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

sixteen. A few were raised in the protective covenant of Ark Carriers, but most were brought up by indigo families on ten colonies. Their Nordic similarities displayed the selective breeding patterns of Valentin’s parents, Emil and Frances Bouchet, whose team designed these immortals. But they arrived at the Salvation fleet with a hodgepodge of dialects, cultural beliefs, worldviews, social skills, and educational levels. Most resisted their “liberation” until made to see the truth of their abomination. All five hundred shared something else in common: Each was killed and reborn.

Valentin made a point of being present for each validation.

He designed the procedure himself. He would test each new arrival the only way an immortal could: By being killed. A flash laser delivered one peg point-blank between the eyes. Typically, dead children resuscitated within fifteen minutes. All but five passed validation. They deemed the others record-keeping casualties. Best estimates suggested more than two thousand immortals remained hidden across the Collectorate.

Valentin knew he’d never have the time or resources to find them all before Salvation made its big move. Yet he took solace in not being alone anymore and in the adoration of five hundred kin. Every day since the first liberation, Valentin dreamed of building a family in lieu of the biological one his parents denied him.

Now, standing in a converted kwin-sho dueling arena on Level 3 of Lioness, Valentin shared the love with his permanent family. The immortals greeted him in twenty disciplined rows aligned in ascending height from the front, dressed in matching olive bodysuits, a right-fisted salute over the heart.

From the rear, his squad leaders – the immortals closest to Valentin’s size and age – led the cheers.

“Hail, Admiral Bouchet! Onward, Admiral! Onward, Valentin!”

The salute cascaded toward the front in choreographed fashion, ending with the five-year-olds who were the giddiest of all and struggled to maintain rhythm. He allowed them to repeat the pattern three times before he signaled silence.

“We have come so far,” he told them. “We have so many light-years to go. The Chancellors created us as a gateway to their own eternal supremacy. Now, many of those same Chancellors are hunting us. They wish to destroy us before we replace them. Will we allow that to happen?”

The response came like thunder. “Never, Admiral! Never!”

After they settled, Valentin paused until full silence.

“Never,” he said. “Forever.”

They repeated his words in hushed tones, their exchange a months-long ritual. Each time, he felt a greater depth to their loyalty. He loved the comradeship they formed despite their disparate backgrounds, ignoring differences to create a uniform, rabid pack.

An army willing to die because death posed no obstacle.

He called out his leaders in the rear. “Seniors, arrange your squads into pre-combat sequence. Take them through all seven routines.”

The five hundred – a few dozen of whom already participated in combat missions – grouped themselves into concentric circles based upon age and linked arms to begin their routine. Cheers and growls filled the arena. Then one member of each circle took the center and used every available tactic – high kicks, chops, body-blocks – to fend off annihilation as the circle drew closer, the pounding more furious. One of two outcomes followed the five-minute assault: Survive the beating intact and rejoin the circle; or suffer a crippling injury and be dragged outside the circle until healed. One in a hundred died (usually a neck or head injury). In those cases, one volunteer agreed to wait at their side upon rebirth, which was a disorienting event.

The routines mirrored Valentin’s early kwin-sho training, where physical agony and imminent threat of death were guaranteed.

“Could you have made this more savage?”

Valentin didn’t realize Ophelia Tomelin strolled in while he watched his brethren practice.

“Again, Ophelia, with the morality lecture?”

“Yes. As often as necessary to bring you to your senses.”

Ophelia bore little resemblance to the woman who helped Valentin, James, and Rayna escape SkyTower. Two years had aged like twenty on the woman. She balled up her thinning and increasingly gray hair. Her piercing eyes bore the weight of a grueling, bloody war that exhilarated everyone else in the fleet.

“You look horrifying,” he said. “When did you last sleep?”

“Hard to say. I close my eyes, but as soon as I start to remember, I splash my face in cold water.”

“Remember what?”

“The atrocities, of course.”

“Says the woman who worked on my parents’ team for years. We’re here because of people like you.”

“Immortals were designed to be survivors, not psychopaths.”

He wagged his finger. “We were designed to be superior. If that means we kill everyone who needs to die, so be it.”

“Ah. Brother James’s morality. ‘We only kill the people who need to die.’” She groaned. “He keeps redefining need. Or maybe he never particularly cared one way or the other. I truly believed the two of you would represent something different. But look at this.” She pointed to the fighting circles. “How are you creating a mentality any less dangerous than the Unification Guard? Ruthless, coldblooded killers. Mindless, subservient, xenophobic.”

Valentin heard this tune in varied notes for months, but Ophelia’s tone said she wanted to take the rhetoric a step further.

“Follow me.” He walked toward the training circles, hands clasped behind his back, in his typical observation mode. He took minute steps until Ophelia sneered but obeyed his command. He resumed when she reached his side.

“As I’ve told you many times, Ophelia, they need to be inured against pain and the fear of death. This will give them a tactical advantage over the enemy.”

“It will also inure them against assigning a value to life. Mortal humans will become disposable. And should I remind you, Valentin, there are thirty-five billion in the Collectorate?”

“And only five hundred of us. What threat are we? Even if we kill a million of them, their survival rate will be