Warpath (11 page)

“The Victory Machine had something
to say about us getting too close too soon, and it used this image of
Minh to get that across. I asked the Victory Machine why he looked
older in the future it presented, and it wouldn’t tell me. Anyway,
this is where the Victory Machine told me to step away from you,”
Ayan said, moving away from the image a little, but still standing
off to the side. Jake sat down and watched as a much older Minh-Chu
spoke to a hologram of Ayan.

"Make
sure Jake doesn't get any bright ideas about direct revenge on the
higher ups. There's no end to the anger he has for the Order of Eden
and their leaders. From what the Machine can see, there's nothing
wrong with him going after them indirectly. On the other hand, if he
ever stands in front of Hampon, the Child Prophet, or Eve, Jake could
literally become a different person. I can’t tell you what will
happen to him because the Victory Machine can’t calculate it, and
that’s rare. This thing can calculate sky luge tournament standings
eight years in advance and be ninety eight point six percent correct,
so when it can’t see the possible outcomes of something, it’s a
big deal. Worst case scenario: Jake kills Eve, or Hampon and
humanity’s chances of surviving the next century go down the
crapper. Best case scenario: Jacob Valent is transformed by the
experience, and his path changes drastically. Somewhere in between is
just as likely, but do you really want to take the chance?”

“
No,
definitely not,” Ayan replied.

“
Neither
would I. There’s another thing. You have to send him on his way and
put as much distance between you and him as you can for the next few
days at least. It’s the only way to make sure he’s not in the
wrong place at the wrong time. If you two get back together - and the
chances are likely, trust me – he’ll be burdened by guilt. He’ll
focus on taking revenge on Wheeler, Thurge, and everyone else who was
involved in that android that looked like him. You’ll have trouble
with him too, the memory of being assaulted by something that looked
so much like him is still fresh, it’s too soon.”

“
I
know the difference, it was obvious,” Ayan protested.

“
The
subconscious is like Supersticky, things stick to it until you break
out the brand-name solvent, which is always sold separately, damn
those corporate geniuses. You’ll process your encounter with
Android Jacob, but it’ll take some time away from the real Jacob.
What’s more important to consider is how being with Jake will
affect his thinking. He’ll be focusing on you when he should be
coordinating with a team. If he doesn’t link up with a dependable
crew and focus on being part of a competent group, if he’s focused
on you instead, his future gets real dark. You’ll have to take care
of him, and that’ll darken your world too. You leave him, and he
finds a good crowd. Well, good by his standards, anyway."
Minh-Chu began playing the Hall Of The Mountain King as he continued.

“
We’re
just about to find our way back to each other,” Ayan said. “I can
send him away for a few days, I don’t have to leave him.”

“
If
he sees you as his damsel if you’re in trouble, it will distract
him from a whole chain of events he has to forge. Sometimes the
military policy of non-fraternization is the right one. Someone once
said; if you truly love someone, you must set them free. If it’s
meant to be, they’ll return. Trust. Just trust.”

“
How
long?” Ayan asked. “How long do I have to stay away?”

“
Oh,
don’t worry about that,” Minh-Chu said. “Here’s a real
spoiler for you: you need time away too. You’re changing so fast
that you need to have a few new experiences. You’ll be a different
woman from week to week for a while, and when you come though, you’re
going to be just amazing. If you get tied down to Jake it’ll be
like turning the reverse thrusters up to full, and that won’t do
you any good. This breakup is a good thing, it feels like crap now,
but you’ll see. Go it without him awhile, you’ll thank me. Well,
you won’t be able to find me to thank me, but you get the point.”

“
I’ll try,” Ayan said.
“I’ll break it off with him and test your theory.”

The image faded and
Ayan walked back to the middle of the timeline before Jake could say
anything. He didn’t know what to say anyway. The Victory Machine
wasn’t right and it wasn’t entirely wrong, as far as he was
concerned. The breakup with Ayan did make it easier to stay away, to
pursue intelligence that aided the Warlord in its mission, that was
beneficial to both the British Alliance and Triton Fleet.

