Eve of Destruction Read online

  Cara raised an eyebrow.

 

 

  There was no answer from Felix as the shuttle jerked into max burn and launched her away from the prison.

  They were a minute into the flight, with Cara grimacing against the g-forces, when Felix spoke next.

 

  Cara’s stomach flipped as the shuttle abruptly dove.

  RADIATION FOREST

  STELLAR DATE: 3.13.3011 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Summerville Regional Justice Center, Jerhattan

  REGION: Earth, Terran Hegemony InnerSol

  The fallout cloud’s remnants drifted across the night sky, covering the greater Charleston area as it floated to sea.

  Alarms blared throughout the overcrowded sprawl. A no-fly zone of a hundred kilometers had been established as scrubber drones swarmed over the city, turning what was typically a crowded sky into a silent dead space. Emergency ground teams had closed all major roads and maglev lines, while residents took shelter in sealed buildings.

  The blast had destroyed most of a manufacturing facility in the hills above Summerville, a sunken suburb of Charleston. A terrorist attack on a random building didn’t serve much purpose, unless the intent had been to occupy all civilian and military response forces.

  Lyssa knew the bombing was far from random.

  Wearing a human form frame, the sentient AI piloted a small close-combat fighter with ten of her Weapon Born attack drones in formation behind her. They had dropped from High Terra an hour before, flying on an intercept course for the building she had identified as the Summerville Avonlea, a facility that had once been called the Summerville Justice Center before it underwent significant construction and was reborn as a spa and resort. When Lyssa had read the intelligence report, she had thought the whole situation ludicrous: essentially slave labor manufacturing high fashion items for guests at the resort. But she’d experienced far worse in her life. She and the other Weapon Born were sentient AIs resulting from human-AI experiments that imaged seeds AI from children.

  Summerville Avonlea lacked imagination when it came to human cruelty.

  she asked her lead Weapon Born, a combat-experienced leader named Emerson. The drones had better scanning capability than Lyssa’s fighter.

  he reported.

  Lyssa said.

 

  Lyssa appreciated the attempt at consolation, but she had been berating herself for not coming sooner for days. Since she’d first received the intel that Cara Sykes was a prisoner at Summerville, she’d told herself not to wait. She had wanted to lead this mission personally, but doing so meant that the eyes of SolGov would be on her, and she couldn’t just attack Terran soil without proper coordination.

  The very minute she’d received clearance from the TSF, her team had dropped from Raleigh on High Terra, and that’s when word of the bombing had hit the newsfeeds. It seemed almost ironic that she could come this close to finding Cara after all this time, only to lose her.

  Lyssa didn’t believe in coincidence.

  She was already scouring available networks for the source of the attack. Nothing had returned yet, but finding the responsible party was only a matter of time.

  As they approached Summerville from the north, Lyssa enjoyed the view of the dark hills beneath them. Their flight path took them over two local lakes identified as Marion and Moultrie.

  This was where Andy Sykes had grown up. She had been embedded in his mind and experienced many of his memories of this place. He had hated and loved it. He’d joined the TSF to get away from home, and then fought to rebuild a different kind of home for his family on the freighter TSS Sunny Skies.

  Andy had given his life to help smuggle Lyssa out of InnerSol, and Cara Sykes was his daughter. Lyssa wasn’t going to let her rot in any prison. As far as Lyssa was concerned, she had a debt to pay.

  Emerson announced.

  Immediately, Lyssa’s mind filled with information from Avonlea. The grounds were mostly rolling pine forest, ending on a collection of ornate buildings at the head of a valley. What had been many square kilometers of gardens and spa facilities had been reduced to a wasteland of rubble and burning stumps. The front section of the facility was gone, leaving a series of square buildings that appeared to extend into the hill behind the resort.

  Lyssa pulled up historical schematics and matched them against the incoming scans.

  There you are.

  The underground prison took shape under the progressive scans. Twenty levels of cell-lined corridors filled the earth beneath the buildings. Internal returns showed high radiation levels in addition to several fires and areas where carbon monoxide levels meant no survivors. The prisoners appeared to have been released, and electromagnetic activity flashing throughout the area meant pulse blasts and other weapons-fire.

