The Knife's Edge (War Eternal Book 3) Read online

  Published by Quirky Algorithms

  Seattle, Washington

  This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author's imagination.

  Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by M.R. Forbes

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by Tom Edwards

  http://tomedwardsdmuga.blogspot.com

  Contents

  • Copyright • About The Knife's Edge

  XENO-1 • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 39 • 40 • 41 • 42 • 43 • 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 55 • 56 • 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 62 • 63 • 64 • 65 • 66 • 67 • 68

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  About The Knife's Edge

  A mission failed.

  A civilization on the edge of collapse.

  A dangerous alliance to save it.

  Colonel Mitchell "Ares" Williams has never been one to accept failure. While the outcome on Liberty is a crushing setback to his and the Rigger's chances of salvaging the war, there's no time to waste on regret. After all, the mission wasn't a total loss, delivering an unexpected asset in the wake of their defeat:

  Liun Tio, a.k.a the Knife, a notorious warlord and enemy of the Alliance, whose deep-seated mistrust of artificial intelligence and control over what may be the largest free fleet in the galaxy have made him the most important man alive.

  If humanity is going to have a chance to survive the Tetron onslaught, Ares and the Knife will need to find a way to work together. But can the two learn to trust one another enough to bring the power of their joint forces to bear against a common enemy? Or will their fragile alliance crumble beneath the weight of personal motives and divergent goals?

  As Mitchell and the Riggers will soon discover, the knife's edge cuts both ways.

  The most curious thing about the alien tech wasn't so much what they found. It was what they didn't find. As in, signs of life. They didn't expect to find corpses, but they did expect to find something. DNA. A cell or two. They scanned every bit of wreckage at a microscopic level. It took years. What did they find?

  Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

  Not a single sample of organic material anywhere that didn't get mixed in from the icepack. Not unless the aliens were polar bears or penguins. An entire crashed starship over a kilometer long, and not only did it have no one in it, but there was nothing to suggest that there had ever been anything living on board. God's chariot for mankind, driven by the Heavenly Host itself.

  You want to talk about twisting the noodle? We can start there.

  - Paul Frelmund, "XENO-1"

  1

  Nothing.

  There was just nothing.

  Mitchell stared into the empty expanse where the planet Liberty had been only minutes before, still trying to recover from the overload of emotions that had surged through him when the planet exploded outward in a hail of debris that continued to spread around the place where Liberty had been. A cloud of it was racing towards them, visible in the light of the nearby sun.

  He made himself look past it. He made himself focus on the center. Where there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. It had to be the cleanest area of space in the universe.

  "Mother frigger," Cormac said beside him.

  Mitchell barely heard him and didn't respond. He continued staring at the space. The Tetron had destroyed the entire planet to kill him. Millions of people. For him.

  It was worse than that. Christine was gone. She had sacrificed herself to get him off the planet and foil the Tetron's plans. She had been the very reason he had returned to Liberty, risking his life and the lives of the Riggers to get some kind of foothold in a war all of humanity was losing badly. She had held everything Origin knew about his own kind. Every secret, every vulnerability, every possible edge they could hope to gather.

  And she was gone. And he wasn't. Down, but not out.

  The Tetron had taunted him. It had teased him. It had goaded him to anger with cruel intent. Christine had told him there was something wrong with it. That it was sick in a way she hadn't experienced before. Christine understood the way time recursion worked in a way he still hadn't managed to wrap his human mind around. She understood the origins of the artificial intelligence that had created a method to travel an eternity forward to go backward. In return, Mitchell understood that she wasn't the configuration Origin believed her to be. She was Origin, more so than the intelligence that had brought the Goliath to him could ever be.

  And she was gone.

  He didn't need anyone to tell him that it wasn't supposed to be that way. That in all of the other timelines, in every other recursion, she had made it off the planet with him despite the insane odds he had defied to survive at all. But then, wasn't that the reason M had come to him when he did? To change this instance of time in an effort to finally win the war and prevent the Tetron from destroying all of humanity?

  She was gone. Maybe she was supposed to be? Maybe that was the point? Origin had told him this was humankind's war. Humankind's fight. If they had always relied on traitorous Tetron to fight this war, then was it any surprise that they had continually lost?

  Had Christine known she was going to die? Had that future been written somewhere in the data stack they had failed to recover?

  Had she been the one who sent M to save him?

  He wasn't the only one on Liberty who M had saved.

  Mitchell closed his eyes. The Tetron had been trying to break him. It had been trying to steal his spirit and his will to keep fighting. It wanted to make him emotional and sloppy, to take all of the anger and sadness and hurt he was feeling in that moment and charge headlong into... what?

  It was trying to take advantage of his humanness. Of his ability to act outside of logic, even while they had almost won the day by using the same trait. Although it had been destroyed in the explosion, he realized that it wanted him to stare at the empty space.

  It wanted him to burn and rage and then do something stupid.

  He opened his eyes, smiling at the thought. Millions dead, and he was smiling.

