Aces High

The chopper landed in the clearing and Gulgowski, clutching the evidence that would damn a score of men as traitors, chivied the others to their ride home. Bre

He heard the screams of his men, half-turned, and felt a searing flash of pain as a slug creased his forehead. He went down and his rifle spun away from him into the darkness. The shots had come from the clearing. From the chopper.

He flopped silently on the ground, staring into the clearing with pain-misted eyes. His men lay sprawled in the starlight. All of them were down. Other men walked among them, searching. He blinked blood out his eyes as one of the searchers, dressed in ARVN-style fatigues, shot Gulgowski in the head with a pistol as the sergeant tried to stand.

A flashlight beam picked out the killer's face. It was Kien. Bre

There were no lights in this darkness, but sudden hands of cool fire on his cheeks. They burned with a soothing touch. He felt all his pain and grief and anger drawn outward through them bit by slow bit, taken away from him like a worn-out cloak. He sighed deeply, content to remain in the healing darkness, as a sea of ineffable serenity washed over him. He was done, he thought, with strife, with killing. None of the killing had ever done any good anyway. Evil lived. Evil and Kien. He killed my father, but I can not, should not, harm him. It is wrong to bring harm to another sentient being, wrong…

Confused, Bre

She was using her wild card power to take his damaged body to herself, make repairs, and order Bre

She opened her eyes and smiled with- the serenity of a mado

"Hello, Captain Bre

She took her palms from his cheeks and the mingling of minds ended with the breaking of physical contact. He sighed, missing her touch already, missing the serenity that he could never in a thousand years find again on his own.

The man who had been with Mai in the corridor came to his bedside. It was Dr. Tachyon.

"It was touch and go there for a moment," Tachyon said, a look of concern on his face. "Thank the Ideal for Mai…" He let his voice trail off, regarding Bre

Bre

"Is that what it's called?" he asked. Tachyon nodded. "What is it?"

"A teleporting device. One of the rarest artifacts in the galaxy. I thought it was gone, lost forever."

"It's yours, then?"

"I had it for a while." Tachyon told Bre

"Eh?" Tachyon glanced from Bre

"A Chinatown street gang. The Immaculate Egrets. They're also known as the Snow Birds because they control a good deal of the city's hard-drug trade. They were apparently using this shifter device to smuggle heroin. I took it away from them, but was wounded by one of their more… extraordinary operatives."

"It vanished when we landed in Harlem," Tachyon said. "Perhaps an Egret was in the crowd that gathered around us?"

"And took it, realizing what it was? Not likely," Bre

"Well, however it turned up, I'm glad it did," Tachyon said. "It provides the possibility of a splendid alternative to Lankesters foolish plan of attacking the Swarm in space."

"The Swarm?" Bre

"It's a long story." Tachyon sighed and ran a hand across his face. "A man from the State Department named Lankester is in charge of the Anti-Swarm Task Force. He's been pestering me for weeks now to use my influence with the aces to convince them to attack the Swarm Mother-the source of the Swarm attacks-that's in an eccentric orbit around the sun. Its a nonsensical idea, of course. It would be suicide for even the most powerful aces to go up against that thing. It would be like gnats flinging themselves against an elephant. The singularity shifter, however, presents some interesting possibilities."

"It can teleport a man that far?" Bre

"Someone totally unfamiliar with it, as, say, yourself," Tachyon said, "could use the shifter to teleport short distances. It would take a powerful telepath to reach the Swarm Mother. But it could be done. A man could shift himself into the interior of the thing. A man armed with, say, a tactical nuclear device."

Bre

" I was sure you would. I'm explaining all this to you because, pragmatically speaking, the singularity shifter is yours."

Bre

"I'm in your debt," Bre

"Thank you," he said. He glanced at Mai, looked at Bre

Bre