  Emerson said.

  Lyssa said.

 

  Lyssa said.

  Emerson chuckled.

  she said.

 

  A hot spot blew out on the largest building as something exploded inside. Lyssa sent hold commands to the drones, and they pulled back, spreading out in a defensive perimeter as she circled.

  She focused on the new hole in the building’s wall as someone surprised her by jumping through it. They came down on a vehicle parked next to the building and crushed it like tinfoil.

  she told Emerson.

 

  Lyssa nearly turned her attention away, until she realized that people inside the building were firing on the person who jumped.

  she said.

  Emerson said.

  Lyssa sent two Weapon Born closer to verify the scans. As she came back around, the person on the ground returned fire on the building, then tossed a grenade and sprinted back toward the building, clearing the wall to reach the roof.

 

  Emerson said.

  Lyssa caught herself, controlling her excitement.

  The two Weapon Born closed on the roof, but the guard climbed inside a small shuttle before they could complete verification.

  Five drones swept the remaining buildings, sending back more bio signs, evidence of fighting and radiation, but nothing that might have been Cara. They should have been able to pick up her personal security token on the local Link—unless she was still under some kind of suppression. Lyssa checked all the returns, noting that even the prisoners were on the Link, connections reaching outside the prison.

  The guard in the shuttle showed no outside Link activity. Although, there was a high level of EM spectrum activity coming off somethin
g in the shuttle, as if the vehicle was sitting on top of a high-powered antennae.

  she told Emerson.

 

  Lyssa was torn. Cara had been hiding for nearly ten years, avoiding all contact with friends or family. All Lyssa knew was that Cara had been out in the Scattered Disc for a few years before coming into Jovian space, and then she had completely disappeared.

  Has she been here the whole time?

  Something told Lyssa to wait; if she contacted Cara now, she might lose her again.

  Or Lyssa was simply afraid.

  As she wavered, the shuttle’s engines roared to life and launched the craft in a hard burn off the roof.

  Lyssa commanded her units.

  he said.

 

 

  Lyssa struggled with the decision not to contact Cara. She had to know if it was truly her. There wasn’t enough information on either side to make a decision, but if Cara was still inside the prison, she would be dead in minutes.

  Risking everything, Lyssa sent the Link request. Even if Cara ignored her, all she had to do was respond to a ping, and Lyssa would know she was alive. That was all she needed for now.

  Just to know.

  The request connected with the shuttle, and an unexpected entity answered the ping.

  came the response.

  Lyssa sent her security token, which carried TSF and SolGov authority. She still enjoyed her status from her time as the envoy between SolGov and the Psion AIs.

  To her surprise, the answering entity denied her admin request. Her connection went unanswered.

  Lyssa said.

  She pulled up the shuttle’s astrogation beacon and cracked its tracking connection. In milliseconds, she had the shuttle’s internal network. Through the internal sensors, she saw the passenger in grey security combat armor. They were still wearing a helmet, face invisible behind the reflective faceshield. Lyssa watched as g-forces drove them back into the seat, gloved hands clutching at armrests.

  Something else drew her attention: a battered case shoved in beside the seat. A quick scan showed it to be a TSF weapons case with an issue date in the 2850s.

  Lyssa didn’t need to know more. She recognized it immediately as the case that Brit Sykes left for Andy on the Sunny Skies.

  It’s her.

  She pulled back, watching Cara for a few minutes as the shuttle continued its brutal launch burn.

  The woman in the suit was her sister. Lyssa had been alone ever since Cara had cut ties with the world, and the wave of emotion flooding her made it difficult to focus. Cara was alive; that should have been enough.

  Lyssa wanted to call out to her then, but she held herself back. It had been so long, she didn’t want to ruin her chances at reconnecting now.

  I miss you, Cara.

 

  Emerson sent the data: Siberia, Northern China, Kazakhstan.

  What’s the connection?

  In another second, Lyssa realized they were ancient launch sites. Just like the ancient nuke. Whoever was helping Cara was using untraceable tech.

  The massive EM radiating off the shuttle was proof that someone was maintaining a remote connection with Cara at a great energy cost.

