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  Mach made sure his suit was appropriately set up and made his way over to the airlock. Adira was also suited up and joined him. The vestan took a look around her pod without any show of emotion and stepped out of the airlock with no suit, her body far more hardy to the perils of the vacuum of space than humans.

  “Patching us into the device onboard the Intrepid,” Tulula said.

  “It’s called Squid,” Mach said.

  A garbled response came over the comm channel and eventually resolved into Babcock’s surprised voice asking a hundred questions all at once.

  “Just open the airlock for us, we’ll explain everything.”

  When Mach and the others stepped out of Tulula’s pod, alarm klaxons blared.

  “That’s our cue to get out of here,” the vestan said, dashing across the hangar bay floor, leaping over the still bodies of the guards until she reached the airlock on the side of the Jaguar.

  Mach and Adira followed her into the craft.

  Sanchez waited for them on the other side, helping them through to the main cabin area. “What the hell’s going on?” he said. “And who the hell is that?”

  “Sanchez, this is Tulula. She’s going to help us. Now let’s not hang about here,” Mach said. Then, raising his voice so all could hear him, “Everyone, get to your stations. We’re leaving right this minute.”

  Adira raced through to the bridge, where she settled into her position on the lasers, getting the systems online. Danick and Lassea were already firing up the Gamma Drive.

  Mach showed Tulula to the engine module and introduced her to Babcock and Squid, the latter chirping happily at her.

  “Can you fix it?” Babcock asked the vestan, the two engineers leaning over the fusion crystal array. The first three of which were dimmed, unusable in their current configuration.

  “I think so,” Tulula said, leaning closer to inspect the installation. “You have the configuration all wrong. It’s a wonder the LD worked at all.”

  “How long will it take?” Mach asked. All around him the klaxons continued to blare. It surely wouldn’t be too long before the Black Swan figured out what had happened, especially as Stessoa was going to come to any minute now.

  “I don’t know,” the vestan said, “ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”

  “You’ve got five.”

  “Where are we going from here?” Babcock asked.

  Mach grinned. “I think you already know the answer to that, old friend. We’re following your signal scan, after all.”

  The two engineers, and even Squid, stared at him.

  “The wormhole?” Babcock said with a hushed, almost reverent tone.

  “Damn straight. We’re gonna go catch us a fish.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Today was the day of the arranged meeting. Morgan sat up in bed and watched the sun rise over the distant mountains through his penthouse apartment window. The view was fit for an admiral, albeit a puppet one.

  Three days had passed since speaking with Marshal Kenwright. Seazza managed to pin Vice President Orloza down to an early morning appointment, before his endless senate duties discussing the impending war. That’s what the senate did. Talk. President Steros had brought in a decade of endless discussion.

  But, Orloza had the political weight to provide a route back to an active role. Morgan had to make him accept that their current strategy of sitting on their backsides and waiting for something to happen wasn’t working. The best form of defense for the CWDF was attack: confront the Axis in numbers at the NCZ and include more resources directed toward the Atlantis ship mission.

  Morgan stepped out of bed and walked to the window. A pair of drones zipped across the brightening sky, leaving faint vapor trails. Fides Prime had the ground defenses to deal with a wormhole appearance, and the senate could sleep soundly, but hundreds of other planets in the Sphere were vulnerable.

  Talk around the base continued about Axis ships clustering on the frontier, opposite the former locations of the two destroyed stations. Morgan felt like a shell not being part of it. He intended to grab today’s opportunity with both hands. If it didn’t work, he feared for the Commonwealth’s future.

  After getting in touch with the feronian authorities, Morgan found out that Mach had taken a powerful experimental ship. It seemed things were progressing on the mission, but he still hadn’t heard a thing. That in itself wasn’t a huge issue. Whenever Morgan used Mach before, he’d often go silent until he was finished. When Mach liberated ten members of a captured mining vessel from inside horan territory a couple of years ago, it had taken him two months to confirm his success.

  Morgan slipped off his underpants and stood in the transparent hygiene cubicle. “Activate.”

  Jets of warm scented water sprayed from twenty different points on the wall, instantly soaking him. Morgan swept back his thinning brown hair and blew water from his face.

  The jets of water transformed into hot air and he slowly spun while the water dried off his skin. He grabbed a fresh towel from a shelf outside and dabbed at a couple of damp patches.

  “Teeth.”

  Two mechanical arms extended from a compartment over a chrome sink. Morgan put his mouth around the dentalbot at the end of the left arm. A minty taste blasted around his mouth as the micro-machine whirred around each tooth. He grabbed the glass of water from the cup holder in the right arm, swished it around and spat it out.

  Returning to the bedroom, Morgan decided that he’d put on his best ceremonial suit for the occasion. It fit the role the marshal had given him, but he also wanted to create the best possible impression on Orloza with the vast array of medals across his chest.

  Morgan knew he wasn’t an old has-been with an axe to grind. He had something to offer.

  After dressing in the suit, he checked himself in the full-length mirror, picked a spot of dust off his dark gray lapel, and straightened the golden victory lanyard around his left shoulder. If politicians were shallow enough to be swayed by appearance, Morgan wouldn’t have any problems today. He doubted things would be that simple.

