Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit Read online

  They arrived at a set of large double doors, and again Echo tapped some commands into the touchscreen. The doors swooshed open silently, revealing a huge two-story room that stretched off into the darkness of the dimly lit space. As they entered, the lights began to snap on, bright white lights from the high ceiling and embedded panels in the walls. The room was full of exposed beamwork, conduits, cabling, in stark contrast to the design of the hallway.

  Echo pointed to a series of metal traveling crates stacked in one corner. Loren walked up to them and gave them a once-over, but he realized he wasn't all that thrilled about touching them, as if by doing so he might unleash the horrible knowledge of the weapon contained within.

  "I'll leave you alone for a minute," Echo said softly. "That data pad on the top has an overview of the specs along with some more footage of the device in use. I'm going to go upstairs and greet Captain Sosus and Commander Elder. They should be arriving any minute."

  Loren just nodded absently, not even bothering to wonder how Echo knew Cory and Merritt's names. He just stood there, hands hovering over the brushed-metal crates, staring at the clasps that held the clamshell cases closed. He didn't know if he could open them.

  Web and Halley raced into the middle of the chaos they'd created. A stretch of ground level three city blocks long was a hellish combination of fire, smoke, fire fighters, law enforcement, paramedics and Priman soldiers. Lights reflected off and through the smoke, casting the streets in haunting combinations of strobe light effects in a host of colors.

  "This will do nicely," Halley said with satisfaction as they jogged through a knot of people who were trying to prioritize which mess to deal with first. Their counterfeit police uniforms, complete with unisex half-helmets, got them a pass through the chaos unmolested.

  "You needed to get into a building, so we blew up a city block," Web summarized for her. "Makes perfect sense. Allow me," he said as they reached the front door of their target building. He pushed the door into the recess in the front facade, power having been lost which prevented the door from opening for them automatically.

  A Priman wearing a soldier's uniform but carrying no weapon stormed up to them.

  "You're not allowed in here!" he began. "You need to-"

  "There's been a terrorist attack on three blocks' worth of your buildings," Web said calmly, talking right over the Priman in the way of someone who was used to being in charge. "We have teams outside securing the exterior access points, but we're here to double check and then serve as liaison for you. Do you need to escort us or can we be on our way?"

  "I don't have to let you in," the Priman continued, but less certain of himself this time. Halley took that as her cue.

  "Then don't officially let us in," she said calmly as she started walking, leading the other two behind her. "Follow us while we check and then make us stand in the lobby, but our agreement with you requires us to provide this service." She said it in a way that seemed to make it clear she was doing a job, not conducting a labor of love.

  The Priman stammered after her as they rounded a corner and came to a hallway that split in three directions. She quickly took stock of their surroundings and spun to face the Priman. She hit him in the neck with a vicious knife-edge chop using her right hand. Normally, ninety percent of humanoids went down without a sound when that happened. This Priman, though, staggered and tried to regain his balance even as his eyes tried to roll up into his head. Halley quickly followed with a left elbow snapped into his jaw. That was the end of that.

  "Tough guy," she said approvingly. While Web dragged him into the first door he could find, Halley studied the data pad she'd tucked into a pocket of her jacket.

  "Elevator one floor down," she said quickly, "first room on the left."

  "Let's go shopping," Web replied.

  The ride was short, but as they exited they were caught off guard by the design of the space. It was a lobby of sorts, with a few rooms on the unsecured side before the floorspace was split by a floor-to-ceiling wall of transparent armor glass. On the other side was some sort of common area filled with industrial looking benches and tables. Hallways led back off the lobby into the distance beyond the room.

  "Looks like, uh..." Web lost the thought that had been floating nebulously around the forefront of his consciousness.

  "A prison," Halley completed his sentence.

  "Exactly," Web agreed. "This doesn't look high-security enough for POWs, though," he continued. "We need to find out if that's what this place is."

  "Ok," Halley replied easily, "you go find out what's going on. Feel free to beat it out of somebody if you have to; we won't be here long. I'll go hit the server room and get the ring data."

  "With a plan like that, what could possibly go wrong, eh?"

  Web walked up to the glass wall and paced its length until he came to an access point at the far end, complete with a Priman guard in a secure booth. Web summoned all his confidence and authority and strode right up to the glass, then tapped on it with his fist and pointed to the police badge on his chest.

  The Priman guard looked startled, then angered as he realized an outsider was in their secure area. He drew his blaster from its holster and keyed the intercom.

  "You are intruding in a secure area," the Priman began, "put your hands up and prepare to be disarmed and detained."

  "You're serious?" Web played along with his cover. "Have you seen what's going on outside? There have been insurgent attacks on three city blocks worth of your facilities. My people are here because of the agreement we have with you; we're supposed to check in and offer assistance as your liaisons. If you don't want our help, that's fine with me; I'll go find someone who does. But you try to take my weapon and we're going to have words."

  That made the Priman mad. "You forget yourself," he snarled. "You work for us, at our mercy. I'm coming out; make a move and I'll be within my rights to shoot you."

  The Priman opened the door and stepped out while Web incredulously held his hands high in the air.

