Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (176 page)

He pulled her into a hug, gently in case she had been trying to protect him and she in fact was injured. “The least I could do.”

“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

He pulled back and met her gaze. “The
least
I could do.”

“Uncle Caleb?”

He let go of his sister to crouch in front of Marlee. Grime coated her curls and face; she held her right arm awkwardly across her chest and cradled the tattered remains of Mr. Freckles in the other.

“Hey, muffin. I couldn’t wait to see you any longer, so I had to come and dig you out.”

“Are the bad ships still shooting outside?”

“Nope. The bad ships are all gone. So how about let’s get you out of here, okay?” He stood to see one person already climbing out of the hole they’d created. Noah and the teenage boy—he’d never caught a name—reached down to pull them up and out of the path.

He carefully boosted Marlee up into Noah’s arms. She was so brave, swallowing a single whimper on the way up though she had to be in significant pain. He practically shoved Isabela up through the opening next, then stayed behind to assist the rest of the basement refugees—with some urgency as the ceiling increasingly rained down on them. At last he clambered up and out in a cloud of dust.

An additional med kit had been located and was being put to use on cuts and abrasions. A quick diagnostic scan of Marlee’s arm declared it to be a compound fracture. They immobilized it and administered a measured dose of pain meds, but such young, fragile bones needed trained medical attention to ensure they healed properly.

Caleb headed outside to see if any emergency personnel had arrived in the area yet. He saw none and was about to go back inside when Isabela appeared at his side. She pointed to the wreckage of one of the frigates in the distance. Half the ship had landed atop one of the towers on the edge of the city, the other half on the flatland beyond.

“You didn’t…do that, did you?”

He shrugged with proper dramatic flair. “I did say I came to rescue you. They were in my way.”

She stared up at him wearing an amused grin, though he noted the exhaustion weighing down her features. “You really are kind of wonderful.”

He bit his lip to mockingly suppress a smirk and give her the show she deserved. “Maybe a little.” Then his tone grew more serious. “There’s no telling when help is going to start rolling in, and the hospital is probably wrecked, but I think this is the first location they hit. Let me fly you and Marlee over to the next city. They’ll have a functioning hospital and lodging. You’ll be safe there.”

“You’ve convinced me. But fly us there in what?”

“Go get Marlee and the others.”

Her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously as she backed away. “All right.”

Alone for a few precious seconds, he drew in a deep breath. He stood on a ruined street in a ruined city. Destruction stretched for kilometers in every direction, all caused by a single man for whom vengeance had devolved into madness. But no longer. He welcomed the endorphins now coursing through his veins as a just reward for a mission succeeded.

A single purpose had driven him relentlessly forward since leaving Earth; freed of its hold, his thoughts immediately turned to Alex. In truth his thoughts had never left her, but they had of necessity churned silently beneath concerns which he was able to act on and bring to a resolution.

He didn’t dare contact her, fearful the slightest distraction at the wrong moment would endanger her and her own mission. His access to a secure military channel told him the battle had been joined, they hadn’t lost and she wasn’t dead. It would have to be enough for now. Until he could reach her.

When Isabela returned with Marlee, Noah and Harper, he was standing in what looked to be the middle of an empty intersection. He walked to the ship—disappearing briefly, to two gasps—then he and the ship reappeared.

Marlee’s eyes widened to giant bloodshot orbs as she let out a squeal of delight and ran to him. “Is this your ship, Uncle Caleb?”

He again crouched to her level. “Nope. It’s my girlfriend’s ship.”

That drew her enchanted gaze from the ship to him. “You have a
girlfriend
?”

“I do.”

She considered him skeptically. “Is she pretty?”

“She sure is—almost as pretty as you.”

Marlee giggled, covering her mouth with her uninjured hand in temporary embarrassment as she leaned against his shoulder.

He tousled her dust-covered hair playfully. “Do you want to go for a ride in it?”

