Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two (2 page)

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On Earth, Alex is preparing for an expedition to the Metis Nebula, a remote region on the fringes of explored space, when she receives an unexpected offer to lead the Alliance’s space exploration program. After a typically contentious meeting with her mother, she refuses the job.

On Seneca, Caleb returns from a forced vacation spent with his sister Isabela and her daughter Marlee. Fresh off eradicating the terrorist group who murdered his mentor, he receives a new mission from Special Operations Director Michael Volosk: conduct a threat assessment on disturbing readings originating from the Metis Nebula.

While Alex and Caleb separately travel toward Metis, a Trade Summit between the Alliance and Federation begins on the resort world of Atlantis. Colonel Richard Navick, lifelong friend of the Solovys and EASC Naval Intelligence Liaison, is in charge of surveillance for the Summit. Unbeknownst to him, the provocation for renewed war will begin under his watch.

Jaron Nythal, Asst. Trade Director for the Federation, abets the infiltration of the Summit by the assassin Matei Uttara. Matei kills an Federation attaché, Chris Candela, and assumes his identity. On the final night of the Summit, he poisons Alliance Trade Minister Santiagar with a virus which overloads his cybernetics, causing a fatal stroke. Matei escapes in the ensuing chaos.

Shortly after departing Seneca, Caleb is attacked by mercenary ships. He defeats them, but when he later encounters Alex’s ship on the fringes of Metis, he believes her to be another mercenary and fires on her. In the ensuing firefight she destroys his ship, though not before suffering damage to her own, and he crashes on a nearby planet. She is forced to land to effect repairs; recognizing her attacker will die without rescue, she takes him prisoner.

Richard Navick and Michael Volosk each separately scramble to uncover the truth of the Santiagar assassination while Olivia Montegreu, the leader of the Zelones criminal cartel, schemes with Marcus Aguirre to implement the next phase in their plan. Olivia routes missiles provided by Alliance General Liam O’Connell to a group of mercenaries.

Fighting past distrust and suspicion, Alex and Caleb complete repairs on the
Siyane
using salvaged material from the wreckage of his ship. Having gained a degree of camaraderie and affection, if not quite trust, they depart the planet in search of answers to the mystery at the heart of Metis.

What they discover is a scene from a nightmare—an armada of monstrous alien ships emerging from a massive portal, gathering a legion in preparation for an invasion.

Meanwhile, Olivia’s mercenaries launch a devastating attack on the Federation colony of Palluda. Disguised to look like a strike by Alliance military forces, the attack has the desired effect of inciting war. The Federation retaliates by leveling an Alliance military base on Arcadia, and the Second Crux War has begun.

Alex and Caleb flee the Metis Nebula to warn others of the impending threat, only to learn war has broken out between their respective governments. Caleb delivers information about the alien threat to Volosk. He informs the Director of Intelligence, Graham Delavasi, who alerts the Federation government Chairman Vranas and the military’s supreme commander, Field Marshal Gianno. Forced to focus on the new war with the Alliance for now, they nonetheless dispatch a stealth infiltration team to investigate Metis.

Caleb is requested to accompany the team and return to Metis, only Alex refuses to drop him off on her way to Earth. Tensions flare, but Caleb realizes he’s emotionally compromised even as Alex realizes she must let him go. Instead, he agrees to go to Earth with her, and together with Volosk they devise a plan to try to bring a swift end to the war by exposing its suspicious beginnings.

The plan goes awry when Caleb is arrested shortly after they arrive—by Alex’s mother—after his true identity is leaked to Richard by those in league with Marcus.

While Caleb is locked away in a detention facility, his friend Noah Terrage is recruited by Olivia to smuggle explosives to Vancouver. Possessing a conscience, he refuses. The infiltration team sent by the Federation to Metis vanishes as the Second Crux War escalates.

Alex is forced to choose between her government, her family and what she knows is right. She turns to her best friend, Kennedy Rossi, and their old hacker acquaintance, Claire Zabroi. Plans in place, Alex presents her evidence on the alien armada to a skeptical EASC Board. Their tepid reaction leads to a final confrontation with her mother and a final plea to focus on the true threat.

