Crossroads of Fate (Cadicle #5): An Epic Space Opera Series (12 page)

Banks stifled a yawn. He checked the clock next to his bed—it was already time to get up and resume his duties as High Commander.
Not yet.

The last few days had been a blur, and he still felt like his head was in a fog even after returning to Headquarters. Banks’ stomach turned over with another wave of doubt. His trip to Tararia had been life-changing, even if those changes weren’t directly to his own life. As much as he was driving himself crazy thinking through alternatives, he had already set a plan in motion that could not be retracted. He had committed to the course.

An unwelcome chirp sounded in the bedroom, indicating an incoming communication.
Ugh, it’s too early to talk to anyone.
Banks dragged himself out of bed and stumbled to the viewscreen in the adjacent living room. He saw the call was from Taelis in H2.
Shite, bad news at this hour?

Banks accepted the incoming video call. “Hello, Erik.” It took everything for him to return his focus to the TSS.

The viewscreen illuminated with the image of the other High Commander. “Good morning, Jason. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

Banks pawed at his tousled hair. “No worries. I was just getting up.” He cleared his throat. “What’s going on?”

Taelis flashed a faint smile. “I thought it might be time to discuss our progress over the last couple of weeks, and the next steps.”

“Yes, of course.” Banks rubbed his eyes.
Pull yourself together.

Taelis hesitated. “Is this a bad time?”

I can’t think about it anymore. She has everything she needs.
“No, sorry. Just getting my thoughts organized.” Banks got settled on the couch.

“Okay. I trust you’ve read the most recent briefing?” Taelis asked.

Stars! I knew I was forgetting something
. “I must apologize. I was traveling the last few days and haven’t had the opportunity.”

Taelis didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Traveling? What for?”

Banks swallowed.
This is not business I can share.
“To Tararia. It was a political matter.”

“Tararian politics… Always such urgency, and for no reason.” Taelis scowled. “Matters of the war must come first. Traveling or not, you have a responsibility to review—”

“Lecturing me won’t change the situation.”

The other High Commander yielded, “You’re right.” He shook his head. “I’ve just been pretty on edge with everything going on.”

“I understand.”
I’m doing nothing to help—letting myself get distracted by other matters while we have a war to win.
Banks suppressed a wave of guilt. “Cris has been checking in with me every day, so I’m familiar with most of the activities covered in the briefing report. What did you want to discuss?”

Taelis gathered himself. “First off, Medical was able to identify the underlying neurotoxin that was affecting Nolan. They’ve synthesized a counteragent to distribute within the TSS—we shouldn’t have to worry about any other rogue Bakzen accomplices, at least not any working unconsciously.”

“That’s excellent news.”

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t help us with the broader population at the moment. We’ve handed over the formula to the Priesthood to address the impacted civilians.”

Banks frowned; it was a powerful weapon to hand over with the assumption it would be used responsibly.
Can we trust the Priesthood with that task?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Taelis continued. “It’s our only option for now.”

“All right,” Banks conceded.

“In other news, we’re almost ready to begin field trials with the fleet for the new nav system.”

So soon?
“That’s great to hear.”

“The upgrade should be completed within the next few days, and then Wil intends to test it out with his pilots in the training grounds. However, that introduces the matter of jurisdiction.”

Banks nodded. “All of the rift jumps.”

“Precisely.” Taelis crossed his arms. “What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t think it’s either of our places to claim oversight. That’s why we have Wil.”
If we want him to lead us, it’s time we give him the proper authority.

“Well yes, his strategic insight and leadership is invaluable.”

“Without question. It’s the very reason we need to name him Supreme Commander.”

Taelis looked unsure. “Now?”

Is there a right time?
“We can’t keep calling him a leader without the proper title. It’s our responsibility to set a chain of command example for the rest of the TSS.”

“It is,” Taelis agreed, “but I think the naming of Supreme Commander would carry more weight as a formal ceremonial gesture. With the necessity to upgrade the nav systems, we’re still weeks away from Wil heading to the frontlines. It makes more sense to name him on the eve of that departure.”

This was always the plan, but now he’s afraid to give up control—as much as he knows he has to rely on Wil.
Banks knew better than to press the issue. “You know the state of morale better than I do. I’ll defer to your judgment.”

Taelis shook his head. “It’s not just the morale of the soldiers. I don’t want to throw too much at Wil at once.”

“He’s been expecting it for a long time.”

“But while he’s still so involved in the minutia of calibrations?” Taelis challenged.

Banks stood his ground. “And much broader issues of fleet distribution, if I understand correctly.”

“Yes, some of the strategic groundwork has been laid.”

