The Last Stand Read online

  “I have another fleet at the wormhole. I’ve dropped the interdiction field, and they are under attack by a superior force. They have no defenses against antimatter weapons.”

  “What about Astralis?” Addy put in. “We lost all of our resurrection data when the center was destroyed.”

  “And the one to blame for that incident saved a copy of the data before he destroyed the center. His goal was to use people’s resurrection data to blackmail the living, but instead he used it to resurrect everyone in android bodies. When you find Astralis, you’ll recover your people’s data.”

  “So that’s it?” Lucien murmured. “The Faros are defeated, no one really died, and all of this was just some ridiculous test?”

  “No, all of this was a consequence of you wanting to leave the Red Line despite my warnings that you shouldn’t. Perhaps next time you will listen.”

  Lucien saw a flash of anger and indignation flicker across Addy’s face. That look was mirrored on Garek’s features. “And the test? What was it about?” Garek demanded.

  “To see if Lucien would make the ultimate sacrifice. I needed to be sure that he would act selflessly no matter the personal cost.”

  “Why me?” Lucien asked, slowly shaking his head.

  “Your mind had all of the same initial conditions that the original Abaddon did, making you among those least likely to act selflessly; that made you a good test subject. The difference between you and Abaddon, of course, lies in your individual experiences and in the souls that you were given. In your case, Lucien, one of your two souls was derived from my own. The influence of that soul is what I was testing.”

  Lucien was taken aback by that. “One of my two souls?”

  Etherus smiled. “Yes. They’ve been acting in concert to direct your thoughts and actions. This test was to see if such a symbiotic relationship between two souls could function and produce desirable results. You were the prototype. Now that you’ve passed the test, I can offer my soul to others and help them become better, too.”

  “No thanks,” Garek muttered.

  Etherus spread his hands in invitation. “The choice is yours.”

  “What’s the point?” Addy asked. “In fact, what’s the point of souls at all? Back before we left on this quest to destroy the Forge, you said that souls are what give us free will, but now you’ve admitted that you can predict the future, and that means everything is subject to determinism. You can’t have it both ways. If the future can be predicted, then it’s fixed, and we’re all slaves to our fate. None of us really has a free will.”

  Etherus’s brow lifted at that. “And how do you define free will?”

  “The freedom to do otherwise,” Addy replied. “Our choices can’t be pre-destined and the future can’t be set. If the future can be predicted, then it is set, our choices are determined, and we are not free. Rewind the universe, play it back, fast forward... assuming you could do that, everything would happen the exact same way every time.”

  “You have a good grasp of the concepts,” Etherus said, nodding. “But what is the freedom to do otherwise? How might such a freedom operate?”

  Addy’s brow furrowed and she shook her head. “Well, there’s quantum indeterminacy...”

  “Which only adds random variations to the equation. It makes outcomes somewhat unpredictable, but ultimately fails to produce large-scale unpredictability in people’s behavior, and even if it did, you’d be slaves to chance instead of cause and effect. You still wouldn’t be free.”

  “Okay, I give up,” Addy said. “You tell me: how is it possible for the future to be set and for us to still be free?”

  “There’s only one functional model for the freedom to do otherwise, and that is the freedom from the dimension of time. You need to be able to go back in time and actually do otherwise. Only one being in the universe can have such a power, and it must be used carefully.

  “I am that one, and I am free to do otherwise. That is the point of having my soul co-exist with yours. The more you subject yourself to my will, the more you will share in my freedom—true freedom—and the more your lives will begin to follow idealized paths. Even the bad things will turn around for good.”

  Addy gaped at Etherus. “But that’s still not freedom! That’s just slavery to you!”

  Etherus’s expression became sad and wistful with that accusation. “That’s what Abaddon said. I tried to give him what he wanted. I allowed him to create a chaotic universe for him and his followers, just to prove that I am not a slave master who forces everyone to do what I want, but Abaddon overstepped his bounds when he invaded Laniakea. Now his followers have all finally seen the horrible consequences of their rebellion.

