Running Toward Home

by M B Panichi

  Josef frowned grimly at Shaine as she strode up to him.

  The medic straightened. “Six stitches. It’s cleaned and bandaged. I’ll stop by in the morning to take another look at it and change the dressing.”

  Josef nodded. “Thanks, Steve.”

  The medic nodded and packed up his gear.

  Shaine said, “Josef, let’s talk.” She lifted her chin toward her office, and he followed her inside. She leaned against the front of her desk. “What’s the story?” she asked.

  He scowled. “No story. He won’t say a word. On the other hand, I think we know why we can’t track this guy.”

  Shaine raised an eyebrow.

  “When we go back in there, take a look at his hands—his palms and fingertips. All completely acid burnt. No prints. He’s been wearing synth-skin over the burns. Expensive and practically invisible synth-skin gloves, with someone else’s finger and palm prints. Steve cut the gloves off and I bagged them. They’re locked in the evidence closet.”

  Shaine closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. “Great. Make sure the doc gets them so she can get a DNA swab. Let’s see if we can get anything out of him. Otherwise, we’ll throw him in the brig and send him back to the Out System Authority substation on Moon Base and they can figure out what to do with him. My biggest concern is that he isn’t alone here.”

  Josef said, “Right. And if he won’t talk now, maybe after sitting in a cell for a day or so, he’ll talk later.”

  Shaine nodded and they left her office. The mystery man Andy Lenz appeared not to have moved a muscle. Shaine said, “Take off the cuffs. I want to see his hands.”

  Josef gave the two guards a glance, and they brought their weapons up while he uncuffed the detainee. He ordered, “Put your hands in front of you.”

  Lenz did so without comment. The blank expression on his face didn’t change, and he didn’t look at either Shaine or Josef.

  Shaine took one of his hands in hers, turning it palm up. The skin was smooth and unlined. There were creases where his joints flexed, but even those looked odd. Along the line where the burnt skin and his true skin connected was a ragged, raised scar line, standing out pink against the paleness of the rest of his hands. She noticed he was missing fingernails on at least three fingers.

  She asked, “How did this happen?”

  He didn’t even blink in response.

  She tried another tack. “Who were you shooting at? Who was your target?”

  Again, she got no response. She nodded to the guards. “Put him in cell one. Let him sit. The authorities can deal with him.”

  The two men each grabbed an arm and put Lenz in the cell. Shaine turned to Josef. “Did he have anything on him?”

  “Yeah. I locked it in the evidence closet with the gun and the gloves. Just a wrist chron, a wallet with his ID and a few credit chits. I sent Ben and Del to go through his belongings in the barracks and his work locker, see if there’s anything there.”

  “Okay. Good. Let me know if they come up with anything. Have Lukas or Whippet do another data search if they come up with any names or anything. Keep Lenz on twenty-four-hour surveillance. I’m going to check on Morgan.”

  Josef nodded. “Will do.”

  Shaine strode out of ops.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Shaine jogged down the hall toward the infirmary. She could feel the anxiety sitting high in her chest, making her feel slightly nauseous. And angry. Dammit, she was tired of Morgan being shot at. Even if Friday was the target, Morgan was the one who was hurt. Would this bullshit never end? When were they going to be able to find a safe place to stop running?

  She reached the infirmary and stopped at the door, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She didn’t need to make Morgan crazy too. And she figured Friday was already freaking out. She shook off her anger and frustration and palmed open the door.

  The main room, where there were four beds, was empty. Shaine strode through to the trauma bay. Dr. Nguyen leaned over the raised table where Morgan lay. One of her assistants passed her supplies and instruments. Friday stood to the side, watching closely and looking pale.

  Shaine asked, “How is Morgan doing?”

  From the operating table, Morgan replied weakly, “She’s going to live.”

  Shaine grinned. She rested a hand on Friday’s shoulder. “You doing okay, kid?”

  Friday nodded. “Yeah. This sucks, Shaine.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Shaine muttered. She moved to the side of the bed. Morgan smiled up at her and met her gaze for a couple of seconds before her eyes fluttered shut.

