Deep Dive: Legacy War Book 5 Read online

  “What do we know about this situation?” Holland asked. “I mean truly understand? Because it seems like we’re just guessing and hoping.”

  Harper sighed. “You’re not wrong. We’re doing our best. As you know, we know a great deal about the Orbs but they are an alien technology with vast depths.”

  “I’m looking at three people who are essentially catatonic,” Holland said. “Can I at least see the blood work you’ve done? I’d like a better understanding of their condition so I might be able to help at some point if it becomes necessary.”

  “Yes, you’re welcome to do so.” Harper nodded to one of the technicians. “Please show him all the results of our tests. If you’ll just step over to the terminal, they’ll share our findings with you. I’m sorry that it’s frustrating. Believe me, we all want answers. That’s partially why we’re here.”

  Holland stepped away and Vincent returned to his position by the door. He glanced up and noted a couple of people hovering over Cassie. Part of him wanted to go and tell them to back off. There was no reason for anyone to be crowding her at that point. He shoved off from the wall when the door opened and Dawson entered.

  She grabbed Vincent’s arm. “Commander, I’m glad you’re still here. I need your help finding a person.” She described a Pahxin with high cheek bones, darker hair and around five-nine. He looked around the room, pausing at one of the men near Cassie. “This is the description of the man who optimized our hyperspace jump.”

  Vincent really scowled. “What about him?” He gestured with his chin. “The guy standing next to Cassie.” He matched the description pretty well but there were others much like him. Still, it seemed an odd coincidence that he would be in the research lab. If he proved to be the traitor, there were two problems.

  One, it would mean he had found a way to pass the lie detector test and two, he was in a perfect position to hurt the people in the experiment.

  “We need to move.” Vincent stepped over to the man and pulled him roughly away from Cassie. “Excuse me, we need to talk.”

  “What are you doing?” The man insisted, giving him an indignant look. “I am very busy here! You cannot simply drag me from my work!”

  “Yes, we can,” Christina said. “Let’s talk in the hall.” She checked her list. “Brexan, isn’t it?”

  Brexan looked between the two of them, eyes narrowing. Vincent sensed what was to come, a desperate action about to take place. Reaching for his gun, Vincent inhaled to call out for the guards. Christina picked up on his vibe and went for her own weapon, dropping her tablet in the process.

  It hadn’t even hit the ground when Brexan hopped toward Cassie, lifting his stylus over his head. He brought it down, aiming to stab his target in the gut. Christina fired her weapon, catching him in the shoulder. The report of the bullet sent the room into chaos with people screaming and the guards darting inside.

  People jostled Vincent as he tried to keep an eye on Brexan but the man slipped through the crowd. “After him!” He shouted. “Dawson, he’s moving for the door!”

  “I’m on him!” Christina called. “Get me some backup when you contain this mess!”

  “I’ll do what I can!” Vincent shoved the people out of his way. “Everyone stop! Calm down! Just … Damn it, I said calm down!” It would take him some time to restore order. He noticed Christina was gone. At least someone’s after that asshole. God, I hope she’s got this covered. He needs to pay for what he tried to do.

  Both to the ship … and to Cassie.

  ***

  Christina bolted through the door, sprinting down the hall after Brexan. The man had a good head start and had already made it to the elevator. Where the hell do you think you’re going? He clearly had some agenda in mind but while they were in hyperspace, he was stuck. Unless he planned on locking himself up and buying time.

  For what? Does he think the Tol’An will save him when they try to take the Orbs?

  The doors opened and he hopped aboard, slapping the button to get the door closed. Christina arrived just as they were whispering shut and she slid inside, leading with her shoulder. As she connected with Brexan, he was battered into the wall but it didn’t daze him as she’d hoped.

  He reeled back and threw a punch. Christina faded to the side and kneed him in the stomach. Brexan bent at the waist and tried to grapple, wrapping his arms about her midsection.

  The elevator began to move. She wrapped her arm about his head and squeezed. He cried out and pressed forward, shoving her against the wall. The leverage worked to Christina’s advantage. Kneeing him again, this time in the chest, she brought her elbow down at the same time. He huffed, a loud exhale indicating she’d knocked the wind out of him.

  Brexan stumbled backward, leaning against the wall. Christina prepared to finish him off, a final punch to conclude the fight when he pulled a knife. Swinging wildly, he sliced through her shirt, nipping her skin. The close quarters meant she didn’t have anywhere to go to avoid it and the next slash went for her shoulder.

  The blade cut through her shirt, the sting of the cut making her wince. Christina grabbed his wrist, twisting until she heard a snap. Brexan cried out and started to collapse. She didn’t let him, planting her knee on his side as he took to his knees and snapping his arm at the shoulder.

  Falling on his side, he passed out and she leaned against the wall trying to catch her breath.

  The doors opened. Marines aimed weapons inside with Gabriel standing behind them. Christina lifted her hands. “Don’t shoot,” she muttered. “I got the guy.”

  Gabriel came forward and looked at Brexan. He nodded, face set in a stoic mask. “Good job, Agent.” He paused, eyes moving over the blood on her clothes. “You should get those checked out. Men, take this criminal scum down to the brig and have medical meet you there. I doubt Pahxin arms are supposed to go that direction.”

