  It was the mechanism by which, somehow, the Metigens watched. This was the most logical explanation, and the one he, Mia and Morgan agreed was the likeliest one. The fact they didn’t understand how the mechanism functioned didn’t change the reality that the mechanism did function. The technology was simply more advanced than their own.

  There existed the possibility the Metigens had obeyed Alex’s decree at the end of the war and abandoned their watchtower, in which case he’d be whispering into the abyss.

  The signals still streaming in both directions argued they had not, but since he didn’t understand the mechanism he could only speculate. Either way, it was worth a shot, right?

  After taking a moment to compose his intentions, Devon shifted into sidespace.

  He located the closest wave by superimposing a vector from the Metis portal to Romane, followed it a few parsecs to the TLF signal—it pointed directly at Earth—then aligned himself on the path of the quantum wave nearest it and tried to match its frequency. His success was due far more to Annie’s efforts than his own.

  Thank you, Devon.

  You bet.

  He had no idea if this was apt to work, but in case it did he readied his cockiest mental voice.

  Hey, Metigen aliens. We realize you’re still watching. Enjoying the show?

  Listen, I assume you’re up to speed on events here in our little universe. But given you’re assholes, what I’m about to say might not have occurred to you. So I’m going to broadcast it at you in big flashing neon letters:

  If you happen to bump into Alex and Caleb out there in your multiverse playground, you should consider encouraging them to swing back by home. I believe they
have a vested interest in current shenanigans on this side of the portal.

  But hey, it’s just a suggestion. Peace out.

  PORTAL: C-2

  SYSTEM DESIGNATION:

  KAMEN

  50

  IRELTSE

  KAMEN PORTAL SPACE

  * * *

  CRUSHED SANDSTONE SIFTED THROUGH Caleb’s fingers, insubstantial as dust. A breeze caught the debris mid-fall and spirited it away before it could join the ashes blanketing the ground.

  He stopped in the middle of what had once been a street, his arms pulled in at his sides, his fists balled in barely restrained fury.

  Broken stone and shattered walls were all that remained of the Center, and every other building in Ireltse’s capital city. But this wasn’t the deceptively sterile, pure-in-its-completeness annihilation caused by an anti-matter weapon like the one Pinchu had used to decimate Nengllitse.

  Instead, the city had been leveled by cluster bombs. Impelled shrapnel had ripped through the sandstone structures like they were butter, shredding every obstruction they encountered. The street beneath his feet was tinted a muted, rusty red. Sometime in the last several days, it had flowed a river of blood.

  In a burst of anger he grabbed the closest chunk of rubble and hurled it through the air. With nothing left standing high enough to halt its progress, it sailed far into the distance before smashing to the ground and fracturing into more dust. “Damn fool! Why couldn’t he listen? This didn’t have to happen….”

  “The house is gone, too. The cliff it sat on collapsed—was blown up, I guess. Most of the house is in pieces at the bottom of the canyon.”

  Alex knelt a few meters behind him. Her eyes were closed, and her voice sounded detached and monotone.

  He glanced around, shocked to discover the Siyane was nowhere to be seen. How had he missed it leaving? Probably something to do with the scenery distracting him. “You flew the ship over to the house?”

  She nodded slowly, without affectation.

  Valkyrie could’ve flown there herself; she didn’t need Alex’s guidance, much less her mind. Why—

  “I needed to see for myself. It was the most efficient way.” She opened her eyes and gave him a weary, desolate smile.

  “Reading my mind a new skill you picked up recently?”

  “I wish.” She sank down to rest on her heels. “My head hurts. I’m kneeling amidst a hundred thousand dead Khokteh, and all I can think is that my head hurts.”

  He crouched in front of her. “You could be suffering serious neurological trauma. You need to see a doctor…and you need to stop connecting to the ship until you feel better.”

  “I feel better when I connect to the ship.”

  “Alex….” His voice trailed off as a flare of blue-white light took shape behind her.

  She frowned and twisted around to see what had captured his attention. The Metigen completed its typically theatrical entrance, and its empyreal form came to rest above the bloodied street.

  Instantly she sprang to her feet and bum-rushed the alien. But there existed no physicality for her to attack, and she could only skid to a stop in the midst of the swirling lights.

  “You sons of bitches, all of you! Are you happy? You have your wanton devastation to feast on once again. Lap it up!”

  The alien’s presence grew agitated, and Caleb reached into the vortex to clutch her wrist. “Alex, we don’t even know if this is Iapetus. Maybe—”

  “Oh, it’s not. This is Mesme. And I don’t give a goddamn if this isn’t his realm. I’ve seen how they work, and they are all responsible for this atrocity.”

  It is true this is not my ‘realm,’ nor these creatures my focus. But in the ways which matter, you are not wrong.

  She must have shifted into the quantum space long enough to identify the Metigen’s ‘true avatar,’ as she’d characterized it. She was getting rather adept at moving in and out of the mystical dimension.

  So this was Mesme, then. Caleb worked to lessen the venom in his voice to a tolerable level. “Thank you for rescuing us at the portal, and protecting us at the lake.”

