Dissonance: Aurora Renegades Book Two (Aurora Rhapsody 5) Page 8

  “I’m starting to reconsider my earlier analysis. I’d thought all this might be part of how they shape their universes to taste, but seeing it in action…it feels like a weapon.”

  “In one respect it’s simply the violent nature of cosmology sped up. Still…I think you nailed it. Astronomical phenomena can unleash far more powerful energies than any machine we can manufacture—I’d argue more powerful than anyone can manufacture.”

  She glanced back out the viewport in growing revulsion. How dare they wield her cherished stars in such an appalling manner? “This is a weapons testing ground.”

  “It is.” If he noticed the disgust in her voice, he didn’t show it. “They didn’t use this scale of weaponry against us. But barring other motivations, there were several good reasons for it: we were too spread out, and too mobile. We were an immediate threat, relatively speaking, and they would’ve needed to destroy dozens of star systems to come close to wiping us out. Even then, we may have been able to escape the worst of the destruction and survive.”

  Perhaps belatedly realizing how much the revelation had burned her, he huffed a breath and hugged her closer.

  But she soon sensed his gaze drifting over her shoulder and across the viewport. “So what kind of threat exists that is worth taking the time and effort to blow up dozens of star systems?”

  PORTAL: A-2

  SYSTEM DESIGNATION:

  VRACHNAS

  14

  SIYANE

  VRACHNAS PORTAL SPACE

  * * *

  “FASTER.”

  Alex spun away, arm following shoulder following head as she lunged deeper into the cabin.

  Caleb’s hand closed on her elbow, halting her progress with a tug back into him. “Faster.”

  Her eyes narrowed in defiance—then she bolted to the side, pivoted and dashed toward the cockpit.

  He was forced to leap forward to catch up to her, but upon doing so his arms wound around her waist. “Come on. You moved faster than this on my first morning aboard the Siyane.”

  She wiggled in his clutches until she faced him brandishing a scowl. “I thought my life was in danger that morning.”

  A chuckle lodged in his throat. He released his hold on her to bring a palm up to her cheek and smile tenderly. “Fair enough.”

  “You’re looking at me funny.”

  “Just remembering what it was like to have you look at me with distrust and suspicion.”

  “And what was it like?”

  Another time, another life. It took a bit of effort, but he was able to put himself back in that place and state of mind…he didn’t stay long. “Damn uncomfortable.”

  He blinked and shook it off. “You’re favoring your outside leg, but unless the attack is coming at you with significant force from one side in particular, you need to launch yourself using your strongest leg—the right one, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “Concentrate on planting your right foot and using it to propel yourself away.”

  “Won’t it cost me a second if my weight isn’t already shifted in that direction?”

  “Half a second, and you’ll make it up in momentum the next second and then some.”

  She considered him dubiously before appearing to accept his words. She’d insisted on starting the training regimen after their close call on Rudan, then had proceeded to argue with much of his advice in the early sessions. He hadn’t taken it personally, as it was simply her nature. But results had eventually silenced most of the protests.

  “Okay.” She readied herself and turned away from him.

  He waited a beat, another to keep it unpredictable, then leapt forward to grab her.

  She was out of his reach and almost to the cockpit before he could complete the motion. Finding no outlet for his own momentum, he stumbled half a step forward. When he looked up she was leaning against the wall behind the data center, grinning.

  “Pleased with yourself, are you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Nicely done.” He dropped his hands to his hips and silenced her laughter with a stern expression. “You don’t think we’re finished, do you? Get your ass back over here and hit me. If you can.”

  The cabin was quiet. Though a stark contrast to the exuberance of the morning’s activities, Caleb didn’t mind the silence.

  He redirected his attention from the stars outside to Alex beside him. Her posture was relaxed; her arms rested limply on the armrests and she lounged deep in the cockpit chair. Her eyes were closed, but beneath the lids they jerked about.

  She’d tried to explain what it meant to ‘be’ the ship, to feel and perceive space through the quantum circuitry now woven into the hull, but the words had failed to come. He appreciated what a challenge describing in relatable terms an encounter outside the realm of human experience presented, having confronted the identical problem regarding his communions with Akeso.

  If he closed his eyes and cleared his mind, he could remember the sensation with far more clarity than a memory. But it flitted on the periphery of his awareness, tantalizingly close yet forever beyond his grasp.

  Wind rustles a sea of grasses.

  Each stalk bows in submission, yielding to the wind’s will.

  A splash of water escapes a creek to moisten the shore.

  Roots harbored in the soil reach out, yearning for the nourishment the water brings.

  With a sigh he mentally retreated from the trance and reopened his eyes. It wasn’t healthy to spend too much time lost in what was, at its core, little more than an enticing drug.

  Seeking a distraction until the lingering vestiges faded, he spun his chair to face the best distraction there was. After watching her for a minute, he reached over to trace fingertips along the hollow beneath her cheekbone.

  A corner of Alex’s mouth twitched. Her voice was a wispy, dreamy whisper. “I feel you….”

