Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (145 page)

—A male in black clothing sprawled upon the ground, his abdomen ripped open and his body missing most of its head. Lowest priority and also the Director’s problem.

—Two Daemons strewn on the stone flooring of the garden. Low priority, but they should be secured in case there were more attackers nearby.

—Blood splattered in uneven patterns across every surface. Priority undetermined as it depended on who it belonged to. Some portion certainly originated from the missing head.

—Her daughter on her knees, huddled over another prone body. Caleb’s body. Highest priority, for so many reasons.

Alexis jerked up as Miriam rushed forward. Her eyes were wide orbs, pupils dilated to consume her irises save for tiny rings of iridescent silver. “Help me, please. I can’t stop the bleeding.”

Miriam forced her scrutiny downward from the terror-filled eyes to Caleb’s neck, where Alexis held her rolled-up pullover with both hands. This left her daughter in only a tank, exposing the viscous layer of blood coating her hands and forearms and continuing upward in vicious streaks to decorate her shoulders and face. Miriam pushed away a rush of alarm. Rudimentary logic said most of it could not be Alexis’ blood.

She dropped to the ground. “Keep the pressure on anyway. Richard, we need the med kit. Alexis, I need to know what his injuries are.” She realized she’d slipped up on the name again, but she’d worry about calling her daughter ‘Alex’ when there wasn’t blood on the ground.

“Um, he’s bleeding heavily from his neck, low, near the collarbone. And…he said he had a wound in his side…the right side I think…and that there would be internal injuries from it.” She sucked in a breath as if the act itself caused her distress. “He’s got bruises and cuts everywhere, but I don’t know if there are other serious injuries. He—he passed out before he could tell me.”

Miriam sensed Richard hovering behind her. “I need the coagulant and a Size 3 Grade IV medwrap.”

“Got it.”

She reached out and let him place the items in her hand then looked at Alexis. “Scoot back a little so I can get closer. When I say, remove your shirt from his neck.”

Alexis slid along the ground until she was beyond Caleb’s head and reaching over his face to keep the pressure in place.

Miriam crawled forward and unsealed the coagulant. “Okay, now.”

As soon as Alexis withdrew the pullover new blood immediately began flowing out. To her semi-trained eyes it appeared the carotid artery had been nicked, but not completely opened. If it had been torn open he would be dead.

She poured the majority of the coagulant deep into the tear, then coated the opening with the rest of it and quickly covered it with the medwrap. The coagulant would seep through the open flesh until it found the artery then surround it and plug the artery wall, but it took twenty or thirty seconds to complete the process.

Alexis was staring down at Caleb’s closed eyes; her face looked as blanched as his did. She drew her daughter’s attention to her. “Alexis? Hold the medwrap in place. I’m going to see about the wound in his side now.”

She nodded mutely, and Miriam called on her ingrained discipline once more to leave her daughter’s side and move to the other side of the prone form.

She peeled the blood-soaked shirt away from the skin and choked off a gasp at what it revealed. A gouge twelve centimeters in length had opened into a ragged hole five centimeters in diameter. Blood seeped—with less force than at the neck—to the ground beneath them, creating rivulets which picked a path through the gaps in the stones.

Focus.
Despite the blood the danger here would definitely be internal injuries. “Richard, I need…some bio-bonding gel, a nano-repair weave—two of them if possible—and another medwrap. Bigger, Size 5 I think, and Grade IV as well—unless there’s a Grade V.”

“Right.” He crouched at her side and dug through the med kit. She squinted up to briefly meet his gaze, allowing him to see her concern.

He handed her the first item then glanced behind him. “He’s going to be okay, Alex.”

She didn’t check to see her daughter’s reaction, instead concentrating on the wound and allowing her training to take control. Every second counted. The flesh was torn and in some places shredded, but repairing it would come later.

