He shook his head. “They did seem disappointed. And your commander and Captain Harris seem to have a very chilly relationship.”
“Yes, I think I might have helped that along.” She didn't even feel guilty about it.
He smiled for the first time. “And there are very solid rumors going around the ship that Arkhoran Special Forces might just be shown up if we ever have to face the Raxian Expeditionary Force in a training exercise.”
She felt a tug of unease. “Except, you wouldn't be.”
He shook his head. “It's good for us to worry that maybe we aren't the best. Keeps everyone on their toes.”
“Do you think someone will set up a contest or something?” Because while she was a proud Raxian, she'd seen Ben's team in action, and the Expeditionary Force were mainly scientists and technicians, not warriors.
Ben shrugged. “My guess is no. My side won't want to take the risk, and your side probably doesn't even understand where their amazing reputation is coming from.”
A laugh escaped and she put a hand over her mouth.
“And what now?” He drew her closer, so her head was on his shoulder.
She sighed. “I don't know. I don't know that I can go back to doing what I was before. Who I was before. Not yet.”
She couldn't see herself anywhere. And she would never be who she was before. She needed to accept that.
The military had been her life, but maybe it was time to get out. Nothing felt right anymore.
“What about coming over to Arkhoran Special Forces with the Verdant String Cooperation Initiative?”
She tipped her head up. “As what?”
“As a valuable member of the SF teams.”
She scoffed. “Doing what?”
“Doing what you do.” He lifted up on an elbow. “Pulling yourself up through a small gap into a handstand on someone's shoulders. Flying a runner. Working out how to activate Caruson weapons.” He paused. “Running up walls.”
“All that will get me is questions I can't answer.”
“It will get you less questions than anywhere else.” He lifted her palm, rubbed the center of it. “It will let you live more authentically as your new self than anything else you could do.”
Was that true?
He lifted her palm to his lips and kissed it. “I'm not just saying this because it means I'll see you every day we aren't on assignment. Although that is a huge factor. I'm saying it because you shouldn't hide away out of fear, Tally. You deserve more than that.”
“Is this even possible?” She didn't see any reason for either the Arkhorans or the Raxians to suggest it.
“I've already requested it.” He lifted his shoulders. “You could say no, but I wanted to know if the idea would fly.”
“And?”
“And it seems having the ghost ship girl is very appealing to the Arkhoran Special Forces command.” He quirked a smile. “It's your side that seems reluctant to lose you. Something I can't fault them for.”
His comm unit buzzed, and he swung to his feet.
“You and I are both due for another debrief in half an hour. I have to do some things first, so get ready, and I'll come fetch you.”
She nodded and sat up, elbows on knees.
“Tally.” He stopped at the door. “Think about coming over to the SF teams. And if you really don't want to do it, think about what the two of us could do together.”
She stared at him, shocked, and then gave a nod as he closed the door.
Chapter 45
Harris and Hopl both seemed surprised that Ben and Tally arrived together to the meeting. Reskit, though, didn't so much as twitch.
Tally was sure he would have seen Ben kiss her before he left her in the launch bay the night before and it wouldn't surprise her if he hadn't also questioned Ben's teammates about their relationship.
“I hope you'll excuse Officer Riva and I for a short meeting with the Raxian Fleet Commander, Captain Harris. We'll be back shortly.” Commander Hopl had obviously been saving this announcement for Tally's arrival, because Harris was taken by surprise.
“Where will this meeting take place?” Harris managed to broadcast her offense with a sneer.
“On my runner in the launch bay. Just easier to set it up there, as our systems are already secure.” Hopl gave an insincere smile, and Tally kept her head down as she followed him out.
They were close to the launch bay, anyway, but she wondered if it was wise to antagonize the Arkhorans to this extent.
She said nothing, though, and left it to the commander to close up the runner, and initiate the contact with the head of fleet.
“Admiral Min.” Hopl gave a formal bow.
“Commander.”
Tally had never spoken to the admiral before, not even on a comms link, but she recognized her well enough. “Admiral.” She inclined her head and lifted a closed fist over her heart in the formal Raxian salute.
“What do you know of the request to join the Arkhoran Special Forces teams, Science Officer Riva?” The admiral's tone was no-nonsense.
“I only heard about it earlier this morning,” Tally answered, noting Hopl's shock.
It looked like it was news to him.
“It's their way to get information out of her. Information they think we're hiding from them.” Hopl sounded outraged.
“But we're not actually hiding any information from them,” Tally pointed out. “Or are we?”
Min and Hopl exchanged a look.
“We are?” Tally's mouth fell open. “Oh.”
“Not really.” Min brushed it away. “We have some hypotheses that we are looking into first, is all.”
“Like the ghost ship belonged to the original travelers that settled the Verdant String?” Tally asked. “Or might be from another Verdant String planet that we don't yet know about?”
There was shocked silence from both her superior officers.
“And what made you conclude that?” Min asked.
