IMPOSSIBLE RESCUE

  TIN MAN SPACE OPERA ADVENTURE

  BOOK FOUR

  JAMES DAVID VICTOR

  Copyright © 2023 James David Victor

  All Rights Reserved

  Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All people, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination and / or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Thank You

  1

  Liezl Danbury didn't take reality for granted anymore.

  She’d seen many things in the last five years that had turned her perception of it on its head. Instantaneous travel from one side of the galaxy to the other. Alien races conquering Earth. Friends disappearing through holes in space.

  But this felt different.

  "You have a beard." She resisted the urge to reach out and touch it.

  Shoji Moran appeared in the middle of a ceremony celebrating the end of a war, the liberation of Earth, events that occurred because of his death. Like an old friend through the door of a coffee shop ready to catch up.

  Shoji twirled his fingers through the unkempt, black hair covering his chin. "Couldn't find a good barber." There was no humor in his voice. It might have been there had it not been blunted by impatience. "How much longer?"

  They sat in a conference room in the administrative building of the Vandenberg Memorial Site. Nostalgia pressed in on the edges of the moment, reminding Liezl of a time so long ago, about four years now, that it felt like an impossible dream. A time when the cracks in her mirror were just beginning to form, when manipulating the universe was hypothetical. She sat across from Shoji then much as she did now, but they were both different people then. She a mid-level corporate gopher, he a hotshot pilot with a chip on his shoulder. She held one of the top civilian posts in the Earth Defense Initiative now, responsible for shepherding the organization toward living up to the weight of its name.

  He was...someone else.

  "Not long. Grand Admiral Kyle is briefing the commanders. Probably not an easy conversation to have. You understand." She meant it playfully, a dig at the bureaucracy they used to laugh at together.

  But he didn't seem in the mood to play.

  Not surprising, Liezl told herself. He was never the playful type. Plus, there was the whole...

  "What happened?" She was surprised to hear the words out in the open and not in her head. But then, she was never the quiet type. "On the other side of the gate?"

  A shadow passed over Shoji's face that made him look even stranger to her than the beard did. She’d glimpsed that shadow when she first met him, when his history was so heavy that it dragged him backward like a point of inescapable gravity anchored in his past. When the idea of a future was laughable. This shadow was different. It had grown. It was alive. A monster swallowing him from the inside.

  He looked down at his hands, both open and on the table. One flesh and blood. The other metal. That cybernetic arm also seemed to have changed. It too had a gravity now, a heaviness, a presence. Liezl remembered then that there was a retractable blade sheathed within it.

  The door opened before he could answer—if he had intended to in the first place.

  An aide stuck her head in. She whispered, the heaviness in the air leaving room for little else. "They're ready, Ms. Danbury. Main briefing room."

  Liezl nodded, and the aide closed the door. Liezl turned back to Shoji. Neither of them moved. She waited, as though expecting him to say something. Maybe just hoping he would.

  "They're going to ask a lot of questions." She said it like it like a warning. "It might be easier to say some of it out loud first. Just with a friend."

  Shoji stood. He shook his hands like he was trying to get the feeling back in his fingers. "I've been through this before."

  The heaviness in the room pressed down on her. It was a gas, one with weight and volume, but one that could be dispelled with the strike of a match. The more the gas spread, the more it displaced the oxygen, making it increasingly difficult to spark a flame or breath or speak.

  She stood. "This way."

  She led Shoji out of the room, feeling like she was escorting a prisoner to his sentencing.

  The gathered EDI commanders didn't read the mood. They stood and saluted. They expected a hero to enter. They expected a man grateful to be home, happy to continue his duty, to tell his story.

  They did not expect Shoji Mora.

  Grand Admiral William Kyle was the exception. He knew Shoji. He knew the man who went through the gate knowing it would mean death. He knew instantly that the man who removed his helmet in the middle of the dedication ceremony was not that same man.

  Kyle stood stone still, but Liezl read the discomfort on his face. Kyle saw it in her face, mirrored back at him.

  Shoji didn't return the salute. He took his seat and drummed his metal fingers on the table.

  Before the moment could turn sour and awkward, Kyle said, "Sit, commanders. I'm sure Captain Mora is tired. Let's not keep him."

  The commanders sat, all in a straight line with Kyle at the center, elevated, so they looked down at Shoji. Liezl had a seat with them as the senior civilian consultant, but she sat next to Shoji instead. The atmosphere only added to her sense of unease, of imbalance, and she felt compelled to even the scales as much as she could.

  "Before we begin," Kyle said, "I just want to say, personally, how happy and relieved I am to see you." His voice caught in his throat. He cleared it and waited until he was able to speak with detached authority again. "The EDI, the entire planet, owes you a great deal, Captain Mora."

  Shoji shifted in his chair. The black hole inside him grew. Liezl felt it tug at her.

