Earth Song: Twilight Serenade (3 page)

She removed a bottle of wine from the wine fridge and was reading the label when she felt a little shiver run up her spine and the cabin vibrated ever so slightly. Her ears could just hear the whine of the shuttle’s gravitic impellers as Lilith set it down on the ceramic concrete pad between the cabin and the old observatory that had belonged to her ancestor, Mindy Harper. A few moments later the door opened and in came her daughter.

Minu put the bottle down and went to her. The transporter bot stopped just inside the door and lowered to the ground. Lilith lithely floated to the floor and carefully released the gravimetric field. A sound somewhere between a sigh and groan escaped her lips as the pull of the planet’s core took hold of her. Minu cocked a head and she nodded, the two women coming together in an embrace.

“It's so good to see you, dear,” Minu whispered in her ear and kissed her cheek.

Lilith hesitated a half second before returning the kiss with only a slight pause of uncertainty. Physical displays of affections were something she still struggled with, even as a 24 year old woman (though she was technically born a 12 year old). “I'm sorry your dad is not here to welcome you home.”

Lilith nodded and felt emotions creeping into her consciousness and moved to intercept them. Instead she directed her feelings to something more useful. “We must discuss finding him.”

“That might not be practical.”

Lilith was about to disagree and explain that there was no were in the galaxy that their enemies could hide from her when she really noticed her mother, or more importantly, her belly. “You have gotten fat!”

Minu gagged and covered her mouth, stifling a choked off laugh. Her daughter, always a shining example of propriety.

“No, daughter, that is your little brother or sister.”

Minu had so seldom seen her daughter at a loss for words, she dearly wished she'd had a camera to hand. Lilith's jaw dropped down and she gaped, a hand reaching out to Minu's swelling stomach was just as hastily pulled back as if the young woman was somehow afraid the pregnancy was catching. “It's okay,” she said and smiled. Lilith finished the motion and with supreme gentleness laid a hand on her mother's growing stomach. As if on cue, the baby inside kicked right under her hand.

“Oh!” Lilith squeaked and pulled her hand back.

“Little one knows his sister is there.”

“Really?” she asked under her breath. “That is normal behavior for a fetus?”

“Sometimes, yes.” Lilith put her hand back and received the same treatment. Her eyes sparkled with joy and amazement like Minu had never seen.

“How much longer?”

“A few months.”

She looked at her mother again and shook her head. “I believe you will explode before it is birthed.”

Minu chuckled and moved to the table. “I feel that way some mornings. Are you hungry? I could eat a kloth!”

Minu felt she'd out done herself with dinner and Lilith ate with only partial attention. After giving her debriefing on the flight back and how the sensor arrays were operational on Remus (leaving out the batteries), she bombarded her mother with questions about how Aaron had been lost until Minu finally interrupted her.

“Look, I know you want to go all Lone Ranger and kick some alien ass to find your father-”

“I do not know who this Lone Ranger is, but if he is one of your rangers he is welcome to come along.”

Minu stopped for a second, considered how long it would take to explain the Lone Ranger, then aborted the attempt. “Anyway, we have more important things to do right now.”

The two settled down to dinner where Minu continued her narrative over the fish main course. “We have thousands of children that were brain damaged by the Nocturne virus. Ted's been working with Dr. Bane, the planet’s foremost cybernetics expert, and Dr. Tasker who's in charge of the Codex Trust. They have an idea but need your help.”

“Okay, what can I do?”

“We need to access the Kaatan's medical intelligence for help designing a cybernetic implant capable of bringing those kids back.”

“I don't know if that is possible,” Lilith cautioned.

Minu gestured at her daughter with a fork full of fish. “You're living proof it's possible, the real question is if it is practical. So many children, we have to try something. Legal has been working for weeks to establish a contract to offer the parents of the children. It's scant hope, but better than nothing.”

“You shouldn't have released the Mok-Tok,” Lilith grumbled. “Maybe pulling a few of its limbs off would have influenced it to help us.”