We can’t forget what all of this is about.
“Official title or not, I’d urge you to show your full support of Wil to the other officers. We need their complete trust, with no hesitation.”

“Agreed.” Taelis paused in thought. “I recommend gradually handing over control of key functions to Wil over the next few weeks, as he expands his field tests. We can schedule a formal handoff of command to correspond with the conclusion of the exercises.”

A fair compromise.
“I support that approach.”

“Very well. Regarding jurisdiction for the rift jump tests, I move that it be under my purview.”

“That’s fine.”
I have no claim to it, anyway. It’s Wil’s show now. Taelis will see that soon enough.

“What about the relocation of battle cruisers?” asked Taelis.

“Matters of the war have always been up to you. I’m here to support all of you in any way you need—I make no claim to jurisdiction.”

Taelis nodded. “Thank you for your willingness to accommodate.”

“I gave up control as soon as Wil left here.”

“Don’t think your role in this is over yet.”

“I have no such illusions.”

Taelis was silent for a few moments. “I’ll be in touch about the command hand-off.”

“Talk to you soon,” Banks said, feigning a friendly smile.

Taelis ended the transmission.

Banks leaned back on the couch. Arguments over jurisdiction were a waste of energy. He had more important things to do—like figure out what other secrets the Priesthood may be keeping from him. For years he’d thought he was an insider, but learning about the hidden Dainetris heir had called into question his underlying assumptions about the Priesthood’s relationship with the TSS. With Taelis and Wil leading the charge in the rift, it was time to do some digging.

*       *       *

“Reporting for duty!”

Laecy jumped up from her desk in the engineering lab at the sound of Nolan’s voice, swiveling around to see him grinning at her from the doorway. “They found a cure?”

Her friend nodded. “I’m good as new.”

She ran forward to give him a hug. “Thank the stars!”

Nolan patted her back. “Now
please
give me something to work on. My brain has started to go stale from lack of use.”

“The timing couldn’t be better,” Laecy replied, returning to her desk. She gestured toward the holographic projection. “We’re working on a patch to the nav network. Some of the older ships require a minor update to prepare for the overall system upgrade.”

“Let me guess—it requires manually loading the interim update onto each and every one of those older ships?”

Laecy smirked. “Yep. And I think I know just the guy to go through the fleet of TX-70s…”

Nolan groaned. “Clearly I got out of solitary confinement at the perfect moment.”

“Welcome to the land of freedom.” Laecy clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.”

*       *       *

Saera’s eyes were bleary after staring at lines of code for days on end. She reviewed the protocol she’d just written. It was solid.

Is that it?
She checked the list of components for the navigation system upgrade. The recently completed module was the only outstanding item. “Finally!” She smiled to herself and scratched it off the list.

When Saera stood up, it took a moment for her back and legs to adjust. She did a few stretches, loosening the muscles that had tightened after a week hunched over a computer console.
Glad that part’s over! Time to go show off
.

She loaded a copy of the code onto a portable drive for backup and logged out of the computer in one of the H2 conference rooms where she’d been holed up. The location had worked well for bringing in consultants on various aspects of the coding, but she had led the project. She felt a great sense of accomplishment with the work, since it was a tangible contribution to Wil’s larger efforts. While she often acted as a sounding board for Wil’s ideas, it was rare for her to have the chance to take a leadership role in bringing those concepts to fruition.

The conference room was near the docking location for the Conquest, and Saera quickly made her way back to the ship. It was late into the evening, so she headed straight for the residential quarters. The common room was empty.
Everyone must have already turned in for the night.

She found Wil at the workstation in their quarters. He seemed absorbed in whatever he was reviewing, but he turned around when she entered. “Hey you,” he greeted. “How’s it coming?”

“Done.” Saera grinned.

“Done?” A cautious smile spread across Wil’s face.

She nodded. “I’ve completed all the quality control checks, and every scenario you gave me checked out.”

Wil jumped up from the chair and embraced Saera. “Thank you so much. This wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

She hugged him back. “Oh, please. I’m hardly the only one who could have done it.” She pulled away slightly and looked him in the eye. “I’m happy I was able to help.”

“Maybe others could have done it, but you’re the only one I could trust to do it right without me having to constantly check up.”

He never would have given up control before. As if I needed more evidence that he’s stressed out
. “Well, the final package still needs your approval.”

“Let’s take a look. I’m anxious to get it in the field.”

Everyone in the Conquest’s Command Center was silent, their eyes fixed on the front viewscreen. Wil realized he had been holding his breath while the new navigation protocol loaded for the first time. If it was successful, they would finally have the coordination tool they needed to put their advanced tactics into practice.

