Cathy West had managed to hold it together remarkably well during the first ten minutes following the destruction of the Magenta. It wasn’t because she was immune to tragedy either, far from it. No, Cathy owed her composure to the simple fact that her fellow journalists’ death—along with most of the Guardians on board that vessel—hadn’t had the chance to sink in yet.
The catastrophe had been so sudden, so unexpected that the crew were taken completely by surprise. The fifty individuals who emerged from the wreckage alive owed their survival to instinct, having been able to reflexively teleport to safety. A handful even managed to drag several of their colleagues along with them as they bolted, thereby alleviating the death toll to some degree.
It was subsequently discovered that the erratic elements within the meteoroid cloud oscillated in a distinctly contrasting manner, creating a subspace dampening field that disrupted the operation of mechanically generated shields and transporters—T-rings included. Thus it was that those who relied on such contrivances found out too late how costly those vibrations could be. Always hungry, death had welcomed the souls aboard the Magenta into her fold, giving them scant choice but to comply.
That same ten minutes had also brought the three largest fragments of Abaddon into range and Cathy could hear the urgent exchanges this engendered between the remaining ships and platforms.
Depressing the button to her headset, Cathy followed along as Jade Heung, an irradiant ectoplasmic island of serenity, calmly issued instructions to the frenzied accompaniment of light burst, heat flashes and percussive reports.
Using the operational codename adopted by those in charge, Jade called out: Moon Base, this is Sunray, ready for instructions?
Moon Base here, go ahead.
You are past apogee and closing on us. Time until you are in range?
From Moon Base, we will be in position within two minutes.
From Sunray, once there, fire all, repeat all, your batteries on these coordinates. An undecipherable stream of compressed information passed between the two parties: Your principle is designated Alpha, the largest of the remaining fragments. The blockade will focus its efforts on Bravo and Charlie thus . . .
Another torrent of data squirted out. Jade resumed: Once missiles have been depleted, you are to concentrate your lasers and photon cannons on those foreign bodies still extra-atmosphere exceeding two hundred feet in diameter. Keep your Raptors free for those mavericks encroaching on your airspace. We will provide support while—
There was a break as the Olympus rocked from the obliteration of yet another frigate. The blinding glare of its passing blanked the screen for a full five seconds before clarity was restored.
Jade’s amplified voice rang out. All ships, all ships, the Gauntlet has been destroyed! I say again, the Gauntlet has been destroyed. Report casualty list as survivors arrive, and initiate bio-scans of the debris field.
Listening in, Cathy learned the hard way how difficult it was to kill a Guardian.
After the initial surprise that had caught the Magenta unawares, the fleet had adapted their tactics, and small groups of those relying on T-rings had been assigned to personnel possessing natural teleportation capabilities. By generating a number of pre-prepared “escape pods,” four untalented Guardians could be carried through the rarified hyperspace medium at an instants notice, a strategy that went on to save hundreds of lives.
Even when some crewmembers were overlooked, it didn’t necessarily mean they would perish, for many were capable of enduring the harsh environment of the interstellar vacuum by spinning a variety of psychocreative sheaths around their bodies. Suspended accordingly, they were able to hang on until ships’ sensors picked them out from the chaff littering the battlefield.
Nevertheless, the death toll was appalling and getting worse by the minute.
Seeing that rescue operations were now well underway, Jade resumed her rundown: Moon Base, this is Sunray, do you copy?
Yes, yes. Go ahead.
As stated, you are to target the larger bodies before their incursion into Earth’s atmosphere. We will support. Orbital assets will begin sweeping for those fragments we miss. Understood?
Understood. We’ll commence bombardment in T-minus twenty seconds.
Another stream of psychic data followed, after which the transcended Lord turned her attention to the orbital platforms and stations: All units, this is Sunray, do you copy?
A host of responses sounded forth.
Weapons platforms are to be abandoned and set to fully independent ATR functioning. Their priorities will be as follows . . . There was a slight delay as the appropriate parameters were uploaded: Manned satellite modules must be double-crewed from this point forward. Primary teams will lay down fire while their partners prepare appropriate escape protocols. The same goes for our orbital stations, though they can be supplemented by their own defense grids. Is everyone clear on what they have to do?
Further multiple affirmations drowned out Cathy’s ability to distinguish who, exactly, was speaking.
Adopting a declamatory mode, Jade announced: GUARDIANS, STAND BY, STAND BY! FIRE ON NEW COORDINATES ON MY MARK. THREE—TWO—ONE . . . MARK!
