WHOLE

  HEART

  Book 2: The Forever Children

  Frank Kennedy

  Dedicated to anyone who hears

  a special call

  c. 2025 by Frank Kennedy

  All rights reserved

  ASIN: B0DTBMQP7G

  A note from the author:

  The Forever Children is set in the universe of the Collectorate, which includes at least four other series. Reading them is not a prerequisite. However, if you want a wider look at the Collectorate, please check out those offerings.

  I’d love for you to become part of my literary family. Sign up for my newsletter, which drops every three weeks along with free books and special offers. You can also follow me on Facebook, where you’ll find me hanging out daily. Come on over and let’s chat!

  1

  Collectorate Standard Year (SY) 5394, Standard Day 140

  United Naval Forces Central Command

  Esqualion Star System

  EXETER WOOLSEY TOSSED WHAT remained of his cigar into the snuffer. He tidied himself before a mirror, brushing away a touch of lint and straightening his Admiral’s bar. Fourteen years worn with pride. Today, pride went into hiding.

  The High Admiral holstered his laser pistol, which had become a fifth appendage. Used to be, Exeter could roam Central Command unarmed and secure in his safety. Now he went nowhere without it.

  He had stopped beating himself up over the state of his UNF. Exeter learned from his foolish belief that the Oath would defeat all threats to the chain of command.

  That no one wearing the blue and gray could become an enemy.

  His office door chimed.

  “Enter.”

  Maj. Bradley Geyermann stopped just inside the threshold.

  “They’re ready, sir.”

  “How many?”

  “Seventeen, as requested. Good men. They’ll do the job.”

  The little successes matter.

  “Thank you, Brad.”

  Loyalty mattered more now than ever. Exeter knew Geyermann’s unwavering commitment; the man took a hit to his left thigh retaking Central. Almost lost the leg.

  “Let’s get it done and move on,” Exeter said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Exeter walked abreast of Geyermann through the tense but quiet corridors. Only a few officers outside the Admiralty knew what was about to happen, but most had assumed its inevitability.

  Exeter took names and intended to keep close surveillance on cowards who favored the so-called ‘circumspect’ approach of prison with hard labor.

  Never mind the tribunal verdicts of guilty on all counts. Never mind the deaths. The conscious acts of treason. The confessions.

  They took the lift down three levels and approached their destination. Two rows of eight soldiers, each brandishing a Mark 14 blast rifle, came to attention and saluted.

  “At ease,” the High Admiral said. Exeter had words to offer, but stopped short when he saw Geyermann take a spot at the end of the front row.

  “I’m number seventeen, sir,” the Major said.

  Exeter nodded; Geyermann had good reason to finish this job. Exeter clasped his hands behind his back and stared down the line of otherwise low-level officers.

  “I’ll be brief,” he began. “On day one, you raised a hand and recited the Oath of Allegiance. You bound your lives to upholding the ideals of the UNF. An Oath to repel all enemies domestic and interstellar. The men and women inside betrayed the Oath.

  “Some might have been your friends or superiors. Now, they’re the enemy. I take no joy in what we must do. But if the Oath means so little, the UNF will not survive. If we fall, the Collectorate follows. Your true friends, your families. All in danger.

  “When you push the trigger button, remember: Compromise is not a soldier’s duty.”

  He turned to Geyermann.

  “Major, lead them inside.”

  They entered the tactical hall, normally reserved for battle simulations. The phasic divider barriers used to construct close-combat scenarios had been moved toward the large hall’s rear, leaving ample floor space. Eighteen handcuffed and hooded men and women stood against a far wall dressed in black.

  Geyermann halted the execution squad; Exeter advanced toward the prisoners and spoke to a guard.

  “Which one is he, Lt. Honing?”

  The officer pointed to the fourth man from the right.

  “Red spot on his chest, Admiral.”

  They labelled the man as requested.