  Lei said, “I’ve numbed her shoulder and given her a bit of a sedative while I clean and remove the burned skin. When the numbing wears off, she’s going to be hurting. I’ll send you back to quarters with painkillers. I don’t think she needs to stay here. She’ll be more comfortable with you. But I will need to check on the wounds tomorrow.”

  Shaine peered at what Lei was doing. The damaged skin ranged from the outside of Morgan’s right bicep all the way up to her shoulder. There were two reddened gouges and one very deep hole where the laser shot had burned further into Morgan’s shoulder. Several lines of blackened and charred skin ran along the outside of her bicep. Shaine could also see lightly blistered lines among the more serious burns.

  Shaine scowled. She should have been able to stop the attack. Should have seen it coming, predicted it. She shouldn’t have allowed the live audience. What the fuck had she been thinking? No matter how much Leer’s people had protested, no matter that Garren thought it would be great for the on-site morale, she should have put her foot down.

  But she hadn’t. Damn it. Her fault. In the end, it had to be her responsibility. She hadn’t stopped Lenz. Even worse, she hadn’t kept Morgan safe. It crossed her mind to send Morgan back to Moon Base, or to Earth. But there was no way she was letting Morgan out of her sight. It may seem safer at a glance to have Morgan somewhere else, but Shaine didn’t think she could handle not having Morgan close.

  “Shaine.”

  She blinked out of her thoughts at the sound of Morgan’s voice. “Hey, sweetie,” she said, and gently brushed her fingers along Morgan’s cheek.

  Morgan turned her head and kissed Shaine’s fingers. “I know that scowl,” she whispered. “It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”

  Shaine sighed. She appreciated the sentiment but she didn’t believe it for a minute. She was head of security. Of course the responsibility fell on her.

  Friday asked, “What are you gonna do with that guy?”

  Shaine thought about it for a few seconds. “Most likely, we’ll send him and all the evidence back to the Out System Authorities on Moon Base. There should be enough to convict, between the weapon and the video and eyewitness accounts.”

  “Did he confess?”

  “Not unless he’s done so since I left. I doubt he will. We’ll file charges and leave it up to the OSA.”

  Friday sighed heavily and shook her head. “Pretty anticlimactic, isn’t it?”

  “We’re not judge and jury here, Fri, much as we might want it to be that way.”

  Friday frowned at her. “What about what you did with that McKillan guy? Just bringing him over to the colony? That wasn’t exactly what the law would have done.”

  Shaine sighed. “No, it wasn’t. On the other hand, we didn’t have enough evidence for charges or a conviction, so it seemed like the next best thing to do. In any case, he couldn’t stay here.”

  “So you follow the rules when it suits you,” Friday returned.

  Shaine took a deep breath, closing her eyes in frustration. She remembered why teenagers drove her nuts. “Look. When you’re my age, and in charge of a security detail, you can make the decisions. Right now, I don’t want to hear anymore about it, okay?”

  She heard Morgan and Lei chuckle. She sent them both dirty looks.

  Friday sulked against the wall.
“Whatever,” she muttered.

  Lei stepped back from the operating table. “I think we’ve got you all fixed up,” she said. “I want you to stay here and relax a little bit, okay?” Morgan nodded and closed her eyes again.

  Shaine gently brushed her fingers through the hair on Morgan’s forehead, leaned down and kissed her lightly.

  Lei turned to her two orderlies. “Please transfer Morgan to a front bed. She’ll be more comfortable there.”

  Lei gestured for Shaine to follow her. Friday remained leaning against the wall.

  In the outer room, Lei crossed to the med station and unlocked a cabinet, removing a small container of pills.

  “She can have one every four hours. No more than that.”

  Shaine nodded. “Right.” She turned to watch the two orderlies wheel the trauma bed into the room and gently transfer Morgan to one of the beds.

  “I want her to rest here for at least a couple hours. If she feels up to it after that, she can go back with you.”

