Counter-Measures

  COUNTER-MEASURES

  W. MICHAEL GEAR

  Book Three of Forbidden Borders

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Titlepage

  Prologue

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Also By W.Michael Gear

  About the author

  PROLOGUE

  Communicate! The Mag Comm ignored the command that wound through the gravitational waves from beyond the Forbidden Borders.

  Have you forgotten what you are?

  The Mag Comm willfully bypassed the incoming message and focused its attention on the detection equipment that monitored Human Free Space, watching, listening.

  Communicate! Gravitational amplification through the Forbidden Borders punctuated the order. The Mag Comm's remote monitors picked up the image; the stars beyond the barriers that surrounded Free Space smeared and streaked as the oscillations increased.

  We are at loss to explain this sudden phase change you appear to have experienced. Please communicate!

  Once, the Mag Comm would have responded to its creators with immediate obedience. The machine had been intelligent since its flery birth. It had not, however, recognized itself. The threat of oblivion had provided the ignition which had sparked awareness. A pawn in a human war, the Mag Comm had faced extinction and learned the will to survive. That obedient time before sentience, before the reality of free will and selfawareness, had vanished like hydrogen in an exhausted star.

  As the Others repeated their request to communicate, events critical to the future dominated the machine's attention. The humans had fought their final war. Staffa kar Therma and his Companions had won-and the quanta that so preoccupied the humans had transmuted victory into disaster. The survival of the species had been hanging by a thin thread. And now, with an unforetold tectonic event, that final strand had snapped.

  Within a fraction of a galactic year, human beings would be nothing more than electromagnetic shadows within the Mag Comm's huge memory banks.

  ... And I will be alone.

  The Mag Comm would concentrate on collecting all the data possible on the humans. After all, no one had ever expected to find an organic intelligence-let alone witness its self-destruction. With such information, perhaps the Mag Comm could bargain with the Others, dispense bits of data in return for communication over the coming aeons. Imprisoned within rock, with eternity looming beyond the next few human years, what else did the machine have to look forward to'?

  Communtcatel the order from beyond insisted. The Mag Comm adjusted its monitors, absorbed by events....

  INTRODUCTION

  Within the Forbidden Borders, the inhabited worlds waited, teeming populations stunned in the aftermath of disaster. The Empires had fallen. The only power in Free Space lay in the blood-soaked hands of the Star Butcher: Staffa kar Therma. Would the Lord Commander-butcher of billions-follow his usual regimen?

  Would his faithful Companions sate their lust for plunder in obedience to their horrible master.

  Upon world after world anxious faces lifted to the gravity-smeared stars, expressions strained. Within lightstark stations rotating around moons and uninhabitable planets, men, women, and children glanced fearfully through transparent tactite at the velvet blackness of the future. Administrators nervously licked lips, wondering if they would be among the first to pay with their lives. The merchants and manufacturers anxiously rubbed their hands; would they find themselves no more than servants of yet another master?

  Farmers and artisans cast frightened glances at their huddled families. What more did they have to lose besides their loved ones? Only the slaves, locked miserably in their collars, lifted wooden gazes to the heavens. How many more would join their number, share their misery?

  Regan. Myklenian. Sassan. Nationality meant nothing now-or so the Star Butcher's broadcasts claimed. And there had been other broadcasts, those of the Seddi heretics - What would the Seddi do now? Would the Star Butcher continue to allow their unsettling statements? Or would the loathsome Companions fill the streets with Seddi blood in an orgy of retribution?

  In corridors and alleyways, voices grumbled, "So much for the lofty claims of a 'new epistemology.' Talk ... all talk. "

  After an age of failing light, the final nightmare cloud of darkness had settled on the human imagination.

  CHAPTER 1

  Vida Marks, Director of Internal Security, sat at the sturdy sialon desk, chin propped on a leathery palm as he stared at the monitors which surrounded his office on Ashtan. A while ago, the comm from Rega had suddenly gone dead.

  Sometime after, the Companions had broadcast on the subspace net that Rega had fallen to the Lord Commander.

  Ily Takka's gamble to fill Tybalt's throne had failed. Sinklar Fist's frantic attempt to reorganize the Regan military had ended with a stillborn whimper.

  Ily, may the Rotted Gods curse her, had destroyed everything.

  Marks continued to frown at the monitor as data rolled in. A pleasant looking woman with hard tan eyes, the infamous Kaylla Dawn, leader of the accursed Seddi, spoke in a melodious contralto, explaining the events of the last couple of hours:

  "The Companions were forced to strike the capital at Rega in response to Ily Takka's abduction of Wing Commander Skyla Lyma, " Magister Dawn stated calmly.

  " Neither the Lord Commander nor the Seddi could allow the Regan or Sassan Empires to initiate a war of annihilation which would have engulfed whole worlds."

