by A. K. DuBoff
CHAPTER 13
Kira nestled against Leon’s bare chest. “Thank you. I needed that.”
He kissed her forehead. “You’ve been distancing yourself. I told you I would be here to help you through this, and I meant it.”
She knew she’d been holding back. As much as she wanted to open up to him, it wasn’t that easy.
Her family in the Guard was a support network that had proved itself time and time again. To add someone else into that mix was a scary prospect. If she let herself fall for Leon again—as an adult, with the maturity and understanding that came with that kind of relationship—the balance would shift. Though her existing network wouldn’t be any less important, there’d be someone else on equal footing, and she needed to know that leg wouldn’t be kicked out from under her.
“I’m sorry I never gave us a chance before,” she murmured.
Leon looked down at her. “What do you mean?”
“When I left to join the Guard.” Kira stared up at the ceiling. “I got scared that I was going to get trapped in a life—on a future path—before I really knew myself. So I ran away from everything I thought defined me. My world. My parents. You. By the time I’d wised up enough to realize that I could have talked to you about those concerns like a reasonable person, I figured you’d want nothing to do with me.”
“I always wondered if it was something I did,” he said.
“No.” She shook her head. “You were always there for me when I needed you, and in return I was selfish and only thought of myself.”
Leon stroked her shoulder. “Well, we have a chance to start over now.”
“We do. And to do it right, I know I need to let you in. But I’m not used to being vulnerable,” Kira admitted.
“Companionship can make us stronger. Just look at you with your team.”
She looked up at him. She saw the love in his eyes—his unwavering dedication to her, despite everything she’d been through in the last two weeks. If that wasn’t enough to scare him off, then nothing would.
“I want you to be a part of my team,” she told him. “I mean, be here with me.”
Leon shifted to his side to face her. “I love you, Kira.”
Her heart melted, just like when she had been a teenager hearing the words for the first time, and then a warm glow filled her. She wasn’t that girl anymore, and what was between them now spoke to a deeper bond between the selves they’d grown into over the years.
“I love you, too. I want to see things through this time, the way I wasn’t ready to before.”
Their lips met again, and Kira lost herself in the moment.
When they eventually parted, neither could keep from grinning.
Kira sighed. “For what it’s worth, Jasmine approves,” she told Leon.
He chuckled. “Glad to hear I pass muster.”
Kira blocked out the AI as best she could to return her focus to Leon. “I can’t promise to always be the most attentive partner, but I’ll be honest and fair with you.”
He gave her another kiss. “I can’t ask for anything more.”
They lay together for a few minutes longer, and then Kira’s mind wandered to the unresolved tasks from earlier in the day. “Hey, did you talk with Doctor Elric about the medical data that Jasmine recorded while I was on the op?”
“Aaand the moment is over.” Leon sat up.
“Sorry, I’ll work on my transitions.” She ran her hand down his arm.
“Actually, I was just thinking about it, too.” He climbed out of bed and began dressing.
Kira did the same. “And?”
“I’m supposed to stop by Medical this afternoon to go over it with him. You’re welcome to come along, if you don’t mind us talking about your weird brain right in front of you.” He smiled.
She balled up a sock and threw it at him, then promptly realized that she needed it.
Leon deflected the fabric ball, and it landed at the foot of the mattress. “It’ll be helpful to have you around to answer questions.”
Kira dove across the bed to retrieve the wayward sock. “I can remain objective.”
“Good.”
Jasmine said in Kira’s mind.
Says the AI that does that all the time, Kira thought privately.
She gave a mental smile to the AI.
Kira gave a mental eyeroll at the AI’s wounded tone.
Jasmine retreated.
When Kira and Leon were dressed in their shipsuits, they headed to Medical.
Doctor Elric was with a patient when they arrived, and a nurse showed them to the doctor’s office in the back right of the infirmary. The desk was situated in the middle of the room facing the door, and a holodisplay behind it was covered with coded reminders about various patient check-ins. Kira spotted her name at the top of the list.
Kira and Leon seated themselves in the visitor chairs.
“I had gotten used to the check-ups after every op, but with these extra visits, I feel like I’m going to practically be living here,” Kira whispered.
“I hope not. I’d miss you overnight.”
She gave him a coy smile. “I think it’s still a little early to think about moving into shared quarters.”
He returned the smile. “I never said anything about that. Just, you know—”
“Oh, Kira, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Doctor Elric said, entering his office.
“I hope you don’t mind me sitting in on your discussion with Leon, Doctor,” Kira replied, swiveling around in her chair.
