Executive: An Earth 340K Standalone Novel (Soldier X Book 1) Read online

  “He didn’t have to leave,” Saradi said, stepping back away from her mother. Not because she didn’t want to get hurt again but because the anger was growing and she was sure she would regret what she would do next.

  Wattana huffed. “Each of my children have done what they wanted. We got used to the idea of him being in the military when he started cadets when he was only fifteen.

  “Your ten year old daughter has got more courage than you.”

  Saradi ground her teeth. “Mother, what would you know of courage? You always hid behind papa.”

  Wattana’s nostrils flared. She shook her head. “Daughter, you better see what’s in front of you and do better. You’re going to lose your family if you don’t start being there for them.”

  “Oh sorry, I forgot. You won the medal for World’s Greatest Mother. How stupid of me.” Saradi took the refilled glass of red that floated back to her. She quickly downed the glass, welcoming the burn of the alcohol.

  Wattana stepped towards Saradi and shook her finger at her, her body trembling. “Ghana and I did our best for you and Bheem. We sent you to the best schools, gave you a home.”

  “It was me and Bheem at home. You were never there. But really who cares now? I’m the one who loves Bheem the most. And now he’s gone. You — you were an atrocious mother.”

  Saradi left her mother in the balcony but not before Wattana got the chance to stab her back with the sharpest dagger.

  “And you’re just the same, but you’ve got a chance to change and stop being that atrocious mother.”

  Saradi had important work to do tomorrow. Saving the world type of work. Alyona Pavlenko appeared to be getting in the way of that work. The chairwoman would find out what it was like to cross a none-too-happy Saradi.

  But her mother’s words haunted her every time she woke that night. She suffered a nightmare where she searched for Bheemasena’s body in a pile of dead that stretched to the bone white sky.

  Chapter 2 – Death Line

  Six Months Later

  Autobus-Mannschaft’s headquarters were fashioned in the form of a gigantic spaceship overshadowing the Paris skyline. Its imposing, three-hundred story height spoke of people who wielded enough power to tumble nations, put empires into debt, and to destroy corporations and rival organizations on a whim. Saradi smiled as she stared out the window of her executive aero-jet as it began its descent. The smile looked like it belonged to the face of a lioness.

  The glittering blue building with transpasteel glass windows dwarfed the Eiffel tower into insignificance. At the bottom of the building a crystal clear lake and rolling green hills provided the employees a conducive lunch time environment.

  Saradi’s company was located in the Le Syndicat arrondissement, which, in the twenty-first century, had been the home for the Elysee arrondissement — the district containing the famous Elysee Palace. Now the Elysee Palace formed Autobus-Mannschaft’s reception halls. The Le Syndicat district stretched across all twenty historic districts, consolidating it into a place tailored for corporations. Prestigious firms such as ParaFlyte Aviatronics, BlueHydro, Huckler, and Farzogba GmbH headquartered there. The large wall — a kilometer wide — protected the district from the rest of a poisoned, destitute, and crime-ridden France.

  The executive aero-jet landed with the barest discernible bump. A field sphere glittered around the rooftop, keeping the buffeting wind at bay. Saradi floated down in the middle of the shaft of light and gently touched the heels of her shoes onto the landing pad. Several other aero-jets awaited in states of readiness. The executives always needed to get somewhere quick. Saradi’s AI told her the trip from High Melbourne to High Paris had taken twenty minutes. Saradi’s brow raised at that. There had been a five minute delay due the air traffic around High Paris.

  Two immaculately dressed porters sporting the blue Autobus-Mannschaft uniform opened the door for her. In reality everything could be done by robots, integrated software, and otherwise automated, but the Franco-German company believed in employing people in an attempt to help combat the high unemployment rates around the world.

  Aunis Reeves, her personal assistant, secretary, and sounding board, opened her office door with a smile. The glowing font on the door read: Chief Strategy Officer, with her name below the title and the company logo ‘We Build Dreams’ on the upper left. Saradi greeted him with a smile. “Good morning Aunis.”

