chapter twenty-two
Allied Strike Squadron
Transverse, non-congruent
“We’ll be heading out for H17 soon,” Raibert announced on the Kleio’s bridge. “So if anyone wants off, now’s the time.”
“I suppose ‘anyone’ means us,” Isaac said, standing beside Susan.
“You’re welcome to tag along if you want. But we’ve already had one TTV try to take us out, so I expect the Institute will be a little touchy when we show up at their moon base.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather wait this out on Providence Station. Susan and I can find another ride back to SysGov.”
“Sure, of course. I understand.”
“Thank you for your hospitality, short though it was.”
Isaac turned to leave when Benjamin spoke up.
“Actually . . . ”
Isaac paused, brow creasing as he turned back around.
“There is one thing,” Benjamin said. “There’s still a lot of loose puzzle pieces left over from the data we collected and from your own investigation. I wouldn’t mind if you and Cephalie stuck around to help us make sense of it all. In fact, I’d really appreciate it if you did.”
“Good point, Doc,” Raibert said. “Anything we learn before we reach H17 could prove useful, no matter how trivial it may seem.” He turned to Isaac. “What do you say?”
“Well . . . ”
Isaac hesitated with a frown. As a rule, he tried to avoid being shot at as much as possible. Between the two of them, Susan possessed a willingness—perhaps even an eagerness—to charge headfirst into danger whenever the situation called for decisive action, but Isaac was on the opposite side of the spectrum. He was neither experienced nor well-equipped to fight any sort of battle and had always relied upon his LENS to deal with violent criminals.
But now he had been asked to stay on a ship about to charge headfirst into danger.
I’d really prefer to be somewhere else, he silently replied to Raibert in his head.
That much was true, but it was also true he saw the validity of Benjamin’s request. He and the Gordian agent were both familiar with their half of the data. Put their two heads together, and they should be able to crunch through the mess more swiftly, perhaps even teasing out an important deduction that had so far eluded them separately.
And so, despite the nervous lump Isaac sensed forming in the pit of his stomach, he gave the following answer:
“Well, since you believe this is where I can do the most good, this is where I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.” Benjamin gave him a grateful nod. “I really do appreciate the assist.”
“Don’t mention it,” Isaac said, some doubt and trepidation leaking into his voice.
“Do we need to get anyone’s approval for snagging you?” Raibert asked.
“That won’t be necessary or practical. My boss is in SysGov, all the way out at Saturn. Besides, Themis detectives are a rather autonomous lot to begin with. I’ll explain the situation to him in my report.”
If I don’t die a fiery death, he thought, then put on a brave face and turned to his partner.
“Well, Susan? I suppose this is goodbye. For a little while, at least. Seems we’ll be going our separate ways.”
“Actually . . . ” she began, mimicking Benjamin’s earlier tone.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not wrong, just unexpected.” She straightened her posture. “My presence has been requested aboard Hammerhead-Seven.”
“As part of the ground assault team?”
“That’s right.”
“But you’re currently assigned to Themis. You shouldn’t have been included in any of the Admin’s orders.”
“I wasn’t. Captain Elifritz requested my presence personally.” She flashed a guilty smile. “Apparently my actions during the Weltall case left an impression with him.”
An image sprang to mind of Susan’s combat frame dive-bombing through a glass dome to reach a bomb before it went off.
“Of course they would,” he said dryly.
“So . . . do I have your permission?”
“My permission?”
“To join the ground team.”
“Why would you need that?”
“Because I’m your deputy.”
“You’re—” He cut himself off.
Of course she needs my permission for this! Isaac scolded himself. He and Susan might have conducted themselves as equal partners most of the time, but that didn’t change how she’d been assigned to him as his deputy, a fact that—in the mental whirlwind following Benjamin’s request—had somehow managed to slip his mind.
But then another thought occurred to him. Any ground assault would be a risky proposition. Perhaps even the most dangerous aspect of this mission.
And all I have to do to protect her from that risk is deny her request, Isaac realized, and he was surprised to find the thought so tempting, so seductive.
So easy.
Just about any excuse would do, and he knew it. He knew she’d accept his judgment without question or complaint—at least not one she’d voice. That shielding her from danger would prove to be nothing more than a minor pebble on the road of their professional relationship.
And he found himself wanting to protect her. Very much so. Shockingly so. But he also knew what kind of person Susan was, and more importantly, why she charged into danger so willingly. She was a selfless protector at heart, and denying her this request would be the same as telling her to stop being herself.
