Runs In The Family Read online

  Runs in the Family

  By

  Kevin Ikenberry

  (2nd Edition)

  PUBLISHED BY: Theogony Books

  Copyright © 2018 Kevin Ikenberry

  All Rights Reserved

  Learn more about Kevin Ikenberry at:

  http://www.kevinikenberry.com/

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  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  For My Girls

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  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Requiem

  Connect with Kevin Ikenberry Online

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  About Kevin Ikenberry

  Titles by Kevin Ikenberry

  Excerpt from Book Six of the Revelations Cycle:

  Excerpt from Book One of the Revelations Cycle:

  Excerpt from Book One of the Kin Wars Saga:

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  One

  An impossibly perky voice bounced through the women’s dormitory announcing the dinner trip to a nearby restaurant. “Come on, everyone! Let’s go spend our last night on Eden having good food, dancing, and fun!” The cut-stone walls only managed to amplify the annoying pitch of the girl’s voice and add a reverberating echo for good measure.

  The group’s intended plans gave a momentary pause to Mairin’s hands as she laid out her linens for the night. Rubbing her throbbing temples, Mairin Shields decided she could definitely eat, and the prospect of a bland meal like lunch in the Civil Cafeteria turned her stomach. She didn’t know anybody in this group of women other than Alicia Jones and her entourage. While a disadvantage, the anonymity she had from those she did not know leveled the playing field. Maybe just this once there’d be a little parity. Mairin snorted. The Academy had been nothing more than high school with a four-year academic hangover. Cliques and groups filtering through the halls and buildings in search of their identity, and wanting desperately for the popular groups to notice them, would never change, and it made Mairin sick.

  Mairin had endured fourteen years in the Eden Academy flitting from group to group aimlessly, never quite accepted by one, never quite abandoned by another. She played sports, but honestly, did anyone equate golf to a sport anymore? She enjoyed drama, but never found herself cast no matter how hard she worked. She went through the motions as a good student, but not brilliant enough to gain the notice of her peers. Anonymity and mediocrity were her friends, though her teachers plied her for more and often got what they sought from her. The flashes of brilliance died quickly though as the culture of her peers crashed in. Gaining the notice of a teacher tended to write off the rest of the year socially.

  Loneliness was a relative term anyway. Her parents lived and worked light-years away, separating themselves by an impressive gulf of two galaxies. Outside of an occasional letter or hologram, the last time the three of them managed to be in the same place at the same time was during the Festival of Holidays three years before. Sure she could talk to them, but when she needed encouragement or support the three-day wait for a reply to her holomails weighed on her. Especially because the other women at school thrived on reminding her that her parents were away, that she was unworthy of their friendship, and an outsider.

  Sleepless nights spent sitting in her closet with her sobbing face in a pillow brought no comfort, only a small tight steel band of resilience in her gut. It wasn’t much, but she’d made it this far, wherever that was going to take her. Until this morning, that journey wasn’t much to be excited about. Colonel Munsen changed all of that.

  She glanced at her bunkmate. The short-haired girl said, “Might as well get some real food. Gods, what a day.”

  Mairin nodded with a shy smile. “Sure.” As the group of girls gathered by the barracks room door, she made her way to the rear of the group. Alicia Jones took her position as the ringleader and looked at the expectant faces turned to her. She caught Mairin’s eyes for a fleeting second and smiled.

  This is a bad idea, Mairin thought, as she followed the group outdoors.

  The grass of the Civil Quadrangle shimmered gold in the fading sunlight, the full disc of Adam, the larger of Eden’s two moons, rising over the horizon. Selected by the governments of Earth as the first colonization planet, Eden was nearly a perfect copy of the distant Earth. Slightly larger, and with a marginally more severe tilt and similar gravity, it gave the appearance of an abundant world shaped by eons of development. With considerable terraforming efforts, Eden developed its biosphere in the span of only ten years. Just enough time to evacuate a sizable portion of Earth’s population to colony ships and make their way across the void seventy light years.

  First contact with the Vemeh in 2105 nearly destroyed Earth, a true case of mistaken identity. The Vemeh found Voyager 2, and the Golden Record—meant to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth—was misinterpreted as a distress call. The Vemeh attacked Earth’s major population centers, killing almost exclusively men, with devastating effect. Within a few hours, the Vemeh realized the error they’d made and committed themselves and their allied civilizations to making reparations. The Vemeh gave humanity the keys to the universe. One hundred and seventy-five years later, humanity had spread deep into the void.

