by Rachel Ford
“I know. I…didn’t think that was going to happen. Not now, in my life.”
“But that’s great.” His shock was passing, and enthusiasm was reaching his features. “It’s incredible. We’re – we’re going to have a baby, Ari!” He got out of his seat and rounded the table, pulling her out of hers and into his arms. “We’re going to have a baby.”
“Tig, wait,” she said, pushing back against his embrace so that they were face to face. “I…I’m not sure yet. I mean, are you sure? Do you really want a kid with me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Why? You barely know me. I mean, I know we’ve been together for a few months, but it’s only a few months. A kid – well, that’s a lifetime.” They hadn’t made plans for the long-term. So far, they’d been taking things one day at a time. They were good days – very good days. Hell, she was in love with him. She could see herself spending the rest of her life with Tig Orson. But she didn’t know if that’s what he saw in their future. And she didn’t want him to make up his mind because she’d gotten pregnant.
He seemed confused by her questions. “I love you. Of course I’d…” He trailed off, a look of understanding crossing his features. “Oh. You mean…” He passed his tongue over his lips nervously. “Would you-would you rather not have a kid with me, Ari?”
“Dammit, Tig, of course not. I love you. I can’t say I ever planned on being a parent, but there’s no one I’d rather parent with. I just – we just – never talked about a kid. Or the future. I don’t want you to feel…trapped.”
He pulled her to him again, and this time ignored her harrumphs as he cupped her face in his hands and covered it in kisses, from her forehead to her chin. When he finished, she was grinning. “Trapped?” he said. “Dammit, darling this is the best – second best – news I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh? And what was the best?”
He kissed her again, this time slowly and tenderly on the lips. “When you said you loved me.”
Nees smiled at him, at the way his eyes, turning a honeyed amber, burned with affection and desire. At the way her stomach did backflips at the sight. “Oh.”
“Listen, Ari…I know you’re governor, and marrying an escaped convict…well, it might not be the best move, politically. So if the answer’s no, I get it. But I love you. I want to spend the rest of our lives together. I have since…well, almost since I met you.”
“What are you asking, Tig?”
“Will you marry me, Ari?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I’m not seeing anything at all, sir.”
Elgin heard the words, but he couldn’t believe them. Maybe he’d spent too long in the Wastes, and his nerves were shot. Maybe he was getting superstitious after all. But every instinct told him Lenksha was here, on Echo Nine. “They were able to cloak those mines, so we missed them,” he said. “That’s not standard military tech.”
“No sir.”
“Maybe they’ve got more of it lying around.” In conditions like these, even if it was prototype technology, it might be enough to stay hidden. “Keep looking. Kerel, I want to do another flyover, of that continent straddling the equator.”
“Sir?”
“It’s covered in lakes. Fresh water lakes, yes?”
“Yes sir,” one of the ensigns replied.
He nodded. “If I was Lenksha, I’d find a spot to camp near resources. Water, oil or food. We can’t get good enough sensor data to figure out where there’s food or oil. But we know where there’s water.”
“Copy that.”
“And let’s go low this time. As low as we can get. I want to be able to really see the surface.”
“Copy.”
He watched as the world below him seemed to grow larger and larger. The patches of red that were indistinguishable before became clearer. He could make out the prairies and the forests, the rolling red hills and fluffy, rust-colored woodlands.
“Anything?”
“No sir.”
“Alright. Keep scanning. And keep your eyes open.”
“Copy that.”
Their progress, at this altitude, was slow. The equatorial continent was large, and flying low enough for a visual search of the surface meant slower going.
The plains yielded nothing, but it was the tropical forests that drew Elgin’s eye. Lenksha wouldn’t hide in the open. He’d seek some sort of cover, and there wasn’t much on this planet aside from forests. If he was hiding somewhere, it would probably be by them.