Her head bobbed up and down. Her discomfort eased by the pain meds and fear eased by the sunlight, her usual effervescence was re-emerging in fits and starts. “Uh-huh.”

He went to the hull and opened the hatch. When the ramp extended, Marlee stared up it uncertainly. Isabela came over, scooped her up in her arms and carried her up the ramp. “Come on, sweetheart. We’ll explore the ship together—and we won’t touch anything.”

He laughed and turned to the others. “Thank you, both of you. I couldn’t have saved them without your help.”

Noah shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I think you’d have found a way.”

“Even so. Listen, I’m going to fly them to a hospital in the neighboring city, then I need to get to Seneca. To the front line.”

“To Alex, you mean.”

“Yeah. Noah, there’s not anywhere for me to drop you on the way, but you’re welcome to come along for the ride.”

“I can, but…does this neighboring city have a spaceport?”

“I assume so.”

“Would it break your heart if I headed back to Earth instead? Kennedy will torture me if I don’t return in one piece, and…actually that might be interesting….” He shook his head to snap out of the reverie. “Anyway, the sooner I return the better it will go for me.”

Caleb frowned. “I hear you. But I’m not confident you’ll be able to get a flight out. Isabela said there were no departures due to the evacuations.”

“Eh, I’m a persuasive guy. I’ll find someone to bribe.”

“Good point. Captain, what about you?”

Harper peered out at the wreckage of downtown with a vexed sigh. “I’d
like
to go to the front line. I can’t believe I’m missing the battle of the millennium thanks to that lunatic. But in truth I can’t do anything useful there at this point. So…I should stay here. I can assist with the rescue efforts and hopefully locate some of the escape pods—no man left behind and all. Then I’ll make their occupants assist with the rescue efforts. If we win at Seneca, eventually someone will show up to clean up this mess.”

“Are you sure? Real aid may be a while in coming.”

“I am. I helped cause this destruction by not acting fast enough. I need to help fix it.”

“Well, in that case.” He offered his hand once more. “I’m very glad to have met you, Captain Harper. Thank you for everything.”

She shook his hand firmly. “Same here, Senecan Federation Intelligence Agent Marano. Good luck to you.”

49

SPACE, NORTH-CENTRAL QUADRANT

S
ENECA
S
TELLAR
S
YSTEM

F
IFTEEN MINUTES AND TWO
twenty-centimeter-thick walls later, Alex crawled through the hole she had carved to step onto the deck of the Metigen superdreadnought.

She took the time to visually canvass her surroundings from every angle, as much in awe as for the other Prevos and the recording her helmet cam was capturing and transmitting to the
Churchill
and EASC.

Devon:  Well this isn’t spooky at all.
       

She acknowledged the comment then filtered the others’ chatter to the background. If they needed her it would bubble up, but she needed to concentrate.

The cavernous open space stretched in both directions until it vanished into darkness. The opposite wall was nearly four hundred meters away and the ceiling equally far above. Her perception had been that the berths for the swarmers were located on the sides of the hull, but she appeared to have entered near the bottom.
This is the only deck on the ship.

My conclusion as well. Weapons and engines will be located beneath us, but I expect everything else—including the engineering core—will be on this level.

Are you sure there
is
an engineering core?
She gestured around to emphasize the point.

Running in parallel rows along the ceiling, floor and wall behind them were hundreds of beams of streaming ivory-white light. They ran in grooves etched into the metal but weren’t encased within any bounding material. And they weren’t simply conduits of signals or power channels, either, for they branched, reconverged and connected to one another in elaborate patterns.

This is the code running the ship. The ship IS the synthetic intelligence.
Fascinating.

A chill radiated along her skin and seeped into her bones. Despite the brightness of the many streams of light rushing past, the deck was so enormous it rapidly darkened to shadow if she veered more than a few meters toward the center.