“You are the subject, after all. Of course you can be here.” The doctor sat down behind his desk.
“I would have taken a look before coming over here, but I didn’t receive your analysis,” Leon said.
Doctor Elric made entries on his desktop to bring up a file. “Because I never sent it. There were some components that I felt warranted discussion before we draw any conclusions.” He folded his hands on the desktop. “Physiologically, it appears that Jasmine was able to regulate neurochemical reactions to prevent the agitated state that has previously triggered an unwanted Robus transformation. However, there were some brainwave patterns that didn’t match up with that regulated state.”
Kira half-raised her hand. “I know I’m just supposed to be an observer here, but what kind of variance are we talking about?”
Jasmine ribbed in her mind.
“At four points during your time on the dwarf planet,” Elric continued, “there was a shift in the brainwave pattern—like it had
entered a sympathetic resonance.”
“Similar to when Kaen and Jared were subverted?” Leon asked.
Elric shook his head. “No, this wasn’t a control signal. It was more like a sync.”
Kira frowned. “What does that mean in this context?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” the doctor replied. “I was hoping to get a record of the Raven’s sensor logs, as well as a copy of the environmental data gathered via your armor’s sensors, to get a better picture of what may have been going on.”
“I was tapped into the suit,” Jasmine interjected over the room’s comm system.
“Yes, and that was filtered and combined as part of Kira’s experience. I’d like to see how that compares to the raw logs,” Elric explained.
“Ah, and in that discrepancy may lie the solution,” Jasmine stated.
“Precisely.” Elric met Leon’s gaze. “The reason I wanted to meet with you, Leon, is I have a hunch that this resonance is related to Kira’s TR structure.”
“Again, not a neuroscientist,” Leon muttered under his breath.
Elric shrugged. “You’re as close to an expert as we have on this tech, all the same. This resonance may be a variation of the remote communications we’ve observed.”
Kira came to attention. “If that theory holds, I bet I know exactly which four times the resonance happened—when I entered the rock formation, when we saw the central nexus thing, when we came to the pit, and when we were trying to escape.”
Next to her, Leon’s expression turned to horror. “I really have no idea what you just said, but that sounds awful.”
“It was a fun day.” Kira patted his knee. “I can access the mission records on my account, if you want me to log in.”
“Please.” Elric motioned to the desktop.
Kira placed her hand on the surface to gain access and then navigated to the appropriate directory containing the logs.
“All right, so,” she went to the raw logs from her powered armor, “we entered the rock formation right around here.”
Using the combat video recorder as a guide, she cycled through the frames until the view matched her recollection. She played it forward for Leon and the doctor.
“Those rocks are so weird-looking,” Leon commented, tilting his head.
“Made of valteron,” Kira explained.
Leon crossed his arms. “Huh.”
Elric leaned forward to study the details. “Yes, that timestamp does align with the first resonance,” he confirmed.
“So far so good.” Kira advanced the record. “Now, the next…”
Kira selected the footage from when she approached the monolith in the central cavern with her team.
“Hmm, I’m not seeing a spike,” Elric observed.
“No, there has to be something here,” Kira insisted.
Leon looked at her. “What were you expecting?”
“This chamber,” Kira pointed to the image on the desktop, “is also composed of valteron. And there’s a lot of it. I’d expect this place to be a resonance hotspot.”
“Maybe it’s not that simple,” Leon mused. “Just because a material is present doesn’t mean that it has an active connection—there might be other factors.”
“That’s a valid point,” Elric agreed. “Maybe the valteron needs to have a signal running through it, or something of the sort.”
“Then why did the rocks on the surface cause such a strong reaction?” Kira asked.
“Well, it’s the perimeter of the facility. Perhaps there’s a trigger of some sort,” Leon suggested.
She tilted her head. “Like a security system?”
“Or proximity alarm,” Elric said. “You felt faint when you first stepped inside, yes?”
Kira nodded.
“I had to make some significant adjustments to compensate,” Jasmine chimed in.
“Not everyone would have an AI capable of cancelling out the effects,” Elric continued. “I can only speculate, but the information I’ve seen points to a net, designed to catch anyone with remotely compatible tech that would enable potential telepathic control.”
Kira decided to go with the line of reasoning. “And since I made it out of the net, and my team wasn’t susceptible, we were able to proceed. But that’s a really ineffective security system, if anyone else can just walk inside.”
“Except you didn’t find anything,” the doctor stated.
