Asterion Noir: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 4)

by G. S. Jennsen

  For the second time tonight, she didn’t know what to do.

  COMMAND

  PROMPT

  41

  * * *

  WAYFARER

  Mirai

  WITH THE PATH of the celestial d-gates laid out for them, the journey home was a quick one. And a disconcerting one.

  It felt as if the Rasu hovered just past the horizon, the briefest blink away from the Dominion. They had no idea if the Rasu knew of the existence of the d-gates or their purpose, but given the wormhole vortex they’d seen one of their leviathans create and traverse, if the aliens so much as knew the general location of any Dominion world, it wouldn’t matter. A blink, and Rasu ships could darken its skies.

  After showering, Dashiel found Nika in the cockpit, swiveling her chair around like a gyroscope. Last night, she’d slipped quietly into bed and turned her back to him; this morning, she’d snuck out twenty minutes before their wake-up time. So he wasn’t sure quite what to expect when he joined her upstairs.

  He leaned against the cockpit wall. “What’s up?”

  Round the chair went. “Trying to figure out where to land. All your factories and offices are surely being watched by now. I don’t want to risk a second use of the industrial sector dock, in case we left traces of our visit behind. Anywhere in the middle of nowhere should be safe, but we need to be able to easily go places once we’re planetside.”

  “What about the rec space outside the southeast sector of Mirai One? It has a small docking area, but it’s not heavily monitored.”

  The chair reversed direction. “That’s not a bad idea. Let’s do it.” She spun to face the dash and input several commands. The floor shifted subtly beneath them as the Wayfarer began its descent. “Also, I’m still struggling over what my first move should be. I mean, I can use the nex address to get the Guides’ attention, but I refuse to walk into a meeting with them without a solid escape plan and two backup escape plans. I won’t go in blindly, not this time. So I don’t—”

  He gripped the headrest of her chair, forcing it to a halt. “Nika?”

  She looked up at him in surprise, which was when he noticed the faint shadows beneath bloodshot eyes. She hadn’t slept well, if at all.

  “Yes?”

  “Good morning.”

  She huffed a passable laugh. “Good morning. Sorry. I’m a little antsy. And anxious.”

  “I know, and I understand. I would nonetheless advise taking a few deep breaths.” He bent down and kissed her forehead, then sat in the other chair. “I told Vance I was going to be back on Mirai. He wants to meet to go over some company business.”

  Her eyes instantly narrowed. “His idea to meet?”

  “Technically. The offer was sort of implicit in my message, though.”

  “It could be a trap.”

  “I don’t think Vance would betray me.”

  “That’s only relevant to the details of the trap, not whether it is one.”

  His lips pursed. Her dark and volatile mood from the night before hadn’t improved with the light of day. “I think—”

  “You’re about to say I’m being paranoid. We’ve already covered this ground. It’s kept me and my people alive and free for five years.”

  Her people? She meant NOIR, of course. Did she also mean him? To some distress, he found he wasn’t certain of the answer. “Okay. Let’s assume for a minute that you’re right and it’s a trap. I don’t think you are, but let’s assume it. What are the possibilities?

  “One, and least likely, Vance has betrayed me and is luring me in so Guide lackeys can capture me. If true, I left my company in the hands of a corrupt, deceitful man, I dread finding out what he’s been doing to it in my absence, and I need to regain control of it somehow.

  “Two, Vance is in trouble—kidnapped by one of the Guides’ secret hit squads, tortured or worse—and he was either forced into sending the message or someone is impersonating him. If true, no one is running my company, and I need to regain control of it before it collapses into a mountain of raw materials and debt. Also, I need to try to help my friend, who’s being tortured so the Guides can get to me.

  “Three, the Guides are feeling the pressure and want to talk, but they’re afraid to talk to you and figure I’ll be more reasonable, seeing as they’ve neither psyche-wiped me nor shot at me. They assume I don’t trust them, and this is the only way they can think of to get me to a table I should probably get to. Am I missing any options?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Getting you involved in all of this. Your business, your work, your fortune, your reputation, your future? They’re all on the verge of being destroyed because you sided with me. Now people close to you might be getting hurt, too. I’m a one-woman wrecking crew of people’s lives.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Nika. It’s the Guides’ fault. Certainly the fault of those terrifying aliens as well, but the Guides own their actions.”

  She stared out the viewport as they descended toward a landing pad situated among improved meadows and a bright glass-domed atrium. “But I knew the lengths they will go to in order to keep their secret, and I challenged them anyway. In doing so, I’ve put everything and everyone I know in danger. I accepted the risks, but not on behalf of the rest of you.”

  Her voice was flat and dull; he’d expected her to be troubled and possibly conflicted about their return to Mirai, but he hadn’t expected this. He desperately wanted to take her back to bed and start the day over.

  “Nika, when I chose to come with you, I was under no illusions about what it could mean for the course of my life.”

  “That can’t be true. You’re a romantic, and no way is this what you were hoping for.”