  Exeter removed the prisoner’s hood. Ex-High Admiral Sike Nagano stared through the true High Admiral, a long scar between his nose and right ear. Someone showed the traitor mercy rather than finish the job. Exeter appreciated that one bit of restraint; otherwise, he would’ve been deprived of today’s satisfaction.

  Exeter turned to Lt. Honing and another guard.

  “Lead the first eight into position.”

  Exeter stood behind the squad as Geyermann instructed eight soldiers to take their spots. None of those about to die said a word. No pleas for mercy. And, to Exeter’s mild surprise, no shouts of defiance. These Requiem traitors had been unruly during the tribunals, perhaps hoping their message would gain traction across the fleet. Yet the closed trials had preordained outcomes with classified transcripts. Exeter intended to destroy the data spools.

  He wasted no time.

  “Aim.” They raised their blast rifles. “Fire.”

  A small but brief flame ignited in each traitor’s chest before they crumpled into a miserable mess.

  “First squad dismissed.”

  As the initial eight executioners departed the tactical room, Exeter nodded to Lt. Honing’s people to escort nine of the remaining ten to their end. Nagano stood alone, witness to the tragedy he brought on. Nagano’s accomplices, most based in Central during the coup but a few others later transferred here to hold off a counterattack, lined up in front of the corpses.

  “Positions,” Geyermann said.

  Again, no fanfare. Exeter gave two simple commands, and nine more brainwashed traitors met a summary end.

  “Second squad dismissed. As are you, Major.”

  “If I may, Admiral, I’d prefer to see this through.”

  Geyermann didn’t like the role Exeter chose for himself. He was so much more than a fine officer; Brad was a great friend.

  “Stay here,” Exeter whispered then approached the ringleader.

  Nagano neither acknowledged him nor appeared at all distressed over the seventeen bodies laid low for following his orders. Exeter grabbed his sidearm and motioned toward the deceased.

  “Move.”

  The ex-Admiral, who joined Exeter for a steak dinner five days before the coup, acknowledged the order with a sly grin and a shake of the head. He sauntered to the spot where he’d soon die and found a position in front of the second row of bodies.

  “No,” Exeter said. “I want you in the midst of them.”

  Nagano complied with a long, dark sigh and turned to face his executioner. But he did not finish the move as Exeter expected. Rather, Nagano fell to his knees and stared up at the High Admiral with a smug glow.

  “I trust you’re not about to beg,” Exeter said.

  “You wanted satisfaction, Woolsey. Granted.”

  An arrogant prick to the end.

  “I’ll give you more deference than your rats. Final words, Sike?”

  Exeter regretted the choice even as the words passed his lips. Nagano responded with a sneer.

  “They may follow your orders, Woolsey, but no one on this base respects you. They never have. You’re a fraud. Always were. You rose on the strength of exaggerated heroism and the political bent of your past superiors. Your complacency gave comfort to the enemy and allowed Black Star to rise from nothing.

  “And it is a pox upon this great navy to be led by an Aeternan. I die with the satisfaction of knowing you’ll live long enough to see your name erased from the historical record.”

  Exeter had no idea who said those words: The once-respected Sike Nagano or the new personality implanted by Requiem. He didn’t care to explore the question and proceeded with a pithy reply.

  “Your family will never receive your remains.”

  Those words erased the smugness. Nagano’s eyes widened.

  “What? You can’t. That’s in violation of the UNF code for ...”

  “Hypocritical coming from you. Do I seem like a man who cares?”

  “You will when I haunt your dreams, Woolsey. These soldiers deserve to be returned to their families.”

  “They will. Not you.”

  Nagano’s upper lip quaked, as it was known to do in moments of fury. Exeter expected the man to make a final, desperate lunge.

  “You should have been removed years ago, Woolsey. I ...”

  Exeter allowed his hand to do the rest. It pushed the trigger and delivered a burst of superheated plasma into Nagano’s forehead. His brain roasted.

  The traitor fell sideways and lay among the conspirators. Exeter pumped two more blasts into his chest. A satisfying excess.

  He holstered the pistol and motioned his officers forward.