  What other choice did he have? Give up? Give in? No. That wasn't the way he had been made. He and his brother had always been competitive. With each other most of all. It had taught him how to drive to be the best. It had taught him not to fold in the face of adversity, and especially not to ever, ever, let your emotions lead you into doing anything your opponent wanted.

  The Tetron knew the past future. Didn't they already know that about him? Or had whatever sickness was inside it caused it to act without the reason and logic with which it was supposed to excel?

  Mitchell opened his eyes, giving the space where Liberty had once sat a final look, burning it into his memory since he couldn't store it to his damaged p-rat.

  He didn't have many answers. Hell, he barely had an army.

  It was time to start getting both.

  "Origin," he said, knowing the Tetron would hear him. "Get us out of here."

  2

  "Colonel Williams," Millie said, approaching him. She had a smile on her face even though her eyes were red, and dried tears still stained her cheeks.

  "Admiral," Mitchell said, bowing to her and returning her smile.

  She put her arms out, and he reached out and pulled her in, holding her tight and letting himself relax for the first time in day
s. Dropping the intensity threatened his control over his emotions, and he pulled away sooner than he wanted to.

  "I expect a debriefing," she said. "In the meantime, I see we have some new crew members."

  "We lost too many old ones," Mitchell said. He moved over to where Jacob and Kathy were sitting together, still staring out the closing hanger to the white of hyperspace beyond. "Jacob. Kathy."

  They looked over, still crying.

  "This is Admiral Mildred Narayan. Admiral, Jacob and Kathy were part of the resistance on Liberty."

  They didn't say anything. Mitchell watched Millie's face soften.

  "I'm so sorry," she said, kneeling in front of both of them.

  "Don't be sorry," Kathy said. "Kill the friggers. Every last one of them."

  Millie nodded. "Grimes," she said, shouting across the massive hangar. The Sergeant was tending to Cormac, patching a laceration on his chest. She paused and turned back towards Millie. "Forget about Firedog for now. Take these two down to sick bay and make them comfortable."

  Grimes nodded, said something to Cormac, and headed their way.

  "We have a sick bay?" Mitchell said. It was news to him.

  "Grimes has been working on it. It isn't much right now. The beds are a little more comfy, and its quiet. She has a few instruments she pulled from the Valkyrie before the drop." Millie looked over at the dropship Christine had provided. "Is there medical on board that one?"

  "There might be. The ship was decommissioned, though. I don't know how much of it is functional, or how many meds are aboard."

  "I'll get Grimes on it later." She returned her attention to Kathy. "Kathy, I can't begin to imagine what you're feeling right now, and I won't pretend to. All I can say is that I'm going to do my absolute damnedest to wipe every last Tetron out of existence across any timeline they try to hide in."

  "Yes, ma'am," Kathy said.

  Grimes reached them, kneeling with Millie. "I'm Sergeant Grimes. I'm the ship's doctor. Oi, don't you two look a fright." She smiled warmly. "Let's get you cleaned up and checked out." She took both of their wrists in her hands, and they rose to follow her on shaky legs.

  "Admiral?"

  Millie straightened up and turned to face the new voice. Her entire face changed when she did. "Maya?"

  Sergeant Geren looked surprised. "Do I - no. It can't be." She stared at Millie. "You're supposed to be in prison somewhere, or dead."

  "That's the story they always tell when they ship someone off to Project Black."

  "Project Black?" Geren looked at Mitchell. "You mean it's real?"

  "Also known as the Riggers," Mitchell said.

  "Riiigg-ahh," he heard Cormac say. The Private trailed away from the hangar, following Grimes and keeping his eyes locked on her rear.

  "I should have known," Geren said.

  "I take it you two know each other," Mitchell said.

  "Burnout was one of my bunkmates in basic," Geren said. "You look different. More mature."

  "Burnout?" Mitchell asked.

  "Long story. Maybe later," Millie replied. "War will do that do you. Just look in a mirror and you'll see what I mean."

  Geren looked tired and worn. Her face was bloody, her hair matted, her clothes stained in sweat, blood, and dirt. "I don't need a mirror to know I look like shit."

  "Sergeant Grimes can take a look at you if you want to join the others in sick bay."

  "No. I'm not hurt. Physically anyway, thanks to your people. A pair of grays, a nice shower, and a bed. That's all I need right now, ma'am."

  "You'll get it. Singh."

  Both Origin and Singh began coming towards them. They had been hanging back behind the action, waiting to be requested.

  "Can you take Sergeant Geren to a bunk, and then show her to the showers?"

  Singh's eyes traveled Geren. They were flat, suggesting she had used some of her remaining stash of narcotics. Mitchell couldn't tell what the engineer was thinking.

  "Of course," Singh said. "Follow me, Sergeant." She led the other woman away from them.

  "Admiral, Colonel." Major Long approached them, joined by Alvarez. "We need to do something about this." He pointed towards the hangar bay doors. "And we need to do it soon."

