“I’m glad I talked to Lanaril last night.” Rahel redirected the conversation, not wanting her to be uncomfortable. “So I could come here today without feeling guilty.”
“I didn’t know you called her,” Dr. Wells said.
“I couldn’t sleep. She made me swear I’d call whenever I needed to, and . . . I needed to last night.”
“Because of Helkenn?” Lhyn asked.
She traced her fingertips over Rez’s nearest arm. “Because I thought the worst when Rez climbed onto me. Then it told me it was helping, and I felt terrible that I made such an awful judgment.”
“You weren’t the only one who made it,” Dr. Wells said darkly. “And you had a much better excuse, considering that you were in shock.”
“Lanaril said that, too. About being in shock. But she said something else that helped even more. She reminded me that the worst of my nightmares are about someone I trust turning into an enemy.”
“A nightmare come to life,” Lhyn said.
Rahel nodded. “Getting stabbed was minor compared to thinking Rez would kill me. It really helps to know that there was a reason I thought that. I didn’t fail at the last step.”
“Fail, right,” Lhyn snorted. “I’m not going to dignify that. Is a nightmare the reason you couldn’t sleep?”
There was a time when Rahel would never have admitted it. That choice had cost her and the people she loved far too much heartache. “It was the worst one,” she said. “And now I know why I had it. Before I called Lanaril, I was, um, upset. I hadn’t had any nightmares since boarding the Phoenix. I thought they were over.”
Lhyn’s hand joined theirs in touching Rez. “Shippers, it is soft.” She stroked as much of the arm as she could reach before saying nonchalantly, “I still have nightmares sometimes. If you ever need to talk and Lanaril’s not around, you could call me.”
Rahel turned to look at her. After a moment, Lhyn met her eyes and offered a smile.
“Only if you’ll do the same, if Captain Serrado can’t help.”
“Deal.”
She watched their hands on Rez’s skin. Lhyn’s were larger, with long and delicate fingers. Dr. Wells had smaller hands, but Rahel knew from experience how dexterous and soft they were. Her own were mid-sized and calloused from a lifetime of stave practice.
Rez accepted them all, offering no hint as to whether it felt the differences.
“When I was seventeen,” she said quietly, “Prime Warrior Shantu offered me the chance of a lifetime. My service for his sponsorship, and I wouldn’t even have to give up my independence. I could stay outside the system and work alone. It was a dream come true.”
She didn’t have to look up to sense how intently they were listening.
“I never knew what I was missing. All of this—” She gestured around them. “Nobody could do this by themselves. I couldn’t have saved the Resilere by myself. Yesterday, Captain Serrado and Commander Cox put themselves at risk for me. The only reason you two didn’t is because the captain wouldn’t allow it until she knew it was safe.” She met Lhyn’s gaze. “I loved Shantu, but he would never have risked himself for me. That’s not what an oath holder does. It’s backward.”
“Not for Ekatya.”
She nodded and turned to Dr. Wells. “I thought you were still angry with me yesterday. When we were listening to the song of the Resilere, before we talked—I realized that it wouldn’t have mattered if you were or not. You’d have come for me regardless.”
Dr. Wells smiled. “It’s what I do.”
“That’s what you said the day I broke down in the medbay. I didn’t understand it then. I think I do now. I’m on a team.” She looked back at Rez and added, “A shekking amazing team.”
Lhyn laid a long arm across her shoulders. “What do you think, doc? Shall we let her stay on the team?”
“I think she’ll do fine. Now that we’ve knocked off some of those sharp warrior edges.”
Rahel laughed. “You’ll never get rid of those.”
She looked around the enormous bay, half advanced technology and half garden, and smiled to herself. This ship was starting to feel like home.
39
Strategies
“Captain.” Lokomorra’s voice spoke quietly in her com. “We’re in the system. We’ll reach Enkara in two hours.”
“Acknowledged. Get any more calls?”
A groan sounded in her ear. “Eight. Either they don’t talk to each other, or they all think they’re the ones who know the magic words.”
Along with Commander Jalta, Lokomorra was in charge of communications between the Phoenix and the researchers who insisted they needed to be present for the release of the Resilere. Ekatya had delegated that task upon realizing that the researchers came from institutes all over the Protectorate and had no overarching authority she could speak to. This was the xenobiology event of the decade; everyone wanted access.
No one was going to get it. Handing off the job of repeating that to multiple callers was one of the benefits of being captain.
“Look on the bright side,” she said, not bothering to keep the amusement from her voice. “I’m sure you’ll only get ten or twelve more in the next two hours. After that, they’ll stop trying.”
“That’s very encouraging, thank you,” he said dryly.
She closed the call and returned to reading the latest communication from Command Dome regarding the Resilere tissue sealant.
Alejandra’s report had indicated that it was biologically inert and more effective than any wound sealer the Protectorate had developed. Based on the breakdown rate she was still observing with a sample in Enkara seawater, its rate of dissolution was likely timed to the average rate of tissue healing in a Resilere. In Rahel’s case, it had indeed stopped all bleeding and provided a protective barrier between the wound and outside sources of infection.
