Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

‘You volunteered to be abused,’ Eloise whispered.

Her brutal ability to call something by its name without wrapping it in cotton wool made even Ingram flinch involuntarily. Without thinking, she probed for the no-longer-existing cut on her lip, the last ‘souvenir’ DCI Gonzalez had given her back at the 4th. It had healed a long time ago, but as with all wounds healed with nano-meds, the odd ‘almost still there’ sensation could be felt for days after successful recovery.

‘Someone had to,’ she replied almost lightly. ‘We needed someone who could blend in.’

‘Tell her everything,’ Gonzalez ordered, and Ingram narrowed her eyes at him. So few people knew… She hesitated for a moment, trying to weigh the pros and cons, but ultimately followed Gonzalez’s instruction.

‘I was the best choice… because I know how to blend in. I know how to be a Leech. I was born a Leech.’

CHAPTER 28

Roc de Chere

Lac d’Annecy

Afro-European Alliance

Monday 27 April 2725

DAY 8

Eloise cocked her head and looked at Ingram with a measuring gaze.

‘Corporal Molina Ortega at your service,’ Ingram sang, and gave an impudent half-salute, hoping to end the intense scrutiny the other woman was giving her, but the result was just the opposite. Eloise cocked her head even further, and her eyes did that odd, trance-like scanning movement, as if she were reading something very fast.

‘I should have seen it,’ Eloise mumbled eventually, and even Gonzalez blinked in surprise.

‘Excuse me?’ he said.

‘Tilly, access working copy 2707FLIGHT,’ Eloise instructed without taking her eyes off Ingram. ‘Play intro video H5. No voice.’ A holo-screen projected onto a wall and playback began almost instantly, and Ingram froze in shocked silence as the first few frames registered.

Intro videos were marketing tools used to advertise VRPs. They were similar to trailers used in the 21st century to advertise movies, but longer and more detailed. In the case of historical VRPs, for example, they also introduced the user to relevant historical events, often through a first-person point of view.

The video currently displaying showed the inside of the cockpit of a newly upgraded Stealthy introduced barely months before. The Stealthy was flying in a rapidly disintegrating formation, dodging heavy fire from much bigger and better armoured Phoenix-class aircraft. The Phoenix aircraft belonged to the Asian Coalition of the Free Nations and were used primarily when size and resilience were of the essence. They could also throw a mean punch. The nimble Stealthies manoeuvred hard, dodging and swerving, but their numbers were dwindling rapidly in what was to be remembered as the Final Strike that ended the Freedom Wars.

Ingram closed her mouth when she realised it was hanging open and swallowed hard.

‘Pause,’ she instructed. Without thinking, she rose from her seat and approached the holo-display. Her hand moved to caress the image, totally ignoring the fact that there was nothing physical to touch. It didn’t matter.

‘How did you do it?’ Gonzalez asked. He knew there couldn’t have been a VRP that depicted the Final Strike. Not enough information had been declassified to allow Eloise to make even a partially correct VRP, and yet, there it was—the Final Strike.

‘Does it go all the way?’ Ingram whispered, never turning away from the holo-display.

Eloise shook her head with frustration. The habit humans had of asking more than one question at a time was driving her nuts. Why couldn’t people deal with one thing at a time, the way a computer interface did? She looked between Gonzalez and Ingram, struggling to make a decision, and then opted for a practical choice.

‘Yes, it does go all the way. The final scenes are the funeral.’ She chose to give the shorter answer first. ‘Corporal Molina Ortega’s funeral,’ she specified, and paused. ‘Obviously the ending is technically not accurate if you are her, but you will find that the rest is.’ She turned her attention to Gonzalez.

‘I have reviewed all historical accounts, reports and statistics, as well as recordings recovered from Stealthies and those available from Phoenixes once the peace treaty was signed. Tilly compared the data and extrapolated the most plausible scenario out of the available information according to specified algorithms. I checked her work. And yes, I had access to the classified files. You will find that over the last three decades I have had access to a lot of classified military material.

‘This VRP, however, is only a draft,’ she continued. ‘After a preliminary viewing, I was told to destroy all the files and analyses associated with it and forget I was ever asked to do it. I never knew who in Military Command scrapped the project. They paid upfront.’

‘But you haven’t destroyed it,’ Ingram whispered, almost reverently. Her hand automatically travelled to her wrist where her BCC was, to where Molina Ortega’s BCC had been for the first twenty-seven years of her life. ‘Resume playback. Voice on,’ she instructed.

The words were hard to distinguish among all the explosions and swooshing air, but Ingram didn’t need to hear them to remember exactly what had been said. She remembered it all as if it were yesterday. The panicked chatter on the open frequency, the occasional level-headed commands, and more than anything else, the screams as the pilots burnt alive, their Stealthies crashing.

Molina Ortega had been a natural pilot, by far the best in the formation. Maybe the only one who had truly understood what they were up against. Their chances had been small, but the possible gains had been too exquisite not to try. The victory had meant the end to the war and slaughter.

The Stealthies had carried air-to-surface missiles loaded with a nano-virus that had been programmed to eat through the enemy’s electronic systems. The perfect weapon to infect the enemy’s new R&D facility, setting their military capabilities and technological progress back by decades as the virus spread throughout various systems. They would have had no choice but to surrender.

Countless soldiers died to get them that far. It had to be done. For those who had died, for those who still lived and for