  The entire level three hundred divided itself into nine sections. The largest office allocated to the CEO, Albert Rene, and the next two largest but equivalent sized offices belonged to Saradi, CSO, and Odette Ninon, Chief Financial Officer, who both gunned for the CEO position pending Albert Rene’s retirement in a year’s time. This level also contained the offices of Matthias Lenzenhofer, Head of Corporate Counsel; Suzy Chang, Head of Corporate Affairs; Pedro Ricardo, Chief Manufacturing Officer; and Senior Vice President, Sangu Awadh.

  Aunis busied himself at the small private bar at the rear corner while Saradi admired the large model of Rebirth, the name of the first seed-ship her company had been contracted to build. Saradi still preferred the name spaceship, but the Greatest Scientist in her own quirky way coined the term seed-ship and now everyone used it. It was the company’s most important project, and Earth’s most important, as the seed-ships would ferry colonists to habitable planets.

  Earth was almost beyond repair now. Beyond the city perimeter most of the country was a desolate mess. Thousands of years of human neglect required that they find a new home.

  She made Aunis wait as he stood by her side. Her AI pinged her in real time with the decisions made at the office by the executive team. She stood for a good ten minutes going through the most important updates before she turned to regard her assistant.

  “Thank you,” she said, as Aunis pressed into her hands her morning breakfast. It was a Spiced Hot Mary — fruit juice with alcohol and habanero sauce. The tangy burn exploded in her mouth, through the fine gaps of her teeth, and down her throat. She shook her head slightly. Now this was a wake up. Coffee? That was for children.

  “This morning we have the call to the Chairwoman of Alrosa Mirny, Alyona Pavlenko about the iordite order. Then straight after you have a meeting with Chief Financial Officer, Odette Ninon to discuss your flexible finance package for Alrosa-Mirny—”

  Saradi groaned. Meetings with Odette were always an ordeal. “Did you send her the pre-prep work? That might calm her. She’s too damn risk averse.” And jealous that Saradi was most likely going to inherit the CEO position once Albert Rene stepped down.

  Aunis nodded. “Yes, I did.” He cleared his throat and then went on, “Then the quarterly business review with the board of directors. Those are you three high priority meetings. The seven others are classed as middle to low.”

  Saradi nodded. “A quiet day, then.”

  Aunis nodded, bowed slightly, and then left her alone. She stared past all the company updates that flared to life in front of her, looking at the only picture adorning her desk: Novalie, herself, and Bheemasena the day they’d attended a Li Shi concert, the week before he’d gone to war.

  Aunis had already initiated the call on the floor to ceiling holo-comm unit that tucked itself in a darkened corner of her room. It almost looked like a shadowy recessed shower area, with the holo-comm unit peeking out like a silver shower head.

  She strode to the unit and crossed her hands. She wore her dark suit that fitted her form snugly down to the pants. A white shirt and red tie peeked out from between black lapels. People always commented on how unusual she looked, never pretty, with her wide–spaced green eyes, light brown skin, and spiky short hair that got messy at the back. She was tall and taut, and trim like a boy. She crossed her hands in her power pose with her chest jutting out, waiting for the call to connect.

  Calling Alyona Pavlenko, the 3D fonts that bubbled up in green reported. A beeping sound followed as the call routed itself to Yakutsk, Russia. A brief biography of the called party appeared to the ri
ght. Saradi ignored it, she already knew enough about Alyona.

  As the call kept ringing, Saradi wondered what Bheemasena was doing. His last message had been to her mother two months ago. Since then he had been eerily silent. Her mother was starting to worry, but the military hadn’t released any news yet. Saradi wished Aunis had given her two glasses instead of one.

  The call answered and the floor to ceiling display slowly revealed the hologram of Alyona Pavlenko, Chairwoman of Alrosa Mirny.

  Alyona said, “Good morning, Sara. You’re looking well.”

  “Alyona, salutations are a waste of time. What’s the status of the iordite? My assistant sent you my detailed inventory request. Why didn’t you respond?” Saradi said, she had gone through the data on the flight in. She always knew to the minutiae what was happening at work.

  The lines at the edge of Alyona’s eyes tautened. “I’m sorry, Sara, but we can’t deliver one hundred thousand tons.”

  “Why?” Saradi’s eyebrows rose.

