Rubicon, page 47
Adriene scanned the flashing viewscreens, which cycled through radars and exterior views of the ship. An inbound-missile warning expanded on the main screen.
A computerized voice sounded over the loudspeakers, “Missile lock detected.”
“Twelve warheads…” West glanced at the screen before facing her again. “Failsafes overridden, broadcasting Mechan transponder codes. Five megatons each. Should be more than enough.”
Adriene gaped, frozen in place.
That’s why they weren’t in subspace. Why they hadn’t already been swarmed by scrappers. Those streaks across the sky hadn’t been Mechan ships, but their own missiles. Fired from the ground, sent on a trajectory to intercept once the Aurora was in orbit again.
Adriene scowled. “You think it matters if you kill us? Or if you make it look like the scrappers did it? You may have brainwashed the others into not remembering what you’ve done, but Daroga knows. He’s already awake in the rezone hub. He’ll tell them everything.”
West cocked his head to the side. “With the evidence destroyed, the contractor can say whatever he wants. Even if they accept his story, it will not matter. They will believe I truly died with this ship.”
Confusion racked her thoughts, and she shook her head.
West frowned. “As it turns out, you were right, Sergeant. This plan was too rushed. I should have taken care of the Architect…” Two steel-gray, regret-filled eyes locked onto her. “I should have found a more effective way to take care of you. In my haste, I left too much overlooked.” His voice quieted as he shook his head. “I just wanted it to be over. I’ll need to be more cautious, next time.”
“Next time?” she scoffed, brow creasing. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s what you wanted, right? For me to take the time necessary to ensure the Mechan can’t turn the technique against us.”
Her jaw flexed. “It’s too late for that.”
“Time used to be a concern, yes.” He lifted the device he’d been carrying around, propping the thirty-centimeter-wide metal ring between his gloved hands. “But now, there’s always more time to be had.”
Adriene stared at the halo of segmented metal, blood running cold. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized it. A crucible.
“The Architect gave me more than I ever could have hoped for,” West continued, drumming his fingers along the dark metal curves. “More than I even knew I wanted.”
Shoulders tense, she took a slow step back. “Where the hell did you get that?”
His lips pressed thin. “How did you think I transferred into this body?”
“But—” Her breath caught in her throat, and she shook her head in disbelief. “But how?”
“Through many years of diligent patience,” he replied, then exhaled a heavy sigh. “I am not an impatient man, truly. You did not get to see the best version of me, Sergeant. I was patient in my recovery, in learning to adapt to my cybernetics, in tolerating my comrades’ and commanders’ pity and judgment. Patient while rising through the ranks, and while gaining the clout needed to dovetail my roles in Intel and R&D. My body may have run out of patience, but I have not.” Again, regret lined his gray eyes. “I never intended you to be part of this, not this far in. But it’s a necessity now.” He braced the crucible between his palms. “I found a way to carry on, and I am sorry, truly. But I have to take it.”
Adriene’s eyes burned, fixated on the gleaming arc of metal, every muscle in her body taut.
“I will have time to finish what we started.” West took a slow step forward, his gaze drifting briefly to her rifle. “I can afford to be patient again.”
The orange warning beacons flipped to red, and the computerized voice returned. “Impact in forty-five seconds. Forty-four, forty-three…”
Terror cut through Adriene’s chest. She took a step back, reaffirmed her aim, her sweaty, bare palms sliding against the grip. She had to do whatever it took to keep him—and that crucible—as far from her as possible until those nukes arrived.
West took another cautious step forward. His brow firmed as his gaze flicked down to her rifle again.
She’d just killed Daroga without hesitation. It probably wasn’t hard for West to realize she’d not used it against him by now only because she couldn’t.
“… thirty-seven…”
West’s caution broke, and he marched toward her.
She backpedaled, but he made it up the short staircase in a few quick strides.