  Christina watched them drag the traitor off and she thought about giving Dulain a quick update. She realized she’d left her tablet back in the research lab. Gabriel would take care of sending a message to the captain. And if there was someone else besides Brexan, the marines could deal with them.

  I think I’ve earned a minute of downtime.

  ***

  Desmond received word from Gabriel about what happened. He turned to Dulain and Salina. “They caught the traitor. One of them at least. How far are you along with decoding the message?”

  “Almost there,” Dulain said. “Though I’m hoping we’re about to confirm that we have the right man. I would be surprised if more than one managed to sneak aboard considering the effort my agents went through. Sincerely, it’s a miracle this maniac managed to do it. I’d like to study his method when we’re done.”

  “Much as your professional curiosity makes sense,” Desmond said, “let’s just make sure this gets done, huh? We’re going to be out of hyperspace soon and likely arrive in a serious brawl so I’d like to know the only enemy I have to deal with is outside. I’ve had enough of people running around causing trouble on the ship.”

  “We’ll figure out an enhanced form of security,” Dulain replied. “Believe me. I don’t want to see this happen again either.”

  “Captain.” Zach grabbed his attention. “This traitor did something to the navigation program.”

  “Sabotaged it?” Desmond asked. He sighed. “How bad?”

  “You misunderstand me,” Zach replied, “he didn’t break it … He made it better.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Zach nodded. “I’m looking at the code. He recompiled it completely … added some sort of AI component that constantly evaluates the coordinates and updates them on the fly. That’s how we didn’t know right when we left that there was a problem. Somehow, this update makes it so we can increase speed by small course corrections constantly performed.”

  “That doesn’t seem possible.” Desmond looked over his shoulder at the code. “Did you know it could do that?”

  Zach shook his head. “No, b
ut the Pahxin alluded to something like that when we talked. They made it sound like they’d be able to help us with our module … but I didn’t get the impression they meant something like this.”

  “Okay, so what’s that mean for our time in hyperspace? What’re you telling me right now?”

  “That we’re looking at less than ten minutes before we emerge.”

  Dulain looked up. “What? No! You have to find a way to adjust the course … to buy our people more time!”

  “I don’t know how,” Zach said. “I hope they hurry … whatever they’re doing.”

  “You have no idea …” Dulain turned back to what he was doing, looking grave for the first time since Desmond encountered him. “Harper talked about what might happen to them if I’m right about the hyperspace activity being required for this type of thing. They may never wake up from that catatonic state.”

  “Then I hope you guys are wrong,” Desmond said.

  “More than you know, captain,” Dulain replied. “Far more than you know.”

  ***

  Cassie closed her eyes and plunged into the light. Nothingness surrounded her, just blank white with no texture or substance. Her feet remained in contact with something hard, like tile or cement but as she waved her arms about her, she met no resistance, nothing but air. If it weren’t for the fact she could see her own limbs, she’d have thought she’d gone blind.

  “Hello?” A voice caught her attention from the left and she moved in that direction. It seemed familiar, a man she knew somewhat well but couldn’t place his name. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

  “I’m here!” Cassie shouted back. “I’m right here! Hello? Who’s there?”

  “It’s Geoff!” He replied, then said, “Heat! Um … Cassie?”

  “Yes! Oh God …” Memories flooded back to her all in a rush. The subtle visions gave way to real fact, to knowledge. The experiment must’ve worked and far more profoundly than they anticipated. Or maybe they had tapped into some other part of the Orb entirely, something that allowed them to revisit their past memories like a VR simulation. “Have you been here long?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” Heat replied. “It’s a bit of a haze. Where the hell are you? I can’t see shit!”

  “Just …” Cassie hesitated and started moving in the direction she heard him. “Hold on, I’ll come to you.” Every step felt like she wasn’t progressing, like she hadn’t actually moved. Disorientation threatened to overwhelm her and she didn’t know if she was going in the right direction. “Keep talking! I don’t want to get turned around!”

  “Okay … Um … Hello, follow the sound of my voice. I’m right here …”

  His silhouette came into view and Cassie felt a profound sense of relief wash over her. “I see you! Thank God!”

  “Yeah! There you are!” Heat waved. He was wearing a black tactical outfit, blood speckling his face. “What the hell happened to you?”

  By contrast, she wore a black body suit, the skintight uniform issued to her so AIA administrators could track her vital statistics during her test. Under Heat’s scrutiny, she felt suddenly self-conscious about it. “Um … I don’t even know how to explain. Did you experience some memory? An event from your past?”

  “Yes,” Heat replied. “I was on a mission with … with Gorman.”

  “And I revisited one of the tests for the AIA … but it was different than the first time. Some guy attacked me toward the end. The things he said, I don’t remember. It was really strange. It felt right until it didn’t.”

  “Exactly!” Heat nodded emphatically. “That’s how it seemed for me too.”

  “There must’ve been a reason, something about those memories that stuck out for us.”

