Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (191 page)

“I assume I take the center lift until it goes no higher, correct?”

“Um, that does sort of cover it. But—”

“Then I shall show myself up, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Beginning tomorrow there would be two additional security checks between the lobby and the top floor, but this trip required solely her personal security code. She stepped off the lift into a bright, open atrium. The marble floor felt suitably firm beneath her feet; the secretary’s station loomed with appropriate intimidation over prospective guests.

Beyond the atrium was her office. She entered her security code a final time and stepped inside.

The desk she’d ordered had arrived ahead of her, as had the matching shelves. Everything had arrived, down to the white-silver tea set she’d purchased a few days earlier. Her favorite visual of David, Alex and herself—taken in 2298 on the lawn of their home in San Francisco—was even loaded into the display atop the desk.

The chair wasn’t new, for she’d become accustomed to the one she’d claimed in Logistics. She eased into it and spun slowly around—then was quickly back on her feet and moving to the window.

Except it wasn’t a window; it was a door. She had a garden.

Well, perhaps ‘garden’ was stretching the term a bit. She had a patio decorated in shrubs, flowering morning glories, astilbe and a small table with two chairs.

Beneath her the entirety of the EASC complex spread out. Tiny forms scurried about from one building to the next, and in the distance ships landed at and departed from the spaceport with ordered regularity. Ahead of her the waters of the Strait crashed against the parapets.

Well. This was simply lovely.

“I heard you were in the building.”

She turned and motioned Richard out onto the patio. “I only just arrived.”

“Word travels fast, especially when it’s in panic. They were expecting you tomorrow, I believe.”

She draped her arms atop the railing as he joined her. “I wanted to get settled in while it was still quiet. We’ll see how the practicality holds up under duress, but I have to say so far I’m pleased.”

Richard chuckled lightly. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“How was Romane? More to the point, how was your first vacation in…ever, was it?”

“Not
ever
, merely the last decade…or two. And it was very relaxing. That’s what vacations are supposed to be, right? Relaxing?”

“That’s the rumor.”

She nodded. “Then yes, it was relaxing.”

“Did you spend the entire visit meeting with the governor and her administration?”

“Only half the visit. I also toured several art galleries, attended a horrifically tawdry circus performance and spent a great deal of time…not worrying.”

“Otherwise known as relaxing.”

“Yes.” She straightened up from the railing but kept her hands atop it. “And now it is time to get back to work.”

“Much of the unrest on the hardest-hit colonies has eased with the improvements in services. Now it’s mostly squabbling over what to build next, where and for who’s favor.”

“What about the Order of the True Sentients?”

Richard grimaced. “They will be a problem, I fear. They’re extremely well-funded, and we haven’t yet managed to find out by whom or what. But after all we’ve faced, they and their ilk seem like pests rather than real trouble.”

“I gave the subject some thought while I was…relaxing. We confronted the greatest threat to our existence humanity has ever seen, and we defeated it. But a year ago we couldn’t see it coming; our most skilled forecasters could never have predicted it. What else is out there on the horizon that we can’t see?”

She shifted to lean against the railing and meet his gaze more directly. “You and I know the true extent of what Alex and Caleb discovered beyond the portal. I fear we’ve seen but a small glimpse of the dangers which may await us—dangers for which we are woefully unprepared.”

“Granted. So?”

“So, I intend to see to it that we get ourselves prepared. We can’t sit on our laurels and be caught unaware a second time.”

“True enough. I’m glad the task is in such capable hands.”

“Flatterer.”

“I’m trying to hone my skills. Speaking of, have you seen Alex recently? I haven’t talked to her in a few weeks.”

“We had a nice dinner before I left for Romane, in fact. She and Caleb have been on Seneca the last week or so helping his sister move into a new place, but I believe they are headed to Atlantis to meet Kennedy and Noah for a long weekend.”

“Good. I’m glad they—”

Miriam held up her hand to silence him. She stared at the message that had come in, searching for the correct reaction. Anger? Fear? Pride? Exasperation?

She settled on the last one, went to the little patio table and sank down in one of the chairs.

“Miriam, what is it?”

She shook her head and laughed. “I’m going to kill her.”

At Richard’s questioning look she called him over and projected the message to an aural.

ATLANTIS

I
NDEPENDENT
C
OLONY

Kennedy sighed in contentment and curled up against Noah’s chest. The sun’s rays streaming in through the open windows warmed her bare skin, and she kicked the sheet off so as to give the rays more fulsome access. “Mmm…can we not leave this room today? Or even the bed?”

