The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

as a new, compliant personality, she would be oblivious to her true nature. The Jewel energy could not reach out.”

“How can you be sure?”

Ignatius smiled as he studied the Earth, where massive nuclear explosions spread outward, continent to continent.

“Because I know our history, James. Most of it lived in freedom, a million years wandering the stars. But just enough of it in prison.”

“I don’t understand.” James reached behind the curtain of knowledge, searching for historical data about the Jewels. Yet where he reached, he found a black box, unable to open.

“Not yet,” Ignatius said, his voice darker and deeper. “Allow me to retain something of my own. You will learn the last important secrets soon enough. For now, be happy with the body of an Adonis, the mind of a genius, and the killing capacity of a nuclear bomb.”

Ignatius waved off James. “You will meet her soon enough. For now, go and play with your brother.”

As much as his time with Valentin was enriching James in ways he never expected, he didn’t want to leave his special place with Ignatius. He wanted to know everything about Rayna.

Yet play was an appropriate instruction. Valentin brought him to a sparse, cavernous chamber on the outer fringe of the Metroplex where soldiers simulated combat.  Valentin said he received special dispensation from Perrone to visit the training simulator without a ranking officer’s presence.

“For now, he will give us anything we want,” Valentin insisted. “I think he is interested in our plans.”

“More to the point, our plans for him.”

Valentin’s laugh echoed across the chamber.

“There is an old saying about UG commanders. ‘Each silver bar on an admiral’s chest is polished with fear.’”

“Fear of what?”

“Not what. Whom. Everyone in the chain of command. Mostly the ambitious majors. The admirals are old, far removed from battle, and one embarrassment away from losing their careers or staining their descendencies. James, I love the UG and fighting for the Chancellory, but I would never wish promotion into the admiralty.”

James rested a hand upon Valentin’s shoulder, as if he’d been doing it all his life.

“But after what you’ve been through since we met, how much longer can you defend the Chancellory?”

“I can’t say, brother. There are so many questions. How many more like me? What about your kindred? Do we have a future of our own choosing, or of their making?”

Jamie nodded. “And then there’s the matter of our parents.”

“Where do I start with them? Love them? Kill them? Until we find answers, I believe we are perfectly positioned right here, close to Perrone. Do you agree?”

“I’m with you, dude. All the way.”

They shared a fist bump, a technique James taught Valentin during their hours of freewheeling exchanges.

The 180-degree reversal of fortune from two days ago amazed and invigorated James. When he awoke on the admiral’s Scramjet, he sensed hope disappearing. Now, he couldn’t have imagined a better scenario for entering this new world. An accelerated evolution, invaluable resources close by, gullible Chancellors who did not understand his true mission, and a brother.

A real brother. Anyone could look at them and tell.

The change in Valentin stunned him most. The cold, hardened warrior who first treated James like a virus to be exterminated now showed a heart. He was an independent thinker, a rebel in the Bouchet descendency, an admirer of fine art. He loved to kill, as with any devoted peacekeeper, but Valentin showed a sense of humor.

“Enough commiserating,” Valentin said then swirled about, his arms wide. “This, brother, is a commander’s playground, but it is also the closest thing to actual off-world combat. You are about to experience what it’s like to be a peacekeeper without traveling two hundred light-years. Prepared to have fun?”

“Haven’t had much of that the last couple years. I’m game.”

Valentin led him to a console station which jutted out from the rear bank of the chamber. He tapped his amp, and the console launched a series of three-dimensional displays. He pointed to each.

“Planet, tactical, arsenal. We can choose any colony, narrow down its geography, set topographical variances, and choose the enemy.” He smiled. “Over here, choose tactical deployments, battle formations, either historical or theoretical. And here, we select from every available weapon at our disposal, from Scramjets to blast rifles to flame thrusters. In other words…”

James nodded. He peeked behind his intellectual curtain.

“We can recreate a battle the way it played out the first time or design one for the next time.”

Valentin flexed his brow. “You catch on quick, James. Every ground engagement the UG has fought over the past three centuries is in here. Recorded and transmitted by peacekeepers during combat.”

James touched the console and understood everything at once.

“But they’re interactive,” he said. “We can step into a battle and become part of it, even change it.”

“We can fight and kill the enemy, and they can kill us. Brilliant, yes?”

“And we wouldn’t mind being killed, why?”

“To learn. Recognize our flaws. Refine our technique. Peacekeepers have a ninety-seven percent efficiency rate in the field. The indigos realize if we target them, we will almost certainly kill them. But we are not flawless. Our own casualty rate the past five hundred years is less than one-half of one percent, but out of millions of peacekeepers who engaged the indigos on thirty-four different colonies. The number is too high. I should know.”

James heard the dip in Valentin’s tone, remembered the story his brother told last night of the recent battle on Zwahili Kingdom and his regret at losing focus for even a second. He took the business of killing seriously but protecting his comrades more so.

“Typically,” Valentin said, “these simulators are used by officers and field analysts to refine strategy and establish policy. The only other simulators are on the Ark Carriers at UG headquarters. It folds combat