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

around concepts James mastered in hours after peering into the heart of the Jewel of Eternity. But Valentin struggled to comprehend the intense waves of quantum algorithms flickering across the screen like so much indiscriminate code. Inestimable calculations were charting the ship’s bending, spiraling tunnel through layers of dark matter followed by an exit into normalized space. The math would predict their exit to the square meter – with a precision that had not failed since early test-runs.

“Timing,” James insisted. “This must be perfect. Show them what we can do. Send her a message.”

James never explained his recent fixation on Samantha Pynn. Valentin insisted this mission was a distraction, but his brother claimed the future was coming together at last.

“This is one of the most important dominoes,” James said. “It will set so many steps into motion. No mistakes, Valentin.”

Or else …

James’s tone suggested the latter, although Valentin warned himself against paranoia. He’s my brother. He’s our salvation. He was also a fully evolved hybrid who owed as much allegiance to the Jewels as to humans. The volcanic glow in the corners of his eyes offered a continuous reminder.

Valentin swiveled about and observed the ship’s small crew.

Ulrich Rahm, one of the original ten Jewel hybrids, pivoted in the navigation cylinder, held steady by a rotating still-seat as he swiped through data streams. The three-dimensional vector graphic of their next wormhole displayed the event horizon on either end of their journey and the slender tunnel they would cut through sublayers of dark matter. Ulrich beamed while dancing his hands like a symphonic conductor. Ulrich was the happiest, most devoted of the hybrids from the day Valentin, James, and Ophelia Tomelin rescued him. No one took to the new quantum math like Ulrich.

“Drivers are initiated, Admiral,” the navigator announced. “Once the aperture is open, Slope time will be 22.45 seconds.”

Valentin turned to his Chief of Intelligence, Harrison Malwood, the first convert from among disaffected former peacekeepers. Harrison, a surly man who went native on Qasi Ransome after botched recursion therapy took his left eye, sat strapped at the flight deck’s rear bulkhead, racing through a holocube. His lips moved as he communicated with his contacts on Vasily Station.

“Vasily has been disabled,” Harrison said. “Our operatives are now engaged with the targets. I am feeding the platform rotation coordinates to the navcom. Ulrich, the operatives will be expelled in seventy-five seconds. Adjust your calculations.”

This must be perfect.

And yet, the physics seemed all but impossible to Valentin. Even the most precise calculations suggested their bid to save their operatives and flee Vasily command space in less than a minute faced daunting odds.

Why, brother? Why must we take these chances?

Valentin cast his doubts aside and strapped himself in.

“You’re clear to catalyze,” he told Ulrich. “Open the aperture.”

“Time to give these people a show they won’t forget,” the navigator said. “Catalyst drivers are spinning the magnetic field. Now infusing dark matter substrata. Slope aperture opens in twenty, nineteen, eighteen …”

Valentin cleared his mind of all emotional clutter as Ulrich announced the countdown. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes at launch, the disruption seemed less agonizing.

“Eight, seven, six … Slope time variation to 22.43 seconds … three, two, one …”

Spearhead lurched, as if thrown forward and hurled backward simultaneously. The aperture opened around the ship and consumed it. Valentin felt his lungs rise into his throat, his intestines twist around his spine, and his ears implode into his nasal cavity. Seconds later, he had a headache but no organs out of place. He opened his eyes and beheld the Slope – a tunnel through space no wider than the ship itself. A muddy haze, sometimes brightened by the flicker of nearby stars, offered no sense of movement. Only the turbulence caused by Spearhead bouncing off tunnel walls suggested travel. Unlike the Fulcrum, which existed long before the Collectorate and accommodated massive interstellar traffic, traveling the Slope was an exercise in claustrophobia. James once explained how localized wormholes could only be generated with apertures the size of the vessels which catalyze them.

“This will be good for us,” his brother claimed. “They’ll have no way to track us until we’re on top of them.”

The claim proved true, allowing victory upon victory. Every liberation, every supply or reconnaissance mission, every ambush, every slaughter. Consistently, the Guard or regional security forces mobilized too late. The same would happen at Vasily, even though it was already under assault. The only question for Valentin: Would Spearhead leave with two new passengers?

At 22.43 seconds after the aperture opened, it closed, spitting the ship into open space. A blast of brilliant light and a shattering burst of thunder followed the same forward/backward lurch.

Full stop. Through the starboard viewport, Valentin saw Vasily, the oldest and grandest transfer station in the Collectorate. He also saw bodies hurtling uncontrollably from the facility’s inoperative ring.

He fingered ship diagnostics, confirmed position, and raised the central cargo hold’s cascade barrier. The starboard bulkhead pixelated. Several bodies raced past within meters of Spearhead.

“We have iso on our people,” Ulrich announced. “Pushing lateral thrusters by seven degrees. They’re coming in fast, might have a hard bounce against the portside bulkhead.”

Valentin opened a new window and saw the operatives, both in full-body shells trying to fight inertia by firing weapons. They came in hot but dead center through the open bulkhead. He closed the portal and brought down the cascade barrier. He turned to Ulrich, who offered a thumbs-up.

“Pivoting. Reverse aperture catalyzing. Drivers spinning the magnetic field. Dark matter substrata infusing. Hang on back there,” Ulrich said, presumably to their operatives. “Ten, nine, eight …”

Valentin made the mistake of thinking about home. He hadn’t been this close to Earth since escaping aboard the Passaic Dawn. He had no regrets and long ago pushed aside any distress over the death toll beneath SkyTower. But even venturing