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

carved out of the many hollows inside this fragile mountain, were supported by an intricate metal lattice that gleamed silver, casting a healthy glow and providing warmth. He encountered that same design the moment he, Jamie, and Sammie crossed the IDF between Earths almost three years earlier. Within minutes of that arrival, he watched his No. 1 incinerate a man alive and feared he made the worst decision of his life. This time, however, Michael wore body armor and carried enough flash pegs to fear no man – including James Bouchet.

He walked the corridor of Level Two an hour after his therapy ended in medpod – sore all over but numb to the pain. He left a Recon tube decked in a new uniform, with fresh crimson-and-gray body armor, his blast rifle, Ingmar, and Lin’taava sword pouched. He held his shoulders stiff and high, arms swinging wide and proud, though his chest heaved with surges of fire in his ribs.

Michael studied each person he passed, looking for any clue as to whether they doubted his resolve. Did they hear about this morning’s battle? About his latest close kiss with death? Everyone here knew each other by name; at no time did the base house more than seventy people. Moreover, the corridors were narrow passageways, allowing two abreast, with right-angle turns that sharply carved through the mountain. The base did not provide the luxury of privacy, except for the vaunted few who received solo quarters on Level 3 – a feature even his Presidium could not buy.

Michael knew how to read a Chancellor’s eyes, how to interpret their arrogance and disdain. The tight surroundings heightened his senses and his paranoia.

“I know they still can’t believe it,” he once told Maya. “Me as their equal. Defending their lives. Financing part of this mission. Legally on the same standing.”

“And now their ally,” Maya reminded him. “They may not respect you as you’d like, but they have put their trust in you, Michael.”

“What has trust ever meant to these people? The minute they don’t see a need for me, they’ll kill me. Then they’ll come for you. No. I’ll work with these assholes, I’ll defend their fucking lives, I’ll drink and smoke with them, I’ll even sleep with them. But I’ll never drop my guard. Not for one goddamn second. Sam learned the same lesson, and she was one of them.”

“So, they are nothing more than a means to an end?”

“You betcha. Hell, maybe they’re rubbing off on me.”

“Perhaps too much?”

Maya was right, of course, though Michael never told her. He was willing to match their ruthlessness and raise them in cold-blooded betrayal. No surrender. No retreat.

He arrived at the base commander’s office five minutes before the promised meeting, surprised to find Maj. Nilsson standing at attention outside. Nilsson saluted with a side-nod, and Michael returned the honor then exhaled poltash smoke through his nose.

“Good as new?” Nilsson asked.

“Don’t think I could fetch full price right now, sir, but I’m getting there. Pipe helps.” He stretched his neck. “Recon measurements were snug around the shoulders.”

“You’re not the first to complain about that tube. I’ll order a diagnostic soon as we’re finished here.”

“Been trying not to get my hopes too high, sir. Any spoilers?”

Nilsson cracked a smile. “If you mean advance intel? No.”

Michael grabbed a final puff before they entered, the last of eight expected from base staff.

Commandant Aldo Cabrise, who took over as CO following the Ark Carrier evacuation, leaned back on a small desk. At least ten years older than anyone in the facility, Cabrise cut a haggard figure. Gray and wrinkled, with an undisciplined silver beard, Cabrise struck Michael less as a commander and more like a war-weary refugee. Considering the stories he’d been told about Cabrise, the image made sense. Yet no one dared underestimate the commandant, whose obsession kept this project alive more than any Chancellor.

Cabrise whispered to his aide, Maya Fontaine, whose fingers raced through a holocube in response to his instructions. Michael still didn’t know how she pulled off the job. She never would have demeaned herself to have slept with him, and she had no particular skillset to suggest she was worthy of the position. Yet within a week after spec-ops took over base security, she arrived on a shuttle from Praxis and reported for duty. From time to time, she passed along tidbits of intel but insisted Cabrise wasn’t the true power here.

That distinction, of course, belonged to Frances Bouchet, who winked at Michael as he entered then resumed quiet conversation with her top two engineers. Not once did Michael see her without feeling a swirl of nausea. Yes, she was the embodiment of everything he despised in Chancellors, but her eyes reminded him of Jamie Sheridan. His ex-best friend was now an unrecognizable monster, a murderer of millions, and she created him. Such a wonderful mom that Jamie tried to kill her the same day he met her.

Frances was a thin creature with oval, ginger eyes and midnight hair, cut short like a tomboy. She dyed it after she and Emil went into hiding following SkyTower, or so the rumors said. She dressed in flowing whites and pastels, showing off the pomp and bombast of Chancellor power-players and in no way resembling the modest bodysuits of her scientific colleagues.

The only other physical attendee was Alayna Rainier, representative of the Coronado Presidium. She was ten years older than Michael. She joined with the allied Presidiums who risked everything during the Solomon uprising to enter the Great Plains Metroplex and force the hand of then-Rear Admiral Angela Poussard. Alayna and Michael represented the civilian interests here, while the other three Presidium reps lived aboard Praxis. Michael assumed they’d be attending the meeting by holowindow.

“Good,” said Cm. Cabrise, breaking away from Maya and looking around. “We’re all here. Maj. Nilsson, once again we have your