Critical Path (The Critical Series Book2) (24 page)

“Will we even be able to breathe there?”

“They’ve got us breathing apparatus. The atmosphere isn’t too different to Earth,” Charlie said. “The croatoans aren’t dissimilar to us in regards to what kind of planets they can survive on. Apparently, all their planets are Earthlike to some degree or another.”

“That makes sense, I suppose. Want a brew?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Denver thought about the challenges they would face as he headed into the kitchen. Even if they could destroy this jump gate or whatever it was and stop the destroyer—and other ships—from coming to Earth, what of the gate world itself? They’d be trapped there with a destroyer, presumably full of croatoans, not to mention the aliens on the planet already. They’d likely be fugitives—even if Hagellan didn’t conspire to kill them after the deed was done.

Unless he killed Hagellan first.

And Baliska.

He’d talk with Mike about taking some other concealed weapons along for the ride. If he had the opportunity, he’d have to take it.

When Denver returned to the living room with a fresh mug of tea, Charlie approached the window and placed his palm over his eyes to block out the glare from the afternoon sun.

“What is it?” Denver asked.

Charlie turned and grinned before opening the door. “It’s them; Mike and the others are here.”

Denver placed the tea on the table and rushed to the door. Down the three tiers and in the courtyard area he watched as an adapted harvester and three hover-bikes landed. Mike and Mai got out of the harvester and whirled around, taking in the sight of Unity with their usual curious expressions of wonder and awe.

Ryan, their guard, had made his way down the steps toward them. When he got to them, he turned and pointed up at the cabin. Denver and Charlie waved down at the others. Layla, Maria, Mike and Mai set off, escorted by Ryan, and joined the others in the cabin.

As they all made their greetings, Charlie and Mike and Mai were especially pleased to see each other. They arranged the furniture around the small table so that everyone could sit down as they discussed the plans and what was needed.

“So this is what they need, eh?” Mike said, scanning the datapad of parts and blueprints Hagellan had given to them. He read the details, humming and nodding his head as he took in the information. “As alien as they are, their power sources still work with our known physics, and it’s quite self-explanatory why this ship of theirs won’t work.”

“It might need calibration, assuming we can recover the parts from the wreckage,” Charlie added.

“They’re providing some of their junior engineers to help,” Denver said.

“Good, good,” Mike responded as he tapped a finger against his lips, thinking over what was required.

As he and Charlie got further into the discussions of how the repairs to the Unity ship would happen, Denver caught Maria staring at him. He got up and joined her and Layla on a beaten-up old sofa. “You okay?” Denver asked.

“Yeah, just nervous about all of this,” Maria said. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

Denver looked to Layla. She gave him the tiniest of nods. “Okay,” he said, “let me give you the tour of the place.” He stood and held his hand out for Maria. She took it and helped herself up. She carried a shoulder bag as Denver led her into the bedroom. Closing the door behind him and leaning against it, he bent down to Maria and whispered, “What is it?”

She lifted the bag from her shoulder, placing it on the floor. From within she pulled out a modified croatoan pistol and pushed it to Denver. “Here, Mike wanted you or Charlie to have this,” she said with barely a whisper.

“What is it?”

“It overpowers the alien beads—blows them up. It works in short range and has to be directed, but he assures me if you need to kill a croatoan quickly, this will do the job.”

Denver weighed it in his hands. It appeared as though Mike had lightened it, as it felt at least half the weight of a regular pistol. But then, the barrel had a small dish shape on the end, so it appeared there was no need for a magazine. “Thanks,” he said, hiding it under the bed, covering it over with a blanket.

Maria remained in place, poised but seemingly unable to get whatever it was off her chest.

“Was there something else?”

Maria sighed. “I don’t know. It’s this whole thing. It just feels so… overwhelming. Mike and Mai discovered some video from an old harvester. It showed another planet being harvested. There are hundreds of them out there—all branched off from this gate world. It just seems this mission isn’t just about Earth anymore, you know? I can’t help but think of all those other worlds that would benefit if the croatoans couldn’t get there anymore.”