Sapped for strength, her response lagged with bone-weary muscles. She swung the butt of the rifle at his face. He raised an armored hand, smacking it away, ripping the useless gun from her grip and sending it clattering to the ground.
The crucible glinted in his other hand.
Panic rose as Adriene spun away, West’s fingers grasping at the hem of her shirt.
Her fatigued limbs betrayed her, and she stumbled. West delivered a swift kick to the side of her knee. The joint bent sideways, and she cried out in shock and pain, hitting the ground hard.
Torn knee protesting, she rolled into a crouch. West reached toward her again. She took a fortifying breath, then spun the heel of her uninjured leg into the side of his own knee as hard as she could. It buckled, and he grunted, collapsing to all fours.
She clambered away, but her injured knee wouldn’t allow her to stand.
“… twenty…”
Adriene grimaced. Twenty seconds was too long. She wouldn’t last; she was far too spent. She couldn’t wait for the missiles.
She had to do this herself. She had to zero out.
Her eyes darted to the empty holster on Blackwell’s bloody corpse.
She shuddered at the sight of Daroga’s ruptured, mangled neck beside him.
A thread of hope rose. Daroga’s pistol lay in the mingling pools of crimson staining the white decking.
Adriene dragged herself toward the pistol, through the glossy slick of Daroga’s still-warm blood. Her fingers closed around the gun.
“… ten…”
A cold grip clamped her shoulder, yanking her back.
West’s armored fingers dug in painfully, tearing her skin open as he flipped her onto her back. He pinned her with one hand, raised the crucible in the other. A shrill hum sounded.
The seams between the segments lit, igniting a vibrant, molten red orange.
Adriene thrashed, kicking at him, but he kept her pinned. A primal fear tore through her. Briefly, she felt as though the floor eroded beneath her, hot sand scraping her arms as he pushed her down, down deeper.
The pistol threatened to fall from her blood-slicked grip. West thrust the halo of metal toward her eyes.
“… two…”
Adriene sucked in a sharp breath. With every ounce of strength she had left, she pressed the muzzle to her temple and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
Adriene gulped in a shallow breath, drawing a mass of viscous fluid into the back of her throat.
The blackness slid away as she fell forward. She twisted, collapsing onto her back, head snapping against the cold metal floor.
Hacking and gasping, she sucked more fluid deeper into her lungs. She pummeled a fist to her chest and pivoted onto her side so she would not drown in her own amniotic fluid.
She managed to cough a wad out, then more followed. Her stomach heaved as it emptied a pile of gray-green fluid onto the floor. A potent waft of antiseptic filled her nostrils.
Groaning, she rolled over onto her back. Lying still for a few long moments, her breaths slowed into a steady, even rhythm.
Her eyes slid open. Filmy slime coated her freckled, light brown skin. Her arms lifted and turned over, chunks of gray sludge sliding away.
Goose bumps ripped across her bare skin, and her limbs trembled. Panic clouded her thoughts, but her breath remained steady.
A pair of guards appeared. They cloaked her in a dark robe, then lifted her to her feet. They spoke words at her, flashed beams of light into her eyes, but their voices were distant, muddled as if speaking through water. They led her down the bin-lined corridor, green demarcation lights flashing along the floor.
One sludge-covered foot moved in front of the other. A tingle raced down her left arm, and she lifted it, turning it over, staring at it.
The fingers quivered lightly, and she gripped her wrist with her other hand. The skin pinched and gave way, smooth and warm under her touch.
Her fingers slid up to the inside of her elbow, where a black number was inked under a narrow barcode. Her thumb hovered over the “97.”
* * *
In a haze, she showered and dressed. The guards escorted her to a ghastly white room—overhead diodes far too bright.
A metal table sat within. One of the guards led her to it, and her knees wavered as she sat on the cool metal chair.
She waited.