She carefully inserted the nano-repair weaves inside the wound, working to ensure they spread over the largest possible area. Next she emptied the container of bio-bonding gel into the opening, secured the oversized medwrap to the adjoining skin…and let out a long breath. “Richard, can you hold this until the seal forms? I need to check for other injuries.”

His hands replaced hers, and she maneuvered to run her hands along Caleb’s body, starting at the chest. It continued to rise and fall, if shallowly and fitfully; his pasty skin became ghostly white in the effuse light. She felt two broken ribs and bound them so they wouldn’t inflict additional damage when he was moved. Her hands roved down his legs, but they felt intact.

She stood and moved up to his head. A cut on his chin received a tiny strip of sealant. There were multiple bruises on his upper body, including a nasty one above his left cheekbone, but they could wait.

Finally she allowed herself to turn back to Alexis. Blood had soaked into the tips of her hair, tangling it into knots as it fell across her shoulders.

She reached over and tucked the nearest strands behind her daughter’s ear. Alexis’ eyes darted to her, bright and desperate.

“Are you hurt?”

Her head shook violently. “No. I just showed up and shot the fucker in the face.”

She laughed in spite of the direness of the situation. “Of course you did. Listen, I’ve done all I can for him. We should get him inside.” She climbed to her feet. “Richard, Director Delavasi?”

Delavasi was crouched beside the headless corpse, but stood at her inquiry. “I alerted estate security. They’ve got three dead guards along the perimeter, which is presumably how this degenerate got in. They’ve locked down everything and swept the guest house, so it’s clear. Also, there’s a physician on staff who will be here in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, a guard should show up with a cot any second now, at which point we can move him safely.”

“Thank you for taking charge of this, Director.”

The man grimaced and massaged his neck. “It’s my job, though frankly I’m getting a little sick of standing around at blood-soaked crime scenes staring at one of my agents on the ground. Richard, any chance you could convince the Admiral to call me ‘Graham’?”

“Doubtful. It took her five years to start calling me ‘Richard.’”

The guard arrived then, and everyone again sprang into motion. They unfolded the cot beside Caleb, and Miriam had to coax Alexis away so they could move him onto it.

She stumbled backward as she stood. Miriam reached out to place a steadying hand on her arm. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

Her nod was haphazard. Tears streamed down her cheeks, carving jagged streaks through the splotches of blood decorating them. She fixated on the men as they lifted each end of the cot up and began carrying it and its passenger toward the house. “How did you know how to do all that?”

“Advanced field training, with mandatory refresher courses every five years for the last forty-five. Haven’t had to use it in a while.”

“Mom….”

Without stopping to think about the fact that she had no idea how to provide comfort to another, she wrapped her arms around her daughter and silently drew her into her arms.

14

EARTH

B
ERLIN

K
ENNEDY PINCHED THE BRIDGE
of her nose before raising her chin to meet the Space Materiels Complex Director’s dour, unpleasant leer. “Sir, this is the third time you’ve said it can’t be done. I respect this as your opinion, but saying it again won’t get me to leave. So it would be more pleasant for all of us if you ceased with the complaints. You’re going to keep working on the problem until someone far smarter than you tells you how it
can
be done. Then you’re going to do it.”

“Miss Rossi, you can’t give me orders. I am the director of this facility and a brigadier in the Earth Alliance military and I decide what will and will not occur here.”

“Of course I can’t give you orders,
Brigadier
. That’s why I had Admiral Solovy give them to you. You do recall the conversation, don’t you? Now be a good soldier and run along. My guests are here.”

The rotund, sweaty man puffed and blustered but after a few seconds tottered around and stalked off in the direction of the factory floor.

Kennedy headed in the opposite direction, toward the entrance of the sprawling building. The Complex was located west across the Havel from the still-standing Charlottenburg Palace and would have offered picturesque views of the Berlin skyline if it had any windows. Which it did not, even in the lobby, so she stopped before reaching the entrance and leaned against the wall to wait.