Alex hacks military security and breaks Caleb out of confinement. Allegiances declared and choices made, they at last give in to the passion they feel for one another. Despite lingering resentment toward the Federation for her father’s death and fear that Caleb is merely playing a role, she agrees to accompany him to Seneca to find another way to combat the looming invasion.

Caleb appeals to his friend and former lover, Mia Requelme, for help in covering their tracks. She hides the
Siyane
safely away on Romane while Alex and Caleb travel to Seneca. Secretly, Caleb asks Mia to hack the ship while they are gone to grant him full access and flying privileges, something Alex zealously guards for herself. Mia uses her personal Artificial, Meno, to break the encryption on the ship.

On Earth, Richard wrestles with unease and doubt as he begins to believe Alex’s claims about the origin of the war. He confesses his dilemma to his husband, Will Sutton. Will urges him to work to bring about peace and offers to convey Santiagar’s autopsy report to Alex in the hope the Senecan government can find in it evidence to prove the assassination was not their doing.

Caleb and Alex hand over the autopsy report Will forwarded and all the raw data they recorded on the aliens to Volosk. In return he arranges meetings with the highest levels of leadership.

As Alex and Caleb enjoy a romantic dinner, EASC Headquarters is destroyed in a massive bombing executed by agents of Olivia and Marcus. Though intended to be killed in the attack, due to a last minute scheduling conflict Miriam Solovy is not on the premises. Instead EASC Board Chairman Alamatto perishes, along with thousands of others. On the campus but outside Headquarters, Richard narrowly escapes critical injury.

Within minutes of the bombing, Caleb and Alex are ambushed by mercenaries in downtown Cavare. Caleb kills them all in dramatic fashion, but is unaware that Alex was hit by a stray shot. In the panic of the moment he mistakes her shellshocked behavior for fear of the killer he has revealed himself to be.

Despondent but resolved to protect her, he flees with her to the Intelligence building. Upon arriving, they find the unthinkable—Michael Volosk has been murdered, his throat slit in the parking lot.

Suddenly unable to trust anyone, Caleb pleas with Alex to go with him to the spaceport, but she collapses from her injuries. With one clear mission, he steals a skycar and returns to their ship, where he can treat her wounds in the relative safety of space.

The EASC bombing successfully executed, Olivia’s Zelones network turns its attention to Noah. In refusing to smuggle the explosives he is now a liability; the first attempt on his life misses him but kills his companion. Searching for answers, he traces the source of the hit and realizes he was targeted because of his friendship with Caleb. Lacking other options and with a price on his head, he flees Pandora for Messium.

Miriam returns to preside over the devastation at EASC Headquarters. She begins the process of moving the organization forward—only to learn the evidence implicates Caleb as the perpetrator.

Marcus moves one step nearer to his goal when the Alliance Assembly passes a No Confidence Vote against Prime Minister Brennon. Marcus’ friend Luis Barrera is named PM, and he quickly appoints Marcus Foreign Minister.

Alex regains consciousness aboard their rented ship as they race back to Romane. Misunderstandings and innate fears drive them to the breaking point, then bring them closer than ever. The moment of contentment is short-lived, however, as Caleb—and by extension Alex—is publicly named a suspect in the bombing.

Every copy of the raw data captured at the portal, except for the original in Alex’s possession, has now been destroyed. Recognizing an even deeper secret must reside within the portal and hunted by conspirators and authorities alike, Alex and Caleb begin a desperate gambit to clear their names and discover a way to defeat the aliens.

On reaching Romane, Alex, Caleb and the
Siyane
are protected by Mia while they prepare. Kennedy brings equipment to replace the ship’s shielding damaged in Metis. On the
Siyane
, she realizes the repairs made using the material from Caleb’s ship have begun transforming the hull into a new, stronger metal. Caleb receives encouragement from his sister Isabela, and a gesture of trust from Alex in the form of a chair.