He pursued his missions
without restraint, and finally arrived at a point where he was ruled
by rage, where he became a murderer. Murder for a cause was still
murder, even though the act caused a dip in Order of Eden recruitment
that measured in tens of thousands in that sector alone. It wasn’t
enough to justify murder.

None of what he’d
seen sat right. It still felt like the Victory Machine had a very
easy time convincing Ayan to leave him, and, even though he knew it
was an irrational reaction, that’s still what he thought about
most.

“Before you say
anything, I need to show you something else,” Ayan said. “The
Victory Machine left me with a vision of children in a more distant,
calculated future.”

Ayan was about to touch
a hollow dot to the far right of the timeline, but Jake blurted;
“stop!” before she could, nearly falling out of his seat. “I
don’t want to see that part of the future.”

Ayan turned and crossed
the room to him, kneeling down, taking his hand in hers. “I have to
share some of it, because it’s what made leaving you possible. If
the Victory Machine didn’t show me a future with two children, one
from you, and one from someone else, both of them beautiful, then I
would have never been able to leave. It left me with the distinct
impression that I still loved you, that we would be together in the
future, but that I’d had a daughter somewhere in that time with
someone else, but we came back together even after that. Leaving you
was so hard, I was crushed, but knowing that we could still have a
future made it possible. Now I want to begin that future, there’s
nothing in the way, and there’s even evidence that the Victory
Machine was wrong about some things, big things.”

Jake looked to the
timeline, then back to Ayan’s sorrow struck face. She was
impossible to say no to. It seemed that she had suffered more while
they were apart than he had, even though he knew that she would have
kept him calmer, he would have never murdered a bridge officer aboard
the Order of Eden destroyer if she had stayed with him. She would
have stood in his way. Then again, he already felt like the person he
was before Doctor Messana saved him was entirely different, so he
couldn’t be sure. Looking down at her, into that heart shaped face
that was more beautiful to him than any belonging to a digital model,
or anyone he’d met, he realized that she was begging him.

This woman who had gone
through so many trials with grace, accomplished things that he didn’t
even know how to start, could navigate government despite her own
opinion of being a failure, was begging him to take her back. The
woman who would feed the world orbited if it were a question of
kindness instead of supply, and was more intelligent than he would
ever be overall was waiting on his answer. Somehow the idea that she
partially broke it off at the promise of children and a future where
they were back together made it a little better, even though
jealously at her past relationship with Liam still nagged him, but
much less so than before.

There was only one
other thing that argued against him taking her back unconditionally,
and he voiced it. “I don’t deserve you,” Jake said as he
reached down and tried to pull her up. He lost his balance and
slipped out of his seat instead.

He’d had worse falls,
and he’d managed to avoid falling on top of her, so he just
remained flat on the deck. She joined him, rolling on top of him. “We
can just stay down here awhile,” she said. Her face was so close to
his, with the merest motion he’d have his lips on hers. “What
were you saying?”

.”I don’t deserve
you,” Jake repeated. “I’m a murderer, if there were still
Galactic Courts, they’d have me in front of a local tribunal, and
I’d deserve whatever sentence they passed down for murder.”

“It’s war, and if
anything my experience in this life has taught me, it’s that we
can’t take responsibility for what our past incarnations have
done.”

“Just because part of
my mind was rebuilt and rewritten doesn’t mean I’m not the same
person. I have the same memories, I love the same people,” Jake
said, and was stopped by Ayan’s smile.

“You’re not the
same,” she whispered. “All the time I’ve spent with you in
training, what you’re saying here, I know you’re a better man. I
think it’s your separation from that machine inside you. I didn’t
realize it before, but you seemed more distant then, now I feel like
you’re all here, and that comes with a man who can embrace guilt,
who values life, and can love. Maybe we didn’t belong together
before, you as a framework and me, but we’ve both had a real
rebirth now, and I think it’s our time.”

