Astra: Synchronicity by Lisa Eskra Read Free Book Online

limply to the ground. The air around them fell
silent. Aliane reached into her pocket and pulled out a
handkerchief, which she used to wipe the grimy residue off her
hand. "Well, that was unfulfilling."
    Zingeri stared at the lifeless body.
"Frankly, I don't believe a word she said. I doubt anyone could
keep a secret like that for long."
    She scratched her forehead. The Zoleki's
moved off Superbia long before Matt was conceived. During their
time here, his older brother Magnius displayed little psionic
ability and she'd always figured Matt had been the same way. "I
didn't get the impression she was lying. It's a lead worth checking
out in any event."
    "I mean, he'd have so many bodies piled up he
might as well have a target painted on his back. And I'm fairly
sure he's married."
    Aliane walked over to Zingeri and put her
hands on his shoulders. "I agree, it's a long shot. But we're going
to need powerful psions on our side if we want to get off this
rock." She turned her head and cast a quick glance toward Tiyuri.
"Dispose of that, would you?"
    "Of course." He tossed Kimber's corpse over
his shoulder and carried it toward the field beyond their
house.
    Zingeri watched him for a few moments before
Aliane put her hand on his face and moved it until their eyes
locked. "One of these days, Z…everything we desire will be ours."
She pressed her lips against his and kissed him. His boyish face
weathered the decades better than most, and he looked the same as
the day she'd met him. She almost loved him.
    When Tiyuri returned ten minutes later,
Aliane led him inside to one of the computers downstairs. She
brought up a map of Bordelaise, Fantasti. "I want you to pay Matt a
visit. See if there's any truth to that woman's story. I want him
to join us."
    "And if he refuses?" Tiyuri inquired.
    Her lips curled into a wicked smile. "You
know what to do."
     
    ***
     
    "Did you hear the one about the Psiman and
the Asian whore?"
    Commander Mundammi gazed across the dirty
cityscape, paying little attention to the off-color jokes of his
crewmates. Between the patchwork clouds and the smog of Kivara,
there appeared to be no sun in the sky at all. Multicolored neon
from a sign above them cast an unnatural haze across the ruined
piles of stone nearby. They loitered in a part of the city few
talked about, where subculture and the black market ran free. Pisa
was the final frontier as far as most people were concerned and
definitely not a place for the timid.
    The location of the rendezvous point hadn't
been Rashad's decision. They'd been waiting several hours for their
contact and nothing. At least the streets had been calm tonight. He
lifted a hashish cigarette to his lips and took a long drag off it.
One of his companions, a young lieutenant named Sibo Chen, turned
to him and asked, "Do you think he's coming?"
    Rashad ran a hand through his black curls. "I
don't know. That fighting south of here was intense for a while.
Thirty more minutes and I'll send you back to the ship to see what
our orders are."
    "Is it the gangs or the PAU and UE waging war
out there?"
    "The echo of the WX80 tells me it's the war."
Railguns produced a distinct sonic boom because their ammunition
traveled ten times faster than the speed of sound. "I'd say they're
almost hundred miles away. In Serpent's Vale probably. I got my
start in the fleet as a ground soldier. A have some friends based
in the area."
    "What was it like—being a soldier?"
    "Not much different than sitting at the
weapons controls of a ship, to be honest. We're trained in physical
combat, but the days of waging that kind of war are long gone.
Everything is controlled remotely from bunkers. It's all about
strategic deterrence and attrition with the latest and greatest
robotic war-machines. Very rarely is anyone killed, and when they
are it's more about being in the wrong place at the wrong
time."
    If actual people had been involved in combat,
he doubted United Europe would have staked a claim to this