Noah had managed to pull it off, not only enlisting his father’s aid but bringing him directly here. She didn’t know whether to be stunned or proud, so she opted for a mix of both. Mainly she hoped he didn’t despise her for forcing the reunion—or if he did, she hoped the damage wasn’t beyond repair.

It was barely a minute before they arrived, leaving her little opportunity to compose herself properly. She would be happy to see Noah, but she couldn’t obsess over him right now. She needed to navigate this encounter with utmost care, for him and for everyone.

Their bickering echoed around the corner as they walked through the front door. The two voices bore the same intrinsic tonality, but the elder was all cool superiority while the younger carried a loose fierceness. “No, it is always stupid to consolidate all your assets in one location. Just because gangsters aren’t coming after you doesn’t mean competitors or asteroids or, I don’t know,
aliens
won’t.”

“Surno Materials isn’t a back-alley hack shop which can pick up stakes and flee at a moment’s notice. We create top-of-the-line—”

She bestowed her most dazzling smile on Noah as she stepped into the lobby, went over and took his hands in hers, and kissed him on the cheek. “Noah, I’m so glad you made it.”

Only then did she turn to his father. “Lionel, it’s good to see you again. Thank you for coming.”

He looked positively dumbstruck, and she had to force down a giggle. “Ms. Rossi? This is…unexpected.”

She
tsked
Noah in feigned disapproval, though she was a bit surprised. “Noah, you didn’t tell your father who requested his presence?”

He snickered; it sounded more raw than usual. She had no doubt the time spent with his father had stressed him out, but he had pulled off what she knew he thought impossible. The twist of his lips when he met her gaze troubled her, though.
Deal with it later
.

“He would’ve thought I was trying to impress him. This is so much better.”

Lionel glared at his son, though he appeared to be a tad flustered. Good on Noah. She betrayed none of her musings in her countenance or tone, however. “Regardless, you’re both here now. I apologize for the rush, Lionel, but we have precious little time. If you’ll come with me, I’ll walk you through what we’re trying to do.”

The elder Terrage visibly worked to school his expression. “I assume it’s why I’m here.”

“Excellent.” Kennedy led them down the hall and into a conference room she’d previously selected and prepped. Once inside she activated a screen above the table. She already had all the data queued up, and the initial display included a breakdown of complicated empirical and skeletal chemical formulas.

“What you see here is a metal compound we’ve dubbed ‘adiamene.’ It’s created by a chemical fusing of the carbon metamaterial currently used to build our starships and the amodiamond metamaterial frequently used in the Federation for the same purpose. We’ve been able to consistently replicate its creation, but the chemical reactions take far too long to manifest. We need to be able to speed them up significantly. And we need to be able to make tonnes of this metal, yesterday.”

Lionel ignored the data to direct a rather derisive scowl at her. Could Noah’s face contort in such an unpleasant manner? She hoped not. “Ms. Rossi, ‘combining’ the carbon nanotube derivatives we utilize in ship hulls and amodiamond is a non-sequitur. Allotropes positioned between the two materials in terms of their characteristics include buckyfullerenes, amorphous carbon and lonsdaleite. The latter is the only one which improves upon either material, and it remains prohibitively expensive to manufacture.”

She dressed him down with a look of daggers draped in sugar. “In their natural, elemental states this is
clearly
true. Which is why it’s so interesting that combining the finished products has another result entirely. Please, if you would take a minute to consider the compound presented here.”

It was with palpable reluctance that he shifted his attention to the screen, but instantly his eyes narrowed in greater interest. “Intriguing material…quite unusual lattice structure…the covalent bonds manifest extraordinarily strong, no question. There must be a facilitating element in one of the finished products that enables the fusion. This warrants further study—but why is it an emergency?”

Kennedy opened a new screen next to the first and pulled up the test results. Detailed figures and percentages scrolled along the right column next to a series of line charts. “Because adiamene is, for all intents and purposes, indestructible.”