Unfortunately, the continent was covered in forests. Dammit. This would be so much quicker if we had more ships. How many times had he thought that already since they’d departed Central’s airspace? How many more would he have to think it before this was all said and done?
“Sir,” a voice cut through his thoughts. It was Vaki. “I’m seeing…something.”
“Explain.”
The younger man shook his head. “I’m not sure if it’s anything. But I thought I saw something, on the other side of this lake.”
They were flying over a massive body of water, as big as some of the smaller oceans on Central. “Take us in, Kerel.”
“Aye-aye.”
Nik smiled as he entered the room. “Brek.”
“Nik,” he said. His tone seemed raw to her ears, and she saw with concern as he knelt beside her that his face was drawn.
“What’s wrong, Brek?”
“Wrong?” He was flabbergasted. “You almost died.”
“Oh.” She flushed. “I’m fine.”
“That’s not what Doctor Kel says.”
She offered a dismissive smile. “You know how doctors are.”
But he didn’t smile. “Oh Nik.”
“Hey,” she said, taking his hand. “I’m okay. Really. I just fainted. That’s all.”
“And your blood pressure was off the charts,” he recriminated.
“But it’s under control now.”
“For now.”
She squeezed his hand. “I promised Doctor Kel I’ll be more careful. I’ll get more sleep, drink more water. Take my vitamins. All that stuff.”
Again, he didn’t smile. She felt something – was it guilt? – stir in her at the depth of his concern. She took on a more serious tone. “I mean it, Brek. I’ll take care of myself.”
“You promise?” he asked.
“I do.” Some of the tension in his forehead relaxed, and she flashed him a soft smile. “And I hear I have you to thank for making sure I didn’t hurt myself earlier, when I lost consciousness. And getting me to the ambulance when it pulled up.” From what Doctor Kel had had from the paramedics, Brek had run up alongside the vehicle with her in his arms before they’d even exited the ambulance.
He brushed this off. “I’m just glad you’re alright. I was so worried.”
The tender greens of his eyes convinced her of the truth of his words, and she squeezed his hand again. “You’re a good friend, Brek. A better friend than I’ve ever had.”
He glanced down, at his hand in hers, and for a moment was silent. Then, he said, “Listen, Nik. I know you feel like you have to be at all the sessions, and read all the briefs and reports.”
“Oh no,” she groaned. “Kel talked to you, didn’t he?”
He nodded, meeting her gaze again. “He did.”
“I have a duty-”
“To live. Not just for the baby, but for the empire. And not just for the empire. For…for you. You can’t let this revolution kill you. So many have died already. Not you too.”
She sat for a moment, unsure of what to say. If he was anyone else, she’d have brushed off his concerns. If this was Doctor Kel, with his sober gold eyes and disapproving frown, she’d have done what she could to placate him but made up her mind to ignore him. If this was Giya, talking about how much the empire needed her, she’d have reassured him that she’d learned her lesson and left it there. She was a minister, and she had her duties, whatever it cost her.
But Brek was neit
her the concerned parental stand-in or a worried colleague. The fear in his eyes was deeper, and more poignant. “I…I know,” she said in a moment. “I just…how can I serve the empire and yet not perform my duties?”
He pulled his hand out of hers, in order to wrap her fingers in his own. “I’ll help you, Nik. Kel says you need bedrest. I can keep you up-to-date on what’s going on. I have to read all the same reports as you do anyway. I can summarize them for you. I can read them to you, when you need. At least you won’t have to worry about being in the office, or finding time to get through them all.”
“Hell, I can’t ask you to do that – to babysit me, to do my job for me.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”
“I can’t accept.” She shook her head. “It’s too much, Brek. I can’t ask anyone to do that.”
“So you’d rather die than let me help? For what? What do you have to prove, Nik, that’s worth your life?”
From anyone else, the words would have raised her ire. But they were offered with such sincerity, such genuine pain, that she felt her resistance waver. “It’s not just that…what about sessions?”