The void outside was transposed in photonegative glory and both Cathy and Brad were forced to avert their eyes from the glare.
Cathy felt the deck beneath her feet listing. Struggling to maintain her balance, she peered instead toward the holo-matrix where hundreds of hill-sized gobbets were depicted in all their molten ferocity, spewing outward from a squealing nub of incandescent fury. Oh my God! We’ll never. . .
She watched in horror as starships, platforms, and satellites vaporized under the onslaught, disappearing in a cleansing wash of fire that flensed the heavens bare.
Fighting to stay on her feet, she clutched at Brad’s shoulder and shouted, “This is getting way out of hand. Where the hell did that other transcended Guardian, Victoria go?”
*
The vista of deep space quivered, peeling back to reveal a sparkling binary helix of stunningly complex beauty.
Despite the exigency of the situation, Victoria took her time, fascinated by what she was learning from peeking through the crack between realities. Whatever—wherever—this place was, it appeared to be a contradiction of certainties, a plane where pure energy formed and destroyed itself, over and over again in a cyclic rhythm of creative annihilation. Being careful not to trigger a conflicting psychic echo, she probed deeper, allowing the fissure to partially close behind the nexus leader so that the tear wasn’t encouraged to pucker open in her wake.
There!
Enraptured, Victoria manipulated those erratic atoms closest to the threshold of the geodesic curvature. Buzzing like angry wasps, they were a marvel to behold, their very existence promoting an infinity warp of simultaneous destruction and replication.
Peering closer, Victoria pondered why this might be. At first the atoms acted normally, with a regular nucleus, containing both protons and neutrons surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. Moments later the polarity reversed as the atom imploded to produce a mirror version of itself surrounded by positrons—the antimatter equivalent of the electron. No wonder this stuff is kicking our asses!
More determined than ever to live up to the meaning of her name, Victoria tried to soothe her sense of urgency and concentrated instead on looking for a pattern to the process. Anything, good or bad, that would help mimic or assimilate the means by which these particles managed to exist despite their antagonistic duality. I know they’ll be pissed I skipped out when I did, but if I can solve this conundrum here and now, it’ll turn the tide in our favor when we need it most.
*
The sky rippled like molten lava as millions of Abaddon’s foot soldiers subjected themselves to the ablation of the augmented atmosphere, their sacrifice a gesture of ultimate defiance and mindless fanaticism.
The jacket stood up against their relentless charge stoically, consuming hundreds of thousands of tons of mundane and abstruse material every second. But it might as well have been trying to catch the wind, for in the end, there were just too many meteors travelling too quickly for the modifications to stop them all.
Those ships, firing platforms and observation stations that endured did their best, expending their remaining ordnance in a hopeless attempt to thin the deluge. Eventually, Anil was forced to concede defeat. There was nothing he could do to prevent multiple ground strikes from pounding cities and townships alike to dust, and as such, he hastily reallocated his teams to protecting the world’s most prominent leaders.
The primary wave of meteors, being much smaller and representing only a fraction of the potential that would soon follow, began falling over the Pacific Ocean. Coming in just south of the Solomon Islands some twenty minutes previously, they had entered along a relatively narrow corridor that spread in an extending swathe, reaching all the way across the planet and into the mid Atlantic Ocean.
As the bulk of Abaddon drew closer, the meteors got bigger and illuminated the interior of the global cloud blanket in fulgid orange, yellow and green eruptions that could be seen from horizon to horizon.
Detonating as they were at high altitude, those hardier remnants contained a richer proportion of metal. That, combined with an abundance of alien compounds, produced supersonic shockwaves and intense EM bursts of frightening proportions. Anil knew only too well what their volatility portended.
In confirmation of his suspicions, he had been forced to stand by as a group of paparazzi, in defiance of warnings to the contrary, had dropped like stones from the sky over Tokyo, when the controls of the aircraft they had chartered were fried by a sizzling electromagnetic pulse. No one survived.
By the time the storm made landfall, it had intensified, showering death and debris onto northern Australia, Japan, China, and Indonesia.
The first meteorite to actually reach the ground intact measured less than thirty feet across. Impacting only two miles outside Darwin, it released an irradiated fireball usually reserved for nuclear infernos. Once again, Anil could only look on as countless human lives were snuffed out like guttering candles in the wind.
