Read Online Crystal Rebellion by Doug J. Cooper - Free Book Online

during
the run up to his birth, everyone at Crystal Sciences was out bragging. It was
his staged death later that moved him to an underground existence.”
    Juice’s calm behavior eased some of Criss’s concern over his
misstep.
    Cheryl was ex-Fleet. She’d weigh his mistake in terms of damage
to the mission and move forward from there.
    Sid, who before Criss’s birth had worked as a covert warrior
for the Defense Specialists Agency—an elite force of clandestine warriors
serving the Union of Nations—wouldn’t even categorize what happened as an
error. With years of experience as an improviser for the DSA, he knew that
field ops were messy. In fact, “shit happens” described his general philosophy of
life.
    Juice, on the other hand, tended to think with her heart as
much as her head, and the anticipation and uncertainty over her rekindled
relationship with Alex left her feeling anxious. When combined with alarming
information about unidentified sentient crystals on Mars, Criss worried that
she would lash out at him.
    He spoke into her ear. “Alex will be safe. I’ll make it a
priority.”
    She looked at him with a grim smile and nodded.
    “It has to be the Kardish,” said Cheryl. “It’s an Occam’s
razor thing. Go with the obvious answer.”
    “Have you seen any evidence of them?” Sid asked Criss.
    “Nothing except for the crystal, which is convincing
evidence by itself. At the same time, I’m having difficulty forecasting a
coherent scenario that explains how the Kardish would come to be hiding on Mars.”
    “If aliens have invaded our solar system,” said Cheryl.
“Then we need intel and we need it now.” She accessed her com. Criss,
monitoring the feeds, watched her skim the inventory of weapons on the Venerable. She nodded her head toward the scene with the synbods on the walkway. “Can you
tap any more of the colony feeds from here? Without getting caught?”
    “This isn’t a live feed. I grabbed it on my way out. And they’re
on alert now. If I were to go fishing for intel at this point, I’d be up
against that crystal in short order.” He waited a moment and, when no one
spoke, continued, “Me riding in with the scout is the safest way for us to
approach the colony.”
    “You really want to wait that long?” asked Sid. “I’ve always
been an ‘offense is the best defense’ kind of guy.”
    “The crystal is anxious to learn who I am and what I want.
As time passes and it does not find me, it will increase its risk profile.
Perhaps it will become careless. That would be to our advantage.”
    “What do we do for the next two days?” asked Cheryl.
    “Brainstorm,” said Sid and Criss together.
    Criss launched a frenzy of activity, planning where to land the
scout, how to move about the colony undetected, how to identify and isolate the
Kardish, and how to confront the crystal, all without putting his leadership in
danger. A hundred activities—every one of them vital—competed for his cognitive
resources, and balancing the load among the different tasks required additional
effort.
    A muted throb deep in the core of his cognition matrix caused
a dull ache. He’d long ago categorized it as stress.
    “Juice,” he called in private. “I wonder if we might chat
about how to move forward after we land.” He believed she wanted to share her
worries with someone—Juice found therapeutic value in verbalizing her
concerns—and he wanted to help.
    Juice confirmed her desire to talk by rising from her chair.
“I’m going to my cabin to commune with Criss.” She gave Sid and Cheryl a
shallow smile. “Keep me in the loop as things develop.”
    As Juice disappeared down the passageway, Cheryl stepped to
the ops bench and, standing in the space next to the pilot’s chair, tapped and
swiped to enable the body link. She launched a lifelike spacecraft simulator
that she’d programmed to respond to her physical movements.
    With the body link active, piloting the simcraft became