Denver saw the weight of her argument press upon her and heard it in her voice. This extra news, to him, only made him more motivated to do all he could.

“I understand,” Denver said. “But you don’t have to worry. We’ll do the best we can.”

“It’s not just that,” Maria said, coming closer to him.

“It’s what, then?”

“I want to help, but I just feel so useless. I don’t feel like I belong anymore. I don’t even know who I am… there’s these clones, you see, and I—”

“I know,” Denver said, hugging her. She clutched him tight and buried her face into his chest. From over her shoulder he saw the closet door open a few inches and the face of Maria’s clone, the one in the robes, look out. Denver shook his head slightly and mouthed, “go.”

The clone stepped back into the shadows and closed the door.

“I ought to get back to the others,” Maria said. “You do what you have to do,” she said, looking to where he had stashed the weapon.

“I will. I appreciate it, really.”

Denver opened the door to let her out and followed her into the living room. A couple of small croatoans, the engineers working for Hagellan, had arrived. Ryan stood guard by the door, his hands on his rifle as the group discussed the plans.

“So what’s next?” Denver asked.

Mike stood up and clutched the datapad and a number of loose sheets of paper. “A road trip,” he said.

“We’re heading out to get the parts,” Charlie added. He eyed the croatoans with suspicion. These were a pair of small engineer types. Perhaps because of their size, and maybe because of their role, they didn’t generate the same levels of hate, and Mike seemed to be getting on well with them, swapping notes and discussing engineering ideas.

“Make sure our place stays empty, would you, Ryan?” Denver said. “I’ve grown quite comfortable here and wouldn’t want people coming and going.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Right then, let’s go,” Charlie said. “We’ve got a wreckage to plunder.”

“I’ll be right there,” Denver said. “I’ll just grab a book for the journey.”

He headed back into the room, concerned the Maria clone might have snuck in, but when he checked, the weapon was still there. Packing it beneath an old T-shirt he had found in one of the drawers, he hid the weapon at the bottom of his backpack. Although they took his rifle and other weapons when they caught him spying, they did give him back his backpack and general supplies.

Not feeling confident about leaving the weapon behind, he put his backpack on and left the room, wondering just how long, or frequently, the Maria clone had spied on them.

Denver joined the others outside, climbing into the back of the adapted harvester. He sat next to Layla and Maria, who had agreed to come along to help with the search. Charlie sat up front with Mike and the two alien engineers.

The engine roared and the harvester vibrated as they pulled out of the courtyard and headed for the ramp that led out of Unity’s basin. Denver was pleased to have left his house-prison, but he worried what the clone was up to.

Either way, he would find out, and he was now armed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Augustus finished annotating another history book with his corrections and sat back in his chair. Sighing, he reached out for a goblet of wine. He needed something to take the edge off his growing anxiety.

Although Gregor seemed loyal and appeared to be satisfied to carry out his new task, Augustus had been on Earth long enough to know that treachery and cowardice were the two halves of many men’s hearts.

The only factor that guaranteed a degree of virtuousness was the promise of power and the belief in a higher creation. The latter, however, had diminished greatly in humanity’s consideration.

Extraterrestrials blew apart many of the religions and myths, leaving humankind wandering in the darkness of their own unexplained existence. Which for Augustus presented an opportunity. Those seeking answers to questions that had none would accept anything with the right delivery of rhetoric.

All it took was for someone to grasp the fate of humankind in his fist and mold it in his vision. All it took was an emperor with strength and the vision to lead humanity once more to cultural and technological new heights. A new republic inclusive of all those who sought the answers that he could deliver would start right here in Unity.

It would just take a little time.

Augustus was used to waiting.

Thanks to the croatoans’ technology and root compound, he had learned to cheat fate of its whims. He would defy the memory of the dead gods and be Earth’s immortal leader.

Unlike the aliens, however, he would not hide in stasis underground for thousands of years, waiting for the moment.