Alejandra had feared that removal might be a sticky nightmare, but like the defensive cement, the sealant had different physical properties in air than in Enkara seawater. In the water, the molecules were less attracted to each other than to the tissues they touched, making it adhesive to the wound. In air, however, they were more attracted to each other. She had been able to peel it off as she repaired the damage. Two days after the stabbing, Rahel was fully mobile and back on light duty.
If Fleet could create a synthetic version of this, they would have a lifesaving addition to the medkits of first responders. Judging by the file on Ekatya’s display, Fleet Medical was already salivating over the prospect.
Ironic, she thought as she closed the file. No one could have known the Resilere would survive both vacuum and sterilizing radiation, yet it had been her reputation on the line when her ship was overrun with destructive aliens that melted infrastructure and ate brains. Now, though she’d personally had little to do with the breakthrough in Resilere communication or the discovery of this sealant, it was her reputation that shone.
As her grandfather always said, a captain was only as good as her crew.
Her entry chime rang right on time. She blanked the display, tapped her deskpad to open the door, and was stepping out from behind her desk when Commander Cox came in with his distinctive bowlegged walk.
“Join me for a drink?” She led him to the small conference table across the room. It was surrounded by four comfortable armchairs and made a more congenial place to meet than on opposite sides of her desk.
“What’s on offer?” he asked.
“Alsean shannel. Lhyn’s been sending me on duty with a thermal flask of it every morning. I’m hopelessly spoiled now.” She opened a recessed cupboard and pulled out the flask and two small cups.
“You’ve never offered that before.” He stood behind his chair, waiting for her to sit first.
“It’s taken me this long to decide I’m ready to share.”
“In that case, yes, I’d love to join you.”
She set the cups on the table, popped the lid off the flask, and took an appreciat
ive sniff. “Ahh. A gift from Fahla. That’s the Alsean goddess,” she added as she filled the cups. “Take a seat, Commander.”
He sat a second after she did and lifted the cup to his nose. “It does smell good. A little bit like mulled wine, but it looks like coffee.”
“I should probably warn you that it’ll burn going down.” She took a sip and sighed blissfully. “Oh, I needed this.”
His eyes widened as he swallowed. “Whoa.”
She chuckled. “That’s what they all say their first time.”
He held the cup out, examined the liquid more closely, then took a larger gulp and grinned. “Nice. I can see why you didn’t want to share. Are we drinking on duty?”
“It’s not alcoholic. In fact, it clears your mind and makes you more alert. And it’s healthy.”
“It’s healthy? Why isn’t this being exported off Alsea by the shipload? Never mind, nanoscrubbers,” he answered himself. “But once the Alseans get their space elevator built?”
“I don’t know. It’s a global addiction for them. They drink as much as they produce.”
“They’re no fools.” He gave his shannel a long, slow sniff, looking like a man having a religious experience. “This is a good perk of shuttling down there every time we’re in orbit.”
“No, it’s a perk of Lancer Tal giving me a dispenser. You can’t just bring up cases of it. There’s a production process at the last step.”
“You get all the best toys,” he said, making her laugh.
“There have to be some compensations for the responsibility.” She settled back in her chair and took another sip. “All right, tell me the bad news. How did he get through our net?”
Cox had notified her earlier that he had completed his investigation on Helkenn’s escape, ending the call with a warning that she wouldn’t like the results. Now he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, the cup in his hands. “I’ll tell you the good news first. He didn’t manage to override the lift lockdown.”
“Then how did he get to hydroponics so quickly?”
“Straight down a brace shaft. Then he strolled down the corridor easy as you please and took a chase to get into the bay. I had the report of his escape six minutes after it happened. He was inside hydroponics in five.”
“Lovely. Not only did he know exactly where to go, he stole someone’s access code to get there. Don’t tell me he had someone on the inside.”
His hesitation made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “Not the way you’re thinking. He knew where to go because my staff needed a lesson on discretion around prisoners. But he got there using the repair code.”
“The repair—” She bolted upright and smacked her cup on the table. “Sholokhov.”
He nodded unhappily. “It makes the most sense. Helkenn wouldn’t have had access to it through his duties. I’ve questioned the people he worked with; no one reported him asking or even being with them when they went in the chases. Given the right tools and enough time, he could have broken the code earlier, but I’ve checked the access records and it hasn’t been used since he boarded. Not until his escape. What I can’t figure out is why the Director of Protectorate Security would put our security at risk.”
She took such a large gulp that it was a wonder steam didn’t shoot from her nostrils. “I assume you’ve already changed our repair code?”
“Of course.”
“Good.” She shook her head. “That torquat did it again.”
“Did what?” he asked in frustration. “What was his game?”
“To win. No matter how it turned out.” She held up one hand and looked at it. “Helkenn fails. Sholokhov has the information he wants and gets rid of a resource that has no value. All loose ends neatly tied.” She turned to her other hand. “Helkenn succeeds but gets caught. Same results as before. Or, he succeeds and manages to escape, probably by stealing a shuttle and jamming open the exit tunnel with another conveniently provided code. Now Sholokhov has the information he wanted and a resource that has suddenly proven very capable.” Wrapping her hands around her cup, she added, “He had nothing to lose and something to gain in every permutation.”