And so—
“Permission granted. I’d tell you to be careful, but . . . ”
“Why be careful when I can be lethal?” Susan replied with a warm smile, and Isaac chuckled, his mood brightening.
“Now there’s the Susan I’ve come to know. Just promise me one thing before you go.”
“What’s that?”
“Try to come back in one piece, okay?”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“I mean it this time.”
“So do I.” She stood a little straighter. “I’ll try my best to come back in one piece.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
The two of them paused. An expectant silence followed, but neither of them spoke up, and eventually they exchanged nods before Susan left the bridge. Isaac found himself staring at the doorway, wondering darkly if that was the last time he’d ever see her.
Or her him.
“Well.” Raibert walked up beside Isaac. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know.” Raibert slung an arm over Isaac’s shoulders. “We’re not leaving right away, so you can catch up to her and do that properly.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Say a proper goodbye.” Raibert patted his shoulder with a big hand. “I don’t know, maybe give her a goodbye hug. Or whatever you’re up to at this stage in your relationship.”
“Relationship?” Isaac made a face. “I think you’ve misread the situation.”
“Doubt it. Look, I know shows of affection can be awkward with an audience. But you can relax around us. What I mean to say is don’t let us cramp your style, all right?”
“Agent Kaminski”—Isaac removed the big synthoid’s unresisting arm—“I see where you’re going with this, but let me assure you that while Susan and I have a relationship, it is strictly a professional one.”
“I . . . ” Raibert blinked at the closed exit. “It is?”
“Yes.”
“Then you aren’t . . . ?”
“No.”
Raibert glanced to Isaac, then to the door, then back. “You sure?”
“Very much so.”
The synthoid took one last look at the exit, frowned at it for a long moment, then gave everyone an exaggerated shrug.
“Shows what I know.”
* * *
Susan grabbed a handhold beside the open airlock and propelled herself into Hammerhead-Seven’s crowded cargo bay. The bay was considerably larger than those found on the older Pioneer chronoports, with enough room for three Cutlass troop transports aligned nose-to-tail down the center, each with barely enough clearance for someone to squeeze sideways between them.
The cargo bay bustled with activity: pilots performing preflight checks, operators prepping drones and combat frames, and STANDs filing in to have their consciousness transferred into humanoid weapons.
The chronoport—along with the rest of the allied strike squadron—had sped through the transverse at seventy thousand kilofactors for over five hours, which meant—
“Crew, your attention, please,” came Captain Elifritz’s voice over her virtual hearing. “We’re one hour away from H17B’s outer wall. All STANDs to your combat frames. Cutlass crews, complete final checks and prepare for launch. All other personnel, assume combat stations. Set Condition One throughout the ship.”
Virtual marquees lit up along the walls, notifying all personnel of the ship’s shift toward combat readiness. Operators and STANDs began pairing off, each to one of the combat frames waiting like a row of dark, metallic skeletons burdened with weaponry and maneuvering boosters.
Susan pressed a hand against the wall and slowed to a halt in the line.
“Agent Cantrell.”
She spun around, surprised to find Agent Noxon floating behind her, already transferred and equipped.
“Agent Noxon,” she replied with a curt nod.
“I’m glad the captain was able to convince you to join us. It’ll be good to work with you again.”
“Likewise, though”—she permitted herself the barest hint of a smile—“it didn’t take much convincing, to be honest.”
“I’m not surprised. Did your partner object at all?”
“No, sir. Not one bit.” She turned back to him. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought he might. Just an impression I had from working with him on the Weltall case. A lot of people from SysGov aren’t comfortable with how . . . direct our methods can be.”
“That much is certainly true. Our first case together had its share of rocky moments.”
“I can imagine.”
“That said, I think he . . . ” Susan paused, trying to assemble her feelings into a proper sentence. “I think he’s come to understand me over these past six months. Even the parts he doesn’t approve of. That’s why he didn’t object when I asked to join the ground team.”
“He sounds like a good partner.”
“That he is, sir.”
The line shifted up, and one of the operators waved for Susan to join her by the combat frame at the far end of the row. Susan kicked off the floor, grabbed a handhold, then propelled herself across the tops of the combat frames. She passed several Type-92s and a few heavier Type-86s before arriving at her sleek Type-99.
She brought herself to a halt beside the operator.