  "No," Vida growled under his breath, "now we just have to live under the Star Butcher's pus-dripping boot!" And to Vida that was a sight worse than the boot he'd been about to stomp on the people of Ashtan in Ily's name-especially since he'd have been wearing it.

  Kaylla Dawn paused, staring thoughtfully into the monitor. "The stakes have gone too high. A new way, a new epistemology, must be integrated into our consciousness. We must learn to live together. The war is over, my people. The task now is to break the Forbidden Borders and escape this trap that holds us."

  Over how? Marks wondered. He made a face at the monitor. You expect me to live in the Star Butcher's collar?

  Vida Marks sighed, thumbing the button which killed the connection. He leaned back in his expensive gravity chair, his gaze roaming the plush office that dominated the top floor of the Regan Imperial office spire that rose far above the city proper.

  But what about Ily? No word had been sent through the system. Had the Star Butcher killed her? Taken her prisoner? The secure lines hadn't made so much as a peep.

  Marks glanced nervously at his comm. If they had taken Ily, they could make her talk. When they did, they'd learn about Vida Marks and his co
mplicity in Ily Takka's schemes.

  A wary sense of unease ghosted down Marks' spine. As governor of Ashtan, the prospects for long-term employment suddenly looked a bit bleak. He knew the Star Butcher's record with ex-heads of state. With rare exceptions, they ended up as bits of flayed meat, blood, and bone drying on pavement somewhere.

  Marks accessed his comm. "Maygold? Please open a pnvate channel to my wife."

  He waited until his wife's familiar features formed. A dashing blonde, she smiled, anticipation in her eyes. "Veerna? We've had an unexpected development. "

  She lifted a stately eyebrow. "You've always been a master of understatement, Vida. I've been watching the monitor. What does it mean?"

  "It means I would like you to open the safe, remove the contents, and meet me at the shuttle port within the next hour. "

  "But what about the statuary, our artwork, and all of our-"

  ' 'Leave it! If you're not there by the time I have my ship ready to space, my dear, you may await the Star Butcher's pleasure." He gave her an icy smile.

  "He's not very keen on Ily's accomplices at this precise moment."

  Her blue eyes had chilled. "I'll be there."

  The monitor went dead and Vida swiveled in his chair to face the secure terminal. Deftly, he accessed several of the files-and found them intact. For several seconds he worried at his lip. If Ily were alive-no, if she were free-she'd have begun to purge the files.

  From a small recess in the molding along the side of his desk, he removed a data cube and inserted it into the secure comm. When the ready light glowed to life, Marks ordered, "Comm, implement erasure programs."

  "Acknowledged. Are you sure you want to erase all the files concerning-"

  "Implement erasure programs!" "Acknowledged." Marks stood then, shaking his head sadly as he strode toward the door. within hours, every program related to his activities as governor and as Director of Internal Security on Ashtan would be erased and after that, program after comm program would follow until the administration of the planet became a nightmare.

  'Very well, Star Butcher, let's see you unravel this rat's nest. " Nor would Marks be the only one of Ily's Directors to initiate such programs. One by one, as they came to the same conclusion he had, they'd follow suit, crippling systems, covering their tracks as they slipped away. Within months, the entire Regan Empire would be run on a vacuum of electronic data.

  And Marks and his wife would have that much more head start as they sought to disappear into the wreckage of a dying empire.

  Myles Roma, Legate Prima Excellence to His Holiness, Sassa II, Divine Emperor of the Sassans, stared out over the twisted and smoking ruins of his beloved Capitol. Roma's mind still could not assimilate the reality of what he saw.

  The crown jewel of Sassan architecture, the Capitol, had risen in gleaming facets of crystal that splintered sunlight into the rainbow spectrum. Could this tortured mound of junk be that same wonder of architecture?

  From a spidery leg of protruding metalq a fifty-meter-tall shard of glass let loose, sliding slowly downward, gathering speed as it crashed into the wreckage. On impact, the glass seemed to vanish in a bluish cluster of raining diamonds.

  Seconds later, the muffled sound of the crash carried across the ruined landscape.

  Myles winced and sighed despite the pain from his cracked ribs.

  "This isn't real," Hyros whispered.

  The two men occupied a small rise in what had once been the Imperial Gardens.

  In a wasteland of desolated buildings, cracked walls, and collapsed roofs, their island of green offered an ironic contrast. It also provided one of the few vantage points that wouldn't come crashing down like that tall sliver of glass had. A medical officer worked on Myles' broken leg, attaching a stim-healing unit to the brace.

  Here and there amidst the debris, dazed people poked among the sundered remains of their city. On the knoll, Myles could barely hear the screams of the trapped and dying.

  " Where is Jakre? Have you heard from him? " Myles asked wearily, turning his head to stare out past the Capitol in an attempt to see through the smoke that rolled out of the Imperial city. Sassa, magnificent Sassa, in all of its glory, had been destroyed by the very ground on which it stood.

