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

inserted the sleeve into the foci arm controlling the destination’s quantum signature. He backed away, joining Michael and Maya at the opening to the Anchor field.

“What happened in here?” Michael said. “Who are those soldiers?”

The foci arms rearranged into a new configuration and infused the Anchor field with a sequence of lasers. The green haze of Void energy formed inside the parabola.

“You best hope that’s the last of them,” Aldo said.

“Where did they come from?”

Michael thought of his brothers in arms. Was Percy outside the lab even now, fighting for his life against the invaders? If the Anchor was the only means of fleeing from the enemy, shouldn’t they open the door to save as many as possible?

He asked the question, but neither Maya nor Aldo answered.

“Here’s how we need to do this,” Maya said. “Michael, stand between us. If what Maj. Nilsson told you is true, we’ll have a bit of a fall on the other side. Activate your gravmod boots and hold us tight.”

The hazy Anchor field dissolved, replaced by a deep, developing doorway linking the quantum signatures on either end. The tunnel pulsed as the Anchor field stabilized. The doorway opened.

Michael resisted. “No. Please. We have to help them.”

“You think I don’t want to?” Aldo said. “They were my people under my command. But we’re done. The base. All of it. It was a cudfrucking setup. Any second now, they’ll send through a bomb. They want nothing left behind. No evidence. No witnesses.”

“Evidence of what?”

Aldo didn’t answer. The lab door disintegrated. Michael lost his hold on the others and swiveled before raising his rifle. One soldier stumbled through the flames, charred, his helmet in tatters, his Guard armor disintegrating, his body full of holes. He was unrecognizable, but Michael knew.

Percy.

The pitiful remains of the soldier took a defensive posture which lasted as long as the final flash pegs exploded from his rifle. Blistering fire tore his body apart. It joined the others on the deck.

The enemy advanced. Human, yet also insectoid. Black and bronze armor gleamed as they stormed the lab.

Instinct told Michael what to do. He reached into a pouch and gathered two micro-barrel grenades retrieved earlier from his weapons rack. They were easy to trigger. Hold at the equator and twist counterclockwise. The countdown began at five seconds.

He hurled the grenade and wrapped his arm around Aldo and Maya, pushing them to the ground.

The detonation was bigger than he expected, perhaps a factor of the leaking Void energy. In the few seconds of relative silence that followed, Michael grabbed the others and nodded.

They didn’t say a word.

As they ran into the field, Michael triggered the other grenade and dropped it behind them at the aperture’s opening. He didn’t know if the explosion would follow them through the doorway, but he wasn’t about to give the enemy a chance to do the same.

41

Command bridge, Praxis

2.2 million kilometers from Tamarind

 

M AJ. AIDEN NILSSON NEVER disobeyed a command until today. He wasn’t sure whether the decision to give Michael an escape route to Hiebimini meant he was a weak, duplicitous traitor or a Chancellor who was beginning to see the futility of hanging on to the past. Either way, leaving Tamarind without his team produced a sordid taste in his mouth. He didn’t buy Forsythe’s rationale.

His disgust deepened when he stepped onto the command bridge amid a heated argument between Capt. Delano Forsythe and his XO, Col. Joseph Doltrice. The navigator, along with Frances Bouchet and Alayna Rainier, looked on in pale dismay.

“We still have time,” Doltrice insisted. “Order all staff to the Anchor now. Even if we only save a third, we have to try.”

Forsythe leaned aside in the captain’s chair, lost in a distant stare, as if he couldn’t defuse the moment.

“What’s happened?” Nilsson said.

All eyes turned his way. His stomach tangled in knots.

Doltrice responded. “The station is under attack. Salvation forces. Two ships. They breached the outer defenses.”

“Cud. What is our status? Is my team holding ground?”

“It’s not good. We had no warning, and apparently no one was monitoring external vids at the time. We’re losing the base.”

Nilsson faced Forsythe. “How are we assisting?”

“We aren’t,” the captain said. “We can’t.”

“Wait, what? We have the Anchor. That’s what you were arguing about. Why aren’t we using it as an escape route?”

“The prototypes on Tamarind and Euphrates served their usefulness. Our operations there have ended, but the tech cannot be allowed to fall into other hands – whether terrorist or indigo.” Forsythe said the words as if scripted. “My orders are clear.”

“But, sir, we have people down there. Chancellors. Soldiers. My soldiers! We can save them and then destroy the Anchor. What kind of half-baked madness is this?”

“My sentiments exactly,” Doltrice said.

Amid the jittery silence, Forsythe tapped his temple and opened a holocube.

“Status?”

A woman replied, “Package delivery verified to Luna and Gladhomme. Negative on Mount Sofia. Orders?”

“Load new package for Mount Sofia and deliver.”

Forsythe threw away the holocube and looked around the bridge.

“Col. Tennyson, ETA to the Nexus?”

“Eighteen minutes, sir.”

“Thank you. Everyone but Col. Doltrice and Maj. Nilsson, leave the bridge at once.”

Frances and Alayna protested, but they didn’t sound sincere or particularly offended by the order. Nilsson never heard them ask about anyone in the base by name. Wasn’t Alayna part of the alliance with Michael’s Presidium? Why was she not horrified?

After the bridge cleared, Capt. Forsythe stretched his legs.

“I need the two of you to free your minds and take a step back,” he said. “Consider the larger picture.”

“Picture of what?” Nilsson said. “The one where we sacrifice our own people needlessly?”

“No, Major. The one where we think of the greater good.”

Doltrice moved in on his captain. “What good