“No,” Davor finally concluded. “Final Dragon remains one of the few tools we have that exceed even most Core Powers’ capabilities. I will not authorize its deployment to deal with a Precursor leftover.
“As Captain of a Final Dragon–equipped ship, you inevitably have a great deal of discretion around the weapons’ use,” she noted. “As much as the currents of our law allow it, I am forbidding you to deploy strategic weapons against the Womb. Am I clear, Captain?”
“You are, sir,” Morgan said crisply. “I’m not exactly eager to fire one.”
“Some would be,” Davor replied. “Some would be.”
“And they didn’t pass the psych tests to command an Armored Dream–class cruiser,” Morgan stated. She was briefed or aware of a lot of things she wasn’t technically cleared for, and even she hadn’t known why she was being subjected to an entire new and intrusive set of tests before she took up her new command.
“So I must hope,” her CO agreed. “We have no choice but to investigate the Womb, Captain, and the grim truth is that even if I had Captain Kelik’s destroyers here, there would be little point in sending them with you.
“You and your crew will take two cycles to rest while Kosha Station’s people rearm your ship,” she ordered. “Then, you will proceed to Target One and confirm just what in darkest depths we are facing out here.”
“Understood, sir.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
This time, Rin had made sure that the restaurant he’d booked was inside the security perimeter of the Kosha Station Navy Base. That had limited the quality of the places he was looking at, but he’d left a few dozen friends behind in the base when he’d followed Casimir off into the dark.
Kelly Lawrence swore by the Rekiki restaurant attached to the hotel she was staying in. Despite the chef not being human, he apparently had a wizard’s touch with Universal Protein.
The crocodilian centaur at the entrance didn’t blink at a pair of humans showing up, either.
“I have three reservations and four open tables set up for bipedals,” she told them instantly. “Do you have a reservation?”
“We do, under Captain Casimir,” Rin replied with a smile and a glance at the Captain next to him. She seemed withdrawn this evening, which he suspected meant she’d received the kind of news she wasn’t allowed to share with him.
“Of course, with the extra security requirements,” the hostess noted. “This way, please.”
Rin and Casimir followed the sentient into the restaurant. It was about what Rin had expected, the kind of mildly upscale décor and furnishings that any hotel trying to not look terrible tended to lean toward.
The effect was undermined, from his perspective at least, by being put together for Rekiki esthetics. A lot of the colors were shades of red and brown that human eyes couldn’t easily distinguish, turning the hunting murals into muddy mixes of paint to him.
Someone had spent a lot of effort and probably quite a bit of money to make the restaurant look better but had focused on a style that would only look good to about a quarter of the Imperium’s species.
Of course, since the planet beneath them was primarily a Rekiki colony, it made sense.
The room they were taken to was better in some ways; it had been painted a light brown and left undecorated beyond that. A single table filled most of the small private room, and Rin’s teeth itched at the privacy field.
He and Casimir took their seats, and the Rekiki leading them flourished a pair of menus out of what Rin wanted to call saddlebags.
“We have a human-tailored set of Universal Protein offerings, and we currently have a human-compatible special, listed on the last page. Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
The Rekiki hostess withdrew, leaving Rin and Casimir alone with the menus.
“Four Marines at the door,” Rin’s date finally said with a sigh. “At least another four running a patrol through the surrounding station sections, and that’s just Defiance’s Marines.”
“I appear to have been handed back to Station Security,” he noted. “Two of their Marines are at the door. They’ve probably found yours and are commiserating already.”
“That is what they do,” she agreed, flipping the menu open. “Human-compatible does not, apparently, mean appetizing.”
“Do I want to know?” Rin asked.
“Well, if I’m reading this right, the meal is still alive when served,” Casimir replied with a chuckle. “Any idea what I should be looking at?”
“A friend of mine is staying in the hotel this place serves,” Rin told her. “She swears by their UP and pasta, of all things.”
“Spaghetti and bolognese sauce with UP and actual tomatoes, I see.” She was smiling. “My understanding is that Rekiki can eat tomatoes, actually. I remember Dad talking about how they had become one of our biggest export products.
“Potatoes and soy make great raw material for UP, but tomatoes are entirely edible for Rekiki and they love the things. So, Italian food at a Rekiki restaurant makes a surprising degree of sense.”
“I did not know that,” Rin admitted. “I spend most of my time off-Earth eating basic UP.” He coughed. “I’m not known for paying that much attention to what I eat.”
“Murtas had some…commentary on your working habits aboard Child,” Casimir agreed with a chuckle. “Do try to take better care of yourself. I do look forward to getting to know you better.”
“That’s good to hear,” Rin admitted. “Professional captain face left me wondering.”
“That’s work,” she agreed. “While I’m aboard Defiance, I am her Captain and I cannot really be anything else. Morgan Casimir the woman gets subordinated.”
“I’m familiar with how that works,” he said. “Though, of course, for me it results in working for several days without necessarily sleeping.”
“Which is more dangerous in some ways than getting shot at, Rin,” she said with a soft laugh. “I’m glad you found what you did in the Children’s files. You’re going to have weeks to go over it all now, I suspect.”