  ***

  Morgan’s transport pod stopped outside the senate. He climbed out and straightened his jacket. Seazza waved over from the tall set of eight glass entrance doors. As instructed, she also wore her dark blue uniform instead of a dress. He returned a nod and glanced up at the large square granite building. The early morning sun reflected off hundreds of black-tinted windows that ran around the four floors. Mostly offices of admin staff who served the Salus government.

  This was a place he had generally avoided throughout his career. The senate’s funding and resource decisions were based on the space marshal’s advice. Morgan always felt he had no business mixing with politicians. His place was at the coal face, executing high-level orders, defending the Sphere.

  Trudging up twenty wide stone steps, Morgan felt a sense of foreboding. This was his last chance to make a tangible difference in the defense of the Sphere. Politicians usually backed the winning horse, and he had a clear case to make. Mach didn’t help matters by not communicating, but Morgan decided to use a little artistic license for that part.

  “Good morning, Admiral,” Seazza said and smiled, exposing her light green teeth. “I’m confident we’ll get a decision today.”

  “I hope you’re right, for all our sakes.”

  “I know how to handle Orloza. Follow me.”

  Seazza swiped her screen against a black plate on the wall and two of the glass doors smoothly swung open. She headed inside, through a three-meter-wide black frame that scanned for weapons, and entered the domed entrance hall. Morgan followed and peered around at the thirty-five stone busts of the previous presidents that circled the area. In the officers’ mess they had pictures of some of the dead men and women who served with distinction during the war. He thought the mess display more poignant but admitted to himself that he did have a level of bias.

  A young fidian soldier, dressed in the beige service uniform des
igned for wear in civilian facilities, pressed a button to call the elevator as they approached the opposite side of the room.

  The elevator dropped through the transparent shaft and came to a soft bouncing stop.

  “Which floor?” the soldier said.

  “I can take it from here,” Seazza replied. “Thank you.”

  They climbed to the fourth floor, catching brief glimpses of corridors as they passed, and stopped at a bright open-plan office. Hundreds of humans, fidesians and fidians, dressed in white business shirts, worked in open-plan offices behind the glass walls, peering at screens and moving their fingers over the holokeyboards.

  “Orloza’s at the end,” Seazza said. “He likes to keep close to the workers.”

  “Looks like he runs a tight ship,” Morgan said, but knew a man of Orloza’s position wouldn’t have much day-to-day responsibility dealing with individuals. It wasn’t like captaining a real ship, where it was a duty to know the crew and every high-level detail. Thinking about it made Morgan wonder why he ever accepted the rank of admiral in the first place. He never guessed it would turn out like this.

  Seazza walked through the middle of the office area and opened an opaque door at the far end. Orloza’s secretary, a young woman with blond hair, sat behind a desk to the side of a wooden varnished door.

  “Seazza!” the secretary said. “He’s ready to see you. Is this Admiral Morgan?”

  “That’s me,” Morgan said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” The secretary thumbed a pad by her side. “Seazza and Admiral Morgan are here. Shall I send them straight in?”

  “Send them through,” a high-pitched voice replied through the speaker.

  Morgan had seen Orloza before at official functions and on CW broadcasts about upcoming building projects. They hadn’t spoken. Never really needed to. Morgan wasn’t one for small talk with politicians.

  The door opened with an electric whine as Seazza approached it. Morgan followed and stood to her side.

  Orloza, an old fidesian, dressed in a black trouser suit with his wispy white hair slicked back, rose from behind his desk and extended a bony hand toward two brown leather bucket seats. “Seazza and Admiral Morgan. Please, sit down.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Morgan said.

  “You can thank Seazza,” Orloza said. “She tells me you have some important ideas to discuss? If it’s for the good of the CW, I’m all ears.”

  The vice president continued to smile and poured himself a glass of water. Fidesians were poor actors and Morgan instantly recognized the falseness of Orloza’s facial expression. It was probably his default mode when meeting new people.

  “I’d like to be frank with you,” Morgan said. “We are facing multiple dangers and I don’t think we’re prioritizing our forces correctly or proactively addressing the threats.”

  “Do you mean the marshal isn’t prioritizing?” Orloza said. “He told me that you’ve been assigned to deal with the Atlantis ship.”

  “That’s true, but I’m looking at the full picture. The main reason the Axis have an opportunity is because of the Atlantis ship. We’re two orbitals down and I believe they’re smelling blood.”

  “And how is your assignment going? Are you any closer to eliminating the ship?”

  “My team is making progress, but I don’t believe enough resources are assigned. I also think we need to send a message to the Axis. The longer we wait, the more chance they’ll see it as a sign of weakness. We’re sleepwalking toward war…”

  Orloza gazed over Morgan’s head. He glanced over his shoulder and realized the vice president was watching the Sphere newscast on the high-definition screen attached to the wall.

  “Vice President,” Seazza said. “You need to listen to a man of Morgan’s experience. I’ve seen the evidence myself. This isn’t going to end well if we continue along our current path.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Orloza said and focused back on Morgan. “Are we to go against the space marshal’s advice?”