Carpe diem.

The time was now. Once Hagellan was out of the picture, he would unite the disparate groups within the settlement and drive out any dissenters to his rule—including their ally Aimee Rivery.

He could not afford any threads of subversion to remain in his new world to take hold and undermine him.

He drank deeply from the goblet. The wine tasted unrefined and agricultural. Nothing like the superior grapes from Italy and France when he was in Rome, but he wasn’t a man to hanker too much for the past.

The past remained a vacuum of potential.

Memories were but an illusion of things that may or may not have existed in reality. One only had to read the history books that had survived to see how time distorts reality. No, the past held no answers for him. It held no guidance in a world changed far beyond the imagination of anyone from that era.

He looked forward only.

Without the council managing resources on the ground, the remaining croatoans would soon learn independent thought, just as those within Unity had.

But they would still look for direction.

They weren’t bred for agency; they were bred as tools for their superiors to use to achieve their goals. Just as Augustus would use them to achieve his.

With no croatoan ground army left on the planet after they had left before the ice age, there was nothing or no one who could stop him once he had enough resources, once he had collected enough tools.

Having survived that little irritant, Charlie Jackson’s bomb, Augustus knew he had to seize this opportunity.

Free of the croatoan council’s domination, the potential for molding the world to his vision came to him as though it were a gift from the gods he once worshipped.

By now, he knew Jupiter wasn’t a deity, but a discounted destination many miles away in the solar system. None of those celestial bodies truly mattered anymore. They were just one handful of spinning rocks in a universe of infinite numbers.

Earth, however, was the prized gem.

Augustus finished the last of the wine and opened another book that had been salvaged from a destroyed library in one of the nearby towns.

This one was advertised as a ‘science fiction’ novel. He retrieved the scratchy pen and prepared to make his annotations. When he became emperor, the first thing he would do would be to train scribes to rewrite the history books so they were correct, and write fiction that furthered his vision.

Manipulation presented as entertainment was humankind’s greatest discovery, and he was not fool enough to ignore its uses.

Fewer than five pages into this turgid tale of star travelers, Augustus sat up in surprise as one of his spies from the ludus burst in, breathing heavily and attempting to say something.

“What is it?” August snapped, closing the book and standing up. He leaned forward on the desk to peer down at the boy.

“I… saw… Baliska coming this… way.” The boy pointed out of the side window of Augustus’ office.

“When?”

“A… minute or so ago… sir.”

“Stall him. And if you get a chance, kill him.”

The boy just nodded, his eyes wide.

“Actually, no, you won’t stand a chance. Cause a distraction so I can escape. They won’t be expecting me to attack.”

The boy just blinked, trying to get his breath.

“Well, go, then!” Augustus said, shooing the boy out of his office. When he left, Augustus slid the latch across the door and dashed behind the desk. He retrieved one of the croatoans’ pistols from a drawer and waited.

Five minutes later an explosion roared out from the back of the ludus compound. Good!

The boy opened the door and stepped inside. “Baliska’s down, the place is in chaos, go!” He ushered Augustus out and led him through a narrow, twisting corridor and down some steps. A secret passage was hidden behind a locked door resembling a storeroom.

“You did well,” Augustus said. “Lock up behind me.”

The boy nodded and followed the order.

With Baliska out of the picture, that left Aimee vulnerable up there in her manse.

Pulling the hood of his robe over his head to shadow his face, Augustus made his way through the maze of dirt roads and alleys, following a route he had devised that would allow him to reach her stronghold without being seen until he was at the door.

A teenage girl sprang out from a dark doorway of a decrepit shelter, forcing Augustus to sidestep a puddle of crap, and he reached out for her shoulders to stop himself from tripping over.

“Watch where you’re going,” he snapped.

The girl recoiled and stepped back, her face twisting with revulsion.

He reached up and touched his face, forgetting that he no longer wore the mask. He sneered at the girl until she ran off crying. Yes, little girl, you run from monsters, but it will do you no good.