Astra: Synchronicity (41 page)

At 20:09 the transport coasted through the
outer threshold of the base and landed beside the security gate.
He'd gotten cold feet about going through with their plan, but
neither could turn back now. The mission represented their best
chance for survival, as ass-backwards as it seemed.

The two of them were the first ones to file
off and walk toward the base. The bitter air drained his body heat
in a matter of seconds, and his vaporous breath crystallized in
their wake to crisp clouds. The mediocre shielding provided little
protection from the cruel temperature. He felt glad they'd be on
their way out soon.

Amii took a deep breath and put her right
hand on his shoulder. "Stop worrying. We're in this together; we're
going to be fine."

"Maybe…but let's be careful. Okay?"

She lightly kissed him on the cheek. "I'm
always careful."

Part of him hoped she was right. The other
part wondered if she was really naïve enough to think this would be
easy.

Magnius gestured for her to be scanned first.
She stretched out her arm to the young uniformed man standing there
to greet them. "Good evening," he said to her and pressed the
scanning device to her wrist. "First time to the base?"

Amii nodded. "Does it get any warmer here
during the day?"

"Not much." The scanner beeped and he mulled
over the display. "I see you've been authorized to test some
experimental disruptors over the next few days." He pointed to the
case. "I'm going to have to take a look in there."

"Of course." Inspecting personal affects had
been standard operating procedure since the advent of guns and
explosives so the request came as no surprise. He glanced over
them. "What is it you plan to test?"

Her smile spoke volumes about how much she'd
wanted him to ask just that. Before anyone could stop her, she
launched into an orgy of technobabble. Tongue-twisting scientific
terms he'd never heard and wouldn't be able to reiterate five
minutes from now. But the words came naturally to her.

He closed the case and nodded out of
politeness while she droned on about magnetic capacitance and
Eisenberg's Theorems even after he'd moved onto Magnius to scan his
implant. Her acting ability astounded him and injected a healthy
dose of trepidation into his psyche. Seeing her in action left no
question about whether or not she'd done this before.

He was quite certain the guard hurried them
through just to get rid of her.

Once they were admitted inside the base,
security lightened. But Amii had already told him it would. They
set to work at once.

She led him through many corridors that
looked the same, her long charcoal pants swallowing her feet when
she walked. He wondered if she was aware of the sexy confidence she
exuded with the swing of her hips. Forcing himself to look away did
no good since the thought of her lingered in the absence of other
distractions.

After a minute, they approached a restricted
area. Yellow and black tape marked the doorway, and large red
letters read "Level 3 Clearance Only." The heavy metal door
appeared solid enough to be impenetrable by force. Amii set the
black suitcase she carried on the floor next to her and scrutinized
the computer console beside the door.

Magnius figured she'd gotten her hands on a
high-level clearance card the same way she'd turned up with a small
arsenal of disruptors one day. Security would have confiscated them
if Nadine hadn't ensured Amii had a license to bring them. Two
women so radically different conspiring against the government in
the name of justice and friendship…the second lady would not have
risked treason if the stakes weren't dire.

She pecked away at the terminal, and after a
few seconds the doors slid open. No card, no retinal scan. How in
the hell did she do that? Amii grabbed her case and the two of them
scurried through like field mice. Moments later it slammed shut
behind them, and a disquieting echo filled the halls.

"Two more," she whispered and led them
further inside. They walked at a fast pace with deliberate care to
attract no one's attention—two well-disguised thieves preparing to
pillage the Forbidden City and get away with the traitorous deed.
It might not be worth it, but the mere thought of pulling this off
gave him a rush.

When they approached a second set of locked
doors, she set to work at the console. He wondered if in her
fearlessness she could see clearly anymore. After all, he did and
was scared as hell. He'd been on edge since they boarded the
transport. In some way this would not end well. He could feel
it.