  “Unfortunately, it is still going to take a long time to clean up their mess, and the Etherian fleet will have to remain on this side of the universe for some time in order to help keep the peace.”

  “So now what?” Garek asked. “You’re going to eliminate the chaos by giving everyone your soul so they can behave themselves like perfect little Etherians?”

  “Not at all. I said the choice was yours, and it is. If you want to submit to my will, you will know true freedom. You can also choose to what extent you will do so, either following my will, or not.

  “You see, there’s a middle ground between those who prefer to live in a rigidly perfect paradise like Etheria, and those who wish to live in an unpredictable, chaotic universe like Abaddon wanted. That middle ground is to live in the chaotic universe, but with me subtly influencing your decisions based on what I have seen of the outcomes.

  “Through me you will have true freedom, and the future will no longer be set—after all, I cannot predict myself, nor can anyone else, so wherever I choose to intervene, the future will change in ways that no one could ever predict.”

  Lucien was confused and overwhelmed by all of what he was hearing. He looked to the curving holoscreen on the bridge and gazed off into space. After a moment, he noticed something was missing.

  All of the giant, silvery Etherian ships were gone. “Where’s your fleet?” he asked, turning back to Etherus.

  “They’ve gone to reinforce the one in Laniakea and to help compel a surrender from the Faros.”

  “We need to go, too,” Lucien replied. “I need to see my family.”

  Etherus nodded and walked back to the bridge control station. “The separatist ships are slow. It will take us several days to arrive, but I will make sure that your family is safe until then. I am speaking with the Faros now, and the ship that has your wife and daughters on it has just agreed to surrender.”

  Lucien felt another wave of relief wash over him, and he nodded. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome, Lucien. You may all return to your quarters if you like. Alternatively, you’ll now have free reign of the ship, so you’re welcome to explore. The gardens are a sight to behold.”

  Garek snorted and shook his head. “Maybe later. Right now I need to go lie down.”

  “Me, too,” Lucien said. Addy came and hooked her arm through his, leading him off the bridge. The doors rumbled open for them as they approached, and she bumped shoulders with him as they walked through. This time the crab-like guards standing outside the bridge didn’t turn to follow them.

  “I guess this is what they call a happy ending,” Addy said.

  “I guess...” Lucien replied, trailing off with a frown. It all felt too good to be true. He wasn’t sure he believed it yet. Brak trailed behind them, silent as ever, while Garek led the way up ahead.

  “Now what?” Addy asked.

  “We get some rest,” Lucien said.

  “I mean after we get back to the Red Line. The war’s over... your family is safe.”

  Lucien knew what she was digging for, but he didn’t have an answer for her yet. “All I can think about is giving each of my girls a big hug.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Addy said. “What about Atara? Isn’t she still infected with Abaddon’s mind?”

&nbs
p; Lucien’s knees snapped suddenly straight as that question stopped him cold. He turned back to the entrance of the bridge, the doors now sealed and shut behind them. That was the one question he hadn’t thought to ask Etherus: what about Atara?

  * * *

  Captive Aboard the Faro Flagship

  Tyra sat on the deck facing away from the field of dead bodies, rocking Theola in her arms and trying to get her to calm down, even though she knew it was impossible. Theola was hungry, tired, dirty... and feverish, Tyra realized as she pressed her forehead to her daughter’s.

  A rumbling noise interrupted Theola’s cries, and Tyra twisted around to look. The hangar doors were opening.

  Curiosity dragged Tyra to her feet, but caution whispered a warning. She walked over to the doors, but pressed herself to the wall beside them, out of sight.

  Etherus walked into the hangar, accompanied by a group of bewildered-looking Faros and—

  “Atara!” Tyra screamed and launched herself away from the wall to greet her other daughter, but Atara greeted her with a sneer. “You think you’ve won, but you haven’t,” she said, and Tyra stopped short. Her gaze flicked to Etherus, and then to the Faros picking their way through the carnage. “Abaddon is dead! How is she still infected?”