  “Ten thousand tons is the best I can do. The mine has been unusually unstable recently, and we’ve lost a lot of the tractor-mechs.”

  Saradi felt the heat from the harsh morning sun seep in through her office’s large windows. A slight sheen of sweat coated her forehead and her fingers clenched against her palms.

  “Alyona, I leveraged Autobus-Mannschaft’s own financing for this project. I’m having a meeting with my Chief Financial Officer about the steep discount I gave you. That half trillion was not for excuses, but so that you could meet the one hundred thousand ton quota—” She held up her hand forestalling the other woman’s response. “That you agreed on. That you signed. That loan enabled you to hire more people, deploy more tractor-mechs, and build out your infrastructure.”

  Alyona nodded. Her hands brushed back her hair in a fit of uncertainty. Alyona was like Saradi, it was why they had gotten along so well during the initial meetings.

  Now, things were not going so well.

  “In the dim recesses of my mind I would like to know why. But you’re a manager so you’ll manage it. I want my one hundred thousand tons of iordite, not ten thousand,” Saradi said, and she held up her hand. A holo-icon appeared above her left palm. It showed the interest rate at three percent. “So, this is what I’m going to do to incentivize you.” Saradi flickered her hand up and the three morphed into a ten.

  “Sara! You can’t possibly do this! It will devastate my company. That rate means billions of extra dollars.”

  Saradi said, “At our next meeting, if you don’t have better news for me, it’ll go to twenty percent. I’ll lower the interest rate once I get the iordite. Otherwise you can kiss the company you built goodbye. I’ll keep increasing the loan until you have to declare bankruptcy. Then I’ll come in and squeeze every mine you have for that iordite.”

  “Sara—” Alyona bit out a sibilant hiss.

  “And I want the iordite delivered to me by the second of March now.”

  “Six months? The original deadline we agreed on was the end of the year,” Alyona said.

  “Well consider this to be the new death-line. Goodbye, Alyona.” Saradi swiped at the holo-comm and disconnected the call.

  Saradi sat back on the air-seat and laid her legs on the desk. The fake sugar plum of the air freshener made her throat feel icky, like something was caught in there. The air felt too cold and a serv-bot layered a thick scarf around her neck as she shivered.

  She laced her fingers across her abdomen and brought the screen up to study how long it would take for Alrosa Mirny to default on their payments so she could initiate a hostile takeover. She always planned ahead and didn’t leave anything to chance. Her preference was for Alyona to come to the table; she really didn’t want to waste time going after a mining company as there were more strategic things for her to do in her own company.

  By the time Saradi finished the other two high priority meetings, and the seven lower priority meetings, she felt she needed a bit of a pickup again.

  Her AI chimed at eight p.m. Her office welcomed her back through its dimmed blinds, comfort controlled air, and her glistening beauties at the edge of the bar. She noted with a smile that Aunis Reeves had left a crystal decanter filled with her favorite: Wyborowa Exquisite.

  Saradi went back to her desk, put her feet up, and took the cup from her drawer. Would Alyona deliver? The decanter’s viscous liquid poured into the glass and caught against a sliver of the light from the darkening sky.

  She stared at it for a moment, feeling the rapid beat of her heart. The cold liquid gushed down her throat in a torrential kiss of frozen rain and the burning tang of Wyborowa Vodka. The cool of the glass pressed against the hot of her neck like a lover’s kiss and she sighed.

  The iordite was the key ingredient in the manufacturing of seed-ships.

  She was taking another sip when an ultra-priority call came through on her AI. She frowned. She hated it when people called on her ultra-priority line. It should only be for emergencies.

  “Yes?” she answered, as her husband’s face appeared.

  “Sara, where are you?” Claas asked, irritation dripping in his voice.

  “At work, where do you think,” she responded, equally irritated.

  “Novalie’s piano concert? Hello? You were meant to take her … I tried call your high priority lines but they were all busy.”

  Saradi shot to her feet. “Oh, dammit. I forgot. I’ll be right there.”

  “It was at seven thirty. An hour ago, Sara.”

  “Dammit. Been a long day.”

  Claas gave a little huff of disdain. “Tell that to your daughter. At least be here before nine so you can put her to bed.”