  Alex seethed. “Why did you bother, though? Does keeping us alive somehow make you feel better about all the carnage?”

  One has nothing to do with the other, and both were done for their own reasons.

  Okay, fine. He’d expressed his thanks, and he just wasn’t up to being polite on what had been a damn trying day, to put it mildly. “What reasons can there be for this? What justification could possibly exist to raise an entire species for slaughter? To give them reason and intellect and emotion, to let them love and dream and achieve, only to mercilessly cut them down like animals?”

  We did not ‘cut them down.’ They committed this bloodshed upon themselves.

  “Like your ships did all the killing for you when you attacked us. Not you. Never you. Never the taint of death on your elusive hands.” His anger over this massacre, still roiling and seeking its shape, adjusted targets easily enough from Pinchu and the Khokteh to the Metigens.

  “You have plans for us, some role we’re expected to play for you in the future. Answer the question, or we’re out. Why? What is the purpose of the Khokteh’s existence and their deliberate obliteration?”

  That is three questions.

  Alex screamed and lashed out at the points of light from within, desperate for something tangible to rage against. Caleb wrapped his arms around her from behind and coaxed her out while glowering at Mesme in loathing.

  Then he lessened his hold on her to a single hand. Together they turned their backs on the alien and began walking away.

  To learn how to battle. How to wage war.

  They stopped, but did not turn around.

  We have never been fighters, not in all our long aeons of existence. The fierceness, the survival instinct essential to battling—to defeating—a true foe is not part of who we are.

  So we study how to fight, how to kill and die. We study not one way to do so, but all possible ways, until we find one which can succeed.

  Caleb shared an admittedly intrigued glance with Alex, then looked over his shoulder. “Succeed how?”

  In the only manner one can succeed in a war against an oppressor: liberation.

  “You’re oppressed. You, who can build and eradicate entire universes on a whim.”

  Everything is relative, Caleb, and the circumstances are far more complicated than you realize.

  “Then explain them to us. Is it the Anaden who oppress you? Are they who you seek to overthrow?”

  Mesme churned in agitation. You know?

  “Know what? We know what they were intending to do to the Taenarin—”

  Enough. I have already said beyond what is prudent, and this is not my purpose today. I came here to you for another reason.

  I bring a message, albeit one delivered via a most unexpected method. Your presence has been requested in Aurora.

  Alex groaned. “Sukin syn, what’s happened now?”

  “Why do we bother, Caleb? Why pick up the pieces and glue the world back together if it’s just going to fall apart again the first time someone knocks it around a little? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

  “If we can’t change human nature in all its khrenovuyu stupidity, we’re simply banging our heads against the wall—hence the headache.”

  He found he didn’t have a good answer. Terrorists and governments hunting down the very people who had saved them from genocide? He appreciated that the Prevo technology was frightening; the new and unknown was always frightening.

  But trying to stamp something out for challenging the status quo had never worked, not for long. Another lesson people had forgotten more times than they’d learned it.

  And Miriam accused of treason? On the run? He couldn’t begin to fathom that one. Of course they would be returning, if for this reason alone.

  He put a hand on Alex’s hip and sighed; Mesme had depa
rted, but they still stood amid the wreckage. “We need to consider—”

  “You bother because every now and then you do change the heart and mind of someone, even if it is far too late.”

  They both jumped in surprise as their translators squawked and Pinchu emerged from behind a wall of rubble.

  A smile broke across Caleb’s face, and Alex bolted for the Tokahe Naataan. He embraced her with enough vigor she let out an “Oof!”

  “Apologies, Alex Human. I forgot how puny you are.”

  “It’s okay.” She disentangled herself from his arms and squelched a grimace. “We thought you were dead.”

  “I nearly was, should be now and may yet still join my beloved Cassela.”

  He did look terrible. The fur on his left arm had been almost fully singed off, exposing bronze skin in patches. A thick bandage held his left shoulder in place, and his face was filthy with dirt and scratched to hell. “But some are alive? To be honest, seeing the level of destruction, we didn’t hold out much hope.”

  The Tokahe Naataan flinched and turned away, but found only ruin. “A few thousand, optimistically. We’ve been gathering survivors in a neighborhood to the south that was spared the worst. And there are other cities. Several were hit as well, but not all. Not yet.”

  “Was it the Tapertse?” The colonies supported smaller populations than the homeworld, and after the anti-matter weapon did its work he didn’t see how Nengllitse would have retained enough of a force to retaliate.

  “Indeed. You were right, Caleb Human. About everything. I should have asked for a shield. I should have fought to protect my people instead of inflicting vengeance on innocents. Now I drown in the blood of my shikei.”

  He stared at the debris, then shifted his gaze to Alex. “I saw you speaking with one of the Gods a moment ago. You truly are their emissary—unless you are their leader, to yell at one so freely.”

  “Oh, Pinchu, if you knew how far from the truth that was….” Her gaze had dropped to study the rubble at her feet, but now it rose high to meet Pinchu’s, her eyes lit with sudden fervor. “You need to make peace with the Tapertse. You need to bring an end to this war, or you will all die.”