Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (165 page)

He hadn’t appreciated some of it until he’d said it, but she honestly was all those things.

She was also going to be outrageously pissed at him. He’d run off without saying a proper goodbye, because he hadn’t intended to say a goodbye at all. He’d intended to bail. When he got back to Earth he would have to make it up to her, somehow…but it was cool. He’d figure something out.

“I’m hanging on for dear life, man.”

Caleb smiled, but it had a decidedly wistful tinge to it; Noah assumed he was thinking of Alex. “Sounds like precisely what you need. Merely full disclosure for you—after I encouraged you to stick with her of course—but Alex says she has a colorful and…varied relationship history.”

“Are you calling my girlfriend a slut?”

“Noooo.”

Noah laughed heartily. “It’s all right. I know, and it’s been awesome—finally have someone I don’t have to corrupt. In fact, it’s possible she’s corrupting me.”

37

EARTH

EASC
H
EADQUARTERS

T
HEY STOOD FACING ONE ANOTHER
in a circle in the sim room deep in the Special Projects building. The walls, ceiling and floor were an austere translucent white, lit from within by a blanched luminescence.

Alex had never met Morgan Lekkas and had spent less than ten minutes with Devon Reynolds. Mia Requelme seemed a lifelong friend by comparison.

Yet here, now, it hardly mattered.

Mia’s face screwed up as she gingerly rubbed her forehead. “So that was a bit of a bumpy transition. Anyone else?”

“Annie decided to relive the time when I was seven and busted my ass on the ice—broke my nose on the rebound—while trying to ask Katie Ackon to skate with me. I did not want that memory back.”

“I passed out in the middle of the surgery room floor.”

Alex regarded Lekkas curiously. “What happened?”

I’m sorry if I caused you distress on our linking, Alex. The process was not devoid of discomfort for myself either.

I know, Valkyrie. You were wonderful.

The woman wore a disdainful expression which appeared more real than contrived. “Turns out Stanley didn’t mesh too well with one of my personal cybernetic upgrades—one of my unregistered, gray-market upgrades that is. We got it worked out.”

“Stanley? I thought the Artificial’s official government-sanctioned name was STAN?”

“Well, I’m calling him Stanley. He is coming to terms with the idea.” A pause. “Yes, you are.” Another pause. “I don’t care.” Abruptly realizing what she was doing, Morgan grimaced. “Sorry. Not quite there yet.”

The interchange served to humanize the off-putting fighter pilot somewhat, and Alex relaxed.

Commander Lekkas’ military service record is uncommonly impressive, from a combat point of view.

Do you want me to
not
relax, then?

Not at all. I was simply commenting.

Devon chuckled awkwardly and surveyed the circle. “Here we stand, the next evolution of the human species. What are we going to call ourselves?”

“‘Prevos.’”

Any confusion in his eyes passed in an instant, as she presumed Annie analyzed the term and inferred an appropriate translation. “
Prevoskhodnyy
: ‘The Transcended.’ It might come off as a tad conceited.”

“No one will figure it out. Besides, you said it yourself: we’re the next evolution of humanity.”

“Yes I did. Let’s make it count, shall we?”

The area surrounding them—the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the air filling the room—exploded to life with an overlay of their sector of the Milky Way: every inhabited planet, star system, space station, astronomical phenomena and, most importantly, every ship. Not only every known superdreadnought and markers for anticipated ones, but every single space-worthy vessel in the Alliance and Federation militaries. From the ten dreadnoughts to the nearly 3,000 warships and 30,000 fighters to every supply ship and shuttle, each one could be individually identified if they drilled down far enough.

All civilian ships available for use were on the map as well, including thousands of corporate vessels and hundreds of mercenary ships on loan from the Zelones and Triene cartels.

The floor had dissolved beneath them, leaving them standing in nothingness. This at least, she had done before.

Is this what it’s like to be in space?

Not exactly. Close, though.