Saera checked the network connection from her console in the front left of the Command Center. “Network relays appear to be functioning like we planned.”

“I’m reading the placement of the fleet across both planes,” Rianne confirmed from the station to Saera’s right. While only one of the stations needed to be staffed at any given time, Rianne’s participation allowed Saera to jump in as relief for one of Wil’s other officers, if needed.

“I guess it’s time to test it out for real,” Wil said, looking around at his officers stationed at their podiums.

“May as well dive in,” Michael agreed.

Ian nodded. “Test squads are standing by for your orders.”

“Standing by,” Ethan acknowledged.

Curtis grinned. “Let’s do something fun.”

Wil smiled back, encouraged by their enthusiasm. “All right. Saera, take us over to the testing grounds.”

A low vibration emanated through the floor as the jump drive powered up. After five seconds, a blue-green haze formed around the ship as it slipped into subspace. Wil soaked in the energy radiating from the rift as the ship reemerged within a particularly energized spatial pocket used for training pilots. The enhanced potency of the natural energy field made it the perfect place to hone skills that were difficult for beginners.

The testing grounds were arranged like a battlefield, with mock Bakzen ships represented by remote controlled wireframes equipped with dummy weapons and damage indicators. In this case, Wil had instructed that the field be staged in both the rift and normal space so they could test their skills while he was in a state of simultaneous observation.

Four jets sped out of the battlefield toward the Conquest. Notice of an incoming communication request illuminated on the front viewscreen.

“Answer,” Wil instructed.

Tom appeared on the viewscreen, the image relayed from inside his jet. “It’s about time you came for a visit.”

“We could hear you whining from all the way back at H2,” Ethan quipped. “I hope you’ve improved even without me hounding you all the time.”

“Oh, we’re ready,” Tom replied with exaggerated arrogance. “The question is, do you have what we need?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Wil told him. “Either way, get set to try something crazy.”

*       *       *

Tom ended the subspace comm link with the Conquest. The rest of the battle practice would need to be handled via telepathic commands.

Maintaining the telepathic link was far more tiring than normal verbal communication, but its effectiveness couldn’t be argued. If the new nav system worked anything like Wil had promised, their maneuverability was about to get a major upgrade.

“Stand by for orders,”
Ethan told the Primus Squad.

In preparation, Tom and the others arranged their jets into the diamond-shaped delta formation off the port side of the Conquest. Waiting stationary so close to the ship, Tom got a true sense of scale for the imposing vessel—three hundred meters long and armed for battle through and through. The custom band of telekinetic relays around the horizontal circumference of the ship intrigued Tom the most; focusing energy through a jet was one thing, but using an entire cruiser as a conductor for multiple Agents at the same time would be a sight to behold.

“Target identified,”
Ethan said, solidifying their telepathic network in preparation for the mock battle.
“Precision strike on enemy propulsion. Warship.”

“Acknowledged,”
Tom replied. The team avoided the use of specific target coordinates, since ships could move so quickly through the planes during battle. Visual identification of a specific craft was far more reliable until they could lock their weapons on the craft’s unique energy signature. He referenced the heads-up display on his jet that translated the signals from the plain blocks on the mock battlefield into a visual interpretation of enemy crafts and obstacles. There was no warship.
“I don’t see it here,”
he said to the other pilots.

“Must be in normal space,”
Sander stated.

“Interdimensional jumps are what we’re testing, after all,”
Andy pointed out.

Tom burrowed through his telepathic link with the ship to bring up the fleet position in normal space, as relayed through the new navigation protocol. The heads-up display morphed to show the position of rift ships in purple and the ships within normal space in orange. Sure enough, an orange warship appeared at a relative position of nine hundred meters at thirty-degrees to starboard.
“There it is!”

“I see what they’re testing…”
Rey interjected.
“Look at all those friendly shuttles.”

The TSS shuttles were so dwarfed by the signature of the warship that they’d be easy to miss—tiny orange dots scattered throughout the most obvious jump zone for transitioning from the rift to normal space. Such shuttles didn’t have a jump drive, and with the previous navigation protocols would have been completely invisible to the Primus Squad when making a dimensional jump. Though hard to spot, at least their presence was known with the new system.

“Time to dance,”
Tom said as he readied his jump drive. He visualized the destination within the scattered TSS shuttles—there’d only be five meters of clearance to either side, which was barely outside the spatial distortion from the jump. The placement had to be precise.

“This is a little crazy, right?”
Andy said.

Sander laughed maniacally in their minds.
“We thrive on crazy!”
He initiated the jump.

Tom followed as soon as his jet sent a blue flash across his vision to confirm the course lock. The jump drive hummed as blue-green light swirled around the jet. He slipped into subspace.

