“Yes.”
Had everyone and everything in the entire universe somehow managed to go insane? She reached for his hand and held it in both of hers. “What does that have to do with… with you…” It hit her then. “No. Don’t do it. Let them have their war without you, Jeval.”
“I can’t. If they are going to succeed, I have to help them.”
“You’ll probably die.”
Tears came again, making her cheeks and eyes burn. He didn’t look away from her face, and she read sorrow in his then. His head nodded up and down. “I probably will. The Federation is likely to try to bomb us just to prevent us from doing what it is that we will try to do. But you will be safe here. Nobody in The Federation will know that anyone here had any part in it.”
“How can you say that?”
His smile was harsh and drawn. “Because if we fail, we have our own bombs and the place we are aiming for will be dust, and we will be dust right along with it.”
Dust. He was talking an atomizing bomb or a neutron displacement bomb, something capable of leveling entire cities and even small planets. There was savvy in that, of course. It would be impossible to find evidence after such a thing as there would literally be nothing left, making it impossible to identify any particular being, especially since even their cells and DNA markers would be in space and impossible to catch and trace.
That sick feeling just got worse as she considered that. Her fingers clamped down on his. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do.”
She persisted, “Tell me why you have to. Why, Jeval? Why can’t you just let Talon and Jessica go, and don’t even sit there and try to tell me they won’t be the first ones up. They both claim they want peace, but we both know that neither of them will ever be satisfied until The Federation is destroyed.”
He didn’t answer. His fingers moved, shifting so that his thumb could stroke along the top of her hand, Desperate now, she said, “Why not just reduce it to dust in the first place then? “
“Because we need some of those who are there to help us determine if there are other places like it. If The Federation has duplicated the place and the research being done there. Bates has plenty of access, but not full access to that, despite his rank. The Federation is wily and suspicious even of itself and its highest members, and there are always secrets upon secrets upon secrets. Before we can char it, we have to know, or it will all be for naught.”
“What if you find out there is another, and then you have to destroy yourselves? What good will that knowledge do then?” The acrid bitterness in her throat leaked downward, right into her heart. “What then?”
“It won’t be for naught. We will have hi-tech comcasters. The intel will go out even if we do not go on.”
No, a hundred thousand times no. A million times no. She couldn’t let him do it. That gift of his, it was so strong, and yet it was so deadly, and not just to those he leveled it upon, but to himself. It would consume him if he used it to the degree that Bates wanted him to use it, and he had to know that.
He did know that. That was why he had said he was probably going to die.
Between the consequences of using his gift and the probability that The Federation would swoop in with their warships and make the rebels have to drop that bomb to hide their true intentions and identities, he would probably die.
“You agreed to the bomb to protect us, to protect this planet.”
“I agreed to it for you, Margie. I can’t die knowing that there is a chance you will suffer for this.”
He did love her. He loved her so much he was willing to let himself get blasted to dust to protect her. She could not tell him about that baby now, not when he had so much on his shoulders. He would go; there was no way to stop him from it, and she knew it. He would do what he felt he had to do.
“Why now?” That was the only question left to ask.
Jeval took a deep breath. “The Federation has found a wormhole.”
“So?”
“It leads to a different universe.”
Everything went gray and black. A sharp buzzing sensation was followed by the most numbed sensation she had ever felt. Visions came into her head. Aliens like they had never seen ripping through a wormhole that The Federation had opened; a wormhole that the other universe had known about and closed to keep them out. War so horrific that none in their universe would survive. Planets tumbling into nothingness. Entire systems failing and falling into dust. Cities crumbling before a tide of weapons such as they had never seen and had no ability to fight against.
That other universe was peaceful but war-like, able to defend itself, willing to defend itself, against any and all other invaders—against The Federation that was small and weak in comparison to them.
“Margie?
The vision snapped and broke. She stared at him, dazed and unsure. Everything had just been shown to her, but she didn’t know how or why. “The research lab, it’s on Orional.”
He went white. “How do you know that?”