  "Sheifah; you are serious!" Web said in a startled voice. "When my supervisor hears about this-"

  The Priman made a move to grab Web's holstered weapon. Web brought his right elbow down on the man's hand while slapping the man's gun away with his left hand. Web kept the man's hand trapped with his right elbow while he brought his left elbow in for a strike at the man's jaw. The Priman recovered and tried to bring the butt of his gun around to hit Web in the head; he partially blocked it with his left arm after taking a glancing blow and released his right arm to hit the Priman in the nose with a wicked open palm strike. The Priman staggered back, nose gushing blood. A follow up roundhouse kick to the temple and the man was on the ground.

  "Oww," Web muttered as he felt his left temple with his fingertips. They came away with a bit of blood on them, but nothing that struck him as alarming.

  He dragged the man into the guard booth and sat at the terminal, trying to make sense of the computer system. While there were only so many ways to store data, the Priman file structure was not familiar to him. He tried looking for a schematic of the prison and was rewarded after a few attempts. More tapping and gesturing brought him to a screen where he could tap on a cell to see the information about the prisoner within. It was of course complicated by the fact that he couldn't read more than a few dozen words of the Priman language. The first few names didn't do anything for him, but they seemed familiar, like he should have known who they were. The fact bugged him and he worried he was using up what had to be extremely limited time. He picked the next cell in line and instantly knew who was inside.

  "Oh damn."

  Halley found the server room without incident, avoiding a roaming guard rather than trying to take him out. The more of a ruckus she caused, the sooner they'd be discovered, and their mission was too important to take any more risks than necessary.

  After all the work they'd put into researching the ring data, corroborating Velk's claims, then getting here to Ca
llidor and into the facility, it all felt a little anticlimactic to be standing here simply copying everything to a data cube. She was also backing it up on a data pad and had set up an external connection to send a copy to an anonymous storage service she'd set up before the mission. This data would get out; every misdeed, every crooked, illegal and treasonous act the Senator had made in his bid to control what was left of the Confederation. They'd bring his crooked act down and make way for someone else.

  The data transfer was just about done when the alarms started going off.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Merritt and Cory pulled into the carport and parked next to the hovercar already sitting there.

  "Well," said Merritt slowly as he surveyed the area after getting out of the vehicle, "this isn't weird or anything."

  "Welcome," they heard from the side, and Merritt spun towards the voice with his blaster drawn.

  They saw a smiling human man in his early twenties standing there, arms held out from his sides a bit in what appeared to be a nonthreatening gesture.

  "Commander Elder, Captain Sosus," the stranger continued as Cory walked abound the other end of the car from Merritt, weapon also drawn. "My name is Echo. Well, it's a nickname your friend Commander Stone gave me. He's downstairs viewing some information; I assume you know what he's here for. I request that you give him some time to examine the material before going to see him."

  "Do we know you?" Cory asked skeptically. "You look familiar."

  "We weren't properly introduced, of course, but I was at the dinner you two attended the day before last. I was masquerading as a waiter. I'm one of the AIs you've come to find."

  "Loren always has the most interesting adventures," Merritt said in approval. "You don't mind if I check out the place a bit, do you?" He took a step towards the door, curious to see if their new friend would try to intervene.

  "Not at all," Echo replied. "But I ask you stay out of the sublevel elevator until Loren comes upstairs."

  Merritt nodded and stepped inside.

  "You're still not convinced of my credentials?" Echo asked Cory as she gave him the eye.

  "Can you do something that would convince me?" she asked with a cynic's glare.

  "I can tell you something," he replied evenly. "I've looked at your service records, the same way I checked into Loren's. I saw your last visit to your ship's flight surgeon; your post-EVA checkout. It's all classified and privileged from the crew of course, but your Doctor Elrad is concerned about your health. She mentions survivor’s guilt and mild post traumatic stress. She thinks you can deal with it but is worried."

  "You stay the hell out of my file," Cory said angrily, though hearing the words spoken out loud and become real instead of just an abstract concept caused something to shift in her.

  "I mean no disrespect," Echo said quickly. "I pass no judgment, either. You've been through a lot; all of you have. It would be stranger if you didn't show some sign or other of dealing with these issues."

  Cory stared at him, the harshness gone but the glare still in place.

  "If it helps to hear it," Echo continued, "you're not alone in experiencing it and I daresay you're not alone if you want to involve your friends here, especially Merritt. And on a more solemn note, I can tell you that it's something I've felt as well."

  Cory's look changed to one of guarded surprise.

  "I may be an artificial life form," he said, "but I'm not just algorithms and programmed responses. I have awareness and emotions just like you. And in that capacity, I've already lived several of your lifetimes. I've seen more people die than you've seen live. It doesn't get easier, Mrs. Sosus, but you learn to accept the constants of the universe and enjoy the people you know while they're here, then remember and honor them when they're gone as you keep making new memories. You don't have to take my word for it, but it wouldn't hurt to try."