Devon reached out and spun the galaxy until Earth floated at the center of their circle. “As the grand overlords of this operation, Annie and I will manage the entirety of both battlefields from a comfy chair here at EASC. To start, I’m deviating these two Alliance supply lines from Shi Shen…” his fingers pinched two emerald grooves and swept them upward “…over to Romane, because they don’t have the military infrastructure Seneca does. And…they’re on their way.”

He made a snickering noise. “Nifty. Now I’m sending the order to get the merc ships moving northeast. They won’t all show up and we need to know how many we actually have at our disposal before the fighting commences.”

He blew out a breath out through puckered lips. “So, yeah. Working with this kind of comprehensive perspective, I’ll be able to identify when lines begin to weaken and try to send reinforcements and other cool shit. Also, if we lose, I’ll be the last of us to die.”

Mia snorted. “Lucky you. My status is still ‘being determined,’ seeing as the military didn’t want me involved at all. But Governor Ledesme authorized my participation. She owes me one and hopefully trusts me, so one way or another I plan to be on or above Romane trying to help save it in whatever way I can.”

Alex stole control of the map and re-centered it on Seneca. “Whereas I will be on the dreadnought
EAS Churchill
, at the head of the Alliance and Federation fleets. I’ll send what I see to Devon, but mostly I will try to outmaneuver and out-think the alien armada while it tries to blow me—and our ships—to dust.” She looked to her left. “And Morgan, you are going to fly some fighters for me, aren’t you?”

“You bet your ass I am.
All
the fighters—or as many as they can wire up before I get there, anyway. I’m getting chills just picturing it.”

“Again, comfy chair.” Devon pulled the military fleets a layer above the map. “Alliance frigates are tougher than Federation ones but less maneuverable. Alex, plan on treating the Alliance frigates as tanks and use the others as fast-attack hit-and-run craft.”

“Noted. The weaponry on Federation cruisers is brutal, and they’ve been tearing up the SDs so—”

“SDs?”

Alex frowned; she had assumed it was self-evident. “Superdreadnoughts. Even thinking at quantum speed, we won’t have time to pronounce seventeen letters every other sentence.”

Devon gave an odd roll of his shoulders. A tic? An off-kilter shrug? “Good point. I’ll spread the word. So this is great planning and all, but it will be of limited usefulness unless we can talk to each other without having to work at it. My understanding is the brass has allowed us a secure channel. Shall we try it out?”

The voices transitioned to her head.

Devon:  Communications established.

Alex:  Zero latency here.

Mia:  Got you all.

Morgan:  No problems on this end.

Devon:  This is not bad, but is there anything stopping us from opening the channel up a little more?

Alex:  Doesn’t appear to be.

Devon:  Watch this.

It wasn’t as if there were now three additional Artificials in her head, or three more people. They remained separate at a level above the paper-thin separation between her and Valkyrie. Devon had not created a hive mind with his adjustment to the channel. But he may have created the closest thing to it.

A thought that never formed into intentionality and Valkyrie knew what the other Artificials knew—and thus so did she. A lot of the information overlapped, but those redundancies were promptly eliminated.

It was surprising how the distinct personalities were immediately discernible. Annie, the serious, studious purveyor of massive banks of knowledge and displaying the beginnings of a dry wit. Stanley, the newborn, questioning and devouring each new data point yet struggling to understand the riddle which was human behavior. Meno, the scrappy, inquisitive upstart. Next to them it quickly became apparent Valkyrie was the dreamer of the crowd, the lover of life.

Stanley:  Annie, can you ditch some of this bureaucratic bloat? I’m swimming in protocols.

Meno:  Expressionistic art is not angry—it merely reflected the reality of the world as the artists saw it.

While more distant, the enhanced connections conveyed a sense of the human counterparts to the Artificials as well. Snippets of thoughts, memories and images leaked from the others into her consciousness in disjointed flashes: Devon tripping and spilling his drink all over a pretty girl he was trying to impress—it must be a theme—Morgan in the cockpit of a fighter spinning through the burning wreckage of a far larger ship, Mia—

Valkyrie, shut them out. Now.