He allowed himself to
look into her blue eyes and couldn’t help but ask himself;
Maybe
my atonement starts with making her happy, with putting her and
everyone I love first? Maybe I can have this?
Before he
realized it was about to happen, he was kissing her. His right hand
crossed her back, his left caressed her lower back and he held her
close for a long time while they indulged. He’d never felt anything
so warm and intimate, nearly merging through body heat, soft lips and
the soothing smell of her – earthy vanilla and something else he
couldn’t put a name to.

When she lifted her
head up, her curly red hair drifted between them. She flipped it
aside, breathing heavily. “That was not a goodbye kiss,” she said
with a new smile, one that was excited and amused and playful.

“We start over,”
Jake said. He couldn’t believe what he was going to say next, and
had to force it from his mind to his lips. By the time the words were
in the air it was a groan. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, you don’t mean
that,” Ayan replied with a chuckle. She lowered her forehead to his
and briefly extended her lips to touch his. “But you’re right,”
she sighed. “You’re right. I came to tell you about a couple
things anyway, didn’t think we’d get like this.” She shifted
herself so her head laid on his chest. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve
gotten to know this deck very well over the last few weeks, I might
even come back every once and a while just to say hello with an
awkward fall,” Jake replied.

“I missed that,”
Ayan said. “Almost forgot you could be funny.”

“I’m serious, deck
and I are proper mates at this point,” Jake persisted. “What did
you come to tell me?”

Ayan took a deep breath
and let it out slowly. “It’s nothing to do with us.”

“Okay, that’s a
relief,” Jake said.

“Doctor Messana has
been restricting information to the Solar Forge, especially you,
filtering what she thinks may be distracting. So, a lot about how
Regent Galactic are pressing in, how the British Alliance Frontier
failed when they couldn’t get critical stations in place, and how
we’ve been finding spies in Haven Shore every week since you’ve
been out. None of that’s been made available to you.”

“I’m getting out
tomorrow morning,” Jake reminded himself aloud. “Just help me get
back up to speed and I’ll try not to hold it against the Doctor,
even though she had no right to do that to me.”

“About that, you
getting out tomorrow,” Ayan said.

“What?” Jake asked,
alarmed. “I
am
getting out tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, and I’ll be
here at oh-nine-hundred when you step off this station right on
schedule.”

“Okay, what about
tomorrow?”

“The first thing
you’re going to notice tomorrow when you leave, maybe even when you
wake up, is how much lighter you feel. How much easier it will
probably be for you to stay on your feet.”

“Why? Why would it be
easier to walk off the station than inside?”

“Doctor Messana has
been adjusting the gravity on you, just you. Whatever readings you
saw about your environment were fake. Right now the localized field
around you is at one point two eight standard units. When you picked
me up earlier it was at one point four.”

“So you weighed an
extra forty percent more? You were still pretty light,” Jake
replied.

“Thank you, but no.
The Lorander gravity systems on this ship are so precise that the
gravity increase follows you as closely as a vacsuit. A really tight
one, actually.”

“Okay, so people
around me wouldn’t even know,” Jake replied.

“Exactly. I found out
because I was supervising construction of the new gunships. I don’t
think Doctor Messana ever meant for you to find out. But she does
seem focused on having you recover as quickly and as thoroughly as
possible, so I think her heart was in the right place. My father says
he’s only seen that kind of thing in strength training, not trauma
recovery, he doubts that it speeds things up at all, because you’ll
spend time adjusting to lesser gravity later.”

“So it’s something
I’ll watch for,” Jake said, reminding himself that if it weren’t
for Doctor Messana, he wouldn’t be alive, laying on the deck with
Ayan in his arms. “Anything else?”

“No,” Ayan said,
raising her head and looking at him. “You’re really calm about
all this,” she said. “I thought you’d take the news
differently.”

“Why? It sounds like
Doctor Messana was just trying to help. As long as I didn’t miss
anything critical while I was out, or here, then I can’t say she
did anything wrong. Time will tell if the increased gravity was a
good idea.”