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

the Admiralty she’d met during her Presidium’s security conferences at the Great Plains Metroplex. He stretched a brow, as if in irritation.

“We have been waiting,” he said. “Your clumsy captain docked at the farthest port he could find.”

“My apologies for …” Sam began.

“Did your Chief of Staff,” he turned to Patricia, “not inform him of clearance under a UG docking profile?”

Patricia didn’t answer, but she twisted her lips – a giveaway. She screwed up. Not her first logistical error, but Sam would not let her Chief take the fall.

“As I said,” she told the major, “my apologies. This was my call. It’s my first off-world trip and I wanted to see the full expanse of the station. I heard it was a perfect, pragmatic design. Nine hundred years old. Yes?”

He flinched. “I suppose, if that sort of thing interests you. Either way, you’re here now. We have been prepping the survivors to speak with you. If you will follow me.”

He tapped his amp and brought down the cascade barrier. After they were separated from the prying eyes and ears of civilians behind the translucent wall, Sam made her demands clear.

“You know who I am, Major,” she said. “My Presidium sat in consultation with the Admiralty. They insisted they gave us all the intelligence they had, but none of us believe we’re hearing the whole truth. The UG has persistently deflected our questions. I need one honest answer. Why has the Guard made no progress in hunting the terrorists?”

“I am not authorized to …”

“Yes, you are. If nothing else, your conscience gives you the power. I am …”

“Miss Pynn, my superiors insisted I provide you with every accommodation. On that ground alone, I’ll allow one question, but hear me: The answer does not walk out that barrier with you.”

He was more flexible than she expected. “Why?”

“Because if word got out, the panic would do more damage than James Bouchet and his band of fanatics.”

Sam needed a drink. “I understand. It stays here.”

Major Lancaster shrugged. “It’s simple, Miss Pynn. We haven’t hurt them because we don’t know how.”

“Excuse me?”

“Chancellors have been a space-faring people for thirteen centuries, yet we’ve never faced an enemy in space. Not once. We set up the colonies under the Guard’s thumb. We base the entire colonial fleet on Ark Carriers, designed to suppress the local populations. We kill efficiently on the ground, but our capital ships have no offensive combat weaponry, no deep-range fighters with system engines, and our shields only protect from the natural dangers of open space, not enemy aggression. We have little mobility and no training in interstellar combat strategy.”

The shame was written on his face, but his tone suggested he was glad to have this off his chest. She was floored.

“Damn. It was the most obvious answer all along. What’s being done to upgrade the fleet and improve tactical training?”

“That would be question number two. Sorry, Miss Pynn. In the meantime, you keep your mouths shut about this and interrogate the survivors. Don’t forget: We’re on the clock. All of us.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you?” He leaned in, his eyes piercing them both. “I had family in New Stockholm and several friends in SkyTower. These lunatics murdered a hundred thirty thousand people on Earth. They’ve killed almost as many since they escaped. If they ever build a real army …”

Sam flashed back sixteen months to the Pacific Riviera. The sun disappeared as she comforted a distraught Michael on the beach. “They’ll kill millions, Sam,” he said. “Billions.” She thought Michael’s warning was alarmist. Today, she saw his dread mirrored in Major Lancaster’s features. Even the Guard is terrified.

“We must make sure it never comes to that,” she said. “Lead me to them. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to help, but I’ll try, Major.”

“I’d say you’ll do more than try. You’re the reason we’re all here.”

As they entered a lift, Sam and Patricia shared puzzled frowns.

“What do you mean, Major?”

He glanced at them both, paused, then smiled with recognition.

“They didn’t tell you, did they?”

“Tell me what?”

“The Admiralty did not invite you. The survivors did. First thing off their lips when we woke them. They requested you by name.”

“What? Why?”

“I think you know.”

She did.

2

The Entilles Club

Boston Prefecture, North American Consortium

 

W HEN MICHAEL COOPER NEEDED to take the edge off, he found his go-to in jubriska. Shots, on the rocks, quick hits from a flask – it was all good. The mint blast opened his sinuses; the bourbon delivered a hot kicker going down. Jubriska dialed up his focus, sharpened his wit, heightened his sexual vibe, and settled the tremors in his trigger hand. A little now, a little later. It all made sense.

More or less.

He threw back a shot and declared himself ready to move after Rikard Bryznewieski briefed the team on mission details. He hid his flask in a custom-designed interior pocket of his faux leather jacket. To his dismay, true leather did not exist on Earth.

The synthetic fabric he discovered in a custom Recon tube program delivered a rugged brown sheen and rivaled the rawhide texture. The jacket was flexible, although the inset body armor added a few pounds. The Solomon tri-crest branded over his left chest compromised the chic he angled for.

He turned heads anyway. The Chancellors didn’t know what to make of a bearded proto-African with shoulder-length dreadlocks, silver ear studs, and a fashion sense they assumed he borrowed from the indigos on Zwahili Kingdom. All of which worked to his advantage when Michael embarked on a side career telling jokes to audiences with little understanding of ironic humor.

“How long does it take a Chancellor to cook dinner?” He paused for a beat to watch their suspicious, arrogant brains turning. “Beats