“We can set up a video link, so you can watch when you’re up to it, when it’s important. I can fill you in when it’s not. And you can vote in absentia when you need to. I’m sure they’ll let you project onto the floor to cast your vote.”
She groaned. “I don’t want special treatment, Brek.”
“Dammit, Nik: it’s a special circumstance.” He squeezed her hand in his. “Please. Don’t die over this. I…we can’t afford to lose you.”
Chapter Thirty
Elgin saw it at the same moment sensors all over the bridge sounded, and Lt. Vaki’s voice reached his ears. “Incoming, sir!”
Kerel’s joined the other officer’s, with a, “Off the port bow, sir.”
But he heard them as an aside, something happening in the distance. His eyes were focused on the sight of dozens of fiery plumes, all headed for the Supernova. “Helm, evasive maneuvers. Tactical, what are we dealing with?”
“I’m picking up fighters, sir. Dozens of them. Can’t get a targeting lock. They keep vanishing from my sensors.”
“Return fire. Target where you can, widespread otherwise.”
“Aye-aye.”
“And scramble our own fighters.”
“Copy.”
Elgin’s eyes darted between the scene before him and his own sensor panels. The former showed him glimpses of the world beyond his ship: fighters zipping past, raining down fire on them; the rust reds of the far shore, and the blues of the lake below them; the overcast sky, its network of heavy clouds providing cover for enemy vessels. He saw the trails of fire pouring from the Supernova, in the general direction of their attackers.
The latter was less helpful. His sensor readings came and went, showing dozens of ships one moment and empty skies the next. This was more than radiation or in atmosphere interference. The loyalists had some kind of scrambling or cloaking tech at play here.
“Any sign of the starships?” They had to be near. The fighters wouldn’t stray far from the motherships. His sensors showed no trace of them, though.
“Negative.”
Now and again, the hiss of munitions impacting with the ship’s shielding sounded, or the boom of an explosion against the hull. But the shields were holding well.
The enemy fighters were less fortunate when hit. The Supernova’s munitions packed enough of a punch to destroy the smaller craft in a single shot. Hitting was the tricky part, though. They were small and maneuverable, and their seasoned pilots – and Lenksha had plenty of those – could wind their way out of a missile’s path easily enough.
Elgin registered a few hits, and a few downed enemy craft. But there were still dozens left, all buzzing around his ship, all pouring fire into her.
There was something particularly awe-inspiring about the burn of deep-space munitions released in an oxygen atmosphere. In space, the gases that could burn did, arcing a little trail of fire across the night sky – an understated path of death.
But with a ready supply of oxygen, they blazed an insatiable reddish-orange, fierce and hungry balls of fire and death. It was all the same thing: they killed just as readily in space or in atmosphere.
Here, each shot carving a fiery path of destruction through the day, the effect hit him harder. But he was not awed, this time. He wearied at the sight of those fireballs. He felt oddly exhausted and disembodied, like a spectator at a stadium. Only he wasn’t watching a ball being chased, or cheering for the latest disc capture. There weren’t prizes and accolades waiting the victor. This was another match to the death, in a tournament without end. There was the long sleep waiting on the one hand, and the next round on the other; and a next after that, and another, and another, until today’s victor died too, and a new champion took his place in the endless cycle.
Elgin had won a few of these matches recently. He felt now, in his bones, in his very soul, that he was about to cede his laurels. A new day would dawn, a new victor emerge in the bloody arena of Tribari military history.
But it wouldn’t be Lenksha. It wouldn’t be this loyalist fleet that harassed the colonies, that threatened the home world.
“I see the ships,” Kerel’s voice called, cutting through his thoughts. “They’re not on sensors, sir. But there, on the far side of the lake.”
Elgin’s eyes followed the direction she indicated, and a grim smile of satisfaction lifted the corners of his mouth. Against a backdrop of tropical trees and silica sand, dozens of ships – the bulk of the loyalist fleet, he imagined – had docked by the lakeside. “Take us in, Kerel.”