“I was on that ship for two weeks.” Tally lifted her shoulders. “It wasn't Verdant String tech, but it was familiar, somehow. And everything was built to my size and physiology. It was a natural thing to wonder.” Even the little helpers meshed with her only too well. And had been so eager to settle in, like they had been lonely and waiting a long time for a new host.
There was silence, and then Hopl cleared his throat. “Well, keep that speculation to yourself.”
She nodded.
“Not only I, but the rest of my command team, agrees we should accept the offer of a placement for Officer Riva to join the Special Forces team. It's a good political move. It will also put a lot of their suspicions to rest.” Min took a step closer to the camera. “Does that suit you, Officer Riva?”
Tally had been turning it over and over in her mind since she'd stepped in the shower after Ben had left her room.
“It suits me.” She had wondered how much of her motivation to reveal as she'd dressed in the uniform Commander Hopl had had delivered for her.
“Why?” Hopl was looking at her directly, ignoring the annoyed frown of the admiral.
“Mainly because I have developed a romantic relationship with Captain Guthrie, Commander. And I understand it was he who put in the request for my transfer.”
It was Hopl's turn to look stunned. “A . . . romantic relationship?”
“Yes, Commander.” She looked straight ahead, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Well, then that works out rather nicely.” Min looked like she was trying not to laugh. “And when you get tired of him, Science Officer Riva, you can come back, and we'll still have all the credit of having given you up.”
That statement seemed to relax Hopl as well.
Tally merely nodded, but she had no intention of tiring of Ben Guthrie.
* * *
“Do you think they'll let her come over to us?” Reskit asked, his gaze on Ben.
“No.” Harris cut in, shaking her head. “They're working out how to decline
the request without looking like they have something to hide.”
“I hope they will allow her to come. I hope she wants to.” Ben's response earned a quick look from Harris, but Reskit nodded.
“And if not?”
Ben shrugged. “We'll see what they say, first.”
“And what's this I'm hearing that she's with some top secret team?” Harris sounded aggrieved.
“We can't think we're the only ones with special forces,” Ben said, trying not to smile. “Why wouldn't they send a high-level team in to the ghost ship? It's what we'd do.”
Harris frowned as she considered it. “That's not on her file.”
Ben lifted his shoulders. “Maybe they don't want anyone to know what they can do.”
Reskit started frowning, as well. He turned to Harris. “What have you heard?”
“Enough that half the things don't sound possible. Running up walls, handstands from impossible angles.”
Ben said nothing.
“They true?” Reskit asked him.
Ben met his commander's gaze. “People do amazing things when they have no choice.”
He grunted. “True enough.”
Someone knocked on the door, and then Tally and her commander stepped through.
Neither looked particularly unhappy, and Ben suddenly didn't know what choice she could have made.
He hadn't been lying earlier. If she didn't join the SF teams, he would have to find something else to do. As long as it was with her.
Because he wasn't going to lose her.
“Admiral Min and I are happy to accept your kind offer of including Science Officer Riva in the Arkhoran Special Forces as part of the VSCI. We hope it means an even deeper alliance and cooperation between our forces.” Hopl sent Harris a knife-edged smile.
Ben had been watching Tally, though, not Hopl, and she lifted her gaze, and gave him a smile that seemed to light up every corner of him.
Reskit put out a hand in an Arkhoran greeting to Hopl. “We are extremely honored to have someone with Officer Riva's talent and bravery on the SF teams, Commander.” He shifted his gaze to Harris, who was putting her neutral face on.
“Perhaps I can show Tally around the ship while you sort out the details,” Ben said. He put out a hand, and Tally looked at it as if wondering if he really wanted to do this now, but when he continued to hold it out, she grabbed it.
Harris' eyes narrowed. “Guthrie?”
“Officer Riva and I will need to be assigned to different teams. Although it's a shame, because we work very well together.”
“So noted.” Reskit was watching them with a cool, considering eye.
Ben wondered what he was planning.
He pulled Tally out of the room, and quick marched her back to her quarters.
“I already know this part of the ship,” she said, and when he looked down at her, her eyes were dancing with laughter.
“Maybe you do,” he said as he locked her door behind them. “But I have some new territory I want to explore.”
Excerpt: Sky Raiders
Book One in the Sky Raiders Series
Chapter 1
He'd asked her to wait for him, and then he'd disappeared for two years.
As he reached the top of the pass and started down the steep path to the valley below, Garek wondered just how angry Taya would be.
That she would be angry enough to have taken someone else sat like week-old loaf in his stomach, heavy and sickening.
He'd had no choice, had come as soon as he could . . . he tried to shake off the chill that touched him, despite the bright day. He'd take her anger, her fury--he'd take it all if it meant he didn't find her with someone else.
He forced himself to pay attention as the path became steeper still, and frowned at how badly maintained the way had become, as if no one had repaired the damage a winter in the mountains could do to a narrow track. The spring thaw had come and gone, replaced by a golden summer, and the snow had retreated to the tops of the mountains.
Kas should have done something about the erosion by now, even though this path was a shortcut few besides the villagers knew of, cutting across the Crag and shaving hours off the journey through the foothills.