  Aside from the civilization-threatening alien menace, it was pretty damn close to everything he’d hoped for. Why couldn’t she understand that? “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m trying to say that you going to this meeting with Vance is a profoundly terrible idea. You can’t see it, because you’ve got one foot firmly planted in your old life. I don’t blame you. If I still had that life, I would, too. But your attempts to hold onto both it and me will get you captured and tortured and psyche-wiped, and it will be because of me. But I can’t protect you and everyone else if you insist on running off on reckless whims.”

  He exhaled harshly, stood and walked into the main cabin, overcome by a disconcerting need to create some distance from her. Halfway to the kitchen unit, he stopped and gazed back at her. “Do you truly think so little of me?”

  “No. I—”

  “You’re not my keeper. You’ve taught me how to protect myself—how to fight—and I’m grateful for it. I can take my own risks, and I won’t hide behind your shadow like the coward I once was.”

  She stood and took two steps toward him, at which point he had cause to remember that half of why she’d been a great diplomat was the ability to wield a stare that could melt glaciers into weeping puddles. “Is this about what happened before, when I disappeared? Are you trying to prove you’re not a coward any longer? Well, this is a stupid way to do it.

  “They will take you. Then they will take everything you are. They will psyche-wipe you and when they are done, you won’t remember that you cared. About me, about your business, about anything. You won’t even remember who you are.”

  “Now who’s projecting? This isn’t five years ago, and they wouldn’t dare.”

  “Because…why? You’re more special than I was? Less expendable somehow? You can smooth-talk your way out of it? Buy them off? Go back to being a coward. You’re better at it, and it will keep you alive.”

  The barbs couldn’t have gutted him any more thoroughly if she’d flung a morning star into his stomach. He breathed out through his nose, jaw clenched, until he trusted himself to speak. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re deliberately trying to push me away. Hells if I know why. Maybe for the same reason you li
ed to me last night about the memory you recovered.”

  “Why do you think—”

  “Don’t make it worse by denying it now. Nika, I’ve known you for more than three thousand years. I can tell when you’re lying. Look, I’m going to my meeting. Whatever happens, you can rest easy, because I won’t blame you for it.

  “Take a couple of hours to get your head on straight while I’m gone. Decide if you’re willing to be honest with me. Decide if you’re willing to respect me. If those answers turn out to be ‘yes,’ decide if you want me to come back.”

  Her brow furrowed as her lips dropped into a pout. “Wait. No. I didn’t say—”

  “Yeah. You kind of did.” The ship thudded roughly onto the landing pad, and he didn’t wait for any safety checks. He simply pivoted to the airlock, opened it and left.

  Nika reached out for an airlock that was three meters away and also already closed. It made for the most futile of gestures, and with a frustrated sigh she returned to the cockpit. She dropped her elbows on the dash and her head into her hands and stared out the viewport.

  What she saw sent a wave of déjà vu crashing over her. His back to her, walking away. So like in the memory.

  Alongside the dizziness the déjà vu carried, one truth became crystal clear to her: she’d learned nothing in seven hundred thousand years. Not a godsdamned thing. Or if she had, it had plainly been erased in the psyche-wipe.

  Her gaze followed Dashiel as he crossed the landing area toward the central atrium. He cut quite a striking figure in tan slacks and an open-necked white shirt. If he was angry or upset, he hid it well, for his gait and the set of his shoulders broadcast an aura of cool confidence to any who crossed his path.

  She’d gotten accustomed to his presence at her side, in her bed and her arms, and now she desperately wanted him to turn around and run back to her.

  But that wasn’t particularly fair of her, was it? She was the one who’d chased him away, after all.

  Why must it be so hard for her to do the running? Why couldn’t she stand up and just go to him? Apologize for being a bitch, ask what he needed from her then try to give it. She was the leader. The beacon, the ambassador, the one who stood up for others and fought for them when no one else would. Why couldn’t she stand up and fight for him?

  Then he disappeared into the atrium and was gone. Again.

  No. He wasn’t Steven Olivaw; not really. A distant descendant, perhaps, sharing a percentage of genetic markers and core algorithms long since tweaked and modified beyond recognition. Nothing more.

  Was she the woman whom Steven had walked away from? It was impossible that she might be, for the aeons spanning from that day to this moment were simply too great. Yet in the memory, the heartbreak had felt like it belonged to her. And it had felt a lot like this did.

  Dammit, she was not her memories! Dashiel had said so.

  She stood and went downstairs to shower, thinking it would clear her head.

  It didn’t.

  So she organized the storage cabinet and catalogued their supplies. She needed to know what she had on hand to work with before she made a move. A move which was going to involve…what?

  Last night, she’d said she would trust in herself to know what to do. But the time had now come to act, and she didn’t. Know what to do, or trust in herself?

  Damn good question.

  She should have followed Dashiel—she should have chased after him and stopped him from leaving, but if she couldn’t manage to accomplish that, she should have discreetly followed him to his meeting. He was correct; he’d come a long way, and he would be able to protect himself from most threats. But they weren’t facing most threats.

  But she hadn’t followed him, and he hadn’t told her where the meeting was scheduled to happen…she pinged his locator ID, but it returned as null. He’d shut it off. He didn’t want her to follow.

  So now there was…nothing she could do. Nothing except hope he was right and she was wrong.