Her fingers lifted to her forehead. The memories of death hung in her periphery, a somber veil that hazed the present moment. Above all, the pain remained forefront. The charred skin on her face, her broken knuckles, her torn knee, the cold muzzle of the pistol against her temple prior to discharge. Yet her head did not hurt.
Why did it not hurt?
The door across the room slid open.
A broad-shouldered woman swept in, concern lining her brow, her graying hair slicked back into a tight bun. Major Miller Champlan.
“Valero.” Champlan sat in the chair across the table. Two officers followed the major in, both buttoned up in slim-fit dress grays. The two men stood post over either of Champlan’s shoulders.
She inclined her head. “Ma’am.”
She did not think this was standard debrief order, but she could not quite remember.
“I’d say it’s good to see you again,” Champlan said, “but considering the circumstances…”
“I understand, ma’am.”
“We’ve received an alarmingly high number of rezones from the CNS Aurora.” Champlan’s thin lips wrinkled at the corners. “Can you shed any light on what’s happened?”
A response formed in the back of her mind, her mouth opened, and her vocal cords said something else. “Mechan. They destroyed the ansible facility, then the Aurora.”
Despite the lie, her breath remained steady, her heart beating out an even, slow pace.
“We have a report, Sergeant, from another survivor,” Champlan said, her smooth tone decorous. “They claim Major West was responsible for the destruction. Do you have any idea why they would think that?”
She stretched her left hand slowly, pressing it flat against her thigh.
Another survivor. Daroga; it had to be. He was the only one who had died without an upgraded Rubicon.
He would realize, wouldn’t he? Once he saw her?
She shook her head once. “They must be having a bad take. I was on the bridge when the Mechan launched the missiles. I saw it happen with my own eyes.”
The two officers behind Champlan exchanged glances, then one spoke. “You were on the bridge? Who else was present?”
“All of Command,” she said. “Majors Blackwell and West, and Commodore Thurston.” That much was not a lie, at least. Technically.
“Why was the ship unable to field the attack?” Champlan asked.
“Some kind of cascading power surge. Both our shields and the subspace drive failed. They were unable to address the issue before the Mechan fired.”
Champlan exchanged looks with the two officers, then gave a short nod. To her horrified relief, they seemed to believe her.
The questioning continued for another half hour before she was finally free of the bureaucracy.
She then answered a lab coat’s droll questions, underwent a cursory psychological examination, and endured a few coordination and stamina tests with a physiotherapist. The quartermaster issued her fatigues, and she received orders to hold at the rezone facility until further notice. It wasn’t every day the entire command structure of a special forces company was simultaneously eradicated. It would take some time for High Command to decide what would be done with Flintlock.
She relieved her aching hunger with a protein bar, then found her way out of the facility and into the dry, red haze of the small moon. The emerald giant Ouray stretched across more than half the horizon, crisscrossed by the silver streaks of the massive orbital antenna grid.
She traced her fingers down her left arm. Bent the elbow, rolled the wrist, reveled in the way the muscle contracted and relaxed.
This shell may be synthetic, but it had been twenty years since she had seen with both eyes, felt with both hands, walked with both legs. She would cherish the opportunity to feel like a complete human again, fabricated or otherwise.
The howling wind sent flecks of dust slicing across her fresh skin, but she sucked in a deep breath, relishing a feeling she had almost forgotten. Real pressure, heat, cold—across her whole body. Along with it, a disorienting sense of symmetry. Balance.
Yet starker than anything was a tingling clarity, an inverse vacancy that occupied the space once dominated by twenty years of ever-intensifying pain. She’d entirely forgotten how existence had felt prior.
Leaning both elbows against the railing, she looked out over the square courtyard. The sand filled with twisting spirals that built up along the surface, then disappeared into mists of red dust.
The rezone process had indeed been horrifying. She should have inspected the facilities, should have maintained control beyond the initial transfer process. The sensory overload from that white-walled room alone was cause enough for trauma, and the psychological assessment had lacked in every perceivable way.