Tal stared at his friend. “Married?”
Tig nodded. “That’s right. We’re getting married.”
“Tonight?”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s…kind of out of the blue, isn’t it?”
“Not really. If we’re going to start a family together, it seems like the logical place to start.”
“Wait, what?”
Tig grinned at him. “Oh, did I not mention that?”
“Mention what, exactly?” His friend’s satisfaction was so pronounced, that he had a good idea of what he was about to say, but he wanted to be sure.
“Ari’s pregnant.”
“Good gods. I thought you two were taking it slow?”
“Well, we were. At first. But that was months ago.”
Tal considered. It wasn’t much of a surprise. He’d seen enough lovesick simpers pass between them to make a grown man gag. But, still, he knew Tig. He knew the man’s disposition. He knew what would happen if he let himself give a hundred percent for something that ended up going belly up. “Well, congratulations. On the baby, I mean.”
Tig clapped him on the back. “Thanks, Tal. So, what do you say? Will you do it?”
He sighed. “Of course I’ll be your best man. But listen, Tig: are you really sure about this?”
The other man frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just that, you’ve only known her for a few months. What if…well, what if you feel differently in a few more months? What if she feels differently?”
“She won’t. I won’t.”
“How can you know?”
“I love her, Tal. I know it’s quick. But I…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how to explain it, exactly. Just that, when I’m with her…everything feels right. My whole life. It all makes sense. I feel…connected to her, in a way I never felt with anyone else.”
Gods. There’d be no reasoning him down from this hormone-induced cliff. Still, he had to try. “Okay, so you love her. But that doesn’t mean she feels the same.”
“She does.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. I…don’t know how to explain it. I just know. I love her.”
Tal had always prided himself on his level-headedness in such matters. He wasn’t opposed to romance, of course. But i
t seemed to turn the most rational creatures into fools. And for all his virtues, Tig was hardly a cool, clear-headed rationalist on his best days. Now, the protector could only shake his head, hoping his friend’s starry-eyed dreams were rooted in some reality. “Alright, Tig. I still say you should give it awhile. But if you’re going to go through with it, of course I’ll be your best man.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“The TS-Phoenix is powering up her engines, sir.”
“We’ve lost three shield generators, sir.”
“Taking heavy damage from the defense grid, Captain.”
Elgin gritted his teeth. “Concentrate all fire on the grounded ships, and the surface batteries.” Dagir and his fighters were doing what they could to occupy the other fighter pilots. He needed to focus on the fleet itself.
“Aye-aye.”
“Well, well: former Captain Elgin.” A voice issued out on the bridge a moment before Admiral Lenksha’s smiling form projected.
How in the hell is he still able to do that? he wondered. As far as High Command knew, they’d closed all the old access ports to the comm system. “Get rid of that,” he told comms, ignoring the admiral altogether.
“I’ve been looking forward to this reunion for a while now. Ever since I heard they authorized your little suicide run.” Lenksha was smiling. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Elgin. You have to know that not all of your friends are as friendly as they pretend to be.”
“Comms, get rid of that,” he snapped. He wasn’t here to bandy words, or trade barbs and clever rejoinders. He was here to kill Lenksha, and not a dammed thing was going to distract him from that.
“Working on it, sir.”
“You’ll be happy to know that your arrival is what I’ve been waiting for: after we destroy the Supernova, we’re heading to Tau. Then Tor.” Lenksha rolled his holographic shoulders. “I didn’t want you to meet us en route, and risk you getting a message back this time. But you certainly took your time getting here.”
His faux aggravation, coupled with his satisfied smile, were meant to ruffle Elgin. He knew that. He kept his attention on his displays, busied his mind calculating how much time they had before the rest of the fleet powered up to join the Phoenix. The closer they got to the loyalist fleet, the less impact the dampening fields seemed to have on his sensors.
