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

“You mean?”

“Sam is a Chancellor by birth. Maya, I just don’t know …”

“But the immortals? They aren’t Berserkers. They’re children.”

“Yeah, well, so are the hybrids for the most part. Ain’t gonna help them one spit. Maya, this is about revenge. These Jewels have been holding a grudge for a million years.”

Maya let go of his arm and slowed to catch her breath. Michael didn’t want to stop, but he understood the necessity.

“Michael, what can we possibly do to make a difference here?”

“I think we’re living on a wing and a prayer. The Jewels showed me all this for a reason. They’re counting on me to change the equation somehow. It’s insane, but everything that happened the past day can’t be a coincidence. I jumped four hundred sixty-five light-years. I learned I’m immortal. You say I exist outside time and space. An impossible future. I think I’m something the Jewels never expected. So is Sam. But it also means James is, too. I have to believe this, Maya. It’s the end.”

“Of what?”

“Let’s find out. C’mon.”

This time he ran, and Maya kept up.

55

T HEY RAN THROUGH DIFFICULT TERRAIN. Rocky slopes, thick bramble, and another peat bog dared them to pass. The sprint deteriorated at times to a jog, but Maya stayed close. Michael saw the activity north of the settlement ramp up, his DR29 detecting many people coming and going on rifters. The gradient tried to analyze the device being erected, but its design was unfamiliar. Dawn cracked the eastern horizon on a cloudless morning, but Michael and Sam focused on the milky glow dead ahead, rising above a ridge.

“Listen,” Michael said, stopping Maya. “I got an idea how I want to handle this, but I’m not putting you at risk. If shooting starts, I can take care of myself.”

“Understood, but I am not without ability,” she said. “And I’m wearing simul-fabric underneath.”

“Fat lot of good it will do. Simul-fab is designed for live-fire exercises where the explosive web in a flash peg has been nullified. Beyond that, it can absorb stun weapons and bolts from single-round laser pistols. If these yahoos are prepping for war, they ain’t gonna be armed for practice. I know what you can do, Maya, and I’m gonna give you what you need. But I take point. Good?”

“Yes, sir,” she said with a wry smile visible in the dim light.

Michael made up his mind what must be done long before reaching the enemy. Maya wouldn’t understand, and he couldn’t waste time explaining the danger of half-measures.

Maj. Nilsson taught Michael a handful of peacekeeper combat philosophies. Tops among them: The first attack is the final attack. One assault. Maximum resources. Deadly force. Peacekeepers, he said, did not lose because they did not fight protracted battles.

“What if the enemy is well defended?” Michael asked.

“There is no defense for overkill,” Nilsson said, his reflective tone proof of specific combat experience. “We always respond with overkill. Nothing shakes a man’s confidence like unbridled terror.”

It was a convenient philosophy for a Guard that sported overwhelming numbers and weaponry across a millennium. It hadn’t worked so well lately. A flawed military strategy, perhaps, but a time-saver when it worked. And Michael needed to save time.

To his left, the Bengalese River gained momentum as the current steered toward a massive waterfall two kilometers ahead. This was the highest elevation in the region; from here, the land descended a steady four degrees until ending at a sheer cliff.

They crouched behind a rocky mound thirty meters shy of the enemy location. Hovering drones lighted the workspace. Six children – Michael estimated all in their early teens – operated on a device unlike anything he’d ever seen. The silver, rectangular object was about eight feet tall, twice as wide, vents running along the top and bottom. In the center, a pair of giant round wells reminded Michael of the cones on a speaker system. On either side, protrusions like satellite dishes jutted outward.

“One due east, one due west,” he muttered.

The DR29 found nothing similar in the Guard database. He reset the parameters to test for chemical and radiation signatures.

“I don’t know what the machine is,” he whispered to Maya, “but I know who they are.” She nodded in agreement.

The children wore black and bronze armor that glistened under the drone lighting. Each wore a blast rifle on one hip and a pair of laser weapons on the other. The only difference from the last time he saw them: The helmets were retracted, leaving their faces visible. They used holotools and phasic drivers to shore up the machine.

“What I said about your simul-fab goes double,” he whispered. “They may be kids, but those motherfuckers wiped out a spec-ops team. They’re hardcore, Maya. I got a bad feeling their armor is better than my armor. So, I’m gonna get one chance at this.”

“What are you say …?”

She couldn’t finish. Michael tapped a finger over her lips. He zeroed in on one boy who punched open a large holocube and appeared to be sorting through graphics that pulsated at varying wavelengths. He grabbed one of the pulses and pushed forward, as if pressing a launch button. The machine hummed then rattled, as if the speaker’s bass was turned up full.

Yet the sound was going the wrong way. The machine appeared to be absorbing the bass like a vacuum. As soon as it came alive, the DR29 responded with lively analysis. Michael’s jaw fell.

“Oh, hell.”

“What?”

“The readings. I can’t believe it. They built a graviton weapon.”

“Which is?”

“Something else that shouldn’t be possible. They must have got this design from the J’Hai, just like the mobile wormhole and all their other goodies. The Chancellors never built a workable model of this machine. I read about it in Tier III Quantum Engineering. It alters