  “Lieutenant, contact the disposal team. Make sure they follow the procedure as Maj. Geyermann laid out. Understood?”

  Honing nodded stone-faced.

  “Yes, Admiral. And what of Nagano?”

  “No change in protocol. He left this life angry and
resentful, the way he lived it. A fitting end. His ashes will be sent home like all the others.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m on it.”

  Exeter led Geyermann away from the scene of death and waited for the disposal team.

  “How are you, Brad?”

  The Major took a long, deep breath.

  “Good, sir. I must admit, I took some relish in how you spun it around on that bastard at the end. But I have to ask: How are you, Admiral? For whatever we think of him, Nagano served for twenty-five years. He was a respected officer until he turned.”

  Exeter laid a hand on his Major’s shoulder.

  “A man’s legacy is often defined by his worst choice. The rest are quickly forgotten. Sike Nagano was a murderer and a traitor. He deserved worse, but we don’t have time for worse. We need to cleanse this fleet of the Requiem virus. Understood?”

  “I do, sir, and you’re just the man to root out that filth.”

  He did.

  In the next standard month, ninety-seven Requiem loyalists were exposed, tried, executed, and cremated. Quietly. Never in the public eye. Just enough to allow whispers to pass through the fleet. Enough for every enlisted man and woman to understand the consequence of violating the Oath.

  When the last surveillance vetting confirmed that the UNF had cleansed itself of the virus, Exeter set a new timetable.

  Eight months later, he announced his pending retirement.

  Nagano’s last words echoed through his mind:

  Fraud. Exaggerated heroism. Complacency. A pox upon this navy. Haunt your dreams.

  On one count, the traitor wasn’t far off: Exeter never had a good night’s sleep while he remained at Central Command.

  The day before his farewell address, Exeter invited Geyermann to a quiet dinner, where they shared tales of service, smoked cigars, and indulged in an outrageously expensive bottle of whiskey.

  “I’d be honored, Brad, if you’d handle Nav for my trip home.”

  Exeter left a note with his successor, recommending Geyermann for the next appointment to the Admiralty, and jumped to Aeterna.

  Three standard days later, a chunk of Aeterna imploded, forming a chasm one hundred kilometers in diameter by fifty kilometers deep. Exobiologist Shoan Gui returned from the dead and called himself Judge of the Change. And Exeter’s husband Caleb received a so-called ‘gift’ which he then refused to share with anyone.

  Exeter returned to uniform, prepared to fight a potential new enemy more confounding than the humans who betrayed him.

  Fifty standard days into his new job, Aeternan Defense Forces Commander Woolsey sat in his team’s operations center onboard the Battle Cruiser Lioness, enveloped in a cloud of cigar smoke.

  He studied the topographical surveys compiled from two months of analyzing the chasm, which remained shrouded beneath a toxic fog in Continental Sector Grid 49.

  Fog.

  What else to call it? The cloud hung above the chasm’s lip with an unnatural constancy from the day it rose. Every scan suggested nothing unusual about its composition – until drones malfunctioned and disappeared within seconds after entering.

  Exeter studied laboratory data dumps from the six outposts stationed around the chasm at a safe three kilometers.

  He didn’t understand much of the scientific minutiae, and those patterns thus far yielded few clues. His three-person Lioness team had the wherewithal to translate into lay language.

  Exeter could devise counter strategies against the Swarm and Black Star. But this?

  “I see a man knotted by frustration, X.”

  ADF Adm. Rafael Kane popped in unannounced. He had a knack for breaking up moments of confounding silence.

  “An understatement, Rafa. We should be further along.”

  “To the positive: It hasn’t grown in two months. Except for a few terrified pilgrims, life is reasonably calm in the cities.”

  “Oh? Is that what you hear? I think your intel might be shoddy.”

  Rafael sighed.

  “I’ve heard nothing of riots in the streets. Then again, I’m not much of a terrestrial sort.”