  Etherus met her accusing gaze with a sympathetic expression. “The kill switches were in the bodies of his clones, not in their data.”

  Tyra shook her head, unable to accept that. “How do we set her free?”

  “By finding Astralis.”

  Tyra frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Etherus went on to explain about Joe Coretti’s android empire and the data he’d stolen from the Resurrection Center before it had been destroyed. “Find Astralis, and you’ll be able to bring Atara back.”

  Atara smiled smugly up at Etherus. “Over my dead body!”

  Etherus stared unblinkingly back. “Precisely.”

  “What?” Atara blinked and shook her head, confused.

  But Tyra wasn’t. Her motherly instincts rose up in protest, yet her objections got stuck in her throat. Etherus was proposing that this Atara should die, but that didn’t mean that her daughter would be gone—only her more recent memories would be lost, memories of being held a prisoner inside her own mind. Tyra could hardly protest against not salvaging those memories. Having Atara back the way she was before all of this began would be a merciful outcome, and ultimately that’s how therapists would have dealt with Atara’s trauma anyway—by erasing the memories of it.

  Etherus nodded to Tyra, and indicated the Faros still combing through the hangar. “They are looking for survivors. Go with them. They will treat your injuries and administer to your other needs.”

  Tyra nodded stiffly. “Thank you,” she managed. Then her eyes slid back to Atara. “What about her?”

  Etherus gestured to one of the Faros walking about behind her, and gave a slight nod. Before Atara realized what was happening, the alien walked up behind her and injected her neck with a colorless liquid.

  “Wait!” Tyra said, but it was too late. Horror stabbed in her veins and twisted in her gut as Atara’s body went limp in the Faro’s arms. “Is she...”

  “Yes, but she is not your daughter,” Etherus replied. “I set her soul free of her body as soon as she became infected. Rest-assured, it will return to her as soon as you resurrect her.”

  Tyra nodded slowly, uncertainly, her eyes never leaving Atara’s face. It didn’t make any sense. Her emotions screamed against Etherus’s logic while her rational mind agreed with him: who we are lies in the data inside our heads. People are just biological computers. Turn them off and they’re dead. Make an identical computer with an identical set of data and turn it on, and they’ll come back to life. Tyra held on to that and forced her emotions aside. She tore her gaze away from Atara, and walked up to the nearest Faro.

  “My daughter needs milk,” she ground out.

  “We do not have any,” the Faro replied in halting Versal. Tyra’s eyes flashed, and the alien hurried to add, “We can feed her intravenously. Please follow me.”

  Chapter 36

  Astralis

  —EIGHT WEEKS LATER—

  “Joe Coretti, you are under arrest,” Lucien declared as the escape pod in front of him popped open, revealing the gangster hunched over inside. His face was completely different from the one that Lucien remembered, but the weaselly look in his eyes was the same. It had taken a little less than a day for the Marines they’d sent from New Earth to occupy Astralis and overthrow Joseph Coretti’s resurrected empire of androids. They hadn’t met with much resistance, since by now everyone was unhappy with the way Coretti was running things. Unfortunately, however, Joseph Coretti had never been found.

  Until now.

  “Frek you,” the android in the escape pod said. “I’m not Coretti. You got the wrong guy.”

  “We have a lot of witnesses saying otherwise. Seems you got complacent and told everyone who you really were. I guess being infamous isn’t as satisfying when your anonymous, huh?”

  The gangster sneered at Lucien as he was dragged from his escape pod by two Marine sergeants. “You should be thanking me! Thanks to me, everyone from Astralis lived!”

  “Thanks to you, we thought they were all dead,” Lucien replied. Speaking to one of the Marines, he said, “Take him back to New Halcyon. I want to keep an eye on him myself.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied one of the Marine Sergeants while shoving Coretti along. Technically Lucien was a sergeant himself, and he wasn’t even a Marine, but everyone was calling him sir after he’d returned a conquering hero from destroying the Forge and defeating Abaddon.