“That’s the plan,” he agreed. “You’d know better than I what the plan is for dealing with them, but I heard we had reinforcements coming.”
He caught the moment the mask came back up, and he sighed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The waiter arrived at that moment to collect their orders, distracting from her moment of concern.
“Something’s been bothering you since we met up,” he told Casimir after the Rekiki left. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you a lot of things; you’re just going to have to live with that if anything is going to come of this,” she told him, waving a hand over the table. “Defiance is going back out in another cycle, thirty hours or so.
“Everyone is on leave while the station crew sweeps and tidies. This is all we get for now, Rin.”
“Back out?” he asked. “But with more ships coming…”
Rin might not be a military officer, but he was a student of history and a smart man.
“There are no more ships coming,” he concluded. “The reinforcements got diverted to a crisis the Imperium isn’t publicly talking about yet. Given everything going on…the Wendira and the Laians are spear-rattling again, aren’t they?”
She stared at him.
“You know damn well I can’t answer that question,” she finally said with a chuckle. “And apparently, I need to learn that you’re dangerous, Rin Dunst. There’s no way you should have put together that hypothesis from what I said.”
“Despite my predilections and obsessions, I do keep up to date on Imperial politics,” Rin told her. “I am an employee of the government, after all, and politics help decide what gets grant money and what doesn’t.”
And wars tended to result in nothing getting grant money, but he was a historian. As a student of dead civilizations, he found it was wise to be aware of things that could take one’s own civilization into that categor
y.
“And where do I fall on that list, Dr. Dunst?” Casimir asked with a chuckle. “Am I a predilection, an obsession, or Imperial politics?”
He laughed.
“A point of curiosity, so far,” he told her. “An intriguing individual with so much potential, both for myself and for the Imperium.”
“You are attempting to flatter me, Rin,” she replied. “And again, I need to realize that you are a dangerous man.”
“I am, at best, merely mostly harmless,” he told her. “Nebbish archeologist of the finest stereotype, Morgan. If I flatter, it is only through the intent to speak the truth.”
She laughed and reached across the table to lay her hand on his.
“You’re adorable, is what you are,” she told him. “Did you intentionally book a restaurant attached to a hotel, Rin? Were you so sure of yourself as to book a room?”
That thought had never even occurred to him and the joking warmth he’d been projecting disintegrated into a moment of pure anxiety.
“Wait, what? No! I wouldn’t…”
Morgan was laughing at him as he felt his cheeks flush.
“You’re even more adorable when you blush,” she told him. “That was probably the best answer you could have.” She winked at him. “Though I will admit that I checked to be sure there were rooms still available for tonight.”
Despite a distinct lack of complaints the previous night, Rin was still self-conscious enough about his body to cover himself with a sheet while he watched Morgan very nearly dance around the hotel room as she collected her things.
She hadn’t gone so far as to put any of her clothes back on, which made the view extremely pleasant and distracting. Eventually, she stacked her clothes on the dresser and dropped back onto the bed.
“You’re awake,” she said with a smile, and proceeded to kiss him thoroughly.
Rin had definitely had worse mornings, and he had a hard time thinking of better ones.
“Have been for a bit,” he confessed. “Watching you is extraordinarily pleasant.”
He kissed her this time and they were both distracted for a few moments.
“Flatterer,” Morgan said. “I don’t have to get going straight away. There were a few questions in my inbox, but most of my crew is off-ship. That limits how many disasters are going to land on me in the next, oh, six hours.”
“What happens in six hours?” Rin asked.
“That’s when everyone is supposed to report back aboard Defiance. So, in six hours, I start to get the reasons why people are late and have to decide if I believe them or send Speaker Susskind’s MPs after them.”
“You’re going out after the Womb, aren’t you?” he asked softly.
“I can’t tell you that,” Morgan told him.
“I’m cleared for that, at least,” Rin countered. He was cleared for more than that, he was sure, but Morgan tended to err on assuming he wasn’t. She was an incredibly attractive and smart woman, but that particular tic was going to start annoying him sooner rather than later.
“Fair.” She shrugged, probably intending to distract him. “Yeah, we’re doing a scouting run. No one is going to actually go after the Womb with just one cruiser.”
“You have to take me, Morgan,” he told her. “There’s nobody more qualified to judge what we’re looking at here. A biological Alava megastructure? Even most Alava wouldn’t have known what to make of it.
“I do.”
“You realize that this”—Morgan’s gesture encompassed her nakedness, the bed and, presumably, the previous night’s festivities—“doesn’t happen aboard ship?”
“That has nothing to do with why I need to come with you,” Rin countered. “I’m not some hormone-addled college student, Morgan. I am the expert on Alava structures and history in this region.”
“And I’ve read the entire Archive you’re drawing on,” she told him. “I know more than you think I do, Rin. I know enough for this. It’s not like we’re picking a fight or trying to kill it on this op.”
“Morgan, please,” he said.
She was off the bed now, straight-spined and looking down at him.