  She sank onto the couch and massaged her temples. How right? Right about the meeting with Vance not being a trap, but what about the rest? Was she trying to push him away? Why? The memory had spooked her, and she still wished she understood why it existed. Dashiel, though, was…wonderful, and he didn’t deserve to be punished for the sins of his ancestor.

  But she wasn’t pushing him away—that was simply a bit of ugly collateral damage. She was pushing herself away.

  With every memory he enabled her to recover, with every minute spent at his side, she’d sensed herself shifting and changing. Becoming more the person she’d once been. The undeniable truth told the tale: in ways she didn’t get to choose, she was her memories.

  And when the woman whom those memories belonged to had tried to challenge the Guides, she’d gotten herself psyche-wiped for the effort. Nika Kirumase had been woefully unprepared for the fight. Much like Dashiel risked doing this very minute, she’d strode straight into a trap laid by the enemy, confident in the power of her words and her charm to protect her. She’d been so catastrophically wrong.

  To fight this fight—to win this fight—she had to be Nika the rebel. Nika the NOIR leader. She couldn’t be soft; she couldn’t be polite; she couldn’t be diplomatic. Her enemy sure as hells wasn’t.

  Funny, understanding why she’d lashed out at him so viciously didn’t make her feel any better about having done it, or its outcome. Luckily, an alert arrived to distract her from her wallowing. A new message at the special nex address she’d given to the Guides.

  She sat up on the edge of the couch. A combination of trepidation and hope sped her pulse and primed her veins for a rush of adrenaline.

  She opened the message.

  Your headquarters has been compromised.

  42

  * * *

  MIRAI

  AN EASY WARMTH of familiarity embraced Dashiel as he neared Kinsan Park in northeast Mirai One. The park wasn’t as colorful or secluded as the botanical gardens on Ebisu, but the wide lawns gathered staggering amounts of sunlight and the aroma of sage filled the air. This was his home turf, and he found it difficult to believe anything here could mean him harm.

  Of course something could—the crater where the transit hub stood a week ago was barely two kilometers from here. He indulged the fantasy nonetheless.

  Concentrating on work for a little while should provide a welcome respite as well. Now all he had to do was think about work instead of Nika.

  Oh, well, so much for that plan.

  Gods, had he really threatened to leave her? Part of him clamored to sprint back to the Wayfarer and beg her forgiveness before she decided to take him up on his threat, possibly forever. But the louder part of him was so damn angry at her. Wounded, bruised by the words flung at him with callous acerbity. The woman he’d known had been many things, but never cruel. It terrified him, the possibility that this might no longer be the case.

  He’d been angry at her before. They’d had arguments, including a few rages so explosive they had likely qualified for a mention in the Dominion annals. They’d even taken breaks from one another—days, weeks, once for nearly a year.

  But mostly they’d waltzed across the centuries as if they were dancing on clouds.

  Then she’d vanished, and dancing had become slogging as he staggered from one day to the next. And now she’d returned, but they weren’t dancing, they were fighting—against their government, against an ominous enemy they didn’t understand and most of all against each other.

  When he held her in his arms, when they made love, when they murmured to one another in the night, everything was good and right and he was made whole again. But sometimes, like today, like the night before, she inexplicably pushed him away. Shut him out. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and the whiplash was killing him. Almost as if she were two different people—

  Oh.

  He jerked to a stop on the sidewalk. Two people struggling to become one, or at a minimum to coexist in harmony with one a
nother.

  These last weeks, he’d spent a lot of time wanting her to be the person she’d once been. Then, gradually and almost without noticing, he’d fallen for the person she was now, never realizing the extent to which her past and her present were moving toward one another. Only it wasn’t a smooth journey. How could it be?

  Wayfarer…he smiled to himself. Had she intended the dual meaning for the name all along? More than one journey, more than one search for answers….

  He was an imbecile, and a selfish one at that. She needed his support and understanding, not his petty resentment and eggshell ego. The anger and hurt evaporated, and now the greater weight of his soul cried out for him to turn around and race back to her.

  But he was literal steps away from his meeting. He’d meet with Vance—quickly—then rush to the ship.

  Resolve now propelled him forward. But before he took those final steps, he checked to confirm he had taken basic precautions. Heeding Nika’s training, he’d worn a morph since leaving the ship. It made sense to do so; this being his hometown, the odds of him being seen and recognized were reasonably high.

  But Vance wouldn’t know who he was wearing this face, and he really didn’t want to delve into the details of why he wore a different face. It would only lengthen a meeting he desperately wanted to keep short.

  So once he spotted Vance leaning against the wrought-iron fence that bounded the park’s centerpiece, an eight-thousand-year-old Kodai bonsai tree, he deactivated the morph.

  Vance’s expression brightened into a smile when he saw Dashiel approaching. “Sir, it’s good to see you. You look…rested, actually. The sabbatical is treating you well.”

  “Eh.” Dashiel brushed it off. He didn’t intend to share how much having Nika beside him at night—not to mention being largely alcohol-and-dose-free—improved his sleep. “You look a little worn around the edges. I dropped a horrible burden on you, didn’t I?”