  Lucien frowned. He didn’t feel like a hero. He hadn’t actually sacrificed anything, and Etherus was the one who’d actually defeated Abaddon.

  Turning to leave the hangar, Lucien found Brak striding in behind him with a squad of Marines. “Back already?” he called out. “Was the data center where Coretti said it would be?”

  When they’d found the gangster’s escape pod hurtling toward the nearest habitable planet, they’d threatened to destroy it if Coretti didn’t immediately tell them where he’d stored everyone’s resurrection data.

  Brak nodded and bared his black teeth in a grin as he stopped in front of Lucien. “Yes, we find it.”

  “Is all of the data there?” Lucien asked, his heart suddenly pounding with the fear that Atara’s data would be missing.

  Brak replied with a nod. “It is being transmitted back to New Earth now.”

  Relief flooded through Lucien, and he smiled. “Good job, buddy. You should go back to New Halcyon with Coretti. I’ll meet you at the station.”

  “Where are you going?” Brak asked.

  “To see an old friend,” Lucien replied.

  * * *

  Astralis

  After Brak left with Joseph Coretti, Lucien gave Addy a call on his ARCs and asked if he could meet her somewhere so they could talk. She asked him to meet her at her apartment on Astralis.

  Lucien had been confused by that. What was she doing back on Astralis? Wasn’t it overrun by androids? He’d tried asking her about that, but Addy had refused to explain anything more over the comms. She wanted to meet in person.

  Lucien’s hover taxi pulled into a parking lot a few blocks from Addy’s apartment complex, and he auto-paid his fare via his ARCs. That done, he got out and walked through the parking lot to a long, busy pedestrian street with shops and cafes lining both sides. A simulated blue sky sprawled overhead. The holoscreen projecting it probably lay just a few feet above the roofs of those stores.

  As Lucien walked down the street, he scanned the faces of passersby, trying to pick out some sign that they weren’t human, but they all looked perfectly normal to him.

  Lucien absently wondered what would happen to these people now. Would they all integrate their memories with their human bodies and power down their mechanical ones?

  Lucien reached the end of the street,
and his ARCs indicated that he’d arrived at his destination. A pair of vintage wrought-iron gates barred the entrance to Addy’s apartment complex, Fountain View Villas. He keyed the holocomm for apartment 401C, and Addy’s smiling face appeared in front of the gates just a moment later.

  “Come on up!” she said.

  A buzzer sounded and the gates swung wide. Lucien walked through a courtyard of soaring trees, hanging flowers, and ornate, bubbling fountains. To either side, at least ten floors of walkways and apartments soared into the simulated blue sky. The courtyard was filled with androids sitting on benches, and children playing in the fountains.

  Lucien blinked. Android children? Was it even possible for them to grow up?

  Dead ahead, a trio of glass elevators raced up and down, carrying residents to and from their apartments. Lucien reached those elevators and punched the call button just as one of them arrived. A man and a woman walked out, holding hands, and Lucien stepped in.

  He touched the glowing four on the holographic keypad inside the elevator, and watched through the glass walls as the courtyard fell away below. What was Addy doing living with androids instead of her own kind?

  The elevator stopped and Lucien stepped out into an open hallway. He walked beside the railing, scanning the glowing numbers on people’s front doors as he walked by... 401A, 401B... 401C.

  Lucien stopped there in front of Addy’s door. He raised a hand toward the holocomm, taking a deep breath to compose himself. When he was ready, he touched the button. “It’s Lucien,” he said.

  Addy replied a split second later, voice-only. “Be right there!”

  “Sure.” Lucien nodded and resisted the urge to fidget. Break-ups were never easy, but this one would be harder than most. It wasn’t fair to Addy, because he did love her, but she was competing with his love for three people, not just one. This wasn’t a question of Tyra or Addy. It was about salvaging his family versus ripping it apart.

  The door slid open, and Lucien sucked in another breath, about to offer what would be his first of many apologies—