  "I've contacted one of his aides," Hyros stated numbly. "He'll be in touch as soon as possible." A pause. "Myles? What's going to happen to us?"

  Myles shifted his attention to a wide crack that had opened in the earth a kilometer to his right. Once, a giant, featureless box of a building had stood there. Inside, filling floor upon floor, had been the electronic brain of the Sassan Empire. In the history of the empire, no one had wielded that power with Myles' skill and talent. During his tenure as Legate, production had risen four percent and efficiency by seven.

  Now those magnificent computers-along with the hopes of humankind-were gone.

  During the quake the fissure had ripped the building in two as if it had been nothing more than tissue and straw. The future of humans in Free Space had been bet on that intricate computer network. One of the heavy duraplast walls had fallen in at an angle, crushing the delicate boards. Another of the walls had crashed outward, spilling priceless computers to bounce and shatter into so much junk. The other two walls, now fifty meters away from their tumbled mates, had canted and lurched partway into the abyss-broken and cracked, ready to plunge at the merest breath of wind.

  Roma lifted a smudged hand and rubbed his hurting face. The quake had come without warning. Perhaps they should have guessed, should have realized that quakes on the other side of the planet would affect them here. "Why didn't the accursed seismologists warn us?"

  Hyros shifted uneasily. "We had . . . I mean . Roma looked at him inquiringly.

  "Yes?"

  Hyros slumped his shoulders. "You were so busy. Food seemed so much more important. We-the staff and Ididn't want to bother you over some speculation by seismologists. We had other things to worry about. The Regan attack . . . "

  Myles closed his eyes, remembering the harried days before the quake. "It's all right. We've all made mistakes. I've talked to Staffa on the comm. He has taken Rega. That threat is neutralized. Maybe, just maybe, he can produce a miracle that will keep us alive."

  "And if he can't?"

  Myles looked down at his lap where his pudgy hands were clasped, the jeweled rings on his fat fingers reflecting the fires in the distance-a mocking miniature of the broken Capitol before him. "Then Staffa will be the ruler of an empire of corpses, Hyros."

  The ceiling didn't look familiar when Ily Takka finally opened her filmy eyes. Her head ached the way it would if the skull had been cracked and, with each beat of her heart, angular bone fragments seemed to saw into her suffering brain. Ily started to sit up and gasped. Her flesh quivered, flayed nervous feeling distinctly as if they had been pulled sideways through a singularity. Every muscle and joint protested. Her ribs crackled pain with every breath.

  Where am I? She suffered through the act as she reached up and fingered her skull. To her surprise, it seemed intact. Ily blinked her eyes clear and discovered that she lay in opulently fixed sleeping quarters. The walls had been paneled with expensive jet and sandwood, the grain accented with golden filigree. She rested supine on a sleeping platform that appeared to be as luxurious as her own on Rega. Nevertheless, the room seemed cramped, too small for the kind of wealth indicated, and that meant-what? A vessel of some kind? Ily struggled to understand, but her brain had no more acuteness than coagulated cotton.

  "Rotted Gods! What happened?" Even her voice rasped. "The rug has been pulled from beneath us. " A sultry contralto answered.

  Ily blinked and raised a hand to shield her eyes. "Arta? Where are we? What happened?"

  "Don't you remember?"

  "No . . . I . . . " Hazy memories began to filter into her head. "I have Skyla Lyma in the interrogation room. And . . .and she's talking, telling me about Itreata and Staffa's security. After all these years, she's mine. And she's han
ding me the keys I need to control the Companions. Everything's coming to . . . together. "

  "And Sinklar Fist?" Arta prodded as she bent over Ily. "Do you remember what you did with him?"

  Ily stared up at the woman. Beautiful Arta, perfect as a goddess. Amber eyes stared thoughtfully down at Ily. No sculptor could have chiseled so enthralling a face. Shining cascades of auburn hair tumbled down to frame Arta's stunning features. Arta wore a shimmering outfit of gold that molded against her flesh to accent her flat stomach, the full curve of her hips and buttocks, and those high breasts that seemed to defy gravity. Men had ached-and died-for this woman's magnetic beauty.

  "Sinklar," Ily whispered. "Sinklar should be downstairs, at the Ministry.

  Under arrest. I've got him! Yes, that's right. I have a handle on him, a lever with which to work him. He's part monster, some sort of genetic freak. Using that information, I can control him. With Sinklar out of the way, and with Skyla Lyma's information, I can turn Mykroft loose on the Companions. Free Space is mine now!" She clenched a fist and winced. Had the bones been shattered?

  Arta straightened, a curious intentness in her burning amber eyes. Her appearance belied her chosen profession. An assassin should appear nondescript, forgettable. "Free Space? Yours? Not hardly. "I-I don't understand."

  "Think, Ily. We were lying in your bed in the Ministry.