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

What about the trap I flew us into? How did it happen?”

Hans looked away. He clearly didn’t want to broach the topic.

“You were in hiding with Rikard and Matthias. Yes? Did they tell you about the Solomon splinter groups?”

Michael glanced at Maya, who was also clueless.

“Splinter groups?”

“A few days ago, the hardliners started making offers to anyone in the movement. Full amnesty, transfer to another continent, assume another identity, or take free off-world passage with a healthy stipend. In return, provide a simple show of loyalty.”

His heart beat faster. “Let me guess. Turn in other members of the movement.”

Hans nodded. “Dead or alive.”

The picture cleared. “So, I’m guessing Nell Kusugak’s contact in Harrisboro flipped, but he didn’t know it. Soon as he stepped out of the Scram, they shot him.”

“Actually, and I’m hesitant to bring this up,” Hans said, “Nell was in on it. They both were. I think she was concerned about being exposed too soon if the plan went haywire, so she had him killed right off. That’s all I know. But it’s happening everywhere, I’m afraid. If they can’t kill us themselves, they’ll turn us against each other.”

“But we’re Solomons,” Maya said. “Not Chancellors. We don’t do these things to each other.”

Hans shook his head. “Don’t we? Look, we spent the last few years fighting their war for them. They turned us into a quiet army of assassins. If we’d kill for them, why not for ourselves? We’re not blameless here. And you,” he turned to Michael. “They must have been peeing their pants to bring you in to the Chancellors. Outside of Rikard and Matthias, nobody has your stature.”

Michael put down the pipe. He didn’t understand.

“Wait, what? Is that what you meant earlier? You called me a hero and said everyone knows me. Dude, I am no hero, for damn sure.”

Maya chuckled. “I tried to tell him, Hans. But he’s a stubborn one.”

“What?”

Hans sighed. “Michael, we’ve been a servant class for centuries. People have tried to push equity movements before, but nothing gained traction until the civil war. Two years ago, everything changed. SkyTower didn’t just alter the way Chancellors look at the world, it gave pause to all of us who deserved better.

“You became our lightning rod, even if you didn’t realize it. Do you know what it meant that you chose to become one of us? That you chose to fight for us and give your life for us? How you spoke after the SkyTower inquest, the way you lived a public life with your comedy, the sacrifices you made killing for the movement – even while you were living with a Chancellor.

“Michael, no one in six hundred years has set an example like you. I can’t count how many Solomons have told me they joined the movement because of your inspiration.” Hans choked up. “You had no idea, did you?”

Michael studied him through suddenly teary eyes. He didn’t know what to feel. Grateful? Humble? Prideful? None of it made sense. A terrifying thought broke his heart.

“Tell me something, Hans. All these Solomons I inspired? How many of them have gotten themselves killed on account of me?”

He took the air out of the room, but Michael didn’t care.

“Sweetie,” Maya said, using a term he only expected from Sam. “That’s unfair – to you and to them. Every man and woman must make a choice. You did not command them. They came willingly. This is what happens in war.”

She was right of course, but Michael wasn’t ready to admit it. He wished this conversation never took place. He wished …

“Hold on,” Hans said, lowering his voice. “I heard …”

He raced to the conference room door and opened it gently. Michael recognized a nearby bell. It was familiar to him on first or second Earth. Call it what you will – elevator, lift. All the same.

Hans’s warning came as no surprise. “They found us.”

55

Moss compound, two hours earlier

 

T HIS TIME, THE FLASH PEGS AND LASERS were real on both sides of the fight. The estate fell under a vicious assault, the mercenaries outside dashing around the main house on commercial rifters similar to what Sam bought for her own team. Her rifters, however, remained undeployed inside her Scramjet. Sam sent Capt. Doltrice on his way, ordered to defend the house at all costs. She and David took shelter in his office, far away from the initial front line.

“How long would it take reset the defense perimeter,” she asked, “but this time with the deadliest settings?”

“Too long.” David fidgeted inside a security holocube. “Any attempt to set it beyond diversionary strength requires several minutes of opt-out sequences. Mr. Moss never wanted it to be a killing machine. Only a deterrent.”

“Set it anyway. We’ve got to kill these mercs. I don’t care how.”

He entered the program and initiated the sequence.

“When you’re done,” she said, “Warn Finnegan and tell him to get out while he can. Then reach out to the Coronado and Vancouver Presidiums. You must know some of their chiefs of staff. Make the case to light a fire under their people.”

David seemed puzzled. “And what are you doing?”

She raised her rifle. “We need every gun in the fight. Don’t worry, David. My father trained me for this.”

She closed the office door before he objected. Thunder, pops, and shattering glass echoed from every direction. Sam tapped the neck brace, and the helmet slid over her head. She engaged the DR29 grid and opened a link to her team.

“Capt. Doltrice, where do you need me?”

“Ms. Pynn? Negative. Stand down and let us to do our job.”

“You’re spread too thin, Captain. Where do you need me?”

He laid down fire, the blasts amplifying through the stream.

“Northwest quad,” he told her. “Past the observatory, fifty meters