Warpath (37 page)

“So I’ll be in the
fleet, training for command?” Alice said.

“Yes, and your
performance in all respects determines your placement when you
graduate. That’s something your framework technology can’t help
with, not really. Sure, physical fitness won’t be much of an issue,
but most of the factors in your placement are mental, so you’re
going to have to work your brain.”

“There will be sims,
right?” Alice asked hopefully.

“So many sims,”
Jake replied. “But everything will be geared towards you and your
class learning essential command skills. We want you to graduate and
be better officers than most of the people on our ships. There’s
going to be secondary training too, like a real Academy, but what you
do after you graduate the primary Officer Program will be your
choice,” Jake said, hesitating a moment before continuing. “Under
the new uniform code, you’ll be considered an adult at that point.
You’ll get the Clever Dream and Lewis back if he’s not committed
to an important mission, and I won’t be able to tell you what to do
unless you’re under my command.”

“Seriously?” Alice
asked, all the moroseness replaced with excitement.

“Yes, but it won’t
be easy. The fast track does in six months what nine months of
training is designed to do, so there won’t be a lot of breaks.
You’ll have to eat, sleep, and breathe Fleet, go to every therapy
session. If any problems come up, you have to report them right away
and do exactly what your instructors, commanders and therapists tell
you to do.”

“I guess I’m
selling my soul to the Fleet for a while at least. Wait, did you say
something about three years?” she asked.

“Yes. By entering,
you agree to a three year term of service,” Jake replied.

She thought for a
moment, and he wasn’t surprised when she said. “Sign me up, but,
there won’t be room for all of us when we graduate, it sounds like
a big program.”

He stopped, turned
towards her and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Only the best
will be attending. The first class is capped at ninety, and the
testing will require they prove that they are suited for a command
position as an officer already. The test is in one week. You’ll
have to learn the uniform code, look over your materials from the
Rangers, and refresh on your pilot procedure. I’ve already sent a
message to Lacey, she’s willing to help.”

“Lacey?” Alice
asked.

“She’s agreed to
help you with learning the law component of the test,” Jake said.
“You have to pass it, or you skip the fast track class, who will
graduate in six months instead of nine, and start with the normal
entrants who get recommended for the next session in two months.
They’ll be in the course for nine months, no fast tracking again
for at least a year.”

“So, I could be an
officer on a ship in six months?” Alice asked.

He couldn’t help but
smile at the excitement. “Yes, or you could continue with the
Rangers, take their Officer Program, or take a civilian position. I
mean, it’s nice here,” Jake said, gesturing to the tropical
jungle threatening to take the path back.

“Triton Fleet, I’ll
study, take the tests, and you’ll see me on your bridge in six
months,” she said.

“Oh, you think you’ll
place that high?” Jake teased. “Ambitious, you’re going to have
to work hard.”

“Not a problem,”
Alice said. Resuming the walk to the port buildings, dragging Jake’s
hand behind her.

Jake set the new Triton
Fleet gunship down at the mouth of a large cave unevenly, cringing as
the ship wobbled on its landing gear before adjusting and settling.
“Any landing you can walk away from…” he said to himself as he
climbed out of the cockpit seat and popped the top hatch open. He was
still thinking of the tearful parting he’d had with his daughter.

Everything was fine
from the path to the landing pad that had been cordoned off for
Triton Fleet combat vessels. As soon as she saw the gunship he’d
borrowed to get to his next destination, she began tearing up. She
had no arguments for him, only questions. When did he expect to
return? How hard did the mission look? Would his crew be ready? It
all concluded in a tearful; “I’m going to miss you so much, Dad.”

He’d never felt a
pang like that, even though he was sure he loved his daughter when he
was still a framework. Leaving her behind never drove him near tears.
“I’ll miss you too,” he told her. “Just be good to yourself.
I’ll contact you when I can.”