“We accessed the computer system and were loading a ton of data onto an external drive,” Kira pointed out.
“Yes, but you never got that off the planet. After the mission, you were essentially in the same place you began,” he countered.
“Are you suggesting that it allowed us through the facility?”
Elric shrugged. “I don’t have enough information to say. Let’s go through the rest of the mission recording to see if any patterns emerge.”
“Right.” Kira continued advancing the video.
“The next spike to your vitals came about ten minutes later,” Elric said, consulting his notes.
“Yes, I know exactly what that one was about.” Kira braced for the viewing of the next segment—their visit to the mysterious pit.
The voices wouldn’t come through on the recording, since Jasmine hadn’t heard them, but Kira remembered the chill that had run through her as they’d whispered in her mind.
She resumed playing the video at normal speed at the appropriate point. When the video showed Kira’s perspective of looking into the pit, Elric and Leon inched back in their chairs.
“How deep is that?” Leon asked.
“Too deep,” Kira replied, knowing her team on the video was about to state the results of the scan. She waited for the onscreen discussion to conclude.
“All right, this is when I heard them,” Kira said. She watched Elric follow along with her vitals feed.
“Yes, that’s definitely the second resonance spike,” the doctor confirmed.
Kira frowned. “That’s all well and good, but you said there were four instances of vital spikes. One of the four incidents I had in mind didn’t pan out.”
Elric nodded. “Based on the end time of the mission record, I can confirm that the last incident corresponds with the attack while you were exiting. The third was approximately six minutes before that, but it wasn’t a spike so much as a sustained, low-level increase.” He pointed to a timestamp in his notes.
“We were just walking through the hallways. Nothing stands out.” Kira skipped ahead to the timestamp the doctor had indicated.
When she reached the point in the recording, the doctor’s observation suddenly made sense. “Of course, that’s when we entered the exit tunnel.”
“They may have been subtly influencing you, trying to get you to stay,” Elric suggested.
“I didn’t feel it at all.” Up until that point, Kira had been confident that she’d know if she was under the aliens’ influence. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Kira looked between Leon and Doctor Elric. “We know the circumstances around the telepathic resonance now, but why was it just those four times? Was it a communication attempt and I missed it?”
“It’s strange that nothing happened in the main chamber, like you said,” Leon replied. “If they were trying to communicate, I’d think they’d do it in the place with the most valteron to act as a conduit.”
“I agree. The fact that nothing happened in that chamber is an anomaly,” Elric said.
Leon’s eyes narrowed in thought. “These guys are smart. All of their moves have been calculated and intentional.”
“That’s what worries me.” Kira slumped in her seat. “I can’t shake the feeling that we were the ones being investiga
ted, not the other way around.”
“Or hunted,” Leon said. He straightened in his chair and had a spark in his eyes.
“Yeah, that makes me feel way better.” She shot him a venomous look.
Leon shook his head. “I didn’t mean it facetiously. I’ve been trying to think through the behavior from a biological standpoint—analyze it in terms of the traits we know to be evolutionarily beneficial. I think I have a working theory.”
“These things are unlike anything else we’ve seen,” Kira reminded him.
“But in broad strokes, there are predators and prey,” Leon began. “On the prey side, when a threat is spotted, creatures either run or freeze, with the hope they aren’t spotted.”
“But the alien-particle-things attacked us while we were trying to leave,” Kira countered.
“That’s what got me thinking,” Leon continued. “We can’t see these beings, so it’s easy for them to hide. But it doesn’t follow the prey pattern of waiting for a threat to pass and then coming out of hiding. They’re hunters. They set a trap for what they wanted, and when it didn’t work, they waited for another opportunity to strike.”
Kira crossed her arms and sighed. “I knew that whole thing was a trap.”
“But how, specifically?” Doctor Elric prompted. “Why not go after the team when they were deepest inside the facility?”
“That’s the part that didn’t click for me until just now,” Leon went on. “Like any predator, they have their preferred hunting grounds. In this case, they lured you, Kira—the prey—toward their hiding place. The first trap didn’t work, and they also saw that you had backup. So, they waited for you to go to another location where they knew they could corner you.” He pointed to the video again. “You were behind everyone else. It’s the only point in your entire walk through the facility that the rest of the team was closer to an exit than you were.”
“Shite, you’re right!” she realized. “I had consistently been walking in between them except for that moment.”
“And that’s when they tried to snare you in a different sort of trap—a stronger, better one.”
Her stomach turned over. “And it almost worked.”