>   Mairin felt the last traces of sunlight warming the side of her face as they walked down the main thoroughfare. More civilians roamed the city’s heart now, the unlucky ones who worked the first day of the week’s end. Shops and restaurants sprang to life from their afternoon siestas as evening blossomed through the city. A cool dry breeze sifted down through the mountains. Mairin smelled the wind and knew rain would come. Maybe not today, but soon. It wouldn’t matter to her; she’d be off the planet in the morning enroute to her training site back on Earth. She’d spend five weeks aboard the Fleet Battle Platform Yorktown getting to know her imprint.

  The last lingering sensations from the imprint procedure finally abated. A mild headache, and nothing worse than that. When would it manifest itself? And how? She didn’t want nightmares, especially ones about things she knew nothing about. The breeze made her shiver a little, but she looked up into the darkening sky and smiled. Relax, she reminded herself, take things one step at a time.

  The group chatted and gossiped about the day of medical tests, examinations, and the cute male nurse in Room Three. Mairin smiled but said nothing. She hadn’t set foot in Room Three all day.

  After starting the initial exam, a message flashed on her screen to report to Room Six. A trim, stone-faced man in a Terran Defense Force dress uniform stood waiting for her. In his hands was a file with her name on it.

  “Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we, Mairin? You’re not fit for military service and your administrative specialist track work here at the Academy is sub-par at best. You’re headed for a lifetime of menial service.”

  Mairin lowered her head. His words were everything that her parents said, except theirs came from vmail messages and holotapes from their colonial positions far out on the Rim. She met his eyes and watched a smile come across his face.

  “My name is Colonel Munsen, and I’m here to offer you a unique opportunity.”

  She blinked behind her eyeglasses and smoothed her straight black hair away from her face. “What kind of opportunity, sir?”

  Munsen nodded as if her words pleased him. “It’s classified, Mairin, but if it works you’ll have a genetically perfect body capable of limited increase in human performance and a career in the Terran Defense Forces.”

  For a moment, she’d stared at him. “What’s the catch?”

  Munsen laughed and put his hands on his hips. In the dim light of the room, she could see he was older, with gray hair at his temples. He rubbed his face with his left hand, and then flexed his fingers as if looking for something. There was no wedding ring. “You’re a genetic match to a soldier who died a long time ago, your great-great-great grandfather. We’re hoping to transfer some of his memories to you.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  Munsen opened his palms to her. “No harm, no foul. You’ll still have the genetic perfection and I’ll ensure you can re-test for military service, if you’d like.”

  Mairin chewed on her lower lip for a second. “And if it does work?”

  “You’ll go to the front,” Munsen said. “We need strong combat leaders, Mairin. It’s my hope that is what this procedure will do for you. That and a significant amount of holotraining. What do you say?”

  There hadn’t been a thing to say except yes. Life in janitorial services or worse was not what she wanted, nor what she felt she deserved. Everyone around her always looked past her. Even the group of women leaving the dormitory had no idea she was there.

  They entered the restaurant, Togolth’s, and found themselves seated in an almost private room at a table expansive enough to accommodate all of them. Mairin sat along the back of the room, nearest the rear exits and hung her sweater jacket off the back of her chair. A flurry of waiters appeared with towels hung on their arms asking for drink orders.

  The popular girls trilled over the wine list, snobbishly commenting on their inferior choices and lavishing praise on vintages they’d probably never been able to afford. A few girls ordered mixed drinks, fruity frozen concoctions only just potable. The mahogany bar was magnificent from polished top to bright brass rails at its feet. Familiar beer taps hung above it and shined in the fading light of the day streaming through the windows. Out of place, she thought. It belonged in a dark pub not a faux bistro. Mairin looked at the waiter, her eyes twinkling brightly enough the waiter noticed and smiled.

  “For you, miss?”

  Mairin hadn’t even looked at the menu. She nodded toward the bar. “I’ll have a Guinness, please.”

  “You’re drinking beer?” Alicia Jones demanded from down the table, bringing conversation to a screeching halt. The smile on her face was the condescending face of damnation.