Back on Earth, Miriam and Richard work to clear Alex’s name, even as Miriam is threatened by the newly-named EASC Board Chairman, Liam O’Connell. Marcus informs his alien contact that his plan has nearly come to fruition, only to be told he is out of time.

As the invaders commence their assault on the frontiers of settled space by sieging the colony of Gaiae, Alex and Caleb breach the aliens’ mysterious, otherworldly portal at the heart of the Metis Nebula.

VERTIGO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART
I
:

DESCENT

“For each one of us stands alone in the midst of a universe.”

— John Buchanan Robinson

1

SIYANE

B
EYOND THE
P
ORTAL

T
HEY WERE FALLING
into a black hole.

People referred to regions of space where the distance between stars stretched to kiloparsecs as ‘the void.’ But even the void retained a murmur of light in the pale glint of distant stars and infinite galaxies.

This darkness was boundless and unbroken.

Dizziness clawed at the corners of Alex Solovy’s vision, brought on by the absence of a fixed point, of any spatial reference whatsoever to lock onto as a lodestar.

In a fit of what could be mistaken for panic she cut propulsion and sought the rearcam visual—and found golden plasma rippling placidly inside the ring sustaining it. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and the dizziness receded upon the knowledge they were not after all
in
a black hole.

The hand wrapped over hers squeezed with reassuring strength. She looked over to find Caleb wearing an air of easy confidence.

“Not dead.”

She knew the calm aura he projected was for her benefit, to give her comfort. And it worked. Her pulse slowed and the pounding receded from her ears. A laugh bubbled forth, only to morph into a mild protest halfway through. “Not dead. Excellent point. But what
is
this place?”

She returned the squeeze, then let go of his hand and directed her attention to the HUD as readings began coming in. Sensor sweeps were picking up no transmissions save the tremendously low frequency wave from the portal, which continued unabated for as far as her instruments reached. Analysis of the surroundings reported…nothing out of the ordinary.

“The immediate area has the same fundamental characteristics as our galaxy. According to these readings, the laws of physics are alive and well and functioning correctly. The impulse engine is able to operate within parameters. If the portal is a Brane intersection…” she glanced over with a frown “…the dimensions of this place are identical to ours. So
why
is it a portal?”

She checked the visual overlay. “We are definitely not anywhere in the Milky Way, though. It’ll take the system time to analyze all the possibilities, assuming it
can
with no locus…but I don’t believe we’re anywhere in mapped space.”

“Maybe the portal merely sent us a long way.” He shrugged. “Like ‘the other side of the universe’ long way?”

“Well the other side of the universe is a damn boring place. There’s nothing here.”

“But there
was
something here. There were ships here, a lot of them, and they had an origin point.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose in a futile attempt to ease the dull throbbing behind her forehead then rested her elbows on her knees.

This wasn’t what she had expected.

She hadn’t known what to expect. Perhaps a fresh armada of alien superdreadnoughts eager to return humanity to the stardust whence they came? Or more preferably, a dazzling civilization of exotic space stations, Dyson rings and planets subsumed beneath cities? She had idly entertained the notion of a mind-exploding dimensional shift to a gestalt of reality she hadn’t the acumen to comprehend.

But she hadn’t expected
this
.

She stared at the varied screens intended to display a plethora of information. One by one they updated.
Nothing.
Nothing save the portal and the
Siyane
. Yet somewhere beyond this barren expanse lived the aliens who dispatched an armada of warships through the Metis Nebula.

“I think…I think we follow the TLF wave for now. It’s still being generated by something farther in. We can use the portal as a heading reference so we don’t go in circles. I’ll keep scanning on wideband, and eventually that ‘something’ will show up. It has to.”

Hearing no agreement or any response at all, she toed the chair around to face Caleb. He was peering out the viewport, shoulders taut in a suggestion of unease. “What’s wrong?”

He blinked and straightened up in his chair. “Sorry. That sounds fine.” A corner of his mouth tweaked up in a hint of a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you on the best way to navigate uncharted space. This is your show. But I was wondering…the portal had vanished until we reactivated it, which means they never expected anyone to come through it. So why are they hiding?”