  "But I know how little you care for praise," Kyle continued, tossing baking soda on the moment before it could turn acidic. "So, let's just get on with it."

  Shoji shifted again, and Liezl felt something in the air shift along with him. She realized before he spoke that there was a gap between his intention and the commanders' understanding.

  "The war you're memorializing isn't over," Shoji said, and the words were like needles, pricking the freshly-pressed fabric of the commanders' uniforms. Shoji scanned the room, looking at maps and troop numbers and fleet diagnostics that weren't there. "If you get me into..." His voice froze in his throat. That shadow passed over his face again. "The lab. I can help narrow down their location. I just need—"

  "Pardon me, Captain Mora." A short, stocky man with a combover—Commander Martin Jessup—cut Shoji off. Jessup was a veteran of the EDI, a holdover from the British military. He spoke carefully, like he never wanted to risk a syllable going missing during a conversation. "I think there may be some confusion as to the purpose of this briefing."

  Liezl's insides shriveled up like a slug sprinkled with salt. She wanted to crawl under the table.

  "If there's confusion, then it's on your part," Shoji said. "Because there is only one reason I'm here."

  "Right now, that reason is to tell us what happened to you after you passed through the jump-gate three years ago." Commander Jessup's voice remained steady, his mouth never opening far enough to slide in a cracker.

  "I'm here to tell you that the threat we faced three years ago, the one you all seem to think we defeated, is still very much alive."

  "It is our job to assess the threat," Jessup persisted, "once we have all the pertinent information."

  "No need, Commander. I've already assessed it."

  "That is not your place." Jessup had a reputation as steady man, but also one that followed protocol to the letter. One of those reputations threatened to overtake the other.

  Grand Admiral Kyle cleared his throat. The room fell silent. "Captain Mora has earned some leniency, Commander Jessup. We will hear his story when he is ready to tell it."

  "Grand Admiral..." Jessup started. He closed his sliver of a mouth before anything else could come out.

  Kyle extended a hand, offering Shoji the floor.

  "Thank you, Commander." Shoji shut his eyes and let out a long breath. "Sorry. Grand Admiral."

  Kyle nodded and smiled. "Tell you the truth, I'm still getting used to it myself."

  Some of the tension melted from Shoji's shoulders. The shadow receded to the edges of his face, and Liezl was happy to see him again.

  "As I was saying," Shoji continued, "the war isn't over. The Vhast were being controlled by the Baz Empire."

  "We know this," said a tall woman with a tight ponytail. Commander Marisa Gomez. Straight-to-the-point and little tolerance for wasted time.

  "You don't know anything," Shoji shot back. "The Vhast were their front-line scouts. They were a fraction of a fraction of the full power of the Baz."

  This sent a ripple of concern through the commanders. Shoji straighte
ned a little more, seemingly pleased with the impact.

  "And how would you propose we resist such a force when we barely repelled a fraction of a fraction of their overall strength?" Gomez ran her hand down the length of her ponytail, tugging on it like and making herself look overly alert.

  "We can't," Shoji said. "Not on our own. There are others already fighting the Baz. We add our strength to theirs."

  This seemed as impossible a proposition as stepping through a metal ring and appearing on the other side of the galaxy.

  "Alien species?" Jessup said. "You propose we join forces with alien species with whom we have no diplomatic relations to fight off another alien species with whom we have no diplomatic relations?"

  "Diplomatic..." The shadow pulled at the edges of Shoji's face again. "They attacked us. On Mars and at home. They killed how many? Have you even calculated the death toll from the Vhast invasion?"

  "Exactly," Jessup said with an air of victory. "The Vhast invasion. We still have no concrete proof that the Baz are the power behind this. We have hearsay. No solid intel on the Baz or their intentions."

  Shoji shut his eyes. Liezl thought she spied a tear forming along the lower ridges before the shadow closed in and swallowed them.

  "What about the front half of that Baz ship that's still floating out there?" The sound of her voice startled her. Liezl hadn't meant to say that aloud.

  Jessup narrowed his eyes on her. "Our techs are still studying it. We can't confirm who it belonged to, let alone its reason for crossing through the gate."

  "Cowards." The word was a knife stabbed into the table.

  Jessup leaned forward on his elbows, his butt nearly coming out of his seat. "Need I remind you, Captain—"

  "You don't!" Shoji exploded. "I have been a prisoner of war on the other side of the universe for three years. You will never need to remind me of anything."

  "That's exactly my point," Jessup said. "You have been gone for three years. We have protocol for this for a reason. We need to debrief you, Captain Mora, and you need to undergo a thorough psychological evaluation. You show up out of the blue speaking of an enemy that exists somewhere out there in the universe. We have no idea how you even got here. We have no idea where you’ve been. We don’t know who the Baz are or where they are. You're quite right in that we don't know anything."