  “I believe you are right.” Gil’s voice startled them both as he joined them.

  “What the hell?” Heat grunted. “Warn a guy, man!”

  “My apologies. I heard you talking and merely approached. We can now identify the reason the Orb has brought us here and hopefully interface with it as we intended.” Gil tilted his head. “I lived through my little encounter with the Kalrawv Group when they so desperately wanted the power formula to make better bombs.”

  “There was a white light at the end of mine,” Heat said. “Felt like I’d died or something.”

  “Me too,” Cassie replied. “I think I figured it out. Our visions acted like … like a lock, a code we had to enter to access the data. Like putting in your password before you use a terminal on the ship.”

  “Gives new meaning to picking your security image,” Heat muttered. “Why those visions in particular?”

  “Each of them had some sort of transition,” Gil replied. “Mine ended in hyperspace.”

  “Mine had a finish line,” Cassie said.

  “Yeah, I was in a hallway,” Heat added. “We were almost done … ready to enter the room and secure it.”

  “There you go.” Cassie shrugged. “Going from point A to B and now that we’re here … What the hell do we do?”

  Gil sighed. “I wish Thayne would’ve been the one who got zapped in here. He’d have a better chance of figuring that out.” He turned away, head bowed in thought. “Now that we are here … well … your computer theory holds some truth. We could simply offer a query, direct questions specifically to the Orb.”

  Heat waved his hand at Gil. “Come on, it can’t possibly be that easy. It has to be something else … something like a terminal or God knows but you can’t just start shouting words into this light. That’s impossible.”

  “You just relived an old mission,” Cassie said, “and you’re willing to say something is impossible?”

  Heat blushed, scratching the back of his head. “Okay, if you’re correct, then we’re not actually here, right? Like … this is our consciousness interacting with it. And if so, then why do we feel things? Like the ground or even each other when we touch? You’d think we’d be disembodied.”

  “You are asking the wrong question,” Gil said. “It does not matter how this works, only that it does. I will attempt something simple.” He cleared his throat. “Show me a design for a common excavation scanner with enough range to cover thirty to fifty kilometers in a highly volatile environment.”

  At first nothing happened. Cassie was about to say something when a blue flash made her wince. Stumbling back, she held her hands up and peered through her fingers, noting that a three-dimensional image had appeared near Gil, showing the inner workings of the device he requested information on.

  “Incredible!” Cassie breathed. “We … we really are inside the Orb!”

  “Fantastic,” Heat grumbled. “So now we just have to figure out how the hell to get out of here and where the other Orbs are.”

  “We could learn a great deal from this,” Gil added. “We should not squander this opportunity.”

  “But we do have an objective.” Cassie narrowed her eyes. “Provide me with the knowledge of how to interface with the Orb like this under any circumstances.” She held her breath. Gil gave her an approving look, nodding his head. Well, at least I impressed someone with my cleverness.

  A moment passed and it once again seemed like nothing might happen when a strong breeze struck Cassie in the face, nearly knocking her to the ground. Heat grabbed her, steadying her so she didn’t collapse. He grunted and as she turned to face him, her own muscles went stiff.

  Gil stepped forward and touched them both, throwing his head back the moment he made contact. A blue glow surrounded them, covering their bodies and blocking out the white around them. Cassie felt understanding wash over her, a sense of what went wrong when they had tried to connect with the Orb before.

  Part of it came from genetic disposition. Cassie’s ancestors, some ancient member of her bloodline, had contact with the Orb, however brief that impacted all of them. However, that could be overcome. The harmonic resonance of hyperspace, not the hum of the metal in the hull or the way the electronics operated but the air itself.


  They could replicate it but they continually tried to impact the room itself back on Earth. Yes, they tried some sound waves but always noises that the ship would’ve made. Even at every frequency, it did not work. They missed one, something they didn’t have a tool to generate but Cassie had a piece of the puzzle to do so now.

  The three of them separated, stumbling backward.

  “What the hell?” Heat gripped his head. “Oh my God, I do not want to know this! How did that happen?”

  “You now know why the three of us were brought here together,” Gil said. “Not to insult our two fine cultures, but I do not think our brains are capable of taking in entire concepts in their entirety, not directly from the Orb at least. And our interfaces, the ones we built, filter the data in a watered-down way.”

  “Fabulous …” Heat glared at Cassie then turned to Gil. “Why the hell did it pick me? How’d I get this detail? I’m seriously thinking it made a mistake.”

  “That is not impossible,” Gil replied. “The Orb is not a traditional machine. It has more in common with intelligent beings than a tool. However, as we bring them together, I believe they will become … better. Enhanced. More intelligent. Now that we know how to interface with them properly, our understanding will grow exponentially.”

  “Along with them,” Cassie said, “as we bring them together. But I think we should get on with it.” She closed her eyes. “Show us where the other Orbs are. Give us coordinates.”

  This time, there was no delay, no pause. The information presented itself in the form of a glowing star map. Part of it began to throb, showing Sol. Two other areas began to flash, places that didn’t mean anything to Cassie but would burn in her memory. Once she got to a navigation computer, she’d be able to nail the two locations down.