Chains of Redemption (28 page)

"I'm sure you weren't. But I'm rather the exception that proves my point. I was raised Elite, I was given no loyalty programming at all and a full range of emotions, and on the day that I realized the Reliance was evil I rose up against them. You build these things and program them with loyalty to us. We'll teach them to fight and to lead in the way we want them to lead. The rest will be up to them."

"What's our time frame?" Dorana asked, and now the emotion radiating from her was resolve. She still wasn't sure it was such a good idea, but she was going to go along because her Reliance programming was still very much in effect, and you went along with whatever the officer wanted you to do, and
this
GSH was already in charge.

"The necessary cells and data have been collected and a laboratory with all you will need to complete the project has been set up here on the basement level. Accommodations have also been made for you here. I would like to have the finished product ready to ship out in two years or less."

Dorana nodded; it was a tight but not unreasonable time frame.

"Are you sure you want to introduce Argy DNA?" Pagel asked. "Do we want leaders that can read people's emotions?"

Again Jessica fixed him with a stare, and again he turned red in the face. "I, ah, didn't . . ."

"It's all right. I understand your concern, but why wouldn't we want a leader who can feel his constituents' pain? It's hard to ignore people's feelings when you actually
feel
them. This plan will work. We will be able to take over the Reliance with a minimum of bloodshed, and then, being once more one people, we can push the Argy back into their place and work for a lasting peace between our races."

They all nodded, some of them now actually excited about the project.

She dismissed them and they filed out of the room, leaving her alone with Gerald, Mickey and Dax. It had taken them eight years to collect the necessary samples, and in that time Dax had become a man. He'd topped out at only four feet tall, but since he'd grown up in a much different world than his father had, he didn't have the insecurities about his height that his father did. For one thing, he'd always had Jessica as his protector. No one teased a child who had a huge bronze god to protect him.

Jessica realized the others were all silent. They'd been working towards this for eight years, but now that it was upon them, they still had doubts.

"What?" she asked them.

"Some of their concerns," Mickey started, "they aren't exactly things I've never thought of. That we haven't discussed."

"Maybe we should reconsider the project," Gerald added, and Jessica knew then that he and Mickey and maybe even Dax had already talked about this.

Jessica took a deep breath and let it out. "It's a little late for that. Stashes has been taken by the Argy. The Reliance, thanks mostly to our work, is collapsing in on itself. That's what we want, but if we don't move and move quickly it's going to be too late. We have to take over the Reliance before they have run out of firepower. We have to take over while there are still enough troops and viable ships to crush an Argy advance into our territory. We have to win while we can immediately make the New Alliance a force to be reckoned with. We can't do that unless we take complete control of the Reliance when it still has a fully functioning battle fleet, and since it will still have that fully functioning battle fleet the only way to successfully do this is to take over from the inside out."

Mickey nodded. "All right, I understand all that. But RJ . . . you're talking about making GSH's and then putting them into positions of power."

She gave him the same look she had given Dr. Pagel when he'd said the same thing.

"You can intimidate them, RJ, but not me. You know damn good and well what I'm talking about. You are basically reproducing yourself, and while I love you with all my heart and soul, you, my friend, often don't act in the best interest of yourself, much less the New Alliance."

"True, but to be a good leader a person must experience both success and failure. You have to occasionally lose in order to win. I didn't say this GSH government would be perfect. I just said it's the best we can do to make sure that the New Alliance can survive past your lifetimes. Give the people an eternal government, set up the way we want it, and what could possibly go wrong?"

Gerald covered his ears with his hands and screamed out, "You have cursed us all!"

They all laughed.

"Seriously," Jessica started, "these GSH's will look like the ambassadors, senators, governors and other high government officials they will replace. The assassinations will take place quietly; the genetically superior clones will be set into place. They will immediately start making policy that favors the New Alliance until the Reliance is no more. By the time anyone realizes what we've done—if they ever do—it will be way too late to stop us. If you have a better plan to take over the Reliance, ensure the future of the New Alliance, and crush the Argys before they can start gobbling up Reliance space, let's hear it."

They didn't of course.

Mickey started to lever himself out of his chair with an effort, and Dax went to help him. Mickey was now sixty, and physical injuries experienced in battle, emotional trauma and stress made him feel even older most days. It was raining outside, and that seemed to affect his arthritis. He needed a knee replacement, but he kept putting it off. The way he was moving, it didn't look like he was going to be able to put it off much longer. He laughed at himself. "You might ought to have them make a replacement for me while you're at it, RJ."

"There will be no way to replace you, my friend," Jessica said sadly. It was hard to watch her loved ones age. The fact that Dax was a grown man now ate on her soul, not because he wasn't her baby anymore, although she admitted she missed the days when he would crawl up in her lap and talk to her. His age tormented her because having now reached full maturity he was starting to die, and though most days she tried not to think about losing any of them, least of all Dax, it was hard to put it out of her mind completely.

"Don't get maudlin, RJ, I'm not dead yet. However, I could use some help, Gerald?" Gerald got up and helped Mickey walk from the room and back to his own office.

Dax just hung out; he wanted to say something, but he was afraid to. She could feel it when he started babbling. "My dad said sometime when you go into space, I can go with you. He said he always wanted to go, but he couldn't because of all his responsibilities here. When do you think you'll go again? Is the transmat scary? I hear it's scary. Can you really see the whole planet from the moon, and . . ."