  Exeter didn’t want to add to his worries by delving into the shifting landscape of the planetary population. That would lead in too many directions, with one curling back to his husband’s fiasco.

  “Not to worry. I’ve got that business covered, as much as I can. Any new reports about the interloper at system’s edge?”

  Rafael shook his head.

  “Another probe, most likely. Could’ve been SI, UNF, Black Star, a corporate spy. They’re all curious.”

  “Yeah. Well. I waited too long to shut down pilgrim deepstream access. By now, I’m sure the stories are cascading, each wilder than the one before.”

  Rafael cleared his throat.

  “Lay that burden on the Council. You warned them.”

  “Not with sufficient urgency. I’ve been accused of complacency before. In other words, I don’t yell loud or often enough.”

  The Admiral chuckled.

  “You’re stern, X, but you do stop shy of a blood-curdling scream. Perhaps if you sounded more like a raving lunatic.”

  “Funny.”

  “I mean it. You’re too hard on yourself. We’re up against ... well, if against is the right word ... aliens who destroy and rebuild planets. At this point, I see no flaw in your approach.”

  To date, Exeter only heard flak from those who opposed his citizen travel ban to within five hundred kay of the new Exclusion Zone. Woolsey-authorized personnel only. The information embargo kept chatter to a minimum and most Aeternans somewhat calm in the face of continued uncertainty.

  “If my approach backfires, I’m sure the questions will be ...”

  Exeter’s Occip comm opened. He crimped his left pinkie, and his irises turned sunrise orange. His second eyes locked onto the lead biologist’s face, which rose atop the virtual turntable.

  “Talk to me, Jarvis.”

  The man often struggled with a bit of a stutter, but he gave a full-throated response this time.

  “We need you, Commander. We’ve made a breakthrough.”

  2

  Exclusion Zone Research Outpost 4

  Plains of Trevia, 3 kilometers south of chasm

  EXETER LANDED HIS SCRAMJET in a clearing beside the outpost’s assigned Scram and a fleet of long-haul rifters. A cloud of yellow moths greeted him outside the starboard egress, their strange attraction to the heat of Carbedyne fins evident since the first team landed.

  He stared across the flat, grassy landscape toward the gray blur spanning the entire northern horizon. The fog rose a hundred meters above the surface. So far, toxicity levels did not extend more than a few meters beyond the fog’s perimeter, but Exeter took no chances. Any researcher traveling inside one kay of the blurry wall needed to wear a protective suit and breathing apparatus.

  A westerly breeze kicked up, rustling through the mixed grasses, bentwheat stalks, and orange succulents called whirligig cacti. This ecostem, repeated eighteen times worldwide, originated on the planet Boer. Every biologist’s theory so far agreed: The Jewels of Eternity decorated Aeterna with a quilt of ecostems drawn from the other thirty-nine Collectorate worlds.

  The outpost’s security officer, holstering two pistols, greeted Exeter with a salute.

  “Commander Woolsey. Welcome back.”

  He reciprocated the salute for Lt. Neva Saludi then pointed to her shiny scalp.

  “Someone’s had a haircut.”

  The Lieutenant wiped a hand over her bald dome.

  “It’s more or less involuntary, sir. I’ve been scratching terribly for weeks. Doc Onweyo ran a blood test. Airborne mites from the bentwheat. He suggested a special lotion but said the only quick remedy is ... as you see.”

  The development came as news to Exeter, who visited this outpost a dozen times since it activated. He massaged his fifty-day-old beard.

  “Mites, you say.”

  “Wouldn’t worry, sir, unless you’ve had a steady itch. I’m the only one here who’s been affected.”

  Exeter chuckled. Something else to heighten his paranoia.

  “The next time I scratch, I’ll think of you. Lead the way.”

  They approached the complex, which consisted of three domed modules similar to many GeoSurvey outposts erected planetwide over the decades, most under the late Aldo Cabrise’s watch.

  “Jarvis seems more excited than usual, Lieutenant. What am I walking into?”

  She smirked.