  Jessup looked pleadingly at Grand Admiral Kyle.

  Kyle shift in chair. He closed his eyes a moment in consideration before speaking. “Captain Mora, I understand you’ve been through a lot. You must know we can’t authorize involving Earth in an intergalactic war with an enemy that we know nothing about without some time to consider. We just need—"

  "They're alive." Shoji's voice was glass, a bottle slipping from the tenuous grip of a drunk staggering down the middle of the street. "My crew. They're alive. If you won't authorize military engagement, then at least send me back with what I need to get my people. A small strike force. Get me in the lab. I can figure out how to get them back." The glass shattered and spread jagged shards in a hundred different directions.

  Kyle nodded to Liezl, and she knew. She touched Shoji's shoulder, eased him out of his seat as he hunched forward, tears dropping on the table.

  "Give us some time, Captain Mora," Kyle said.

  Liezl ushered Shoji away.

  Liezl stood outside Shoji's room long enough to find a trail in the grain of the wood that ran from top to bottom. She knocked. No answer, no sounds from the other side, but she knew he was in there, listening.

  "Grand Admiral Kyle wants to speak with you. Privately. None of the commanders will be there. Just a conversation between..." Kyle told her to say this, but it felt wrong, like a trick. "Friends."

  She followed the trail from bottom to top.

  The door opened. Shoji was a dark shape against a dark background, no lights on in his room to cut an outline. "Where?"

  "I'll show you."

  As they left the administrative building behind, Liezl remembered the old days again. It wasn’t so long ago by the standard measurement of time, five years is nothing in a lifetime, but experience had distorted everything. All that had happened since those days made them seem so long ago, like they happened to someone else.

  She remembered the subtle flirting, the playfulness. Shoji making it obvious that he hated the whole system, the bureaucracy, and she playing along, making it seem like she did too. In truth, she hated parts of it—the people she answered to, mostly—but she felt like she was part of something. It was when Shoji returned after the battle of Mars that she found real purpose in her belonging.

  She felt at odds with herself now. She loved her new role in the EDI, helping to shape an organization that had the most important purpose she could imagine: protecting the human race and its home. The same organization was now a roadblock to the man who showed her what true purpose was.

  They stopped at their meeting spot before Shoji noticed where they were, his eyes on the ground the whole time, but Shoji felt its presence as they stood at its feet. His eyes were drawn up until they rested on the big metal face of Tin Man, a hundred feet above.

  "He hasn't flown since that day." Kyle stepped out from behind Tin Man's left leg. "Wasn't anyone else who felt up to sitting in your seat. I didn't have the heart to put him back in the air anyway."

  Shoji followed a path from top to bottom until his eyes were back on the ground. "Just say it."

  "The commanders won't agree to authorizing a military operation." Kyle let the words hang. "I'm going to be honest with you, Mora. I always have been, and you deserve nothing less. They don't trust you."

  Liezl gasped, but Shoji was unmoved.

  "They want you to go through the process," Kyle continued. "Debrief. Psych eval. Then they'll start listening. And then they'll start planning."

  "Months," Liezl said.

  Shoji shook his head. "We don't have that kind of time."

  "I'm sorry," Kyle said. "I can't force their hand. Without the commanders' buy-in, there is no mission."

  The air was heavy with something unsaid. Liezl could feel it, the absence. She looked at Kyle with a scrunched-up face. "What?"

  Kyle turned and stood at Shoji's shoulder. He looked up at Tin Man. "I got the commanders to reinstate you. Tin Man is yours. Oh, and you've been promoted. Congratulations, Commander Mora. Your first assignment begins tomorrow."

  2

  A new mission.

  A new mission?

  A new mission?!

  There was only one mission.

  Shoji thought at least Commander Kyle would understand that. Grand Admiral Kyle. A fat promotion, head of the planet's military. A man who knew Shoji Mora better than any other on Earth, and still, nothing.

  He wasn't expecting the keys to the kingdom when he agreed to this, but Shoji was hoping for more than nothing. He told them he would bring help. He told them he would be back. He told them they would only need to wait a little bit longer. They nodded and smiled like they believed him.

  Shoji believed them. Their faith in him. He believed it was deserved.

  He ran his fingers over the newly smooth skin on his face. His hand felt like someone else's. The touch reminded him of a different time. His face flushed and his mind raced with thoughts he tried to quiet. He reached for the buttons on his uniform instead. The new insignia on his shoulder.

  Commander Mora.

  It felt like another betrayal. To be addressed in the same way as the men and women standing in his way, keeping him from returning, from showing them that their faith in him was justified.

  He looked away from the traitor in the mirror.

  He’d tried to throw the uniform in the garbage when Liezl delivered it to him. She had the audacity to smile when she handed him the box. Gift-wrapped it, for god's sake. Like this was something he should be happy about.