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

“Rikhi, I can’t promise you Brahma. But there may be a way out. If I can take you away from this, will you come?”

The boy lifted his head.

48

V ALENTIN SAID NOTHING AS MALWOOD made his twenty-minute presentation detailing threats near and far. Valentin made strong note of facial reactions. James tugged at his beard with an air of smug superiority; Rayna nodded with a fierceness to suggest she was making a mental list of targets to assassinate; and the boys, Benjamin and Peter, sat doe-eyed with jaw-drops at all the wrong moments. The others reacted with anything from disinterest to embarrassment. Are they talking inside the shared mind? His executive officer, Major Rafael Kane, kept his hands tight-fisted in his lap. Valentin wasn’t the only one feeling insulted.

It’s theater, he thought. What are you doing, brother?

So caught up in his disgust, Valentin didn’t recognize when the Chief of Intelligence shut up. But he knew precisely what to say when James swiveled his way and asked, “Thoughts, brother?”

Valentin only suffered headaches after Slope travel, but this pain felt akin to one.

“My thoughts?” He sighed. “Where do I begin? Actually, I won’t begin anywhere. I’ll just go straight to the end. A summary. How’s that?” He stared at Malwood with all the intensity he could muster.

“We are trying to defeat an empire that spans nine hundred light-years. We are trying to do this with less than one thousand people and not even a measurable fraction of the resources of said empire. Essentially, we are trying to pull off the impossible.

“You, our so-called Chief of Intelligence, have informed us that indigos are frightened and might turn to Chancellors for protection, but Chancellors cannot be trusted, and Chancellors working for us in the fleet want to know our secrets. What bold and daring revelations, Mr. Malwood. You did not provide one actionable threat. I wonder: When did you write this report? Perhaps today, after my brother suggested you craft one for this meeting or else become disposable?”

Ah! There it is!

Malwood’s tic – a slight twitch above the left brow – confirmed his accusation. Bad theater.

James rapped his fist twice against the table.

“I hate it when you’re right, brother. But you must admit, everything he said is technically accurate. Soon as we start to trust Chancellors, or even the indigos, we’re doomed.”

“Then why, James? Why waste our time when we have so many pressing matters?”

“Hmm. Truth is, I did expect the report to be more substantive, Harrison. And you were a bit on the wordy side. I had an English teacher once … Ms. Bidwell. Queen Bee. She would have marked that report up blood red. Not so wordy next time. OK, Harrison?”

Malwood bowed his head and smiled. “Indeed, Brother James.”

Valentin felt like a fool when he saw through their game.

“Now I understand. He’s been working off-book missions for you, brother, just as we all suspected, so you brought him in here to justify him. To create the illusion he’s working for us all.”

“You’re clever,” James said, sharing a sneaky smile with Rayna. “Yes. Harrison has been my lead agent on Earth. I’m not ready to disclose the nature of his missions, but our victory will be in large part his doing. We owe him a debt.”

“You could have led with that, brother, and saved considerable time. I thought we were through with these games.”

James twisted his lips as if looking for the perfect punch line.

“I don’t play games, Admiral. Wouldn’t be fair. I’d always win.”

“Right. Because you’re a god. Fine. Glad we sorted that out. Yes? Might we proceed now with the agenda?”

“Better yet, why don’t you take charge, Admiral Valentin?”

The condescending tone stretched Valentin’s patience.

“That teacher you mentioned before, brother. Wasn’t she the one who shot you eight times? You were a bastard even then. Yes?”

“It paid off. I became a god.”

Valentin showed his brother the hand and swiveled to his XO.

“Major Kane, before I try to beat my brother to death, would you please make your presentation.”

Kane gulped, as if caught off-guard, but tapped his stream amp and threw open a holowindow. He stood and expanded the field range, which displayed all forty worlds of the Collectorate.

“Unlike your man,” Valentin said without looking at James, “we have relevant and urgent data. In other words, we came prepared.”

Kane waited for James’s approval and cleared his throat.

“As you see, this is a familiar overview of our colonial footprint as well as all locations where we have installed the refractors. In the past several days, I have analyzed the Guard’s deployment orders and confirmed all troop transport departures. At present, I anticipate the first three battalions to reach Earth within one standard day and the others to follow over the next eight to nine days. In my analysis, I discovered a disturbing trend.”

Kane rolled his hands inside the holowindow until the Collectorate reorganized, its colonies listed by similar data metrics.

“As you see at left, these twenty-six colonies have each dispatched one battalion to Earth. I thought it a strange maneuver to spread the deployment so widely across the colonies. My strategic assumption would have been the Admiralty recall most troops from the inner colonies, assuring the largest number of soldiers reach Earth in the fastest window. I asked: Do they have something in common?”

Kane swiped over the planetary lists and overlaid a new set of data. Gasps and ah-hah’s dominated the responses.

“Salvation has never made a violent incursion on these twenty-six planets. Yes, we have planted refractors on several Ark Carriers above these worlds, but those quick-strike operations go unnoticed. To our knowledge, no refractor has been discovered. We also liberated ten percent of the immortal children from these worlds, but those were covert ops managed through third parties.