The Impossible Future: Complete set Frank Kennedy (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

and be forgotten long before me, Father. They will forget you. I will make sure they forget you.

He cemented this vow in a savage heart as he prepared to unleash death on anyone who came between him and a new life.

Valentin was suited, armed, and committed to the revised plan. Ophelia Tomelin came along in their moment of need. He hoped she could uphold her end.

Both he and James carried a Mark 10 Alexis blast rifle along with pulse lasers for side-arms, while Rayna found a Mark 7 Pining Rifle to her satisfaction. The long-necked barrel, she said, reminded her of hunting expeditions in Ukraine. Valentin gave her a quick primer, but she dismissed him once she figured out the trigger buttons. She did not mind the Mark 7 carrying a fourth the capacity of the Mark 10. She enjoyed the challenge of making each shot count.

Rayna did not take to the combat bodysuit as well. The “ugly red skin” did not, Valentin admitted, look as fetching on someone of ordinary physique as it did covering the bulk of a peacekeeper. The hardest part was convincing to wear the helmet.

“Trust me,” he told her. “It has saved my life in many battles. You wish to survive. Yes?”

Teaching her how to catalyze the full-facial shield and not become disoriented by the DR29 grid inside was an additional hurdle, one that tested his patience. She is costing us time. He didn’t say the words, but James saw his concern and talked her down.

“I can see all around,” she said, flabbergasted.

“Yes,” James told her. “It’s an incredible tool but …”

“But take care,” Valentin said. “The peripheral gives you full circle flexibility, but do not use it when your focus must be on the enemy in front of you. You will lose your aim.”

Valentin set the schematic of the compound in his DR29, laying out the mission targets. He shared it with James and Rayna.

“If it’s too much,” he told Rayna, “dismiss it with a swipe and follow.”

“I do not follow well,” she said. “I shoot first at head of pack.”

Which is what she did. As they rounded a Level 5 bend on a four-seat rifter, they approached their first target and encountered an expected guard. Rayna aimed her rifle between the peacekeepers and shot the uniformed woman through the head.

“Very light,” she said, ignoring the kill. “I make good choice.”

Valentin hopped off the rifter, swiped his hand across a digital door panel. Seconds later, he entered, rifle aimed.

Rear Admiral Augustus Perrone jumped up, knocking over a small table with a half-eaten meal. A small staff bedroom was his holding pen. He wore none of the trappings of an admiral, his uniform having been stripped bare. For an instant, Valentin felt pity.

“You have ten seconds to answer my questions,” he said.

“Peacekeeper, what are you doing? You answer my questions.”

Valentin moved closer and tapped off his helmet.

“Ten seconds, Augustus, or you’re dead.”

“First Specialist. Naturally. You and your father were in on this. You will be executed for this treason.”

“No, Augustus. I won’t. Again, you have ten seconds. Answer. Why did you do this to me and my family?”

Perrone clinched his fists, moving within an inch of the barrel.

“I owe you nothing.”

“Five seconds, Augustus.”

The admiral’s fight diminished when James removed his helmet.

“Ah, now I understand. The brothers who died. You seek revenge? I wonder, James. Did your friend Michael feel anything before my assassin ended him? And what about you, Valentin? Has your resurrection destroyed all you believed in? Here you are, violating every principle we taught you.”

Valentin wanted to cry but also laugh. He should have known.

    “That’s what you wanted. Hurt him through us. You tear down Father by tearing down his sons. You don’t care about the Jewels or the immortals. You don’t even care about the future of Chancellors. You only want to destroy the Bouchet name. You are filth.”

“You have no concept, boy. What stands between Emil and I began when we were children. You do not understand.”

Valentin stepped back and lowered his rifle. “But I do. Father always beat you at everything. He never stopped beating you. Even when you were light-years apart. My father is a disgusting human being, but you are not even that. Goodbye, Augustus.”

James lurched forward, his rifle chest-high.

“You made me kill my brother,” he said.

Perrone tried to reply, but James shredded his chest with flash pegs then stood over the body and obliterated the admiral’s head.

When he looked over the blood-ravaged corpse, Valentin felt no sense of guilt, nor violation of duty. Just as James spoke of his former identity falling away into the shadows, Valentin felt another persona making its way from the depths.

The beast told him to fear nothing. His path was eternal.

56

J AMES DID NOT TAKE PERRONE AT HIS WORD. Even if Michael was in danger, James could not offer help. I gave him and Sammie a chance. They’ll have to figure it out for themselves. He blocked his old family from his mind and focused on his new one. He studied the DR29 grid and penetrated the compound for heat signatures. James detected a sense of urgency in clusters on Levels 6, 7, and 9, but most of more than eight hundred in the compound seemed unaware of the new threat.

He was ready when the lift opened on Level 5. He and Valentin shot three guards in Solomon tri-crests as the door slid away. As they stood over the bodies, James analyzed the trip ahead.

“They’ll try to force the lift to a stop at every level. Be ready.”

He didn’t care for their strategic position, but he also knew how many point-blank shots the armor tolerated before weakening. They prepared. Valentin took point on bended knee, ready to