  “Good.” He stood, placed a feather-light kiss on her forehead and left the cockpit. They had another twenty minutes or so before they would reach the system pointed to by the TLF wave, and he had things to do.

  “I’m not seeing any evidence of technology, or any artificial energy generation whatsoever, but sensors are picking up massive life readings on the third planet.”

  No advanced civilization meant no urgency, so Caleb sipped on his coffee. “Not very encouraging. We’re not likely to learn much from animals or primitives.”

  “No, though we can at least check out what kind of creation the Metigens are playing with this time.” Alex guided the Siyane into low-altitude orbit around the planet, a small but typical terrestrial garden world. “Time to send a probe down and see what we can see.”

  He propped against the cockpit half-wall to watch the vid feed from the probe.

  It descended through the atmosphere and broke beneath light cloud-cover to reveal a rocky but lush terrain. Weathered, tree-covered mountains dominated the landscape. The climate was warm but not tropical, and the sensor on the probe returned a temperature of 22° C.

  The probe was descending to an altitude of two kilometers when a bright glimmer of light briefly flickered in the bottom left corner of the feed.

  He straightened up. “Did you see that?”

  “I did.” Alex’s hands moved to the dash. “Taking manual control.”

  Under her guidance, the probe arced toward where the flash had originated. Nothing could be discerned at first—then another flash, like a sun’s ray catching a mirror. “There it is again.”

  It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, but the source was a broad ledge bereft of trees. She zoomed the camera in closer, set the probe to hover and came to stand next to him. Together they silently considered the feed.

  Sunlight danced off the metallic scales of the two dragons stretched out on the ledge, curled up next to one another in apparent slumber. Crimson and gold in color, they bore a striking resemblance to the dragons that had attacked them on Portal Prime.

  One of the dragons lazi
ly raised its head to gaze around. It exhaled, sending smoky flames pouring out from its jaws, then rested its head on the shoulder of its companion.

  Alex canted her head to the side.

  They weren’t clones. The one that had stirred bore scales of gold-tinged rust—Caleb shuddered as he recalled exactly how sharp those scales were—in contrast to the blazing crimson of its companion. It also had a wider, larger jaw. But there was no question they shared ancestry with or had served as the models for the dragons on Portal Prime.

  Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. His brow knotted.

  Movement in the air above signaled the arrival of two more dragons. Far smaller in size, they alighted onto the ledge and tottered over toward…their parents?

  One bumped into the other; the second one responded by hissing out weak, pale-yellow flames and clawing in its sibling’s direction. A low, rumbling growl from one of the resting dragons brought a premature halt to the squabble.

  Alex began chewing on her bottom lip.

  The dragon on the left climbed to its feet and stretched, revealing a long, sinewy neck and a massive, heavily muscled chest. It extended its wings until they spanned some twenty meters and with a single downstroke took flight.

  Caleb tilted his head gamely at Alex. “Skip it?”

  “Skip it.”

  PART III:

  HEROES & VILLAINS

  “Cause I'd rather stay here

  With all the madmen

  Than perish with the sadmen roaming free

  And I'd rather play here

  With all the madmen

  For I'm quite content they're all as sane

  As me”

  — David Bowie

  PORTAL: AURORA

  (MILKY WAY)

  15

  ROMANE

  INDEPENDENT COLONY

  * * *

  THE ROTATING HOLOGRAM took up the entire warehouse. 1:1 scale tended to do that when one was talking about a commercial transport-class vessel.

  This wasn’t any normal vessel, however. Designed from the ground up to take advantage of an adiamene hull and advanced quantum computing operation, it didn’t need to obey the old rules.

  The transport boasted twenty-three percent more personal cabins than civilian ships its size, yet the cabins were between sixteen and twenty-eight percent larger than standard in the industry and had unprecedented per-rental customization options. It also included four conference rooms with state-of-the-art data presentation capabilities.

  Most impressive, though? A person could press any one of several thousand pressure points spaced every few meters in the walls and gain access to controllable floating screens. Once activated, the person was able to communicate with the quantum circuitry embedded in the walls to display and interact with the screen in almost any practicable way.

  And the cockpit. The cockpit was impressive, too. Stunning, really.

  The standard pilot chair had been replaced by a mag-lev flex-chair, allowing the pilot to sit, stand or anywhere in between. A wireless sensor in the headrest interfaced with the pilot’s eVi for up to two meters of distance, giving the pilot mental as well as physical command of the controls. The HUD and all virtual modules surrounded the pilot, instead of being tethered to the dash, and operated under the pilot’s complete control.

  The addition of a copilot to the setup was as easy as raising an additional flex-chair from where it was stored beneath the floor. The pilot and copilot could split, share and trade off all functions on the fly.

  As a bonus, the ship was light. Less than thirty percent the tonnage of current-gen ships its size. Oh, and fast. Also agile.

  “Damn. It’s gorgeous, honey.”

  That too. Kennedy flashed a smile over her shoulder at Noah as he approached. “Isn’t it, though?”