“It’s not your call, Dr. Dunst,” she said formally. “It’s mine. Defiance is running a scouting operation, and there’s no reason to risk our subject-matter expert on a scouting run, is there? The answer is no.”
For a moment, he considered arguing further—but he also realized that continuing the argument wouldn’t change her mind and would result in her leaving the room.
He shook his head and said nothing. She sighed, her posture softening.
“My job, my call,” she told him as she took a seat next to him again, her arm wrapping around his shoulders. “Okay?”
“Okay,” he conceded. Her fingers running over his skin sent a shiver through him, and he looked at her sharply.
“What?” she asked innocently as her hands continued to explore. “I already told you, Rin, I don’t need to be anywhere for hours yet!”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rin stopped outside the main office complex of the Navy base in an uncharacteristic moment of hesitation. His watch said that Defiance’s crew would be returning aboard the cruiser as he waited, which limited how much time he had if he was going to do this.
He knew perfectly well that the moment he asked for the appointment he wanted, any chance of things continuing with Morgan Casimir was dead. That was the only thing holding him back—but he also knew that he knew the Alava better than anyone else in the region.
And that included Morgan Casimir, oddly well informed as the Captain was. She had a better idea of what she was taking her ship into than most, but the Alava’s leftovers were dangerous. Even she was safer if Rin went with her…and Rin needed to be there.
There was no way they should be going after what had to be the most active Alava artifact left without one of the Imperium’s experts aboard. He couldn’t be sure if she’d refused him out of a desire for glory, a desire for control, or a desire to keep a new lover safe.
Regardless, she’d been wrong.
Or so Rin told himself, anyway. He was self-aware enough to know that his desire for glory and knowledge was definitely a factor in his thinking.
Hesitation or not, he’d made his decision. He walked through the sliding doors and up to the Marine NCO holding down the front access to the administration center.
“Lance Millicent,” he greeted the human woman. “I need to speak with Echelon Lord Davor as soon as possible. It is of critical importance.”
“Uh-huh.” She studied him for several seconds and Rin returned her gaze levelly. He doubted his unprepossessing form and plain suit were impressing the Marine, but that wasn’t the point.
“And you are?” she asked.
“Dr. Rin Dunst of the Imperial Institute of Archeology,” Rin told her. “The Echelon Lord knows who I am.”
“Sure she—” The Marine cut herself off as she plugged Rin’s name into her computers.
“Step over here and validate your ID, please, Doctor,” she instructed a moment later, the vague dismissal replaced with sharp attention.
Rin obeyed, placing his left hand on a scanner and tapping in a numeric code with his right.
“Hold on one moment, Dr. Dunst,” Lance Millicent told him. She raised a privacy shield and starting speaking into a channel.
“All right,” she told him, dropping the shield. “A Marine will be here momentarily to escort you to the flag offices. The Echelon Lord is not immediately available, but her staff will find a place to stash you until she is. Please wait there.”
She pointed to a seat near one of the doors leading deeper into the admin center. Rin nodded and took the indicated seat. He was amused, if unsurprised, by the very clear assumption in the Marine’s tone that Rin no longer had a choice in this. From the moment he’d leaned on his status as a “Category Two Asset” to get a meeting with the local flag officer, he wasn’t getting out of that meeting if he changed his mi
nd.
Fortunately, that was just fine with Rin.
“Dr. Dunst, I’ll admit that I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Davor told Rin as the archeologist took a seat, studying the Ivaran bloodstone desk.
He’d taken a few moments to research the stone before coming back to Davor’s office. It was rare to have undecorated bloodstone off of Ivara. The stone’s significance to the Ivida was one of the few fragments left of their original culture. It rarely left the planet and almost never without being made into items of astonishing beauty.
Davor’s desk was even more unusual than he’d thought at first pass and appeared to exist only because the Echelon Lord’s family ran one of the largest bloodstone quarries on the planet. Its lack of decoration was as much a statement as anything else, speaking to the wealth and power of the Echelon Lord’s family.
“With everything going on, I wanted to speak with you before Defiance left,” Rin told the flag officer.
“I presumed as such,” Davor replied. “That’s why my staff made time for you before you leave. I apologize for cutting the time as short as we did, but these are rough waters we swim in.”
It took Rin a moment to parse Davor’s intent. Then he grimaced.
“Echelon Lord, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” he admitted. “I’m not currently leaving with Defiance. I spoke to Captain Casimir and she feels she is sufficiently briefed on the Alava to handle the artifact without my assistance.”
The office was quiet for a few seconds.
“That is her decision to make,” Davor said cautiously. “I was not aware of Captain Casimir being so well-informed on Precursor matters.”
“I do not know her sources, but she knows a lot about them,” Rin admitted. “But I know more, sir. I am one of the Imperium’s top experts on the Alava, and we are about to investigate what might be the most important Alava artifact we’re going to find.
“She needs my support, Echelon Lord. But more than that, the Imperium needs an archeologist and a historian there to document what we find. I understand that it may be necessary to destroy the Womb—in that case, it is utterly essential that we learn as much about it as possible before we do.”
Relics of Eternity (Duchy of Terra Book 7) Page 23