  “Promise I’ll be there.”

  Saradi strode out of the room, the door had slid half shut when another ultra-priority call buzzed on her AI. It was Aunis Reeves, her boss, and the CEO.

  “Sara, what’s the status on the iordite?” Albert asked.

  She frowned. “The weekly meeting is tomorrow.”

  “I need to know now. What’s the status?”

  “We’ll get the hundred thousand tons,” Saradi promised. “Earlier than anticipated, by a month.”

  “Good. This is very important Sara.” He licked his lips. “The Greatest Scientist herself is coming to visit us next week about the iordite.”

  Saradi felt her legs tremble, she splayed her hands against the table. “Sanatani? What does she want?”

  “I’m not sure. They didn’t say. Come to my office — Odette is here. Let’s discuss the financial arrangements we made with Alrosa Mirny — and start to prep for the meeting with the Greatest Scientist.” He disconnected the call just as she had done to Alyona.

  Now the most powerful person on Earth, the Greatest Scientist, was coming to their office next week, undoubtedly to ask about the iordite situation that Saradi was in charge of. She dreaded meeting the Greatest Scientist; nobody who went into a meeting with Sanatani came out unscathed.

  Chapter 3 – Limit Exceeded

  Saradi broke her promise by returning home at eleven forty-five p.m. She entered the house apprehensively, knowing an inevitable confrontation with her husband was around the corner. Fingernails dug into her palms and she gritted her teeth.

  The iordite deal, while already important, was turning out to be the most important of her career and could be the make-or-break for the CEO role. An ad-hoc meeting in her office with the CEO and CFO took place. There had been talks about risk exposure over their large loan to Alrosa Mirny. Saradi was all for over leveraging but their CFO was not. It didn’t help that soon Albert Rene would be retiring and the only two people running for his position were Saradi and Odette. She always had to spend hours in meetings with the delusional Odette to convince her to release funds. Saradi couldn’t imagine Autobus-Mannschaft collapsing just because it loaned money to another company.

  The first set of doors opened into a niche where the house’s AI, through a serv-bot, took off her shoes, h
er jacket and hung it. The AI also played Beethoven’s Symphony Nine in the kitchen and living room. The second set of doors, which led into the house proper, beckoned to her but she found herself taking a deep breath.

  Hopefully her husband would be asleep; the last thing she wanted was an argument. It had been a long day. Claas had called her at seven thirty and she was quite conscious of the fact she was several hours late. Novalie would be asleep.

  The temperature was a cool sixteen and the scent of mint lay in the air. The kitchen’s polished marble floor kissed Saradi’s soles. The fridge opened and one of the many serv-bots held out a bottle of Truganini Spring’s water. She took it and strode into the adjacent space that contained her dining room.

  A 3D hologram showing Bheemasena in his army graduation ceremony, Saradi’s younger brother, hovered next to the cabinet. Saradi placed her hands on his cheek and kissed the hologram’s lips. “You better be alive.” She stood there feeling a deep emotion swell within her. Her eyes watered and she wiped at them. “I love you, Bheem,” she said.

  An intricate liquor cabinet made from crystal in the form of a Christmas tree grew out from the center of the table, tall enough so that it almost touched the ceiling. The cabinet sparkled with decanters glistening with every variety of golden cognac. She sighed as her eyes jumped from one brand of cognac to another.

  Four air-seats shaped like shark’s fins surrounded the floating table. Saradi sat on one and put her legs up on the table. A blue light activated below her feet, massaging them.

  “House,” Saradi called, “I will have the Delamain. Bring out the entire bottle.”

  “Certainly, madam,” replied House. The house’s AI interfaced with over a dozen serv-bots in the house. The serv bots weren’t intelligent, they were House’s extension. House was a high level AI and could spawn many software-selves, be omnipresent in exactly sixteen locations at once. Right now beyond the double French doors, House controlled a pair of large scissors that manicured the hedges.

  The footsteps from the kitchen announced to her that it was Claas. Saradi rolled her eyes at him as he walked into the lounge. He sported his sports clothing and a sheen of sweat dotted his square jaw; his long lashes clumped in spikes.