Astra: Synchronicity (35 page)

Magnius couldn't take his eyes off the black
letters of Lyneea's name against the light background of the
comtab. He was entirely responsible. "Why did Ardri allow Lyneea on
the surface anyways?"

Nadine sighed. "And why was Xander there and
blah blah. Who cares, it's too late to change anything."

"The Xuranians wouldn't kill them, would
they?" Amii asked.

The second lady shrugged. "I hope not. But
again, I think that's more wishful thinking on my part. We've
terrorized their homeworld, and I'm sure they want answers. I
expect they'll be interrogated so for the time being, they're
probably safe."

"I need to save Xander," Amii thought aloud.
She glanced between Nadine and Magnius. "He'd do it for me."

"I wouldn't be so sure," he said.

"He's my father!" Her dangerous glare waited
for him to say more, to give her a good reason to take a swing at
him. When it never came, her stare fell back onto Nadine. "I'm
going to save him with or without your help. Please…help me do
this."

Nothing anyone could say would change her
mind now that it was set. Amii seemed to have already forfeited her
own life. The audacity of the act went beyond bravery in the face
of insurmountable odds. It had become a compulsion.

Nadine nodded. "I'll look into getting both
your implants replaced so you can travel freely off of New England.
And I'll tap into the military records and stay abreast of what's
going on out there. Let me know if there's anything specific you
need and I'll try to help in any way I can."

"Wait a minute," Magnius said. "I didn't say
I was going with her. Knowing Lyneea was left there is sad, but
without proof she's even alive? I'm not going anywhere."

The telepath glared at him with inexorable
seriousness. "If you don't go together, both of you will die.
Tiyuri is here in the city, and he has help. It's only a matter of
time before he finds you. Both of you."

"I thought I was safe here," he said.

"Safe is a relative term. If we had psions on
guard all hours of the day like the PAU does, you'd have nothing to
fear. But we don't. You have to leave before he finds you. I'm
guessing it won't take him long. Now if you'll excuse me, I have
work to do."

***

A few officers of the
Kearsarge
and
several crewmen had gathered in the lounge for dinner. The days
since they left Xur cast an unusual silence over what was otherwise
a jovial crew. Their first officer had been left behind, and no
matter how justified it seemed to Rashad at the time, he had
regrets about doing it. Carmen was a spirited woman who brought out
the best in those she worked with, and everyone missed her a great
deal.

The ship had barely enough officers to cover
every shift now that Martinez was gone, and Rashad found himself in
the control room as the officer of the deck in her absence. The
Kearsarge
had always been light on officers since it was
little more than a glorified ferry for AC diplomats. Common
transports were easy targets for thieves and mercenaries so instead
of decommissioning a useful albeit out-of-date cruiser like the
Kearsarge
, the AC promoted the ship's former captain and
left Commander Mundammi in charge of the vessel.

Rashad glanced at the officers around him.
Sibo sat eating his ration and avoided unnecessary eye contact. Dr.
Jones seemed to have no appetite at all, a bit surprising because
he ate like a horse and never gained any weight from all that
exercise he did. Lieutenant-Commander King had his nose buried in a
book to escape the mess humans had gotten into. Ordinarily, they'd
all be watching a movie from Cinemascape and having a great laugh,
even if it was at the expense of one of them. The close-knit crew
mourned the loss of one of their own.

"How long did you know Martinez, Captain?"
Sibo asked. He dipped his ration in some hot sauce, the same way
she ate hers.

"At the Academy, believe it or not. I tutored
her through physics." Rashad raised his paper cup and took a long
drink. "And trust me—she was wilder back then than you could ever
imagine. Pictures of her dancing naked in the campus fountain
followed her around for years, and she craved the attention. And if
I hadn't been so in love with Maya, who knows what might've
happened between us."

Dr. Jones glanced over. "Didn't she serve
aboard the flagship for a while?"