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Threatening to expose him to it was enough to get its help in neutralizing the virus and producing a vaccine. They muffed it, as it was, the bug was intended to kill us all. As it is, only a handful died, but thousands were maimed.” Lilith made a face. “Don't worry dear, mother keeps a list of all the bad people.” She speared another hunk of the rich native lake fish, an easy to catch species that resembled earth’s sharks without being carnivorous. She was a firm believer in a reckoning. “For now let's concentrate on helping those kids.”

“As you wish, mother.”

“Next, about your ship’s low consumables, and how we can go about replenishing them…” Lilith leaned closer to listen.

Night birds and terrestrial insects sang outside with the occasional barking of howlers to create a cacophony unique to Bellatrix five centuries post mankind’s colonization. They’d brought their own flora and fauna to this world and in the years since she'd first started coming here insects and birds were becoming increasingly the dominant animals. Both non-Bellatrix native species. Native howlers and scrubbers more and more rare.

Inside Lilith slept quietly in one of the cabins two guest rooms. Her ground side transporter was folded up tightly under the bed creating an area of about one quarter gravity, enough to keep her firmly under the sheets while also light enough that she could breathe easily and sleep comfortably. Minu worried about her. Lilith would never be able to handle full gravity for more than brief times.

Minu's hand went to her growing stomach without thought and she felt tears running down her cheeks. There were few moments when she indulged her emotions these days, but this was one of them.

“I'm running low on friends,” she cried to the night. Pip had been flawed and a huge pain in the ass most of the time, but he was a faithful friend who, in the end, gave his life to save her. And now Aaron. She didn't want to admit he was dead, but how could she do otherwise? The Tanam would have used him to their advantage if he had lived. He was of no use to them as a corpse. The cats were all about advantage. And now she was going to send her only surviving family into harm's way.

In the early hours of morning Lilith carefully climbed from bed and activated her special bot. It silently moved over and the anti-gravity projectors lifted her off the floor and into the air. She sighed quietly as the crushing gravity disappeared.

The blue crystalline bot walked her out into the living room. In the other bedroom Minu slept. The sensors in the bot located her and Lilith initiated a monitor subroutine to ensure she stayed asleep. Then Lilith went back to her task.

The ancient desk that once belonged to Minu family matriarch, Mindy Harper. On it was two computers, base units of the much smaller tablets the humans favored. One was a special access unit for the Chosen network. The other was linked to the planetary network.

Checking one more time to be certain her mother was still in deep REM sleep, Lilith slid open the desk and reached out to one of the computers. It was the planetary access she wanted. A thin tendril of blue crystal thinner than a hair grew up her leg, along her torso, down her arm, and extended from her finger until it contacted the computer.

It grew over the computer, and into it. The machine gave a single muted beep of distress before her hard wired hack penetrated its primitive brain directly and opened to Lilith’s many times more powerful cybernetically modified mind.

The woman didn’t bother with fineness, she took it all. Using Minu’s high level access she began copying every bit of data available through the computer. Terabytes moved in moments though the Concordian built data network, stored in a small offline computer back in Lilith’s room. Almost as an afterthought she took her mother’s personal files as well.

She was back in her room less than ten minutes after getting out of bed. The computer she’d broken into was restored to normal operation and all signs of her penetration wiped clean. Lilith was confident no one on the planet could detect how the attack had happened.

She spent a moment to upload the data to her ship far above at an even faster data rate. Once she’d confirmed the data was stored in a special file she returned to bed and went back to sleep. In the other end of the house her mother slumbered with no hint anything unusual had happened.

Chapter 3

Octember 27th, 534 AE

Chosen Council Chamber, Stevens Pass, Bellatrix

If there was anything Minu disliked more than being the one in charge, it was dealing with people whom she needed the approval of before she could do things required by being in charge. Her life since becoming a Chosen was one conundrum after another, and this was one of the worst.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said to the assembled group. In the council chambers were all of the two star Chosen councilors.

Dram Aluvala, second in command of the Chosen and scouts branch. Cherise Macubale, logistics branch. Gregg Larson, Rangers branch. Jasmine Osgood, science branch. Newly promoted Kenneth Benedict, training branch. And lastly was the aging but still formidable Bjorn Ganose, former head of the science branch and still two star Chosen. With Minu at the council head, there were seven voting members. A young five star wearing the yellow of logistics sat to one side running the recording apparatus.