Jessica walked over laughing and hugged him. "What's bothering you?"

"Am I that obvious?" he said with a sigh, resting his head against her stomach.

"Yes, at least to me. In fact, I think even if I wasn't half Argy I'd know when there was something bothering you. So what is it?"

He pushed gently away from her and went to sit in a chair. She sat down, too, because she could tell that he was very serious and upset. He seemed to be mulling it over and then just spit it out, "Gerald is sick."

"What?" Jessica asked in shock.

"He doesn't want you to know. I'm not supposed to know, but I overheard him and Dad talking."

"You were eavesdropping again," Jessica said in a scolding tone. Where his father had used his size to pick pockets, Dax used his to spy on people. He wasn't any sort of pervert, he was mostly just nosey. Most probably he hadn't outgrown his childhood desire to be some sort of undercover detective. "What's he got, the flu?"

"No, maybe I shouldn't tell, but I don't see how I can
not
tell you. I feel like I'm lying to my mother." Dax had a tear in his eye, but he didn't cry.

Jessica suddenly realized that they weren't talking about any simple virus. "What's wrong with him, Dax. Can it be fixed?"

"It's some disease the Fourers get," Dax explained. "It can't be cured. They were calling it
Le Mort de Corps
."

Jessica took in a deep breath and it came out in a sob. "
Las Tarak
." Her breath almost left her on the words.

"What?" Dax asked in a quiet voice.

"That's the problem with hybrids," Jessica explained. "You can get all the good traits of both races, but you can also get all the bad traits.
Mort de Corps
is
Las Tarak
. It's an Argy disease that attacks the central nervous system. It starts slowly, loss of feeling in the extremities that comes and goes, then temporary loss of the use of an arm or a leg, till the body doesn't work at all. Eventually they even lose the ability to speak, only the brain is still alive. They can live like that for years."

"Do the Argy have a cure?" Dax asked hopefully.

Jessica shook her head no, her voice had left her.

"He didn't want you to know because he didn't want you to treat him differently, but I thought maybe you
should
know because then you
could
treat him differently. If I'd known my mother was going to die when she did, I would have made sure I told her that I loved her, I would have treated her nicer and minded the first time I was told to do things."

Jessica sucked her tears down inside herself. "Do you know how advanced the disease is?"

"It's just beginning. He told Dad he had about three years before he'd lose the use of his arms and legs," Dax said.

"Then we'll make the next three years count," Jessica said nodding. A tear escaped the eye that wasn't hers, and it reminded her of all the things she'd done to get here to this moment. "I'll pretend that I don't know, and hope that he doesn't change his mind about telling me."

"Are you mad I told you?" Dax asked. "Was it the wrong thing to do?" He was young, still trying to decide what was right and what was wrong.

"No, I'm not mad at you. I'm so glad you told me. I just don't want Gerald to know that I know, because it isn't what he wants," Jessica said.

Dax nodded. He still had something on his mind, but she could tell he wasn't going to give it up, and if it was more bad news she didn't want to hear it.

"Do what?" David asked the insane image on the screen before him.

"Launch an assault against Trinidad," Jessica ordered again.

"What on earth for?" Taleed demanded. "If we do that, they're sure to retaliate."

"And while they're busy fighting you in space and attacking your planet we can put our people into position and no one will even notice. The leaders will be called together to challenge this new threat. The battle will last five days total and do very little damage, if any. Me and my people will be docking at the space station in two days time and shuttling to the surface to prepare our troops there and take up strategic positions across the surface of the planet."

"The war orphans," David said almost under his breath. This was what she had sent them here for. To fight an assault on Beta 4 itself.

"Any casualties here are unacceptable!" Stratton exclaimed. "There is no need to put this planet or these people at risk."

"After all that the New Alliance has done for Beta 4, I think it's time for you people to either put up or shut up." No one had to ask what she meant by that. She smiled as if to cushion her words and continued in a calmer tone. "On a planet of warriors I think if you put it to a vote you'll find the majority of them would be more than happy to stomp a little Reliance ass. We have given you the ships to carry out the assault. We have armed your planet and protected it all these long years. While you have experienced peace and prosperity, we have fought battle after battle that served us all. It's payback time, don't you think?"

"She's right," Taleed said. "Order the assault on Trinidad. RJ will be here to defend us long before our fleet reaches Trinidad, and it will take them days after that to retaliate here."

"Our people were born and trained as warriors from our birth," Janad explained to Stratton. "We don't fear death, we long for a good fight. We have known this day would come, and now . . . RJ is right, if given a vote on this matter our people would fight for the right to die for the cause."

Coming from the fifty-year-old mother of his two grown children, it temporarily brought a smile to David's face. However he only half heard what was being said around him as he stared at the vision of RJ on the screen.

"We will send the fleet out at once," Taleed said, "and we happily await your return to our world."

RJ nodded. "As I look forward to my return. I'd say I wish it were under happier circumstances, but these are the happiest of circumstances. When this battle ends, so does the Reliance's reign of terror. A new age shall be born and rise from its ashes." She closed the transmission.

"David?" Janad asked of the expression on his face, his silence.

"She's coming," he said, "here."

Jessica turned away from the screen, and she smiled at Dax, who hadn't stopped babbling since they had left Earth. Things she took completely for granted thrilled him, and it was fun to view the experience through his eyes.