The captain nodded. "Almost a year as a
lieutenant-commander, but she never fit in there. Captain Lothian
was looking for any excuse to get rid of her so when I was given
command of the
Kearsarge
, I requested her as my first
officer. Not a day went by when she didn't live up to my
expectations of her."

Sibo set his elbows on the table and propped
his head upon his hands. "I've never understood why Lothian
transferred her. Carmen always worked hard and got along with
everyone. Hell, she was the reason we actually beat the
Schenectady
a few times in breach drills and repelling
boarders."

"Carmen told me that she never saw eye to eye
with Captain Lothian," he said while he picked at his ration.
"She's by-the-book over there. You don't take shortcuts, and you
never question her. And Carmen does that all the time. But she
works as hard as anyone I know, and she made us a better crew."

"Is it true that you dated her for a while?"
Sibo prodded.

"After my wife died, the two of us went out a
few times together. But both of us realized we'd never be anything
more to each other than friends." Rashad could still recall their
date on DeSoto vividly. Two years ago, they'd gone diving off the
San Calisa Reef, but the trip had to be cut short because a tigira
jellyfish stung his foot. It swelled up like a balloon, and he
couldn't walk on it for a week. Carmen brought him back a shirt
that said "I Surivived San Calisa Reef." She really was
irreplaceable.

Dammit, how could I have left her on
Xur
? He berated himself for the umpteenth time. He closed his
eyes for a few moments to regain composure.

None of them had any faith in the AC to
secure the safe release of the hostages. If negotiations were being
conducted behind the scenes, Rashad would have heard something. But
orders fleet-wide had been minimal. Ships had been paired off and
ordered to patrol blocks of AC territory.

The
Kearsarge
and the
Givenchy
patrolled between Station Delta Four and Station Epsilon One. Both
were deep in space, past Epsilon Indi and Meru near Zion. The Eden
colony on Zion didn't allow contact with outsiders, yet from time
to time the AC would ferry supplies and other aid. Because they
shunned space travel and were on the far side of Astra from the
PAU, the surrounding space concealed secret bases and supply depots
for the Allied Fleet.

Rashad didn't know what the government's
intentions were when it came to the Xuranians. The public had been
kept in the dark, even with ANN asking politicians tough questions
and investigating on its own. According to Admiral McKirin, the
fleet patrolled as a precaution, nothing more. The attack happened
fifteen days ago. Humans should've had some idea whether or not the
Xuranians planned to retaliate by now.

Suddenly, the lights in the lounge dimmed.
Above the door, a red neon bar began flashing. The captain's heart
jumped while the crewmen evacuated the room, and he headed to the
control room with Sibo. After seeing first-hand the vessels the
Xuranians had at their disposal, the panic spared no one.

Sibo secured one of the blast doors leading
to the forward compartment after Rashad passed through it. In less
than thirty seconds, he entered the control room. Its soft red glow
made it feel like a darkroom.

His eyes landed on Lieutenant Washington.
"Report."

The dark officer turned toward him. "One
Xuranian warship and at least a dozen of their fighter ships just
entered the Zion system bound for Eden."

The hair stood up on the back of his neck.
"What is the location of the
Givenchy
?"

Washington darted over to his station. "They
had been refueling at Station Delta Four. Just leaving now."

Rashad caught Ensign Vandenburg's arm as he
passed. "Contact the
Givenchy
and let them know the
situation."

"Aye, sir," he said.

"What in the hell do they want with Zion?"
Rashad wondered. The Xuranians had to know they were an independent
colony and certainly played no part in the terrorist activities
they'd been victim to. Perhaps it didn't matter to them.

Eden was the third planet from Zion and the
home to a benevolent colony of Christians. After the Exodus, they
turned their backs on technology and returned to a simpler way of
living. They had no means to defend themselves in the event of an
attack of this magnitude.

"Transmission coming in from Eden,"
Vandenburg said. "It's Speaker-of-the-Court Theresita."

Rashad marched over to him. Theresita was the
only person from Eden whom outsiders ever communicated with in
order to limit contact with their people. For her to seek
assistance this fast, something must be terribly wrong. "Put her
through."

