gaian consortium 06 - zhore deception (35 page)
Read gaian consortium 06 - zhore deception Online
Authors: christine pope
When Alexa spoke, her tone was cool, matter-of-fact. And damning. “But our stories are not the only ones that need to be heard. For decades…centuries, really…the Consortium has been involved in the very worst sorts of activities — extortion, illegal research, kidnapping, false imprisonment, intimidation on every level. Some of these activities began to come to light with the scandal in the Hunan Province last year, but that, I assure you, was only the tip of a very large iceberg.”
Gabriel couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Oh, sure, he knew the Consortium’s hands were dirty, and didn’t much care. Business was business. But how the hell was this signal not being jammed at the source?
He shot a sharp glance over at Eli, who had rocked back on his heels and had his hands jammed in his pockets. “They’re going to cut this off at any second.”
“I don’t think so,” Eli replied, sounding way too cheerful. He was the type who couldn’t resist a bit of
schadenfreude
— even if said delight in the misery of others involved the possible downfall of the very government that employed him. “It’s coming in on all channels. It’s flickered once or twice, like they’re trying to kill it, but whoever’s pushing the transmission through obviously has a lock on the entire communications network.”
Which meant they were good.
Really
good. The smallest tendril of worry began to worm its way down Gabriel’s spine. He’d always thought of the Consortium’s citizens as sheep, stupid, easily led, and ready to be exploited, but if someone slapped them in the face hard enough and woke them up….
“But you don’t have to take my word for it,” Alexa went on. “Accompanying this signal is a data feed with information on the murders they’ve covered up, the treaties they’ve reneged on, the people they’ve sent to rot in prison for no crime other than trying to expose the Consortium’s own criminal activities. We urge all of you to analyze this evidence and see for yourselves, then make your own decisions. The power lies in your hands, for this government — in word, at least, if not practice — is a democracy. You can change it. If enough of you will this change into being, then it can exist.” She stopped then, gray-blue eyes seeming to bore into the camera, and said simply, “Don’t let the Consortium make you its slaves any longer.”
She stepped back. After panning across the faces of those in its field of vision, human and alien, but all determined, all willing to put their privacy on the line to show that a fundamental shift had just occurred, even if most of the galaxy hadn’t realized it yet, the screen went dark, except for one word written in Galactic Standard.
Change
.
For a few seconds, neither Eli nor Gabriel said anything. Gabriel’s mind was racing. Then he said harshly, “Was she telling the truth about that feed, or was that just a line of bullshit?”
“I don’t — ” Eli blinked and looked down at his handheld, then swiped his finger across it. “Holy shit.”
Gabriel didn’t bother to ask what he was seeing. Instead, he pulled his own handheld out of his breast pocket. The alert on the home screen was flashing, indicating that he had a new message.
How someone had managed to send a simultaneous transmission to every device in Consortium space capable of receiving it, he had no idea. Not the Zhore. The Eridanis? Maybe. They’d always been in bed with the scaly freaks.
With a shaking finger, he swiped across the screen, downloading the message. Almost at once a parade of images began to flow across his handheld. Worlds he’d never seen. Faces he didn’t recognize. Bodies being processed in a facility that he guessed was in Hunan Province. Documents and contracts and treaties and lord knows what else. All of it there, just ready to be dissected for the damning evidence it contained.
He looked up from the handheld’s screen to see Eli staring at him, the first traces of fear obvious in his pinched face. “What does it mean?” he asked at last.
“The end,” Gabriel said heavily. Maybe it wouldn’t happen today, or next week, or even in the next month. But the change Alexa Kreg and her compatriots had called for was coming, sweeping in with the inexorable power of the tide.
And Gabriel knew that he, and many others like him, would probably drown in that tide.
The End
The Gaian Consortium series will be going on hiatus for a while. At the moment, I don’t have any plans for future books in this series, but I’ve learned to never say never. I do want to say thank you to all my readers for spending time in the Consortium universe with me!
However, look for a new series of space opera romances from me, coming in 2016. You can sign up
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ALSO BY CHRISTINE POPE
THE WITCHES OF CLEOPATRA HILL
(Paranormal Romance)
THE DJINN WARS
(Paranormal Romance)
THE SEDONA FILES
(Paranormal Romance)
The first three books of this series are also available in an
omnibus edition
at a special low price!
TALES OF THE LATTER KINGDOMS
(Fantasy Romance)
THE GAIAN CONSORTIUM SERIES
(Science Fiction Romance)
The Zhore Deception
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christine Pope has been writing stories ever since she commandeered her family’s Smith-Corona typewriter back in the sixth grade. Her work includes paranormal romance, fantasy romance, and science fiction/space opera romance. She fell in love with Sedona, Arizona, while researching the Sedona Files series and now makes her home there, surrounded by the red rocks. No alien sightings, though...not yet, anyway!
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