Japan and China were next, though the island nation fared better, as the meteor there fell into the sea two miles off the east coast of Hokkaido. Comprised mostly of mundane elements, it produced a much tighter blast radius and the subsequent tidal wave and force six earthquake were easily absorbed by the coastal defenses.
The one striking Nanjing was far smaller. Composed mostly of dark quark particles, it released the energy of a seventy kiloton atomic bomb, and eradicated all three and a half million souls populating that city in less than five seconds.
Mobile and standing ground stations—supported by numerous missile batteries and underground silos belonging to the world’s militaries—did a fantastic job in the face of relentless pressure. Sadly, their luck couldn’t hold out indefinitely. No matter how many photonic rays, laser beams, normal shells or magnetized rounds threaded the sky in a phosphoric stitch-work; their light was eventually eclipsed by a seemingly endless rain of fire and brimstone.
Reports began rolling in of ruined cities and devastated farmlands, of shattered mountains and rolling grasslands turned into cratered moonscapes. As the Earth continued to spin on its axis, nowhere was spared: Asia; the Middle East; Africa and Europe. All suffered. And now, the latest fragments of Abaddon had started to pound the eastern shoreline of the Americas and Brasilia.
For the first time in his long life, Anil felt doubt.
Along with Earl Foster, Anil had been among the original candidates to be approached by the Overlord over three thousand years previously. He’d personally witnessed the slow and painful progress humanity had made toward civilization and their even slower advancement toward a wider diversity leading to psychic maturity.
Casting his stupendous transcended vision heavenward, he calculated the cost of their efforts to prevent the three principle portions of Abaddon from reaching its target.
While Moon Base had indeed achieved their objective and sent the largest fragment hurtling off into the depths of space, their victory came at a price. The holocaust they had unleashed in knocking it out of the ballpark set off a chain reaction that not only obliterated the smallest section—Charlie—but decimated almost all of the fleet and remaining firing platforms and automated satellites, as well as the northern orbital station.
Now, only the Olympus and two frigates, the Mercury and Tempest, were still spaceworthy, albeit badly damaged. The southern observation station was also operational, having been saved from destruction by the cruiser, Eagle, who had unwittingly caught the blast of remnant Charlie full on, thereby shielding the vulnerable installation from harm.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Anil watched as the remains of the final massive section—designated Bravo—measuring nearly half a mile across and travelling at twenty miles per second, began to encroach upon the atmosphere, knowing without a doubt that if it hit, the planet would not survive.
*
Battered, bruised and bloody, Naomi was nonetheless grateful to be alive. Smiling in grim satisfaction, she initiated a full systems reboot that brought the only remaining SEPs targeting node and life-support nodules back online. At least I get to watch the end in style.
Meshing with the cerebral enhancer to boost her farscanning capabilities, Naomi activated the SOS beacons to ensure rescue teams would know where to find her once the carnage had run its course.
She eyed the hairline fracture that had split the command deck from stem to stern and tried not to worry. Even with malfunctioning force fields and emergency sealant dispensers, she had over two hours of oxygen left to her, so she sat back and strapped in to watch events unfurl with a morbid fascination. And nobody can accuse us of not trying . . . hello?
A neutron star manifested above and behind the all-consuming meteor, its brighter radiance creating an abrupt counterpoint to the fiery glow permeating the night sky.
Naomi brought the sensors to bear and the blazing luminary fell toward the ground, as if pulled along by the wake of the leviathan before it, another helpless casualty of the battle that was about to end.
Except this casualty had other ideas.
As the atmosphere bruised red and the rarified vibrations of the monster’s presence grew more pronounced, the star appeared to flare, creating concentric bands of shimmering energy that sucked nearby smaller debris in toward it.
Tingles ran down Naomi’s spine when a familiar pattern finally registered: No! She exclaimed aloud: It can’t be! Victoria?
The one and only . . . came the jovial reply: And just in time from the look of things.
A shrieking blade of unimaginable power lanced out from the Lord Inquisitor’s corona, skewering the giant meteor in the back and holding it transfixed as if it had actually felt the pain of its impalement. An expanding ripple spread across its surface. Naomi sensed the moment Victoria adjusted the output of her attack and a further bolt of energy stabbed down, causing their adversary to glow hotter and hotter as the potential grew within its core.
Something about the assault set Naomi’s teeth on edge. Fine-tuning her perceptions, she registered an odd, dually polarized particle stream within the plasma flow that sent sympathetic and counter vibrations skipping every which way at once into the rock mass. How the hell is she doing that?
