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

motioned for all others to be seated, but he did not join them. Rather, he stood behind his chair.

Valentin saw a new equation in his brother’s features. The arrogance of invincibility had gone into hiding. In its stead, he saw a pensive man who lost the first of his own kind and who paused to reconsider. He was not a humbled man who sees the light and begs forgiveness. No, James would never allow himself down that road. Still, there was something familiar.

“A long time before I crossed the fold,” James began, his voice low and measured, “I was bullied and mocked. I despised those bastards, not for controlling me but for knowing how to control me. They had an instinct about them. You could see it in the way they walked. The way they slid their eyes toward you like snakes just before they bit.

“I fought back. Spilled some blood. They backed off, but not because they suddenly respected me. No. They left me alone because they had assumed they would always win. They were cowards. People like them, they’ll be cowards all their lives.”

Valentin recognized the familiar. This was the James Bouchet he first grew to know in the days after their duel on Earth and Valentin’s rebirth. The man/boy growing at extraordinary pace was trying to reconcile his past with his destiny.

“I made the same mistake as they did. I assumed victory. I won for too long. No, we won for too long. I knew the Guard would change their tactics. I was warned of the danger. But I continued to assume, and they fought back. They spilled blood.”

His eyes, which largely avoided those at the table, now zeroed in on his tempestuous but immature sons.

“But I am not a coward, and I will not back off. I have bullied them and mocked them every chance I’ve had. Now, I’m going to finish them.”

In an instant, the confused James Bouchet died, replaced by the man-god who Valentin realized had learned nothing at all.

“This is not a time for retreat or reevaluation. This is not a time for confusion or grief. This is the time to strike the final blow.

“Two days from now, we are going to realign the Collectorate. We are going to fulfill every promise we have made to my worshippers. We are going to open the door to our new home world. We are going to walk the path given to us by the Jewels of Eternity. We win our war in two days.”

James took a seat. His eyes bore into everyone except Valentin.

“Starting this hour,” he continued, “I want every member of the fleet focused exclusively on supporting our final attack. Pilot rotations, intership transfers, fueling and engineering operations – these will take priority over all other responsibilities. Major Kane?”

Maj. Rafael Kane saluted. “Yes, Brother James.”

“You, Ulrich, and Joakim will meet with me in one hour to design our Slope navigation. I intend for all six navigators to leave simultaneously for different systems. Rather than return directly to Salvation after eliminating their targets, they will move on to a second and then third group of colonies. We will terrorize humanity above eighteen colonies in less than four hours.”

The gasps were restrained. Though Kane and Ulrich nodded, their responses were muted. Valentin saw it in everyone’s eyes: James wanted them to attempt an unprecedented mission. He wasn’t shocked that James excluded him, but Valentin also wasn’t going to roll over for his brother’s hubris.

“Brother, I see your plan, but may I offer a counterpoint?”

James stared to the far end of the table, locked in Rayna’s eyes.

“No, Admiral, but you will anyway.”

“You intend to hit every colony where we have installed refractors. You want maximum impact, and I see the logic. But if we play every hand we have left and the rest of them call our bluff … where does that leave us?”

“We will not have this problem.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because we will have killed more than a million of them and they won’t know how we did it. Chancellors, like bullies, walk away after a bloody punch.”

“And if they evacuate to the planets rather than return to Earth?”

“Then they will risk their lives in places where they are not wanted. Admiral, my plan considers every possibility. This is no different than what we intended to do over time. I simply decided to accelerate our attack because all the pieces are in place.”

Valentin felt the body language of the room. They weren’t all on James’s side … yet.

“Even if your assumptions about the Chancellors are correct – and I don’t disagree – you are asking the only six Slope-qualified pilots in the universe to navigate more substrata in hours than we have ever attempted in days. There are billions of variables in the quantum algorithms.” He turned to the pilot he most trusted. “Ulrich, can you pull this off without significant danger?”

Ulrich’s eyes darted between the brothers.

“Difficult, yes, but not impossible.”

James rapped the table with his generous knuckles.

“We have traversed the Slope two hundred seventy times,” he said. “Not one failure, Admiral. As you know. Do you think I would put another Jewel or immortal at risk?”

“To prove you’re right? Yes, brother, I think you would.”

Rayna raised her hand as if a student ready to make a point.

“My husband has nothing to prove. Always, he is right. Others fail him who do not believe. But they are gone, and still we walk path to victory. He is father now. He will protect his babies.”

She rubbed her belly. Valentin caught the provocative shift in tone as she glanced the hybrids in their final month of pregnancy.

“Yes,” she said. “Is true. I will have two more babies. My boys will have sisters.”

Smiles all around, and joyful tears from the hybrid