  Mairin blinked. What was she talking about? A different waiter placed a perfectly poured stout fresh from the ornate brass taps on the table in front of her and bounced away. She didn’t look up at Alicia, she looked at the stout and wrapped her hand around the pint and drank. The foam tickled her upper lip, but she swallowed a good mouthful of the stout and felt a rush of blood in her ears. She licked her lips savoring the dark, sweet, and bitter stout, and drank again. Lowering the glass, she smiled at Alicia and said, “Slainté.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Mairin grinned through her shock. What a trigger! “It’s Irish for health. What do you care?” When Alicia turned away to another conversation in horror, Mairin beamed at her reflection in the mirror and gently touched the metal band on her wrist, activating her neurals. Within a second, she’d sent an acknowledgement of the first physical trigger to Munsen. The first beer of her life tasted like something she’d craved for days. She raised the glass, toasting her reflection silently. Well, Grandpa, what else are you going to show me?

  Dinner conversation flowed about prospective job assignments and hopeful destinations. Mairin didn’t care. She drank two pints of Guinness and picked at her pseudo-Italian neo food. Every other girl raved over it, but it was bland. Mairin knew it wasn’t her voice, her taste buds, her stomach or anything else giving her that conclusion. It was the imprint. She wanted something...fresh. Something that didn’t taste recycled. Something that came straight from the ground. The group stood to leave and bubbled outside en masse. Mairin retrieved her jacket and followed, but outside the bistro’s door, she waited until Alicia and her giggling brood disappeared around the far corner heading in the opposite direction towards the business district. She breathed in the evening air and headed in the direction of the Eden Market. With luck, the local farm stands would still be open, and she could find something to satisfy her taste buds.

  An hour later, after a walking meal of fresh bread and mutton with Muenster cheese and two green apples, Mairin returned to the campus. Eve rose in the east as a perfect half circle of bluish light as she made her way back to the empty barracks. She collected her belongings and the linens from her bed and made her way to the elevators. On the top floor, she found the roof access and stepped outside into the lush recycled garden. Mairin didn’t know quite how it worked, but every large building held rooftops that repurposed the wastewater produced inside and contributed to the building’s electrical power through passive chlorophyll-generated power. How plants producing their sugar interwove with the production of electricity Mairin didn’t know. She wasn’t a heliobotanist. She’d been trained to handle administrative forms and processes, not the science of this new universe. She settled under the fronds of a stunted palm and laid out her linens into a makeshift bed. She sat cross-legged for a long moment before she chuckled. “Can’t say I’ve ever slept under the stars before.”

  She lay down, supporting her head with her hands, elbows off to each side and smiled up into the stars. Destiny lay out there in the heavens. Not the one that she’d expected, but her destiny just the same. Familiar scents took on new spicy twinges. A cool breeze raised pimples on her skin.

  Goose pimples.

  The words came from the depths of her mind and echoed slightly. She looked through the sawgrass
lining the roof’s edge toward the low mountains. Mists curled in and out of the mountains giving the appearance of purple whales playing in a dark gray sea.

  Foxfire, she thought and then said aloud. She didn’t understand it, but a quick check of her neurals showed it to be a colloquial term from Appalachia. The back of her neck tingled. She smiled and spoke to the wind, “I can see I have a lot to learn.”

  Sleep took her without much more thought and brought dreams of horses, sabers, and bugles.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, Mairin met Colonel Munsen on the steps of the Civil Assignments building. “Good morning, Colonel.”

  “Miss Shields,” he smiled. “Thank you for meeting me this early. I have one simple question for you. Are you willing to serve in the Terran Defense Force?”

  Mairin sighed. “I’m afraid, sir, but willing to go.”

  “What are you scared of?” Munsen leaned toward her.

  Dying was the first word that surfaced in her head. She tossed it away. Everyone dies, whether it would be on a battlefield doing something tangible or in a crappy job on a civil colony could be her choice. Fear wasn’t the answer either. She’d been alone too long to be afraid of much except not knowing what to do. “I’m afraid I’m not ready to join the TDF, sir.”

  Munsen took a long slow breath, but did not stop looking at her. “Let me tell you a secret, Shields. None of us are ready when we think we are. It’s just something you have to do to the best of your ability. The rest of it will work itself out.”

  “I understand, sir. And my training?”

  “You will immediately enter into the Terran Defense Force in the grade of cadet. You will be transported to Earth for officer training, at the completion of which you will be commissioned as a second lieutenant. You’ll start holotraining immediately. Upon completion of your advanced training, you will be reviewed for assimilation to your imprint’s last held rank. Are you aware of what that was?”