  “Good news. As of twenty minutes ago, you’ve got the power components for it—for all the ships.”

  “I do? Dynamis signed?”

  “They did.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Cost plus seven percent, guaranteed supply of up to five hundred units a month.”

  “You’re fantastic.” She placed a full kiss on his lips.

  “And not just in bed, right?”

  “Not just. Now all we need is a contract for the complete range of impulse engines. Avion Transit has its own lined up for this ship, but it doesn’t help the next customer.”

  “Michani Ormi drives fill your need?”

  “Are you kidding? The new Ano Elite model is a work of art.”

  “Only you would call an engine a work of art.”

  She gave him a mock pout. “Hey, I see what I see. But they don’t mass-produce and have a very exclusive, very expensive client list.”

  “Not any longer. They’ve agreed to build engines for the Independent Defense Consortium ships, so there’s half your customers’ needs met. Since you’re designing the new fighters for the IDCC, they’ll need to consult with you on specs. And since you’ll be working together to help create this new force, goodwill is bound to ensue.”

  “Outstanding.” She squinted at the ship holo. “I’m meeting Morgan later this afternoon to tweak a few details on the fighter design now that she’s put the prototype through the paces. We should grab lunch out—to celebrate all the wonderful things that have happened today so far.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Food is good. And frankly, I’ve already done a full day’s work. Revelry suits me fine.”

  It was still here, still open and thriving.

  Kennedy’s gaze swept over their surroundings as she led Noah out to the restaurant’s patio and chose what might be the same table.

  He eyed her curiously as he sat. “You’re acting even more pleased with yourself than usual. What’s up?”

  After they placed drink orders, she crossed her legs and relaxed in the chair. “Alex and I had dinner at this restaurant…it must have been nine years ago. It was the day she took delivery of the Siyane from IS Design. We flew it here for a test flight—and for shopping, obviously. Alex had quit her job at Pacifica Aerodynamics to go freelance. She had no money and no clients, and she was utterly fearless.”

  She exhaled softly. “Sitting here then, I never imagined I’d one day find myself in much the same place…and now I think she had to have been secretly terrified. But she did it anyway, because she believed her life was hers to make what she would of it. And she was right.”

  He studied her carefully. “Are you sorry you did this?”

  “No.” She reached across the table and grasped his hand. “I’m not. I have clients now, and I have money—a little. Enough. I have a plan and a path forward. But I couldn’t have done it without you. I would have run home to daddy and begged to be let back into the fold the first time something went wrong.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have. You’re far more of a warrior than you give yourself credit for.”

  A warrior, her? She giggled faintly, but it quickly faltered; the notion was preposterous. “Yes, Noah, I would have. If I’m strong, it’s because of you.”

  “I….” He squirmed uncomfortably under the weight of the praise, which was so adorable. When he tried again, his voice was warm with affection. “Anything I’ve done is merely reflected glory. You make me want to be better—better than I was, better than I am.”

  She knew how hard it remained for him to be so brutally honest, to leave himself open to being hurt—which she hoped like hell she never bungled into doing.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean for lunch to devolve into us baring our souls. I had been thinking about that day with Alex lately for evident reasons, and…” she took in the blooming alyssi overflowing hanging baskets and sill boxes “…there’s a certain symmetry to being back here now.”

  His gentle smile soon broke into a chuckle. “Granted, but is the food any good?”

  “I mainly remember the cheesecake. It was divine.”

  They were finishing a delicious meal of char sui pork and fried noodles when Noah’
s gaze locked on a young woman walking behind them on the sidewalk. He stared at her as she passed, brow furrowing.

  Kennedy didn’t mind him appreciating the occasional attractive passerby; considering how often she did the same, she understood well what it did and didn’t mean. But this stare was something different from simple appreciation.

  “Give me a second.” He stood and vaulted over the wrought-iron railing, leaving her sitting there perplexed.

  She watched as he caught up to the woman and touched her on the arm. The woman whipped around with such violence Kennedy briefly worried she was getting ready to put Noah in a headlock. He raised his hands in surrender and took half a step away. The woman relaxed, and they spoke for a minute.

  Then Noah gestured her inside the restaurant. A few seconds later they appeared at the table.

  “This is Captain—sorry, former Captain—Brooklyn Harper. Harper, Kennedy Rossi.”

  She knew the name—the Marine who had helped Noah and Caleb take out General O’Connell on Krysk. Kennedy donned her most charming visage. “A pleasure. Please, join us.”

  The woman’s face was devoid of any notable emotion as she nodded. “I suppose I can spare a few minutes.”

  She was attractive enough, if somewhat severe of countenance, with blonde hair tied in a loose tail slung over one shoulder. She wore a plain heather long-sleeved tee and navy pants but no jacket, despite the chill in the air.

  “So what brings you to Romane?”

  “I’m running security for Soma Biosynth—a job which has gotten more interesting than I was expecting due to the recent increase in OTS terrorist attacks. They haven’t suffered any yet, but they expect to be a target.”

  “No doubt. You left the military after the end of the Metigen War?”