The second set of doors marked "Level 4
Clearance Only" parted and they once again hurried through. The
massive door behind them hissed and closed in a smooth motion. Amii
put her arm out to stop him before they approached an intersection
and peered around a corner. Further down the corridor a set of
voices echoed toward them.

She took his hand and jogged down the hall in
the direction she'd scouted before darting into a recessed doorway
and pressing both of them against a cobalt door with the number 2
stenciled on it in white. She held herself so close to him he could
smell the faint odor of the dye from her hair and feel the rise and
fall of her chest as she breathed. Although it hadn't been an
obvious act to arouse him, it did.

The two voices became louder as the guards
made their way down the corridor. Neither sounded like they grew up
in United Europe.

"See
Viva Vega
last night, Ted?"

"Naw, I ain't watched it since Leslie left.
She's the only reason I tuned in. And I stopped watchin' ANN a long
time ago. Too golsh darn depressing. Though I am lookin' forward to
the Chara Classic tournament this here weekend."

"Peter Colburn's the defending champ, right?
Think he can win it two years in a row?"

"Aw, hell, you'd have to be stupid to bet
against him, though that lefty ain't no slouch. Paul Dougan was the
best damn thing to happen to the AGA in years, if ya ask me."

"Ever since he won back-to-back at Riverside
and Ponte Terra, he's been on fire. That eagle he made on 18 to
win? Legendary."

Amii's stare fixed on Magnius but he avoided
meeting it with his eyes. When she flicked her tongue against his
lips, his heart raced. Her awkward display of affection was
ill-timed yet charming, the same as the rest of her quirky
behaviors. The way she crossed her legs and shook her foot
fiendishly. How she'd pull a lock of hair between her top lip and
nose and try to hold it there. Seeing her imperceptible smile
directed at him across a crowded room. She didn't have half a clue
how she made him feel.

The men continued their inane conversation
about golf as they passed. Their eyes stayed glued to the floor in
front of them when they marched by. Magnius watched and worried for
their safety. But they kept walking and talking without a care in
the world, absorbed in their beloved sport like their livelihood
depended on it.

From the sounds of their voices trailing off,
the two men took a right at the next junction. Amii sidestepped her
way to the corner and glanced around it just long enough to see
they were no longer in sight. She gestured for him to follow and
jogged ahead to the solid doors that took up the entire width of
the hallway. Huge red letters spelled their doom: "Level 5
Clearance Only." This was it. Their only way out was through this
room.

Amii headed over to the console on the left
wall and readied the magic at her fingertips. Would he have gotten
himself into this if Nadine hadn't dropped that bombshell vision on
him? Probably. Although he loathed thinking it, she was a savvy
woman. She might be the most powerful psion of all thanks to her
telepathy and clairvoyance, yet she held it in check to be an icon
for psions. A beacon of good in a sea of evil. He didn't know how
she did it, but her selflessness inspired him.

The rugged steel entrance to the secret
hangar bay opened more slowly than either of them would've liked.
They disappeared inside and hugged the perimeter as their eyes
adjusted to the darkness. She dug into the suitcase and pulled out
a disruptor before continuing on. He crept behind her toward a long
workbench while she scouted the room for scientists.

Once she confirmed they were alone, she led
him around the outskirts of the hangar, where computers and
diagnostic stations littered the bulkheads. But the fascinating
ship held his full attention. She'd referred to it as the
Excalibur
. It sat there like a hoary bumblebee ensconced
with a royal jewel. The craft was small, designed for a few people
at most. If this was the AC's answer to the PAU fighters, they'd be
the first to find out.

They approached its rear hatch, and she
puzzled over it for a minute trying to figure out how to get
inside. She stroked her hands along the sides as she searched for a
concealed access panel near the edge. On the right side about
waist-high, she found it. Her fingers pushed it in, and the hatch
dropped down, causing Magnius to jump back out of the way.

"You could've warned me," he said.

Amii shrugged before heading inside. The ship
appeared to be sleeping due to its darkness, but she led him into
the hold without pause. The cargo area was quite Spartan, and the
amount of interior space seemed small based on the ship's size.