Done. Are you in distress, Alex? Secretion of several groupings of neurotransmitters and hormones spiked in conjunction with receipt of the last image.

I’m sure they did.
Her stomach churned into queasiness even as her mind insisted it constituted an irrationally extreme reaction. She was being silly and petty, but she did not want to have seen that. And now she couldn’t unsee it.
I don’t suppose there’s any way you can erase that visual from my memory?

I can.

Really? I was joking.

It is more accurate to say I can prevent it from becoming encoded in your long-term memory. You will remember it for the next seventeen seconds, but no longer. Shall I do this for you?

She’d ponder the philosophical implications of Valkyrie altering her memory later; right now she simply wanted it gone.
Yes, please.

Do you wish me to erase the memory of having seen the image or only the image itself?

Um…the image should be enough. I mean I already knew they had slept together, so it’s not new information.

Apologies. The image and the event share several synapses. I cannot remove one without removing the other.

Okay. Like I said, it’s not new information either way.

I will handle it.

Thank you. You can reopen the connection now.

She braced herself for the flood and hoped it would wash away the visual until Valkyrie was able to do so permanently.

Mia:  Everything all right, Alex? Missed you there for a few seconds.

She forced a taut, close-mouthed smile.
Just a technical glitch. Valkyrie and I may have gone first, but we’re still working out a few bugs.

“Well, glad you’re back, because we have uncovered a problem.” Devon’s voice rang out sharp and strained to bounce across the walls they no longer saw. He had reverted to speaking aloud, perhaps on instinct, though the words also echoed in her head with a flanging resonance.

What was a problem? What had she missed in her brief absence?

…Oh. In a blink the threads affected by this morsel of intel spread out in tendrils to reveal cascading and troubling ramifications.

“Dammit. We’re going to need to deal with this.”

Annie:  Extrapolating and cross-referencing against existing data now available to us. We will begin tracking down additional participants.

Alex dragged a hand along her jaw. “Let them work on this in the background—they have the cycles to spare. Devon, you and I will go see Richard as soon as we’re done here. For now let’s focus on the primary purpose for this meeting: combat strategy and tactics.”

Done.

What’s done, Valkyrie?

Nothing, Alex. Never mind.

Devon thought rather than spoke his agreement as they continued to adapt in stutter-steps to the heightened interconnectivity.

Mia:  The Federation is experimenting with remote eVi hacking? In the wrong hands that will be problematic.

Devon:  In the right hands it’s problematic.

Alex:  I won’t tell if you won’t.

Devon:  Abigail and Jules were once…close? Involved? Valkyrie, you can drop the euphemisms in here.

Alex:  I won’t tell if you won’t?

Devon cringed visibly. “Okay, on the subject of not telling, let’s not mention this little added capability to anyone either? They might take away our toys if they discovered the full extent of what we can do.”

Mia tilted her head. “And what is it you believe we can do?”

A wicked grin grew on Alex’s lips as she gazed around at her new friends.

“Anything.”

38

EARTH

EASC
H
EADQUARTERS

A
LEX WAS WAYLAID BY
M
IRIAM
in the hallway as she was heading back up to the top floor. Thankfully she was far enough away from Richard’s office that her mother wouldn’t realize where she had been and ask questions she dare not answer.

She plastered on an innocent expression and leaned against the wall. “I was just coming to see you. What’s the plan?”

“Your ship arrives in twenty minutes, so it’s time to grab your bag and Commander Lekkas and head to the spaceport.”

“And what ship is this?”

“The newest and fastest scout ship in the Sol Fleet as a matter of fact. It’s also been equipped with the cloaking shield, so you’ll be safe in transit.”

Alex rolled her eyes to overstated effect. “The fastest, huh? So I’ll reach Seneca next week sometime?”