Oversights, certainly, but ones she could make amends for, in time. It would take her a while to reposition herself, unfortunately. Months, maybe years. The first step would be to make an appointment with her supervising officer, once one was assigned to her, so she could be transferred into R&D.
She would have to consider how to handle the placement exams. Convincing them she’d garnered knowledge as West’s protégé would not be difficult. However, suddenly waking from a rezone with a genius-level IQ might set off a few red flags.
For that reason, among many, she would need to be vigilant, and patient. This would be a long, slow process.
It was only a matter of time before it would all fall into place. For now, she would let herself marvel at this miracle the Architect had unwittingly given her. A second chance.
Across the wide courtyard, a door slid open, and a man stepped into the red haze. A few years younger, brown skin smoother, muscles thinner, but it was definitely him.
Daroga’s thick black hair was even longer than it had been when he died, tangling around his face in the choppy breeze. He tugged it back into a tie as he glanced around the decking. His tense expression loosened as his eyes met hers. He started the long jaunt around the walkway.
Her lips turned down. The contractor would need to be dealt with, as well. He knew far too much.
She shivered as something potent and painful stirred at the base of her rib cage. She fought the sensation down, uncertain of its source and her sudden hesitation.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to get rid of him. His fondness had seemed genuine enough. Given time, she might be able to be honest with him about her plans.
If nothing else, his connections with Dodson-Mueller could prove quite valuable. In fact, relocating to the corporate sphere could simplify the endeavor considerably. The bureaucracy and fastidiousness of the Extrasolar Fleet had not worked in her favor thus far. An entrepreneurial ethos could allow for greater risk-taking and fewer restrictions.
For now, it didn’t matter. There was no need to rush the decision. If the man proved troublesome down the line, she could always get rid of him.
A pain lanced in her gut, deeper and sharper and crueler than the previous. Her thumb pressed into her palm, the nail turning to dig in deep. She winced and shook it away.
Daroga turned the corner toward her. The fingers of her left hand tremored, and she steadied them on the railing.
As Daroga drew closer, she expected to find him disoriented, if not outright traumatized. Numb, at the very least.
However, when he met her gaze, his expression was an incongruent medley. Relief, sorrow, awe, hope … but more than anything, affection. She had almost forgotten what it looked like.
An odd, urgent itch scraped at the base of her skull. She tried to scratch it, to no avail, as if sourced from some deep, entombed place she couldn’t reach. The same sensation compelled her to step forward to meet him, roused her pulse, sent waves of tingling warmth down her limbs.
She gritted her teeth and smothered the feeling, clenching tight fists to stave off the compulsion to take his hands in hers.
With a slow exhale, she reminded herself that the transfer method ensured an order of operations. Reflexive responses may leak through, but emotional, anatomical, and verbal behaviors would not. Could not. That was how it worked.
She would adapt to the idiosyncrasies. For now, she had to remain focused on the task at hand. Humanity still faced a ticking clock.
Now she not only had the key, but enough time to properly implement it. The final and resounding defeat was imminent. Adriene’s sacrifice would not be in vain.
This death, unlike the other ninety-six, would actually mean something.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Eternal thanks to:
Dave Dewes: esteemed recipient of Husband of the Supereon Award
Mom, Dad, Jessie, DJ, Skyler, Dawson, and Lincoln: #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 Top Fans on Facebook, embodiment of the Seinfeld “hooray” GIF
Matt Olson: BFF&E&E
Ember, aka Emberkins, Kitty, Kitty-Kitty, Kitten, Kitten Mitten, Kitty-Mitty, Kitten Cat, Kitten Mitten Cat, Miss Kitten, Lettuce Monster
Lady Arya Stark-Stolte-Dewes of South-Central Wisconsin, aka Big Dog, Sweetest Pea, Sweetest of Peas, Sweet Girl, Sweetness and Light, fka Sock Monster