Before Naomi realized what was happening, the energy beam modulated again and the beast blew apart before her very eyes. What the hell?
Recovering swiftly, Naomi analyzed the fallout, searching for celestial flotsam that would present the greatest danger to those units waiting on the ground. She spotted three such chunks in particular that she didn’t like. They won’t have much time to react, but at least they’ll know where to concentrate their effort—
An expanding halo of blinding intensity—located mid-way between the Polar and Vostok stations on Antarctica—broke her concentration. Almost immediately, all the barometric, radiological and gradiometer alarms started sounding at once. Shit, how the fuck did I miss that one?
Limited by the damage caused to her post, Naomi was unable to carry out an accurate assessment of the blast site. Antarctica is one of the most pristine environments in the world. I’d better pass this on to Moon Base, the Lord Marshal will want this handled—?
Leave it, Naomi! Victoria interrupted: I’ll take care of that personally when the crisis is over.
Never one to question procedure, Naomi did as ordered, but couldn’t help but think it strange that the Lord Inquisitor herself would want to handle such a thing, especially as the most prominent remains of Abaddon’s bulk were still large enough to cause widespread devastation.
Too late!
Dual mushrooms of light boiled upward from the planet’s surface, one in the mid-Indian Ocean; the other in Africa, somewhere in the area of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The background noise from Naomi’s sirens ascended into an earsplitting frenzy.
Both explosions were dwarfed by twin solar flares that burst into existence not one mile from Naomi’s station, necessitating the addition of extra filters across her monitors.
It was only as she cut the alarms that she discerned another mental query—this one laced with dry sarcasm—ringing in her head.
Hey Naomi! Did you throw a frat party in there while the grownups were away? Look at the place. It’ll take a month of Sunday’s to put this right.
Responding to Andrew’s twisted sense of humor, she retorted: Glad to see you’re so concerned for my welfare . . . Sir. But shouldn’t you be doing something more than just stating the obvious, especially as you turned up soooo late?
The moment Naomi uttered her reply, she regretted it, for the thought patterns of the larger transcended being next to Andrew were instantly recognizable.
The Overlord cut in: Quite right, Guardian Cruz. We shall see you at the debriefing later. For now, let me assist you instead.
Naomi felt a prickling sensation crawling over her, a sensation that fluttered away from her skin, only to grow into a separate protective bubble. Expanding as it formed, the bubble inflated to encompass the remains of the station, rendering it impervious to further damage. No sooner had it settled in place than the newly arrived Lords disappeared.
“And just like that, I’m left to face the end alone,” she muttered under her breath, knowing full well they’d probably heard every word.
*
Three blazing concentrations of transcended light hung high in the air over the Indian Ocean. Locked within a bond of the utmost intimacy, they weren’t wasting time saying “hello” or reminiscing over lost opportunities. Just the opposite, in fact, for in the space of a few heartbeats, these incredible beings had shared the knowledge contained within of their vast psyches with one another, thereby arming themselves with the key needed to bring the ongoing debacle to an end.
Altering his matrix subtly, the Overlord expanded his consciousness to ensure that all his ascended Guardians, everywhere, were updated with the same information.
Having completed that task, he turned back to Andrew and Victoria and directed their attention toward the African continent and the havoc inflicted there upon the Democratic Republic of Congo. The cities of Kananga and Mbuji-Mayi and over a dozen of the major townships were gone. In their place, a huge crater, hundreds of miles wide, yawned open toward the sky. The former villages, farmlands and forests beyond the smoking bowl were nothing but an unsightly, cauterized scab on the face of the Earth. Any trees, pylons and taller structures still standing just outside that blackened ring leaned away from the blast site, as if keen to disassociate themselves from anything to do with Abaddon’s cruel progeny.
The ground vibrated in sympathy as it struggled to regain a degree of stability following the aftershocks of a cosmic blow that could still be felt thousands of miles away. Conflicting reverberations beat upon the trio’s ultrasenses, making them think they were listening to the resonance of a celestial tuning fork.
Realizing nothing could be done; they cast their sight downward into the Indian Ocean, and only then realized how fortunate they had been.