They passed two rooms with a single bed in
each and two more rooms full of diagnostic tools and equipment
before they reached a chamber in the belly of the ship. A round
console stood in the middle of the room, which Amii approached and
tapped away at. After a few seconds, the
Excalibur
whirred
to life before them as though it had been waiting for this woman to
free it from bondage forever.

A number of holographic monitors ringed the
chamber, programmed to display various information about the ship's
engines. On top of the round console, a transparent cylinder
stretched toward the ceiling. Inside, some kind of viscous fluid
glistened unnaturally. Overhead, an unusual crystalline material
had been embedded in the hull of the ship, cut at odd angles. From
the outside it appeared transparent, but from here it was
opaque.

Amii gestured toward the forward section of
the ship where a translucent door separated the engine room from
the control room. As they stepped through the door, he noticed the
bridge was quite small. The design suggested that one or two people
could manage the entire ship. There were only two chairs: one at a
large computer at the rear of the control room and the other at a
wrap-around pilot's display farther up.

The navigation console was positioned to give
the pilot the most expansive view of space around the ship
possible. Magnius walked to the front of the bridge and stared
around and up through the panoramic window. It seemed obvious that
a pilot good enough to fly this ship wouldn't need to be able to
see where they were going. Yet for aesthetic reasons windows always
turned up on the bridge of fighter craft.

Amii furrowed her brow when she sat down at
it. "I don't recognize this configuration." She eyed the display, a
heady semicircular array of data and the exterior vicinity of the
ship. In many ways it looked similar to the view in his hoverbike
helmet, though this appeared much more sophisticated. "I'll need a
few minutes to familiarize myself with it."

He sighed and sat down in the chair at the
aft station. He got lost in the various display screens and
technical specifications before settling his eyes on a graph that
monitored power usage in real-time. A data point was added every
few seconds, presently fluctuating between five and seven
percent.

It dawned on him that Amii wasn't the
innocent scientist he'd always taken her to be. She was shrewd and
cunning. She spoke to that guard like she knew exactly what she was
doing—distracting him, annoying him. After all, people didn't break
onto restricted AC installations, but people also didn't steal from
the PAU government and live to tell about it. Someone like Xander
might've had the brains to pull it off but not alone. Might one of
her daring acts caused the loss of memory? Only one man knew the
answer to that and he seemed determined to take it to his
grave.

He closed his eyes in a futile attempt to
relax when he felt a tap on his shoulder. When he opened them, he
saw Amii standing there with her hands on her hips. She tucked the
weapon into a holster underneath her jacket. "Let's go get the
hanger door open."

The two of them jogged back off the ship. She
pointed up to the large round hatch in the ceiling several stories
above them. "You have got to be kidding me," he uttered.

"I should be able to get it open from the
console over here," she said and strode toward the wall. He watched
her punch in the level-five clearance code. The screen flashed red
with the words ACCESS DENIED. "Damn. I don't think I saw Xander
enter the password for this one. And it's not worth wasting our
time trying. Time to get our hands dirty." She glanced toward the
roof. "Can you lift me up there?"

"What in Astra for?"

"The manual override. There are two of them,
one on each side." Amii pointed to the edges farthest from the
seams on the recessed circular opening. "They open out using
hydraulics." She gestured with her hands to mimic the process.
"There's always a manual override in case there's no power or the
computer isn't working. But as you can see, there's no way to
safely get to it unless you can hold me steady up there."

"Easy," Magnius responded. "I've never done
this on a person before though so you might be in for a rough
ride."

"Okay, let's do it."

Without another word he flung her into the
air. She teetered without the ground to support her weight but
caught her balance while she rose toward the ceiling. The first
override was positioned almost directly overhead, and she shrunk as
she got further away until she looked like a small fairy. In the
darkened room he had a hard time estimating how close she was, but
when he heard a thud, he knew he'd misjudged the distance.