He made an effort to
focus on the moment. He was about to meet a Lorander representative.
They didn’t tell him to come unarmed, or give him a list of
precautions or protocols. They only told him to arrive alone and tell
no one of the location of their meeting.

He slid down the front
of the fighter and dropped onto his feet, something he wouldn’t
have tried only three days before. Jogging with Ayan in the mornings
was a great way to spend time with her, but more importantly it was
the second-to-last phase of his rehabilitation.

He couldn’t help but
think of Doctor Messana. He was furious with her, but she didn’t
deserve to die the way she did. Someone in Citadel knew what was
being done on that ship, possibly with the dimension drive, possibly
with another experiment like the one Messana was running, and they
wanted it to stop. Citadel was not an organization that planned its
operations poorly. Whatever they intended to do aboard the Fallen
Star was already done. Attacking Stephanie was the Citadel
Operative’s method of committing suicide. Jake was fairly sure they
could have found a way to escape if they wanted to, and killing one
of his officers was not the most effective way to damage Triton
Fleet.

With the operative from
Citadel gone, they would have no more answers. All they were left
with was that ship, and the experiments that led Messana to break the
trust of her Captain and one of her patients. There were people
investigating whether or not the cure for framework technology was
really as safe as the logs showed. If Messana developed most of that
solution, he owed her thanks, but he’d never forgive her for
breaking ethical boundaries.

He’d seen the footage
of the copy of his daughter awake, thinking that she was the real
Alice, and questioning the medical technicians for a long time before
trying to leave. She had been transformed into a late teens human
girl who really did look like a split between himself and Ayan.
Watching her scream for him, try to get to any communicator, then get
overpowered was hard. Seeing her suspended in a stasis tube, dead,
haunted him. His daughter got her wish, she could grow out of her
teen years into a woman, mature, remember and feel like any human,
only it was a duplicate, and she died when everyone else on the
Fallen Star did. He was happy the ship was being dismantled, most of
the experiments carefully catalogued and stored.

Ayan took the sight of
a girl who looked like her and Jake in the log footage just as hard.
The revelation that Alice cared for her so much that she wanted to be
linked to her through DNA was a beautiful thing, but the ruthless
experimentation and testing with a duplicate was horrific. Ayan could
not look at the failed versions of Alice in the tubes, or the corpse
that represented a complete success. That young woman would have been
a daughter to her if she survived and was rescued, Jake knew. That
may have caused serious drama with Alice, but there was also a chance
that the pair would see each other as twins eventually. The timing of
the monument ceremony was perfect. Ayan and Jake had an opportunity
to mourn that loss in secret, right in front of everyone.

Jake’s attention was
called back to the present, as he took in the view from the mouth of
the cave. He was still on Tamber, but on the opposite side from Haven
Shore. Sometimes he forgot that Tamber was so large, less than two
percent smaller than Earth, he was told. Not that it was a good
comparison. He’d never been to Earth, and knew little about it. The
light brown dust at his feet matched the flat lands that stretched
out from the cave entrance for as far as the eye could see. Failed
terraforming had coated the surface with a crust, and the sun baked
it solid. The cave behind him was an anomaly at the base of a
mountain. His scans revealed that there was a spring inside with
clean water.

“Captain Jacob
Valent,” said a calm, pleasant voice. “I am honoured to meet the
commander, and intrigued by the man. I am Oru.”

Jake dusted off his
lightly armoured vacsuit and tugged his black long coat straight.
Ayan had another one made, since the old design didn’t fit. He
walked into the cave, minding his step, and got a good look at the
man he had come to meet. He was only a little shorter, and wore a
white uniform with gold trim. “You look military,” Jake said as
he shook the man’s hand. His grip was firm.

“I am, but not the
same way you are. You go to fight a war, I will be retreating from
it,” Oru said. “I sense that you’re a man who appreciates truth
and brevity, so I won’t delay in telling you that Lorander is
leaving the galaxy.”

