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

he monitored their downward trek. Clusters of trees like spreading canopies, yellow-orange rock formations like monuments, open pastures, a narrow rushing river, all beneath a deep blue sky like nothing he saw on Earth (first or second).

No one spoke on the way down. Michael assumed they were every bit as gobsmacked. He finished the descent as trained, walking on invisible stairs to assure a smooth transition at the surface. He step-landed on a knoll amid knee-high grass. Twenty meters in front of them, thunderous whitewater plowed past in a river with rocky banks. On the far side, a tangled garb of spindly trees jutted out of huge crevasses between giant stone mounds littering the horizon.

They stared at each other.

“And I used to think VR was cool,” Michael said.

Maya’s stoicism, as usual, gave little away. Aldo, on the other hand, seemed downright dismayed. His frown said it all.

“This can’t be right,” he said. “Tall green grass of this variety?” He pointed away from the river. “A deciduous forest?” He looked up. “The sky was … no, they sent us somewhere, but not Hiebimini.”

Michael didn’t hesitate. He ordered the DR29 to assess their position against the Galactic Plane Navigation Model. When he received the results, he retracted his helmet and opened a cube. He twisted and pulled at the complex overlays, until he reached the narrow sector matching their coordinates. Michael threw open a window.

“Hiebimini system. Unless there’s another planet we don’t know about orbiting that star, looks like we found the right address.”

“What’s wrong, Aldo?” Maya said. “Why is this not Hiebimini?”

“I served in the Carrier fleet for eleven years. The planet was a wasteland. A forsaken clay pack. The brontinium mines destroyed the climate. There were two rivers on the entire planet. What are the chances we land next to one of them?”

She responded with a soft, counseling tone – the technique she used on Michael in his most desperate moments.

“Aldo, that was thirty-eight years ago. Nature knows how to heal itself after removing the disease. Perhaps all it needed was for those mines to be silenced.”

“No. Natural recovery would have taken centuries, if ever. Even the best terraforming program wouldn’t have succeeded by now. Before I joined the Guard, I intended to become an exobiologist. I studied Hiebimini for years. This planet had no cudfrucking future.”

She grabbed his hand. “Aldo, you need to stop fighting your instincts. You saw what happened that day. You reported it. So did millions of others. You knew Hiebimini would be changed; it’s why you wanted to return. But now you’re here, you can’t trust your own eyes. It’s time to think beyond human science. Yes?”

Michael chimed in. “I’m with Maya. After the shit we just pulled off, I think it’s time we start believing anydamnthing is possible.”

Aldo did not respond as Michael expected. First, he leaned in and hugged Maya, whispering in her ear. When he pulled back, however, he stared at Michael with the cynicism of a stranger. The world-weary eyes and the creased rows of forehead wrinkles unveiled a darker persona than Michael knew at Ericsson Station.

Did I say something wrong?

“I need a moment,” Aldo said. He walked toward the river.

Michael surveyed the miracle around them.

“The old man’s right. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Maya, we just crossed a big-ass chunk of the galaxy in the time it takes to say ‘peanut butter and jelly.’ I don’t know what I expected but … she’s here, Maya. Somewhere. Sam and I are on the same planet. I actually pulled this shit off. I ought to be dancing right now. Why the hell ain’t I dancing?”

“I think you know why.”

His mind returned to the nightmare unfolding before they entered the Anchor field. Light-years away, yet only minutes behind them.

Percy. Oh, God. Percy.

“Were they all killed?”

“I’m not sure, but if the enemy reached the lab, there must have been no one left to resist. I’m so sorry, Michael.”

“I can’t make sense of it. Tell me, Maya. What happened after I was shot? All those bodies. I don’t understand.”

“I dragged you inside the lab, which wasn’t easy. We heard reports from the fighting going on above us. Oliver Huron said we needed to escape to Praxis. Aldo tried to contact Capt. Forsythe, but no one responded. In the midst of the chaos, a few scientists folded in from the Euphrates site. A couple were carrying laser pistols. They were desperate. They said the Admiralty betrayed them. Both sites were being sacrificed for a shadow operation. They forced Oliver to set the Anchor for Praxis, but the quantum signature on the destination end was being blocked.”

“What? Why?”

“We never had a chance to find out. Oliver was trying to reprogram a new destination when three soldiers arrived. They opened fire. If they were wearing their helmets, they would have been invincible. I used one of your rifles to put down the last two standing.”

He wrapped her in a giant hug. “Damn, Maya. Thank God you know how to take of yourself.”

“I’ve never seen Chancellors butcher their own like that. Back home during the civil war, they used people like us to do their dirty work. As murder goes, they’ve always been cowardly.”

They pulled apart. “Where was Aldo during all this?”

“Hid behind the nearest light table. Afterward, he grabbed a laser pistol off one of the bodies. I know what you’re thinking, Michael, but don’t. Aldo confided in me about many things after I became his aide. He hasn’t fired a weapon in forty years. He is genuinely terrified of combat. The only reason he stayed in the Guard was to have a chance to come back here someday.”

“Maybe that’s why he gave me the evil eye.”

“What?”

“Before he walked off. He looked like he was afraid of