Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (84 page)

It tumbled end over end for thirty meters—then vanished.

He discerned no flicker as one would see with a human-created force field and no detectable boomerang. The device was simply gone. He imagined it now lay on the grass several hundred kilometers behind him.

So the barrier was triggered by technology, which explained why both the dragon and the muffin could pass through but the ship and the oscilloscope could not. Still, he had a sneaking suspicion it was more complicated. Time to find out.

The next item he had brought was a serrated knife from the kitchen. Having a better idea of the demarcation line now, he stepped closer and sent the knife through the air. It spun forward to land short of the muffin but well beyond the point where the oscilloscope had vanished.

Artificially-created materials were allowed. Only tech was taboo.

He removed his kinetic blade from the latch on his pants. The hilt was cool in his hands, the blade inactive. He hesitated this time. There was no backup for the blade; if it got rejected he didn’t have another. But this was the sole safe way to discover the triggering parameters.

He heaved the hilt through the air…relief coursed through him as it settled to the ground not terribly far from the muffin.

Thank god.
If inactive technology was a no-go he’d have been utterly screwed.

He hastened back to the ship, where he stuffed a pack with food, supplies and a change of clothes for himself
and
her. He figured he’d need the supplies no matter what happened next. His gaze roved deliberately around the ship. He chose a few more items and headed out.

Once outside he closed his eyes. First, he sent a final pulse to her. As had been the result for the last hour, there was simply no response. It didn’t bounce back, but that could be because the exanet infrastructure didn’t reach through the portal. They’d had no reason to pulse one another since coming through it, so he had no way to know whether such communication was possible.

So be it.

He took a deep breath and did something he’d done only twice before in his life. He instructed his eVi to deactivate all active cybernetic routines then shut itself down. Doing so wasn’t a trivial matter, and reactivating everything would entail using an external unit to interface with the tiny fibers at the base of his neck which connected to his cybernetics. But it was necessary.

The
silence
in his head echoed eerily, unnerving him more than he expected. He didn’t feel weaker, because he wasn’t—not right now. His biosynthetic enhancements still functioned, and he still benefited from a genetically-modified muscular structure.

But should he face a crisis, he wouldn’t be able to rely upon nanobots to accelerate his adrenaline or hone his focus. Should he become injured he wouldn’t be able to rely upon directed cybernetic routines to limit the damage and speed healing. His ocular implant now sat dormant, leaving him nothing but natural eyesight to guide his way. The exanet and communications had been gone since they entered Metis, but now he didn’t even have access to his internal data store.

He rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms and walked forward.

The rather drastic action had better be enough. If the barrier booted him all the way to the grasslands he would be days getting back here. Alex might not have days.

She might not have hours
, he tried very hard not to think.

He also realized the action might not have been essential. After all, Alex had passed through, and he highly doubted she had deactivated her cybernetics before doing so. Their eVis and cybernetics were fully contained within their bodies, so they might not trigger the repulsion mechanism.

But it was also possible she was allowed through because she hung in the dragon’s grasp or…perhaps an exception had been made. Regardless, he didn’t dare risk it.

His heart thudded against his breastbone with every step; it turned out adrenaline functioned surprisingly well absent nanobot assistance. He remained skeptical he’d successfully passed through the barrier until he crouched to retrieve the muffin, now coated in a thin layer of dirt.

One more test passed. A significant one.

He scanned the area until he spotted the hilt of his blade and retrieved it as well. He flipped the hilt over and tapped the toggle to activate it—

—and watched it vanish from his hand.
Shit.

It wasn’t a barrier. It was a technology-free zone. Terrific.

He cursed at the bright sunless sky and returned to the ship. He was going to need a weapon, as he suspected punching the dragon into submission using his fists did not constitute a viable plan.

Once inside he tossed the pack on the couch and went downstairs to the engineering well, in no way whatsoever stopping to gaze in despair or anguish at the empty bed and the rush of memories the room evoked. He located a metamat blade and torch and went to work.

She was going to be pissed as all hell when she found out he’d mutilated her ship—on top of being pissed as all hell when she found out he’d hijacked control of her ship without her consent—but it was necessary. He required a weapon, and a non-technological one at that.

He sheared a long metal strip off one of the panels protecting the engineering core. It didn’t represent a crucial segment; the fifteen-centimeter-wide gap didn’t threaten the safe operation of the ship.

It took more than an hour to sculpt the strip of platinum nanoalloy into a blade just shy of a meter long. He felt every second tick by in his soul but forced himself to take the time to do it right. Finally satisfied with the blade, he crafted a thicker piece for a hilt and used the torch to meld it onto the blade and coax it into a form compatible with his hand.

Next came a grip to keep the weapon from slipping in his palm. Was there anything approaching leather on the ship? His mind drifted to the cushioning on the oversized chair in the bedroom.

He groaned as he ascended the ladder from the engineering well…she was definitely going to kill him. Still, he chose the least conspicuous spot possible to carve a swatch from. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.
What are the odds?

Finally he sliced up the physical harness from the jump seat and fashioned a strap and minimal sheath. He slung the sheathed blade over his back, positioned the strap to rest diagonally across his chest and tested the rig out. A rough solution, but it would have to suffice.

He didn’t waste any time on the way out this trip. Grabbing a water and the pack on the way through the cabin, he powered down the ship and left it behind.

He had a mountain to climb.

12

SENECA

C
AVARE,
I
NTELLIGENCE
D
IVISION
H
EADQUARTERS

G
RAHAM FILLED THE THERMOS
with coffee, took a long sip and filled it again. Sleep had been a stingy, fickle mistress the night before.