He tapped several keys on the console in
front of him, and a patchy image of her appeared on the screen in
front of them. "To any Allied Fleet ships in the area, the people
of Eden request immediate assistance."

"Speaker Theresita, can you hear me? This is
Commander Mundammi, captain of the
Kearsarge
. We monitored a
number of vessels moving in your direction. Have they made
contact?"

"Yes, they landed a few minutes ago," she
explained. "Robots started herding people into their homes. Not all
of us went peacefully. The creatures attacked us and dragged some
bodies around as a warning to everyone else who might think of
rebelling."

"Try to remain calm," the captain advised.
"Do whatever they ask within reason. They have no reason to harm
you. We'll try to figure out their motives for attacking Eden."

She snapped her head to the left and lowered
her voice. "They're here…what do they want from us? What in God's
name did you do to bring this wrath down upon us?"

Rashad didn't have time to be offended by her
words. A pair of Aikona grabbed her and pulled her screaming away
from her communication console. A Xuranian noticed the active
display and approached it with caution. He scowled at the image of
the AC captain, distorting the delicate scar patterns around his
eyes. "This is Rhiel, High Commander of the battlecruiser
Zen-Zavar
. Identify yourself."

He fought back his trepidation and answered.
"Commander Mundammi of the
Kearsarge
. Why have you invaded
Zion?"

"I have claimed Delta and Gamma Pavonis in
the name of Xur. Make no attempts to contact us further or you will
be destroyed."

The screen went abruptly black. Rashad
swallowed the hard knot of fear in his throat. The war had
begun.

***

Aliane wiped her brow with the back of her
hand while she stood in her kitchen grinding corn with an
archaic-looking machine. Corn was a staple crop on Superbia and one
of the few Earth plants that could survive the harsh conditions.
She could've had lesser telepaths or slaves do the work for her,
but she let no one else touch her food. If she did not know where
something came from, she did not eat it. She'd been tricked in the
past and vowed it would never happen again.

After their colony began, she'd created a
strict code by which all psions lived. They did not eat meat,
though they did utilize a wide range of animal products. The
Zoleki's had broken that rule long ago when they seeded a frigid
lake on the edge of the habitat zone, and it became a thriving
ecosystem in its own right. She'd never stopped people from eating
the fish, but she refused to.

She recalled Magnius confessing their sin to
her when he was seven years old. He met her at the lake while his
parents were asleep, sobbing because he didn't want them to get in
any trouble. She'd held him in her arms for a long time, promising
they wouldn't due to the fact he'd been so honest to her. The
memory quickly overwhelmed her and she furrowed her brow in an
attempt to suppress her tears.

To clear her mind she glanced back at the
flickering news feed on the wall. She fixated on a breaking news
story. The text under the news anchor read "PAU declares war on the
AC."

"…early this morning, General Secretary Oleg
Straikovsky was found murdered in his bedroom along with a second
body burned beyond recognition. Fingerprint identification has
revealed the unidentified male as James Wolfe, an American citizen
with ties to the Centrist movement. Nothing more is known about the
alleged assassin at this time, and a full investigation is ongoing.
As of 0600 common time, Chen Jintao has succeeded Straikovsky as
the new General Secretary. Shortly afterward, the PAU's defense
council voted unanimously to declare war on the AC. It is unclear
at this point how this will affect efforts to drive the Xuranians
out of Zion and restore the peace…"

Aliane's heart swelled with pride at the
anarchy she'd choreographed for Astra. She could hardly believe
things were going right for a change. Valera had outdone
herself.

Zingeri had returned from the stables not
long ago and stood out on the patio taking in what remained of the
hot afternoon. He called out to her with his mind, and she welcomed
a short break from her time-consuming work before preparing supper.
When she opened the patio door, a blast of dry, superheated air
greeted her. Zingeri lied across from her in a hammock, his hairy
chest roasting like a suckling pig across a bed of coals. A pair of
black sunglasses hid his eyes, but when she approached him, she saw
his lips curl into a wicked smile.