“Did he want to torpedo your reputation, too? Losing the first Alsean officer on her very first patrol and then letting the assassin escape in a stolen shuttle—our next stop would have been Command Dome for the inquest.”
She thought back to her call with Sholokhov and shook her head. “No. He and I have had our differences, but I think he has a grudging sort of respect for me. He gave me a . . . gift, for lack of a better term. An assurance I needed that he had no reason to provide. It didn’t gain him anything. I think he gave it as a reward for not letting him take me down.” Even though she hadn’t done a damned thing. Rahel had saved herself.
“That’s abhorrent,” he snapped. “He’s playing games with lives and giving rewards for being a good player?”
“It’s not a game. It’s just numbers. We’re all numbers to him.” She lifted the cup.
“Not you.”
With a hurried swallow, she set the cup down. “I’m no exception. He would have thrown me into the furnace without a second thought.”
“But he gave you a gift.” Cox leaned forward, fixing her with an intent gaze. “I’ve read up on Sholokhov. The man is a psychopath. People like that don’t do anything unless it benefits them or their goals in some way. Giving you a reward doesn’t do either, does it? You’re not just a number to him.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. In fact, it makes my skin crawl.”
“Yeah, I get that.” He sniffed his cup. “I also get how this could turn into a global addiction.” After a swallow and an appreciative sound, he was all business again. “I propose we rotate the repair code on a monthly basis and forget to send that detail in our reports. I also think I should go through the crew records and confirm them independently. We could have caught Helkenn that way. His Fleet records don’t hold up under a bright light. A bright, non-Fleet light.”
“You’re saying we can’t trust our own system?”
“I’m saying we can’t trust Sholokhov, and he has his fingers in our system. We already know there’s at least one person on this ship spying for him.”
She nodded. “Whoever delivered the orders to Helkenn. Probably the same person who delivered my orders to Dr. Wells, back during our shakedown cruise.”
“I don’t know about you, but the idea of someone pulling strings on my ship makes my pants itch.”
That surprised a chuckle out of her. “I wouldn’t put it that way, but now that you mention it . . .”
“Yeah.” He held up his cup. “Then I have your approval?”
“You have it.” She tapped her cup to his and drained it. “On a much happier topic, are you comfortable with Rahel going on Enkara?”
He grinned. “I’ve never seen anyone so motivated to get through envirosuit training. She’s ready.”
“Good, because I didn’t know how we were going to do this without her.”
“We couldn’t have done any of this without her. Does it make you think there might be other empathic species and we never knew?”
“Oh, yes. I think Jalta is losing sleep over it.”
He looked into his cup, the skin around his eyes tightening. “How did Dr. Wells really get past the Resilere?”
She should have known he wouldn’t let that go.
“I believe she explained it at the section chief meeting,” she said in a tone of voice that told him to back off.
He met her gaze evenly. “You can tell me it’s classified and I don’t need to know. That would at least be honest. As your chief of security, I think I deserve more than the lie Dr. Wells told everyone else. She didn’t just give the emotional component they were missing from the sound pattern. If it were that easy, they would have let Dr. Rivers through. She’s more Rahel’s friend than Dr. Wells is. And what she said about responsibility—that’s not friendship.”
Ekat
ya tapped her fingers on the side of her cup as she assessed her options. He was right. Other than Commander Lokomorra, Cox was the one person who truly did need to know everything in order to do his job.
Or almost everything.
“She took a chance,” she said at last. “Doctors assume responsibility for their patients. The best doctors find a way to do that without walling off their own hearts. I know you don’t get along with Dr. Wells, but you can’t argue that she is a doctor with heart.”
He offered a slight smile. “No one has a temper like that without having a heart.”
“That’s what she used. We had the sound pattern for a familial association. She told Lhyn to play it and focused on her own feelings of responsibility for Rahel, hoping the Resilere would interpret it as a familial emotion. And they did.”
“A familial association?” His slight frown evened out. “Are you talking about the sound patterns when Rez was waiting for Rez-Two to rehydrate? Or the second solid one?” Sitting back in his chair with a thump, he let out a short laugh. “She told them they were partners?”
If that was the assumption he drew, she would let him. “That does not leave this room,” she said sternly.
His amusement vanished. “No, of course not. I was only—” He stopped, lips pursed in thought. “That was strategic.”
“You don’t think Dr. Wells can be strategic?”
“I . . . huh.” He stared off into space. “I’ll have to rethink my assessment.”
Biting back a laugh, she lifted her cup and said, “You do that.”
40
Enkara
It was Commander Jalta’s idea to send a shuttle to the release site and return with a shallow container of rocks, seaweed, and real Enkara seawater. Rahel and Lhyn wheeled it into hydroponics and up against the midpoint of the two tanks, giving equal access to the adults in both.
The first Resilere to approach—Rahel always assumed it was Rez—slipped a curious arm into the water and wrapped the tip around a bit of blue seaweed. Then it became tall and ruffled, its arms coiling, extending, and coiling again as blue and green bioluminescence played over its skin.
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