Severely debilitated by Victoria’s strike, the huge meteor fragment had entered the atmosphere at eighteen miles per second on a thirty degree trajectory. Exceeding two hundred yards across, it was nevertheless sufficiently weakened to be unable to withstand the horrendous pressure its passage invoked. When it was a quarter of a mile from the surface of the ocean, the cohesive force holding it together failed entirely, and it blew apart. Unfortunately, that act unleashed most of its energy in one direction: down.
Had it struck the sea, there was little doubt a mega-shift earthquake would have resulted along the Indian-Burmese fault lines. That would have engendered a monster tsunami nigh on impossible to control.
While the airburst had avoided that scenario, it created problems of its own. The explosion generated emissions equivalent to a fifteen megaton atomic bomb and an extensive pressure front that squeezed millions upon millions of cubic tons of water downward and outward. The simultaneous compression and release of the ocean’s surface created an immense deformation that reared up like a fluidic escarpment.
As the depths struggled to fill the void, an expanding doughnut shaped wave front charged away from the epicenter at over six hundred miles an hour, triggering ancient memories in some of those watching.
The Overlord assessed the extent of the danger and addressed his companions on their intimate modes: There’s no way we can control all that water without sparking a backlash that may cause more harm than good. But I have an idea.
Opening his mind, he revealed his plan. Allowing them a few moments to consider the implications, he continued: Well, do you think you can handle it?
We’ve got to try! Victoria exclaimed.
And at least this time I don’t have to stand across a harbor with an audience, Andrew replied.
They transferred to their designated coordinates and waited.
The Overlord positioned himself just above the coastal region of Somalia and started drawing in immeasurable quantities of power; Andrew placed himself off Sumatra and also began absorbing the energy required for the task ahead; Assuming her station off the southern shoreline of India, Victoria opened herself to the essence that binds all life together, an endless source of dominion from which she drank greedily.
Around the world, other transcended Guardians broke off their labors and prepared the meshing of their potential into a symphonic construct that would hopefully save billions of lives.
An opening note, deep, bass and clear, rang loud in the ether. Almost immediately, two further tones—pitched at a higher scale—commenced whirling around it, adding to the whole with tenor and contralto counterpoints. Other voices chimed in, reticulating through and about the main theme, elevating the majesty of its splendor until gradually, they fused together into a soaring rhapsody that boosted the choral matrix far beyond the sum of its individual parts.
Out of that matrix rose three distinct, yet perfectly synchronized and complimentary chords of unity. Together, they commenced a woven work of wonder that mankind had never seen before, and most likely, would probably never see again.
It started as nothing more than a glistening haze evolving from the curtain of spray thrown up by the meteor’s obliteration. Crystallizing over Madagascar, it extended south toward the Cape of Africa and north around the Gulf of Oman and beyond it, toward India. There it met and blended with a similar haar extending from the southern tip of India toward Pakistan on one side and down across the Maldivian archipelago on the other. In turn, that translucent apparition merged with a third wall of swirling light braiding northward from the west coast of Australia and up past Sumatra, Thailand and Burma.
Once the miasma had metamorphosed into one distinct mass, it flared through all the colors of the rainbow and condensed into a blank gray wall. The surface of that edifice continued to shimmer, staining darker and darker until it stood transformed, looking for all the world like a vast opaque driftnet cast out with the sole purpose of trawling the abyssal plane between realities.
The sea receded at an alarming rate, making it appear as if the ocean’s floor had cracked in two and was now spilling the contents of its bowels out into the void of space. Those same waters emerged again minutes later, stacked into an unassailable cliff, twenty feet high and over a mile in breadth.
Myriads of onlookers had gathered along the shorelines of those lands encircled by the snare. Overcome by awe, they ignored the danger, so intent were they to experience whatever salvation was at hand, in the flesh.
They didn’t have to wait for long to see how the Guardians landed their catch.
A disturbing vibration thrummed through their feet; winds buffeted them from every angle, tearing at hair and clothes alike; the roar of the approaching tempest hurt the ears; a distinct tang of brine stung their nostrils. Then the thalassic precipice arrived, rushing headlong into the waiting curtain. The crowds held their breath, only to discover the flimsy looking construct was one enormous gateway; an ingenious fabrication designed to swallow the influx whole and spit it back out from whence it came.
And that’s exactly what happened over the next several minutes as the endless gullet expanded to the onrush and gulped it all down in one, long, continuous draught.