“I’ve prepped your standard loadout along with some mission-specific additions.” The operator pointed to each modular mount. “Right-arm heavy rail-rifle and shoulder-mounted grenade launcher. Your incinerator’s been loaded with self-immolating gel, since we don’t expect any pressurized environments. You’ll also be carrying one of our telegraphs here.” She pointed to a cylinder nestled against the combat frame’s back. “And two demolition packs here and here at the waist.”
“What’s the yield on the demo packs?”
“Point nine tons with options for directed and undirected blast profiles.”
Susan nodded. As a STAND, she’d received extensive training with a wide range of armaments—including various types of demolition charges—though this would be her first time using explosives this powerful outside of simulations.
“Any questions?” the operator asked.
“None.”
“All right, then. Let’s get you inside.”
Susan turned around and raised the back of her uniform top, exposing a U-shaped seam in her skin halfway down her back. The operator took a knife, cut along the seam, and raised the flap to reveal the access slot to her connectome case.
“Ready for me to yank you?”
“Ready.”
Susan locked her synthoid in position and sent the release code. The cargo bay vanished, replaced with swirls of random colors and chime-like music. She floated within a sea of temporary stimulation, waiting for the operator to remove her case and plug it into the combat frame, and for once she found the experience unsettling. Her mind wandered until it began to fixate on her complete helplessness.
Everything she considered “The True Susan” was literally in the hands of a stranger. A well-trained and fully certified stranger, but a stranger nonetheless.
She’d switched bodies countless times over her nine years of service as a STAND, and while she’d been nervous the first dozen or so times, she hadn’t experienced any anxiety over the process for years. Why were her nerves acting up this time, even if only a little?
And then the answer dawned on her.
She’d grown accustomed to Isaac switching her over. Something about letting him do it—and how she’d come to trust him so completely—had served to place her mind into a deeper state of ease, and she hadn’t noticed the difference until this moment.
The body swap only took a few seconds, but it seemed to stretch on unnaturally this time until the random kaleidoscope switched off and new senses flooded in: not just familiar light and sound but ultraviolet, infrared, sonar, and radar. She saw and heard through the combat frame’s sensors—her sensors—and turned her head to inspect the redheaded synthoid floating beside her. She stepped away from the Type-99’s rack, took hold of her other body, and placed it where the frame had once been.
“Any issues?” the technician asked.
“None.” She stared at her body for longer than usual. “I’m good to go.”
* * *
“Kleio,” Raibert said, resting his fingertips on the command table’s edge, “connect me to Hammerhead-Seven.”
“Yes, Agent Kaminski.”
TTV Kleio, along with the seven other time machines in the strike squadron, sped through the transverse in phase-locked formation, allowing them to communicate via realspace methods like radio or laser instead of having to rely on cumbersome chronoton telegraphs.
“Direct link established,” Kleio said, moments before the comm window opened.
“Elifritz here. Go ahead, Kleio.”
“Captain,” Kaminski said as he glanced over at Benjamin and Isaac, “our brain trust has been trudging through all the info we have—looking for ways to connect the fragments we found on that Institute TTV and the forensic findings from Detective Cho’s investigation. They just reviewed their results with me, and I want to go over it with you before briefing the whole squadron. Granted, most of what they’re about to say is conjecture, but it feels solid to me.”
“Understood. What do we have to work with?”
Raibert gave Benjamin a quick nod to proceed.
“Essentially, Captain,” Benjamin began, “we believe we’ve deduced the Phoenix Institute’s high-level goals, and they’re about as bad as we expected. As Agent Kaminski indicated, we’re not certain of any of this—Detective Cho and I have made a few educated guesses when it comes to holes in the data—but we’re confident with the results. Those caveats aside, we’re looking at a three-phase plan to destroy the Admin.”
“They don’t aim small, do they?” Elifritz replied.
“I think we can safely say the Institute isn’t interested in half-measures. Phase One of their plan: utilize proxy entities within the Admin to test infostructure attack vectors.”
“That would explain why we’ve seen such a huge uptick in terrorist activity. They’ve been using those cells to test various abstract weapons.”
“That’s our conclusion as well,” Benjamin said.
“What about the physical weapons or other technology we’ve seen in terrorist hands?”
“Misdirection. The Institute was only ever interested in how their military-grade software performed. They studied the results, using each attack’s effectiveness to help them determine the optimal method while keeping their existence and ultimate goals hidden.”
“But a method for what?”