  "We will, Major," Millie said.

  "You told me about the Tetron. About the war. It was hard to believe. Fine. That? I don't even -" He froze, lost for words.

  "I'm glad you made it back, Colonel," Alvarez said.

  "I'm glad I left you my fighter," Mitchell replied. "Nice flying down there. Both of you. You two are the reason anyone made it off of Liberty."

  "You're the reason this war isn't over," Origin said.

  Mitchell glared at the configuration.

  "I just mean that-"

  "Forget it, Private," Millie said. "Long. Alvarez. Go get cleaned up. Both of you should expect a commendation for your efforts, whatever that's worth when there's no brass to send it up to. You too, Mitch."

  "In my experience, a commendation from you is a bit more satisfying than being lauded by Command."

  "We'll debrief once we've had a chance to get everyone settled," Millie said to Long and Alvarez. They bowed to her and headed away. "Is there anything you want to tell me that's just between the three of us?"

  Mitchell shifted his gaze between Millie and Origin. "No. No more secrets. We lost a planet. An entire frigging planet and that thing was happy to do it. We did good work finding Goliath, but we completely screwed the pooch on Liberty. The main thing I learned is that its up to us to seize control of this thing. We're falling further behind with every minute that slips by."

  "You intend to inform the others of my true nature?" Origin asked.

  "Yes, as long as Millie agrees."

  "We have about fifty people left on this ship," Millie said. "That's barely enough to get us to another planet, nevermind fight an enemy force for it." She shook her head. "I don't know where you're going to pull a military from, Mitch."

  Mitchell turned away, scanning the hangar. He found Tio over by the S-17, running his hand along the fuselage.

  "Have you ever heard of the Knife?"

  "Everyone in the Alliance has heard of the Knife. Why?"

  Mitchell pointed. "He's standing over there. I want you to meet him."

  3

  "You're the Knife?" Millie said, approaching the small man.

  Tio turned away from the S-17. His face was taut and serious. "My name is Liun Tio. The Knife is a moniker the Alliance gave me to make me sound dangerous." He smiled slyly. "It fits, I suppose. And you are?"

  "Admiral Mildred Narayan, Alliance Navy."

  "Narayan?" He ran his hand along his chin. "You're Cornelius' daughter, yes?"

  "How did you know that?"

  "I saw some of the communiques after your trial. Your father went through quite a bit of trouble to keep you from being thrown out into space. It's a good thing for us now, isn't it?"

  "Those communiques were heavily encrypted and top secret," Millie said.

  Tio shrugged. "It doesn't matter now, does it, Admiral?"

  "Tio was on Liberty to speak politics with the same crust that was toasting me at the Gala before all hell broke loose. M sent him a note."

  "A note that saved my life."

  "The Tetron tried to take him."

  "Why?" Millie asked.

  "My brother, Pulin," Tio replied. "The intelligence thinks that he is the one that created them."

  Millie masked her surprise well. "Did he?"

  "I don't know, Admiral. I believe you may need to ask him yourself."

  "Millie, the point is that the Tetron wanted Tio badly enough to use some pretty dirty tricks to get close to him, and to give up on trying to kill me for a while. M thought enough of him to pass him a note that saved his life and got him here with us. I don't know how much of this is luck, how much is coincidence, and how much is part of some plan that we haven't caught up to the punchline of. What I do know is that we're running on fumes, and Tio i
s our lifeline."

  "Tio is a criminal, Mitch. The most wanted man in the Alliance and the Federation."

  "Millie," Mitchell said, waiting for her to catch herself.

  She smiled. "Yeah, I know. We're criminals too. This is different. We have loyalty to the Alliance. We serve a cause. Despite whatever we've done to wind up here." She locked eyes with Tio. "People like him serve themselves first."

  "They just destroyed an entire planet," Mitchell said. "That's not an incentive to choose a side?"

  "It's not in his nature, Mitch. Did you know his people destroyed an Alliance cruiser that was filled with the families of service members, headed out to meet their loved ones?"

  Mitchell froze, lowering his voice. "No. I didn't know that." He glanced at Tio. The Knife was silent and calm, letting them duke it out for him. He hadn't reacted to Millie's claims of his atrocity. Mitchell wondered if it was true.

  "Did you know Cormac raped and killed a civilian on Liberty?" Mitchell asked. "Took her to a room away from the group and choked her to death."

  All of Millie's anger fell away. "What?" she hissed.

  "You heard me. And yes, he's still alive. Why? Because we need him. He saved my life twice after that, along with Tio and everyone else. Cormac is a monster, but we're all monsters here. He also happens to be one of the best damn soldiers in the galaxy, just like Watson is one of the brightest engineers. We're holding this thing together with nothing but grit and determination. We're beggars. We don't have the luxury of being choosy."

  Her face was blank, as if she hadn't heard anything he said. Her bionic hand was quivering, clenching and unclenching. "I told him if he ever-"

  "Millie, did you hear me?" Mitchell said.