 

 

  If Cara reached any of those locations, she would disappear again. Cara, or whoever was helping her, knew that the minute she showed her face at an elevator or launch site, Lyssa would know her location. She couldn’t allow Cara to make it off Earth.

  Lyssa hated herself for giving the command, but she had no choice.

 

  Ten Weapon Born acknowledged the order and shifted to autonomous attack directives. These same fighters had taken down Psion cruisers. The shuttle didn’t have a chance.

  I’m sorry, Cara.

  CHASE TIME

  STELLAR DATE: 3.13.3011 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Virginia Crossover, Jerhattan

  REGION: Earth, Terran Hegemony InnerSol

  The shuttle rolled and pulled out of a shallow dive. Cara struggled to keep her bearings as readings scrolled across the pilot’s console, triggering explosions of memory.

  Felix said.

 

  Felix didn’t answer, leaving Cara alone with her spinning thoughts.

  An overwhelming memory of the suppression buzz rose in her mind, making her feel dizzy beyond Felix’s wild piloting. She squeezed her eyes closed, focusing on the sensation of changing velocity in her body. She remembered what this felt like; in fact, the buzz seemed to have been specifically targeting these memories.

  Cara opened her eyes with a single conviction about herself: I’m a pilot.

  she said.

 

 

 

  The beep of a security token passing over Cara’s Link registered in the back of her mind, and then the shuttle’s control system opened to her. On her helmet’s HUD, topography and airspace bloomed across her vision, with ten red icons indicating the attacking ships swarming her rear like hornets.

  The system returned their frame profiles, and Cara immediately understood she was at a distinct disadvantage. She couldn’t burn hard enough to escape them without turning herself into jelly, and the Weapon Born drones still had a stand-off capability that could take her down before she broke away.

  Cara asked.

  Felix said.

 

 

  Cara paused. While more recent segments of her memory continued to elude her, she remembered Lyssa very well. She had been avoiding the SAI since Tim’s death and had never quite sorted out why. She had lost too much. She had pushed everyone away. It seemed pointless now, but also too great a gap to bridge.

  If Lyssa had come here for her, she would have tried to talk first. She hadn’t done that. These Weapon Born had to have a different purpose.

  They were searching the remnants of the mall before pulling off to chase me… maybe they’re executing some corporate job?

  The reasons didn’t matter. They were firing on her shuttle, and she needed to break free.

  Cara leaned forward in the pilot’s seat and studied the situation again, projectile rounds filling the air around the small craft.

  She couldn’t outrun or outmaneuver the Weapon Born, but she did have more mass than they did. She could play chicken.

  Cara shook her head. That was suicide. As soon as she brought the slow and unwieldy shuttle around, the drones would close on her and either blow her out of the sky or disable the engines. The fact that she hadn’t taken a m
issile yet led her to think their goal was capture.

  Then why haven’t they tried to contact me?

  She checked the limited communications console and found the logs empty aside from standard maintenance pings. Patching her armor’s Link to the ship, she quickly scanned for any open channels. All she got was static.

  she asked Felix.

 

  Cara said. She tried the public network and couldn’t complete the handshake.

  Felix said.

  She couldn’t tell if he was lying, and couldn’t spare time to worry about it.

  Pushing the engines as hard as she could, she adjusted the programmed flight path to arc north and return to Earth. They would have to follow her over the heart of Jerhattan. There was going to be more traffic there, more security forces, even the TSF. Ten Weapon Born drones chasing a shuttle through crammed civilian airspace was going to raise red flags. Someone would have to respond.

  Or she would end up a fireball.

  Cara let her helmet fall back against her headrest. The edges of her vision blurred as the g-forces increased, her body now feeling like it was buried under plascrete.

  The shuttle vibrated and groaned around her, its hull pushed to the limit.

  Felix said.

 

 

  Cara said, slurring her words.

  The pressure felt like the buzz, filling her brain with syrup. On her Link, a graphic of her flight plan showed the egg-shaped shuttle reaching its apogee at just under twelve kilometers altitude. The night sky was clear and full of stars around the shuttle as it turned its nose Earthward.