Within seconds of the surge ending, a vortex flared wide a mile above the epicenter of the original blast site. Resembling an inverted waterspout, it tossed and churned like a captive squall, descending from the heavens until it was a few hundred yards above the surface of the sea. A shiver passed through the length of the bore, and a deluge began falling from the eye of the maelstrom in an increasing torrent. The winds returned, whipping the wave caps and stirring the brume into a thickening cyclone of storm clouds that shed voluminous sheets of water in biblical proportions for more than an hour until equilibrium had been restored.
And in all that time, not a drop of moisture reached farther inland than the usual high tide mark.
*
The Olympus had remained stationary above the Indian Ocean to capture the spectacle for future generations. And as good fortune would have it, the only remaining functioning news crew on the planet was able to record events in ultra-magnified high definition glory. As the phenomenon came to an end and the remaining Guardians set about the task of assisting their own casualties and rendering aid to civilian survivors, Cathy was unable to express herself properly.
Whispering hoarsely to her colleague, she croaked, “Did you get all that, Brad? Please tell me you got it—every last little detail?”
Brad Zuckerman raised his camera toward her in salute, patted the lens cover, and replied, “Oh yes, and then some! And don’t forget the footage we’ll have on the camcorder.”
Cathy couldn’t help but punch the air. Finding her voice at last, she shouted at the top of her lungs, “Fuck you, Abaddon! Earth, one; planet killer, nil!”
“You’re going to have to edit that last bit out you know?” he teased, a smirk plastered all over his face.
Giving him a look that would shatter rock, she said . . .
*
Ever the pragmatist, Naomi quickly got herself into a routine.
While several of her own sensors were now functioning, the station was too badly damaged to change orbit, leaving her capability for global analysis severely reduced and confined solely to the southern hemisphere.
Within a few minutes, she’d had an idea. Requesting the Olympus to assume a new position over the North Pole, she was able to leapfrog her SEPs emitters through their scanners and start screening for signs of life in the more remote geographical regions.
Her quick thinking produced results, and Naomi was able to direct both Guardian and civilian emergency services to those most in need.
But this was Naomi Cruz and she was rarely so easily satisfied.
Not content merely to restore coverage, she commenced a series of secondary sweeps in the background to assess the worst of the environmentally damaged areas.
After an hour or so, repetitive tedium started to take its toll and curiosity finally got the better of her. Focusing the only remaining THOR array down onto the Antarctic, Naomi began to snoop about.
Now that’s odd. Apart from the permanent settlements at Amunden, Scott Polar Institute and the Russian Vostock Base, which are thankfully well outside the blast and contaminated area, only one other spot might cause concern. She paused to check her calculations. Yes, there it is. Kunlun, the new faculty funded by the Polar Research Institute of China. It’s quite near to Vostock and only four and a half miles from Dome A.
Checking her database again, Naomi confirmed the final sections of Kunlun’s habitat ring had only recently been completed and was not due to go fully operational until the summer. Why would the Lord Inquisitor want to lead this phase of the mopping up operations, especially as she’s only just wound things up in the Indian Ocean? Transcended or not, she must be exhausted by now. Surely there are lots of other commanders who could oversee the job here?
As she enjoyed a close-up view of the blast site itself, Naomi was amazed to see Victoria—now returned to her human form—suddenly materialize right over the crater. Descending rapidly to the ground, she erected a stealth shield and promptly disappeared from sight and from Naomi’s scanners. What the hell is she up to?
Naomi was about to focus one of the SEPs nodes onto the area when a precisely aimed mental voice needled into her brain: Guardian Master Cruz. Is there something I can help you with?
Frozen like a cat caught in headlights, Naomi fired off a hasty apology, cut the psi-optical link and flopped back in her cradle. Fuuuuck! Caught red-handed.
A part of her consciousness registered an ultra-refined telepathic intrusion, so intricately encrypted, she knew instantly it was meant to attract her attention without being overheard by anyone else. Accepting the call, Naomi braced herself for a scolding.
But she was in for a shock.
Well done, Victoria commended, warmly: You’ve demonstrated you can act discreetly without involving others, even when you’re itching to uncover what’s really going on. I should have known you’d take things further. I’m impressed! We’ll be keeping an even closer eye on you.
The Lord Inquisitor’s heavily shielded mind departed, leaving Naomi wondering what on earth she was doing in the vicinity of the Chinese station that required such secrecy. So far as Naomi was aware, the Guardians had no operational bases or research facilities there, that would warrant such personal attention.
And as fascinated as Naomi was, she was even more intrigued as to who Victoria meant by “we”.