One could go mad in here in fairly short order. It wasn’t merely the emptiness or the silence—there was nothing
human
about the vessel. Yet this empty, cold, silent place was, at least to some extent, alive. Hell, maybe that’s why she was hearing her father in her head—she already was going mad.

It is alien. We should not expect it to exhibit human or even organic characteristics.

I know, Valkyrie. But Mesme, as alien as it was…we could relate to it. Converse, share ideas and argue. As infuriating as it was, we were able to fathom its nature and it ours.

Mesme’s purpose was to study humans, and if I understand correctly it had been doing so for a lengthy span of time. There’s no reason to believe others of its species would be as comprehensible were you to meet them.

True enough. It’s unnerving, though. Do you sense it? Not unlike Mesme, you now straddle the human and synthetic worlds.

Valkyrie paused before answering—for less than a second, but Alex had become attuned to the accelerated patterns of the Artificial’s thoughts.
I think had I come here prior to linking with you, I would feel a degree of kinship to the environment. Now, however, I see it through your eyes.

Literally.

Yes, Alex. Literally.

The deadpan tone was unmistakable, and she laughed. The very human act in this very inhuman place served to ease the tension a little.

Focus, Valkyrie. We’re not here for you to dissect and study the ship. We can do that after we win.

Of course. I still believe there will be a central systems hub to coordinate instructions.

She glanced to her right. They had entered the ship about a third of the way from the ‘front,’ such as it was.
This way?

No. I believe it will be in the center.

Why?

The ship has no need for a cockpit or a viewport to see out, for it sees via each component of its body. Given the hub will be controlling and directing all aspects of the body, it is rational to assume the hub will be at the precise center for maximum efficiency.

This is both logical and disturbing.
She turned to her left and started traversing the deck. It was a challenging trek with the gravity boots always tugging downward to keep her attached to the floor.

A deep, heavily accented voice flitted in her mind.
A ship without a viewport? Waste of a perfectly good engine.

I know, rig—
She halted mid-step.
Valkyrie, did you say that?

I find I’m not certain. I must have.

Alex planted the other foot on the floor and her hands on her hips.
Cut the crap, Valkyrie. What have you done?

This pause lasted 310 quintillion cycles, or approximately a third of a second.
Perhaps some explanation is in order.

You think?

Morgan is the only Prevo with military training. Seeing as our task is a military engagement, we felt it would be beneficial if we were able to boost the military ‘instincts’, let us say, of yourself as well as Devon and Mia.

Who’s ‘we’?

Annie, Stanley, Meno and I.

You’re talking to each other behind our backs?

Alex, we are communicating multiple exabytes of data every minute ‘behind your backs.’ Respectfully, the amount of information we are sharing is beyond your comprehension.

Her shoulders notched downward.
Fine. Please tell me what you did and why it has resulted in a voice which bears a striking resemblance to my father being in my fucking head!

Twenty-eight years ago, when Abigail ran the Council on Biosynthetics Ethics and Policy, she began an initiative to acquire neural imprints from military officers carrying the rank of Commander and above. The idea was to create a storehouse of military knowledge beyond data and historical records. She and others anticipated a day would come when this collective wisdom would be accessible to strategists and Artificials alike.

“Alex, why have you stopped? What’s your plan?”

She jumped, startled at the audible sound of her mother’s voice ringing in her helmet. “We think the engineering or systems hub is this way, in the center of the ship.”

“Not the front?”

“Not the front. It’s an AI thing. I’m moving that way now.”
I’m going to keep walking. You keep talking.

The initiative was shelved soon after Abigail left the Alliance, and nothing came of it. But the repository remained, and Annie has access to the files. We queried the repository, hoping to find brain wave patterns complimentary to those of one or all of you. These could be integrated into our processes, thereby increasing the Prevos’ military expertise. But our success was marginal. An amalgamation of 3-5 imprints were added to Annie and Meno. You were the only one for whom we located a near-perfect match.