Reality re-formed through the swirling light—objects coming into focus all around Tom, far too close to seem safe. He resisted the urge to panic and abort, trusting the nav system and his instincts. When he fully emerged from subspace, he was right on course. He targeted the mock warship’s propulsion system using the heads-up display.
“Locked!”
he told his squad when they appeared in their own empty pockets around him.

“Fire!”
they declared in unison.

The dummy blasts struck the target, illuminating the target box in red.

“Pull back,”
Ethan instructed.

Tom jumped back into the rift and returned to the original position by the Conquest.
“I think it’s safe to say the new nav system works.”

Wil stepped forward in the telepathic network.
“Good. Now let’s see what we can really do.”

*       *       *

Banks scanned through the web of files displayed on the holographic projector he’d erected in the center of his office. There had to be something he’d been missing all of those years. The Priesthood was involved in something far deeper than the genetic manipulation of the High Dynasties he’d discovered as a green Agent—something that traced back as far as the original conception of the plan to create the Cadicle.

Is it all really about overcoming the ability gap across Generations?
That was the only reasonable explanation with far enough reaching impacts to the rest of the Taran population. Otherwise, there would have been no need for the Priesthood to embrace and dismiss telekinetic abilities to suit their priorities at any given time.
But the Priesthood keeps such close tabs on the TSS… What are they watching for?

He stared at the data repository, hoping that something would jump out at him.
Let’s see… Where does the general population interact with the TSS?

The pieces fell into place.
Of course! Applications.

Banks dashed over to the visual representation of the corresponding files for application records and accessed the directory. The TSS actively recruited for the Agent division, but every candidate still needed to submit a formal application. The approved applications were always forwarded to him—there was never a reason to examine the original source files under normal circumstances.

At first glance, all the files seemed to be in order. Each of the directories for the individual application cycles was organized by Accepted, Review-Rejected, and Auto-Reject. The Auto-Reject saved time by eliminating anyone with an unfavorable performance history based on predetermined factors. Banks was about to skip over the files entirely, but he noticed the unusually large folder size—a factor of five above the Review-Rejected and Accepted, even though it should have been the smallest, by far.

He picked a random year and opened up the profiles of the rejected candidates. Almost every single candidate was a woman.
That doesn’t make any sense.

Closing out of the directory, he opened up the Auto-Reject files from another year. Again, almost entirely women. It was the same for every other year he checked.

The evidence was clear: at least seventy percent of the female Agent applicants had received an auto-rejection without any review.

He sank onto the couch.
Why would they dismiss all of those candidates?
There was no innate reason to choose men over women. Certainly, there were far fewer women enrolled as Agents, but based on the application records, it should have been close to an even split.

Has the Priesthood intentionally been keeping women out of the TSS?
Banks dismissed the idea. If that were the case, none would have ever been admitted. There had to be something more.

Suddenly, the big picture came into focus—the relationship between the Priesthood and the rest of the Tarans. It wasn’t that they had been keeping women out of the TSS, but rather were keeping them in the general population.

Banks shook his head with disbelief. It had been right in front of him for years, a conversation he’d had with numerous Agents, including Cris as a young man. Agents rarely entered into enduring relationships—few marriages and even fewer children. If all the people with strong telekinetic propensity ended up in an organization where few would reproduce, the telekinetic potential in the broader population would greatly diminish after only a few generations. By keeping at least the women out of the TSS—those who would ultimately birth a child, regardless of the father—the chance of continuing the propagation of telekinetic-potential lines was greatly increased.

What about those that do make it into the TSS?
Banks brought up the files of Kate, Saera, and a handful of other female Agents that came to mind. With the exception of Saera, absolutely every one of the others had a sister who was not in the TSS.

He let out a short laugh of disbelief.
How did I miss this before?

A chill set in as the initial shock wore off. The Priesthood’s involvement in the affairs of the TSS stretched into depths he didn’t even know existed. If they would go to such extremes to keep surrogates for future telekinetic children out in the reproducing population, did it go any deeper?

“CACI, take a random sampling of twenty female candidates from the Auto-Reject category over the past ten years. Display current whereabouts and familial statistics.”

“Searching,” the computer replied, the viewscreen on the wall of Banks’ office transitioning to a placeholder for the search results. “Three of the selected candidates have no known current whereabouts,” CACI reported, displaying the seventeen other records.

“For those with missing records, are they deceased?” Banks tried to clarify.

“No death certificates are on file. Current address is unknown.”

So where did they go?
Banks had no idea where to begin his search, but after what he’d just discovered, he had no doubt the Priesthood was involved.