Benjamin exchanged a quick look with Isaac.
“To kill as many people on the Admin’s Earth as possible,” Isaac said. “Essentially gutting the center of Admin power in order to allow other entities—namely Luna and Mars—a chance to step into the power vacuum. There’s a little more to it than that. One of their secondary goals is to carry out this genocide without irreparably damaging Earth’s habitability.”
“How thoughtful of them.” Elifritz spoke softer, but with an edge as cold as frozen hydrogen.
“The upside for us,” Isaac continued, “is that this grants us a glimpse at their motives and overall mindset. They’re not trying to take over for themselves or kill for the sake of killing, at least from their own perspective. Instead, they’ve deluded themselves into believing they’re making the Admin a better place. That’s why we’re facing an infostructure attack rather than something more direct, like large-scale nuclear or kinetic strikes.”
“The latter two would almost be kinder,” Elifritz growled. “If for no other reason than it would be over quickly. If they do hit our infostructure on a global scale, then we could be looking at total supply chain paralysis, followed by mass starvation.”
“It seems they’re also interested in freeing as many AIs as possible,” Benjamin said. “Hence another reason to hit the Admin through its infostructure over other approaches. From what we can tell, the Phoenix Institute formed in late 2979, shortly after first contact between SysGov and the Admin. Its members came together out of a two-pronged fear of the Admin and its Restrictions. We’re fairly certain Doctor Xenophon played a lead role in founding the organization and that most—if not all—of its members are abstract.”
“Which may be another reason they chose to target the Admin’s infostructure,” Isaac said. “If we’re dealing with abstract criminals, then it makes sense for them to attack via abstract means. They’re committing an act they at least have a basic level of comfort with, and this ties back into how effective their software has been, not only against the Admin, but Gordian Division as well.”
“All good reasons to place confidence in your conclusions,” Elifritz said. “But you mentioned a three-phase plan.”
“That’s right,” Benjamin said. “Phase Two involves establishing a manufacturing base large enough to support Phase Three, which is the attack itself. That’s why the Institute hijacked Reality Flux. We don’t know what they’re building, but we can assume it’s some sort of delivery mechanism. Multiple TTVs at a minimum, I’d say.”
“And the payload?” Elifritz asked.
“Nasty little buggers the Institute calls ‘Revenants,’” Cephalie explained. “From what Philo and I have been able to piece together, these Revenants are nonsentient programs developed from a sentient template. Probably what happened is the Institute took an existing connectome and whittled it down to a few essential components, which means these programs are going to be highly adaptive, if lacking true self-awareness. Expect them to be utterly remorseless and armed with the Institute’s best abstract weapons.”
“Lovely,” Elifritz growled.
“We expect the Revenants to target critical pieces of public infostructure,” Isaac said. “That means information, food, transportation, power, and the like.”
“And here we are struggling with a few ragtag terrorists armed with similar weapons.”
“With that in mind,” Raibert said, “I want to review my thoughts with you before giving my orders to the squadron.”
“You have my undivided attention.”
“So, this is how I see it, Captain. We’re dealing with genocidal lunatics here, and very capable lunatics at that. They’ve had over forty subjective years to prepare, and they’ve already pulled some pretty nasty stuff on us. There’s no point talking to them, at least before we show them we mean business. If we show up and ask them politely if they’d like to surrender, they’ll just stall until they can knife us in the back. So I say we go in loud. Hit them fast, and hit them hard.”
“Makes sense to me,” Elifritz replied. “What did you have in mind?”
“Just pondering how this mixed squadron of ours is traveling at seventy-kay. Which means your Hammerheads are below their cruising speed with your stealth baffles extended. The Institute is going to see our TTVs coming as clear as the sun, but you? They’ll have no idea you’re with us until it’s too late.”
“How would you like us to capitalize on that advantage, assuming my chronoports retain the element of surprise?”
“The Institute’ll have a base. That base’ll have a door.” Raibert let a vicious grin slip. “I want you to kick down that door. With a nuclear boot.”
“Ah.” Elifritz let out a brief chuckle. “Yes, we can certainly oblige.”
“How big is your boot?”
“Each chronoport is equipped with ten thermonuclear warheads mounted on guided missiles. Explosive yield of each device can be varied up to fifty megatons.”
“Fifty?!” Raibert blurted. “You mean to tell me your two ships are packing a gigaton of explosives!”
“We believe in being prepared.”