Noah’s chest rumbled beneath her in a soft chuckle as he played with her hair. “We’ve got drinks, so we’re set there. Eventually we’ll need food, but this is why room service exists. So yeah, I think we’re good. Who needs sun and sand and surf when we have
this
.”

“Not me. Besides, we have sun—and we can see the sand and surf, should we manage to approach the windows.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” His hand trailed lazily down her back, evoking a pleasant murmur from deep in her throat.

“Alex and Caleb will be here today…sometime. They would probably appreciate it if we put clothes on.”

“Probably. Have you heard from them yet? I’d like a little warning, say, three or four hours, so I can….” She shuddered beneath his hand as it drifted lower.

“Not yet. I’m sure they got distracted by—” As if on cue, a message from Alex arrived in her eVi. She opened it with only a fraction of her attention, the rest being occupied by Noah’s increasingly roving hands.

Then she bolted upright in the bed. “I’m going to kill her. I mean it this time. I am well and truly going to kill her.”

Noah raised up on one elbow. “They’re not coming?”

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and flopped onto her back with a groan. “No. No, they are not. And you won’t believe where they
are
heading.”

SIYANE

M
ETIS
N
EBULA

The
Siyane
hovered in the thick nebular clouds at the edge of the clearing, out of sight of the Alliance and Federation vessels patrolling the perimeter.

The portal was closed, occupying an invisible point at the center of the empty void in the heart of the Metis Nebula. Its activation would give the watching ships an extra few seconds to prepare for their destruction of any alien vessel that might emerge. The patrols gave the area a wide berth lest they get caught in the explosion of metal and plasma which would accompany such activation.

A few modifications had been made to the
Siyane
in the months since the Metigen War ended. For one, the cockpit had been rearranged a bit. Caleb’s chair received an upgrade, hers moved to the left, and they occupied their seats as equals. Many of the sensors and scientific equipment received upgrades as well and now included a number of new features.

They had even made room for Caleb’s bike down in the engineering well. It turned out Division secured it after Volosk’s murder as part of the crime scene, at first as evidence then later for safekeeping. And who knew? They may need it. On a planet’s surface, perhaps. Or on a space station….

Oh, and there was Valkyrie.

It hadn’t taken long for the combined processing power of three Artificials enhanced by the neural imprints of some damn clever humans to result in a host of technological leaps. The list of ways they were changing the world was long, but most relevantly for the
Siyane
was the radical miniaturization of quantum boxes and hardware circuitry. What once filled a large room now fit between the interior walls and bulkhead of a small ship.

Abigail had protested the final stage in her loss of Valkyrie, contending she needed the Artificial to assist in the rebuilding of Meno, and in the rebuilding of a human brain. But while quantum communications were able to span the universe—this universe—in an instant, they could not penetrate the portal. Alex needed Valkyrie with her where they were going. She had of course kept that detail to herself, instead arguing the need to get Valkyrie out from under government control.

A compromise had been reached which, while very expensive, did have the benefit of at least partially satisfying the bureaucrats as well: a complete copy of Valkyrie was constructed and an image of her neural net flashed to the new machine.

From the time the new Artificial was activated, it and Valkyrie began diverging, and in a matter of weeks they could no longer be considered the same in any meaningful way. Valkyrie professed no misgivings about the situation, explaining that she intended to view her mirrored copy like a sister. In fact, she was somewhat enamored with the notion of having a sibling; as Alex was an only child it would be a wholly new experience for her.

Caleb grasped Alex’s hand in his, and she stood to join him at the viewport. After a moment she halfway faced him, eyes dancing in delight to match his own. “Ready to see what’s out there, Mr. Solovy?”

“Hell, yes, Mrs. Marano. Beyond ready. Show me this supposed ‘adventure.’”

“Knowing we won’t die simply by going through doesn’t take the adventure out of it?”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and yanked her closer for an ardent, tantalizing kiss which ended far too soon, then murmured against her lips. “No, it does not. Now let’s do this.”

She reluctantly disentangled from his embrace to ensure all the systems were in order. “Valkyrie, how about you?”

“You are taking me to explore other universes. I am ready.”

“Okay, then.”

The aliens had asserted no one should ever come looking for them—but she had never agreed to that particular term of surrender.

She reached down and sent the gamma signal.

The ring exploded outward to fill with the still mysterious, luminescent plasma. Around it the patrolling ships reacted the next instant, rushing to take up a defensive formation.

Her hand slid across the HUD to the thrusters. With a touch she gunned the impulse engine to full power and accelerated into the portal.

AURORA THESI (PORTAL PRIME)

E
NISLE
S
EVENTEEN