  Morgan leaned forward, hiding his irritation at how Orloza got so easily distracted before he’d barely stated his case. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. It doesn’t have to be painful. I want command of a capital craft to bolster the hunt for the Atlantis ship, and we need to send out strong communications to the Axis with consequences if they continue to gather at the frontier.”

  “An aggressive stance is not always the best option, Admiral,” Orloza said. “We mean to avoid war, not provoke it.”

  “We can’t continue to wait and have our outer defenses picked off. CWDF lives are being lost. We’re more vulnerable after every attack. This is a storm we can’t ride. Give me an active role and I’ll ensure our long-term security.”

  Orloza sighed. “The marshal told me you’d say this. For the record, he’s aware of our meeting today. I decided to grant Seazza’s request out of respect for your service. We all need to be pulling in the same direction to achieve a positive conclusion, and I feel you’re not with us.”

  “Of course I’m with the Commonwealth. Give me time to explain.”

  “Time is something I haven’t got. I have an appointment in five minutes with the agricultural senator.”

  Morgan clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Orloza was just paying him lip service, just like his current role to the CWDF.

  “I think you need to hear the admiral,” Seazza said.

  “The admiral is being retired,” Orloza said, avoiding eye contact with Morgan. “He will receive the full benefits of his rank, and I’m allowing him to keep his apartment. This is my final decision.”

  “You damned coward,” Morgan said, springing from his chair, realizing he now had nothing to lose. “Thousands of lives could be lost around the Sphere. You and the marshal will lead us to disaster.”

  Orloza pressed the pad on his desk and leaned toward it. “Please come to my office and escort two people from the building.”

  Morgan ripped the embroidered star epaulets off both of his shoulders and threw them at Orloza. The vice president protected his head with his hands before composing himself. He gave Morgan his shit-eating grin again. “If you don’t want to spend the rest of your living days on Summanus, you better show a little more respect.”

  “You don’t deserve any,” Morgan said. He turned to Seazza. “Let’s get out of here. This was a waste of time.”

  The door whined open and two soldiers entered. Morgan extended his palms toward them. “Don’t worry, guys. You won’t get any trouble from me. I don’t want to spend another minute with this useless cretin.”

  Seazza joined him, and they headed between the soldiers for the door. She looked at her shoes. Morgan guessed she felt embarrassed by the meeting. He should have guessed the outcome. The useless old men were all in each other’s pockets.

  “Admiral Morgan,” Orloza said, “Summanus is the easy choice. If you step further out of line, I can arrange something else. I’m sure you can work out what I mean.”

  Morgan didn’t acknowledge the obvious threat and left at a quick pace. Seazza half-jogged to keep up with his long strides. Just before the elevator she grabbed his shoulder and gently pulled him to a stop. “We do have another option.”

  “It’s over,” Morgan said. “We’re going to sit here and take a pounding.”

  “I’m serious. We have another option but, you’re not going to like it.”

  “Will it piss off Orloza and Steros?”

  “In one way, yes.”

  “Then I like it already.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mach watched the orbital disappear on the rearview screen as the Jaguar headed for the wormhole. Tulula had worked her magic on the drives and they were back to full power, cruising only five minutes from their destination. The thought of coming face to face with the Atlantis ship sent a tingle down Mach’s spine.

  Most of Morgan’s jobs were extractions, but now they had a chance to take down a legend. If
they pulled it off, the JPs would dine out on it. Adira and Babcock would get pardons, Mach wouldn’t need to work again, and Sanchez… Mach wasn’t sure what he ultimately wanted but knew a lot of his eros would keep the bars in the Sphere in business for the next few years.

  Turning his attention to the sensor array, Mach concentrated on their direction of travel. The wormhole’s energy registered as a faint line, fifty klicks ahead and four below. He knew the crew was aware that they might end up thousands of light-years away from the Salus Sphere, with no way back, but nobody questioned the decision. Not even the JPs. After a bumpy start they had integrated well.

  Danick turned from the holocontrols. “How do we enter it?”

  “Bring her in nice and slow,” Mach said. He didn’t know a single person alive that had traveled through a wormhole. Common sense dictated that they shouldn’t enter at speed in case they encountered an obstacle directly outside the opposite end.

  A hush descended around the deck. Mach leaned forward in his chair and gazed at the viewing screen. An orange glow appeared in the distance. As they closed in, the tunnel became clearer.

  Lassea fired the retro thrusters. Sanchez and Adira peered at their monitors, with their hands over the ion cannon and laser controls respectively, ready to zero in on any immediate threats.

  An orange gas swirled around the front end of the wormhole. Deeper inside, it slowly rotated. A shimmering white light radiated from the far end of the tunnel.

  Mach wondered why it was still here. Drone reports from the area of Orbital Forty said it vanished within a couple of hours. Whatever the reason, it provided them with a first real opportunity of closely following the Atlantis ship’s escape route.

  The Intrepid reached within thirty seconds of entry. An orange glow cast from the screens. The scale was far bigger than Mach imagined. They had clearance of at least four hundred meters in all directions.