The Gambit with Perfection (The Phantom of the Earth Book 2) by Raeden Zen Page A

Crust, Team Holcombe’s Mission to Jupiter, Team Barão’s Mission to Mars, Team Garznez’s Mission to the Sun.
    “Absolutely not,” Brody said, his voice low. He turned from the banner marking his team’s mission to Mars to a division of Janzers. They marched by, their synsuits reflected in the marble ground, polished archways, and mirrored walls. Brody nodded and smiled to them. He and Verena moved to the other side of a pillar.
    Nero emerged from behind a pillar at the hall’s far end.
    “There’s more at stake than our standing, Captain. The teams—”
    “Are now sworn to the commonwealth,” Brody said. He looked up, to the eye in the sky. He didn’t carry his recaller on commonwealth missions. “When I was appointed by the ministry and confirmed by the board to Reassortment, we joined with the commonwealth. We must honor—”
    “There’s no time for politics. They send us to this exoplanet when Antosha is returning to the Beimeni zone. He could be the supreme scientist covering Reassortment before we even come back!” Her whispers spread through the hall. “Never after the confirmation did we vow idiocy in place of intelligence! The teams shouldn’t be used in this manner! We’re being deposed!”
    “We don’t know that—”
    “I know it!”
    Brody clasped the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t trust Antosha, obviously, but without significant conversion we have no leverage. With the Marks of Masimovian, not even the chancellor could deny us Project Reassortment.”
    Chancellor Masimovian consolidated much power to his office in Phanes, to be sure, but Brody knew he didn’t hold the chancellorship for two hundred years by denying the will of his people, who were represented by the ministry. And the board, which assigned the Mark, was appointed by the ministry.
    “The chancellor is sending us to our deaths or to our demotions,” Verena said. She looked upon Brody dubiously. “Either way, we lose.”
    Nero strode up between the pillars with the confidence of a striker, a pair of Janzers behind him. “On to Vigna,” he declared with a grin wider than a Granville panel.
    Brody nodded. “Let’s go.”
    Verena huffed and joined the Janzers on their approach to the military transport destined for Mission Control.
    Brody felt far less confident about the decision to launch than he let on. Fifteen years ago, the ministry had voted with overwhelming support to exile Antosha Zereoue to the Lower Level after Prime Minister Decca proved he’d taken the lives of seventy-four RDD scientists with his experiments. It had taken all of Brody’s strength in the ZPF to subdue Antosha, even after Lady Isabelle weakened him. His former apprentice might have aged physically in the Lower Level, but Antosha wouldn’t let his mind dull, no matter the circumstance. He was as skilled as Brody—and most developers—in using the CRISPR system and recombinases to alter transhuman DNA: he’d be up to his old tricks as soon as his feet touched Beimeni bedrock.
    Now the Janzers escorted the Barão Strike Team from the transport to a hollowed cove labeled OUTFITTING, where Janzers and medical bots readied their interstellar synsuits. The synisms used in these suits emitted a magnetic shield that deflected radiation—in essence, the synsuits would protect the Barão Strike Team from the barrage of protons and electrons they would encounter when they entered and exited the exotic portals at the Lagrange points.
    “Left leg,” the Janzers said in unison.
    Brody and Verena and Nero lifted their left legs, then their right legs, with their arms extended at their sides. The Janzers attached the chest, back, torso, abdomen, arm, and neck plates. The boots followed. After the loud clicks and clacks and the grind of drill bits, the team looked much like Janzers.
    “Helmets,” a Janzer ordered, and three of his comrades lifted the egg-like transparent helmets from the medical bots. The helmets