He waved a silent greeting at an agent who made her way into the kitchen, grabbed a second, smaller coffee and headed down the hallway. If he swung by his office distractions were guaranteed to claim his morning so he had gone straight to the interrogation level. He wiped stray drops of coffee from his mouth as he stepped inside the room.

Isabela Marano looked better than he felt, though shadows had formed beneath her eyes. He’d made sure she was provided with a bed for the night—they had small rooms one floor below which doubled as cells—and access to a shower and a change of clothes. She had presumably taken advantage of all three prior to being returned to the interrogation room this morning.

He slid the second coffee in her direction. “I’d say good morning, but I won’t insult you by suggesting you view it as one. I am sorry I had to leave so abruptly last night.”

Her attention wavered from him to the cup on the table; she drew it closer but didn’t take a sip. “How much longer are we going to do this? My daughter is back on Krysk. She’s staying with a friend for now, but I was supposed to return last night. She’s only four years old, Director. I
need
to get home to her.”

“I understand. Believe me, I do.”

“But.”

“But it’s important you remain here for a while longer.”

“
Why
?”

“A fair question—and a complicated one.”

Her eyes narrowed at him, intense and calculating. “Before you left, you were about to tell me whether you thought Caleb was guilty. Do you?”

He didn’t answer immediately, instead producing a small device from his pocket. He placed it on the table and activated the surveillance shield. She glanced at the device but didn’t remark on it.

“No, I’m convinced he is not. Proving it is another matter and unfortunately, more difficult than it might seem.”

“Well try.”

“Oh, I intend to. But first, we should talk about something else. Yesterday, you asked me if we had brought your father in for questioning.”

“You said no. I’m a little confused as to why you wouldn’t, given your dragnet approach.”

He ran a hand through his hair, stalling for one final minute. He was the bloody Director of Intelligence; if he didn’t have the authority to make a tactical decision to reveal a state secret, no one did.

“We didn’t question your father, Ms. Marano, because your father is dead…and has been for over twenty years.”

Her shoulders jerked as if she had been punched in the chest. “That’s impossible. We would have been notified.”

“Under normal circumstances, you are correct.”

“No. See, he continues to send support payments to my mother. Like clockwork every forty days for the last twenty years—at least he has the decency to meet one obligation. So you must be mistaken.”

“Would that I were. Those payments have come from my office.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No reason you should. What I’m going to tell you is highly classified and cannot leave this room. Will you agree to keep this confidence?”

Her carriage stiffened into a defensive posture, armoring her against whatever came next. She nodded.

“Stefan Marano did not work for the Civil Development Agency. He did not work as a civil engineer, though he did receive a degree in it. In actuality he was an investigator for the Division of Intelligence. He wasn’t a field agent, but for various reasons he did need to keep his duties secret.”

“You’re joking. Why would you joke about something like this?”

“I assure you, I am not joking. I should know, because he worked for me…and I considered him a friend.”

Her voice sounded flat, though her eyes were not. “What happened?”

“In 2301, shortly after the armistice ended the First Crux War, your father was investigating a plot to destabilize the new Senecan Federation government, possibly via multiple assassinations or terrorist attacks. Those orchestrating the plot proved maddeningly difficult to uncover, but your father got close—too close. The leaders of this insurrection were powerful men and women, the type of people one does not trifle with. They found out he was onto them before his investigation was complete.”

He paused to take another sip of coffee, and to make sure he phrased the next part correctly. “They threatened his family—you, your brother, your mother. They promised to hurt those he cared about if he continued this pursuit. We…discussed his options. You see, your father was an honorable man. He couldn’t in good conscience sit by and let terrorists destroy his government. But he also couldn’t bear the idea of anyone hurting his family.

“So he made a play. He very publicly walked out on you, hoping if you were no longer a part of his life, this group would realize they had nothing to gain by harming his family. He expected for it to be temporary, a month or two at most. Once the investigation was finished and we had the evidence we required and the plotters in custody, he planned to come home.

“I believe he intended to explain everything, as he realized it was likely the sole chance he possessed for your mother to accept him back.”

Isabela’s hands were knotted together in a clenched fist on the table. Graham reached out to clasp them in a gesture of sympathy. His large, ungainly hand enveloped both of hers completely. “Know that he loved all of you so much, and it tormented him each day he remained parted from you. He despised being forced to hurt you.”

She stared at him, and he noted the armor beginning to falter. Confusion, disbelief and the edges of pain flashed across her eyes.

He continued. “Do you remember the Serich Fabrications accident in 2301? Probably not, you would have been fairly young.”

“I…we talked about it in school, I think.”

“Well, it wasn’t an industrial accident. One of the leaders of the insurgent group owned Serich, and they used the plant as a base of operations. Your father had been working day and night to expose them. He caught a break when he learned the specific time for a scheduled meeting at the plant. The entire leadership together in one place represented too exceptional an opportunity to pass up, and he put together a team to bring them all in. Tragically, the mission went to hell.

“As near as we were able to determine, the plotters were heavily armed and had brought hired protection. A firefight broke out. The location was an operating industrial plant, and several large canisters of a pyrophoric chemical got caught in the crossfire. The canisters exploded, destroying the plant and killing everyone inside: eleven plotters, six mercenaries and eight agents, including your father.

“He shouldn’t have gone inside—as I said, he wasn’t a field agent. But he refused to let others take responsibility for his case. He needed to see it through.”

She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand, but strengthened her posture. “Why didn’t you tell us at the time? The threat had ended, and he was gone. People don’t die and no one find out about it. Why cover it up?”