The familiar landscape tugged at something inside him. He hadn't thought himself sentimental, and though he'd missed Taya with an ache that hurt worse than a knife to flesh, he hadn't thought the sight of the rolling hills and high peaks would affect him. The crowds and enclosing stone walls of Garamundo had been something to bear stoically, but he was surprised how easy it was to breathe here, and it wasn't just because the air was sweet with the scent of summer grass.
When he'd left two years ago, the only thing he'd regretted was leaving Taya behind him, and he'd come back only to fetch her.
Fetch her and run, as fast as possible.
As far away from West Lathor as they could get.
The shadow cast by Garamundo had a long reach, certainly long enough to reach out and try to grab him again if he stayed here, and he'd sworn when they'd finally released him that he would never go back.
He wouldn't give them a chance to conscript him again.
He was halfway down the mountain when he noticed there were no leviks on the slopes.
He stopped a moment, shading his eyes against the bright midday light of the Star to search for any sign of their golden, curly coats.
He could find none.
A breeze rose up, swirling about him, and he was struck by the silence.
His hearing was exceptional, and there was no sound of life. No ring of a hammer on anvil, no murmur of voices from the street.
Impossible.
His home town was small, but not that small. Pan Nuk had at least a hundred inhabitants when he'd left. And it was directly below him. Hidden by the thick line of trees it would take him only ten minutes to reach, but there nonetheless.
He started to run.
At first he ran under his own steam, and then, as the silence seemed to deepen, become more sinister, he opened himself up to the Change and felt the curious, slow, honey-thick flow of the air around him, the inbetween, and he was suddenly at the village gates.
He drew back to himself, stumbled a little at the feeling of disorientation such a quick Change generated.
He stood still, looking around him carefully. Took it all in.
The ripped doors. The shutters hanging by a single hinge. The smashed pots and baskets lying in the street.
The emptiness.
While the city of Garamundo had held him, forced him to help them protect themselves from the sky raiders, the sky raiders had been helping themselves elsewhere.
Helping themselves to Taya.
Chapter 2
There would be blood.
Taya moved her gaze from Jerilia, weeping in soft, keening sobs, to the big Kardanx who gripped her arm, to the way Kas and the other men and women of the Illy began to gather to one side of the open area in front of the mine where they waited to be collected for the camp.
The Kardanx shifted his grip and Taya could see there were already dark smudges ringing Jerilia's upper arm where he held her.
The spike of anger that ripped through her made her gasp, made her force in a breath of dusty, cold air.
If she couldn't keep a cool head, she couldn't expect Kas and the others to do the same.
Behind the Kardanx, some of his fellow countrymen began to gather as well, their expressions more muted, more severe.
They didn't want trouble with the Illy. It seemed the big man who had grabbed Jerilia wasn't so worried.
Kas had already told him to let Jerilia go. Jerilia herself had demanded it. Taya looked into his eyes and knew he would not do it.
Perhaps if Jerilia hadn't screamed so loudly, made such a fuss. Perhaps if Kas's bellow of outrage hadn't made every head turn.
Or perhaps not.
Whatever the reason, to let her go now would be a loss of face the Kardanx would not be prepared to accept
.
Taya could see it in the way his eyes narrowed, the way his mouth tightened. She had always had the gift of reading people's intentions from the way they moved their bodies, and the Kardanx was screaming pent up rage and defiance with every pore.
A small movement caught her eye. Kas, drawing something from the back of his pants, gripping it tightly in his fisted hand.
Was that a knife?
No.
She wouldn't let another she loved be hurt. Not because of the lust of a stupid Kardanx. The Kardanx were supposed to worship the Mother, but either this one wasn't an adherent to the belief, or he was simply one of the majority who twisted the meanings of their oaths so they could treat women with less respect. She saw the evidence before her now, in the way the Kardanx thought he could have Jerilia, even against her will.
Taya had heard another, even uglier whisper. That the reason there were only six women amongst all the Kardanx the sky raiders had taken was because the men had killed them, rather than have them taken by the enemy.
Taya had heard Kardanx men swore an oath to protect the Mother, and her avatars, all women, with their lives. But if they had killed their women to protect them, they were not honoring the Mother as an equal. They had killed them like they would kill their livestock so the invading army cannot use it. As they would burn their house, to give the enemy nothing to shield himself from the weather.
As one treats a possession, not a person, with their own will and choices.
The Kardanx took a step toward his own group, dragging Jerilia with him, and Kas and three others took a step forward.
The other Kardanx shouted something to their countryman, and he turned to look at them over his shoulder. He shouted back, and though Kardanx was close enough to Illian, it was said so fast Taya couldn't understand it. But the meaning was clear enough.
The Kardanx would not back down.
She wished, not for the first time, for Garek. Felt a need for him as strong as for her next breath. Then she shrugged off the paralysis of wanting something she could not have, and her gaze came to rest on their guard. When they'd first been brought here the metal skin of the two-legged, squat vehicle that enclosed him had been gleaming and new. Now she could see flakes of it falling off, and it was dull, corroded.
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