  Loren stood transfixed by the data scrolling across the screen. Specs, results, costs, more demonstration video, testimonials- it was a perverse ad campaign for one of the most heinous weapons in recorded history, the developer proudly touting the cost-effectiveness and mobility of the weapon system.

  He didn't want to make the decision, but somewhere deep down he knew he'd already made up his mind. It seemed that when a person couldn't decide what to do, they really did know someplace within themselves what had to be done but just couldn't quite find a way to put it into words. Perhaps there were no words for what he'd been watching.

  Finally, he closed the case and slowly made his way to the lift. He needed to tell Echo what he thought they should do with the data.

  "They're here," Echo said solemnly as he stared out into the night back towards the way Cory and Merritt had come from.

  "Who?" Cory asked as he unconsciously tapped the slide of her SSK with her right index finger.

  "The Primans. Lots of them."

  "Loren!" Merritt said in surprise as Avenger's XO appeared from a hidden panel in the wall.

  "Merritt," Loren said in relief as he stepped out to greet the other man. "Been here long?"

  "No, but we did meet your friend. The one who says he's an android."

  "Interesting, isn't he?" Loren asked. "He brought me here to show us some tech to see if it might be of use to us."

  "The Admiral will be doing cartwheels when he hears that," Merritt replied. "Anything we can use?"

  "No," Loren said with a straight face. "But I'm going to have him help me destroy it so the Primans don't get a whiff of what we were looking for."

  "I'm glad you've made a decision," Echo said as he and Cory walked into the main gallery towards Loren and Merritt. "Because the Primans are here, in large numbers. There's a service exit we can use from the sublevels; it's how the collector gets the larger pieces into the place."

  "You two go and get started," Cory said confidently. "Me and Merritt will start at the back door and fall back to this lift, then head down to meet you. We'll hold as long as we can."

  "I'll call you if we need you to head down earlier," Loren completed the plan. "And don't do anything stupid; we don't need much time."

  Loren and Echo rode the lift to the sublevels in silence, which Loren broke once they stepped off the lift and started down the white corridor. "I've made a decision."

  "So you said," Echo replied.

  "You need to help me destroy that tech. I don't think anyone should have it. Nobody is virtuous enough to handle that kind of power; nobody should be able to decide to destroy a planet. Sooner or later it'll be misused, stolen, fought over; nothing good can come of it. And even if it means we can't use it against the Primans, it needs to be gone. Forever."

  "I'm glad to hear you say that," Echo replied. "Not too surprised, based on what I know of you, but a number of my peers had their doubts."

  "Would you have let me have it if I'd asked?"

  "Yes."

  That made Loren pause as they entered the huge storage room.

  "What about the part where you worried about all the potential cultures being wiped out? Surely that's just as much a danger if the Confederation has it as if the Primans beat down the galaxy."

  "Oh, there are terrible risks," Echo admitted. "But your moral dilemma proved that if anyone should be allowed to possess the weapon, it could be you."

  "No pressure," Loren said, trying to feign a lighthearted comeback.

  Echo stepped up to the data pad and terminal connected to all the crates associated with the weapon and started tapping commands into the system.

  "You know," Echo continued as he worked his magic on the data terminal, "my people have sometimes considered offering to make our presence known in the interests of helping you biologicals, and I'd make that offer to you right now. We'd make ourselves available to be observers, facilitators, a sort of nonaligned force that would have no powers, no weapons. We could help prevent conflicts like this with the Primans from happening." He paused in his work to look at Loren's reaction.

  "If you had no pow
ers, who would listen to you and why? I don't say it to belittle what you're offering, but until the Primans came along I like to think we did alright. Besides, plenty of people wouldn't trust you, no offense intended, and many would worry they've just exchanged the possibility of the Primans from being in power to the possibility of you somehow ruling us instead."

  "Valid concerns," Echo admitted as he got back to work. "We'd swear allegiance to you."

  "Confed?"

  "No, you."

  Loren laughed, a short bark that made drew Echo's eyes to him. "That's a lot of power to offer one person, Echo, and I suppose I'd have to say that for a brief moment I wondered if I could use it wisely. But the truth is, I don't think I'd want that kind of control. Nobody should have that kind of power. It's the height of arrogance to think that I know what's best for every last person out there and that I should be able to tell others how to control their lives. People who want that kind of power are, frankly, the ones least suited for it. You're better off working in the shadows and giving us a nudge here and there like you're doing right now."

  "Thank you for that honest assessment. We plan to do just that, in fact. And for what it's worth, all of my kind knows what's happened here the last few days. If you ever see us again, you'll see us as friends."

  Loren was about to reply when he heard the deep report of SSK blaster fire upstairs. He unholstered his own and held it ready, eyes darting back and forth between Echo and the door to the hallway and the lift beyond.

  "I'd suggest you go help," Echo said with what Loren could only call sadness in his voice, "but I fear we have a problem."

  "Define 'problem'," Loren countered.

  "The house's security system has multiple redundant safety features that are going to prevent me from wiping out the data stored in the system," Echo replied. His hands now rested on the table, their lack of motion a sign that his work was going nowhere. "There is a way to wipe out all the data, but it might be considered somewhat, let's say, extreme."