“Okay,” Minu spoke and addressed her council, “I'm reopening something from a while back before I was the First. What I'm talking about is our freedom.” She could tell by their reactions that this was going to be a mixed bunch. “Jacob started out the talks from the negative point that leaving the Tog’s protection was dangerous. But you can all see that we've outgrown any protection they could offer us.

“First we're far too exposed on the galactic stage now. If there are species in the Concordia that aren't aware of us they're either minor or uninvolved. We've fought wars and major actions against several higher order species and came out on top each time.”

“Not as much with the Mok-Tok,” Jasmine pointed out.

“My predecessor can claim the results for that fiasco,” Minu reminded her to which she nodded somberly. No one still knew where Jacob had disappeared to. The only certainty was that he hadn't left the planet. “The benefits to leaving the Tog include being able to make political alliances with other species far in excess of the one we have with the Rasa. We'll be able to sign new leaseholds, and none of our profits will be owed to the Tog. We'd gain unrestricted access to the Concordia databases, and we all know what can be gleaned from that. And finally, we'd have the right to declare vendettas, and wars.”

The look around the table was not one of exultation, of that much she was certain of. Kenneth, as the newest member, didn't have as much information to work with so he was accessing a tablet to look up information. As a martial arts instructor, Minu knew he was unfailing in his attention to detail. He might be a hitch in this move. Cherise was tugging her bottom lip, her eyes unfocussed as she thought. Bjorn was sold from the moment she'd mentioned the database. He sat back with a blissful look on his face. Gregg was solidly in her camp as was Dram; both wanted the military flexibility and were tired of serving under the Tog. Jasmine was shaking her head ever so slightly.

“You really consider this the best course of action?” Dram asked as a way to start the conversation.

“What do we really still gain from the Tog?” she asked her own question in reply.

“Anonymity,” Jasmine said.

“In a manner of speaking,” she countered. “I think we'd all agree that this anonymity is becoming more and more marginalized. We've been attacked here once, we have aliens on the planet all the time. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't figured out where we are just by taking a fucking picture of the night sky.” She took a deep breath and released it slowly through her teeth. “I understand we all have strong feelings about this. Some positive,” she looked at Gregg and Dram, “some not so positive,” then at Cherise and Jasmine. “Some of you just don't know what to think.” Kenneth looked up from his tablet and sighed, nodding his head. “Just know this, I've talked with P'ing and hse told me everything I told you. There is no debt, and they're willing to ally with us militarily. At least with their starships, and from what Lilith says those stealth frigates are pretty formidable.

“We're at a crossroads here, everyone can agree on that, right?” Nods around the table. “We may well have passed the point of no return, actually. It passed while I was gone last time and the previous First escalated hiring out the Rangers as a mercenary force for hire. We're on too many radars, made a few friends but more enemies. I fear if we tried to withdraw at this point it would do more damage than to push forward.”

She looked them over and considered carefully what she said next. “You've had enough faith in me to put this single star on my sleeve. I have a plan that could not only make humanity safe, but give us a seat at the big table.” Now they were all nodding and glancing at each other, most smiling slightly or giving a little shrug. “So I'm asking you to trust me again.”

Minu walked into her smaller office in Stevens Pass and almost collapsed into the old overstuffed chair. It was the same one she remembered from her childhood, sitting in her father's lap and playing with computer chips while he read reports. Chosen would come in and he'd give orders and they'd leave. From her early formative years she saw what it was to be Chosen and had caught the bug. She couldn't quite bring herself to take the chair and move it to Ft. Jovich, her unofficial seat of office. It rightly belonged here.

Her feet and back hurt and the baby kicked through the entire meeting. She had almost three months to go and was convinced she'd never make it.

Minu leaned back with a sigh and put her feet up on a small side table then took a long sip of tea that she'd brought back from the meeting. It was an herbal blend suggested by her doctor. Not bad tasting. After her feet hurt a little less she picked up the phone and dialed her office at the fort.

“Office of the First,” answered a feminine voice.

“Afternoon, Ariana.”

“Hi Minu, what can I do for you?”

“We need to start making some arrangements for an extended deep space mission.”

“Sure. How many are going, and who?”

“I’ll have a list in an hour.”