“So you see us
losing?” Jake asked, unable to be anything but calm in the placid
space, under the influence of Oru’s mood. There was a still blue
pool inside the cave, illuminated by unseen lights under the water.

“No, I can’t
predict that. Even though there are people in my society that believe
they can, I know the future is usually uncertain. We all see the
coming of an all-consuming war. We can’t afford it. There aren’t
enough of us in this galaxy to make enough of a difference, so we are
retreating to a place we have a firm grasp on, where our existence
will not be contested.”

“Where?”

Oru smiled at Jake.
“You might find out someday. Survive this first, then we’ll see,”
he took a deep breath and let it out in a rush before continuing.
“But you come for help.”

“Yes,” Jake said.
“We need to finish the research on something we found.”

“The dimension
drive,” Oru said. “Something we’ve been trying to master for
centuries. The one you are installing in your ship will work, but
it’s still dangerous because you do not understand it. We barely
understood the scans we took when the Fallen Star arrived in orbit.
Then we realized, the Order of Eden stole that technology from the
Edxians. That is their preferred mode of travel between stars. Once
we discovered the origin of the technology, we were able to adapt it,
and we have five working dimension drives, all of which have been
tested.”

“They work?” Jake
asked. “You were able to build them from scratch, and they work?”

“They do, all of
them. We even tried weapon enabling one because we wanted to know why
there was no record of an Edxi ship doing that very thing. We
discovered what your scientists will soon find out from the records
on the Fallen Star. Opening a single rift in dimensional space allows
for random exotic radiation, most of which is difficult to measure or
detect, to pass into our space. Much of it is not harmful, but there
are types that kill organic life instantly, some will melt your
hardest metals. The effect is unpredictable, and the dimension drives
are not made to control rifts that way. They are made to open a rift,
create a tunnel through the space between dimensions like a wormhole,
and open another rift at the other end when your ship arrives. A
balancing reflex in nature forces both rifts to close within seconds
of a ship passing through, so no single rift is open for long. Your
vessel is protected by the wormhole tunnel, which has a powerful
directionality since natural laws demand the rifts close, and that
your ship does not exist outside of its dimension. The forces that
would act on a ship without that tunnel are destructive beyond
anything we know.”

“So weaponizing the
dimension drive is suicide,” Jake said, not at all disappointed.
“But is it faster?”

“It is an invisible
means of travel,” Oru said. “And it is so much faster that
Lorander owes you its thanks. But, you know the dimension drive
aboard the Triton will never work.”

“I didn’t until
now,” Jake replied.

Oru laughed and sat
down on the edge of the pool. “I think we would enjoy each other’s
company, Captain Valent. We’ve been watching the dimension drive’s
construction, and the copy aboard the Triton is missing a few things.
It’s also being made in such a way that no one will ever be able to
configure it properly. We’ll give you all the information you need
to make dimension drives, and to fix the Triton’s system. There is
one condition.”

“Name it,” Jake
replied. The advantage they were being given was colossal. He was
almost afraid to tell Ayan that he’d gotten as much help from
Lorander as she did.

“Protect the
technology, even from allies. The dimension drive has the potential
to change the shape of the galaxy, and humanity on the whole is not
ready. Besides, you should maintain this tactical advantage for Haven
Shore for as long as you can. The destruction of Kambis was a blow
not even we expected. Without this technology, Tamber will be unable
to get supplies to and from trading partners fast enough to survive.”

“I can’t argue with
that,” Jake said. “So, you knew I was coming here to ask for your
help with this, and you just offer it freely,” Jake said.

“We want Haven Shore
and Triton Fleet to have the best chance possible in the coming
century. I would love to return some day and see this arid landscape
lush with life. Tamber has so much potential, and Haven Shore has had
a surprisingly good start, even though Ayan does not see it that way.
I’m told she hides many regrets, and feels disappointed in her work
so far. That is something you can help her with.”

“I didn’t know our
relationship was a large concern for Lorander,” Jake said.