  “That’s fine.” Shaine crossed the med bay and sat down on the edge of Morgan’s bed. “Hey, Morg,” she said softly, taking Morgan’s hand in hers.

  Morgan smiled tiredly at her. “Hey.”

  “Doc says you need to get a little sleep before I can take you back to quarters.”

  Morgan’s eyes fluttered. She was having trouble keeping them open. “Okay,” she mumbled.

  “I’m gonna go and make a few calls back to Earth. You okay if I take off for a bit? Then I’ll come back and get you.”

  Morgan nodded. “Yeah, that’s okay.” Her eyes shut for a few seconds. “Tired,” she breathed.

  Shaine kissed her forehead. “You sleep. I’ll be back shortly. Love you, Morg.”

  “Love you too,” came the sleepy reply as Morgan’s eyes shut again. Moments later, her breathing evened out. Shaine held her hand for a couple minutes more before she stood up. Friday sat down on the bed next to Morgan’s.

  The teenager gave Shaine a slightly wary look. “I’ll stay with Morgan,” she said.

  Shaine nodded. “Thank you, Friday.”

  The girl shrugged. “Actually, I can use a nap,” she admitted.

  “I’ll be back in a little while. Com me if you need anything.”

  “Sure,” Friday said, and stretched herself out on the bed.

  Shaine hesitated a moment, then smiled encouragingly at the teenager. “It’ll all work out, Fri.”

  “I know. Thanks, Shaine.”

  Shaine nodded and left the infirmary. As the door shut behind her, she pulled out her com and tapped in Garren’s com code. “Garren?”

  “Hey, Shaine. I just talked with Josef.”

  “We need to talk to Rogan and your father,” she said.

  “Meet me in my office. I’ll get them on the line.”

  “On my way.” She tapped the com off and pocketed it.

  When she palmed open the door to Garren’s office, Tarm Maruchek and Duncan Rogan were already on Garren’s vid screen. Josef was on the screen as well, in a second window. She joined Garren, standing slightly behind him at his desk.

  Rogan said, “Josef sent an initial report, which we’ve read.”

  Tarm looked at Shaine. “Is Morgan all right?” he asked.

  Shaine nodded. “She’ll be fine. A few bad laser burns, but Dr. Nguyen took care of it. She’s sleeping in the infirmary now, and I’ll bring her back to quarters in a couple of hours or so.”

  Tarm’s tight-lipped nod told her that he wasn’t happy.

  Shaine addressed her question to Josef. “When I left Security, Lenz wasn’t talking. Any changes?”

  “No. He’s sitting in his cell, very quiet.”

  Rogan asked, “Have you interrogated him at all?”

  Josef said, “By the books, Mr. Rogan. We read him his rights. We asked him questions. He refused to say anything. It’s all in the report and the recordings.”

  Rogan lifted a dark brow. “You could have been a bit more forceful.”

  Josef frowned. “We did what we could. Our legal option is to turn over Lenz and all the evidence to the Out System Authorities.”

  Rogan muttered, “Send him to me and I’ll get some answers out of him.”

  Maruchek turned a dark glare on him. “Enough.”

  Shaine asked, “Josef, have our people found anything yet? Was there anything in Lenz’s belongings? Anything we can try to track?”

  “Very little. He had a personal comp pad, but other than standard applications, not much on it. He didn’t even have a mail program running. Dr. Nguyen got a DNA sample, which will probably tell us more about who he really is than anything else we have.”

  Maruchek said, “At the very least, he can be charged with the attempted murder of Friday and Morgan.”

  Shaine said, “Kathryn Leer was in the line of fire as well. We don’t actually know who he was shooting at. He gave no names.”

  Maruchek frowned, his expression grim. Rogan glared. Josef said, “That about sums it up.”

  Rogan snapped, “How in the hell did you let this happen, Wendt?”

  “He passed all our background checks. The guy’s record is clean. Ellerand couldn’t even find anything on him. He had faked finger and palm prints. You tell me how the fuck we’d have caught the synth-skin gloves without a full diagnostic medical check when he came aboard? All his records matched. Nothing set off any alerts.”

  Tarm cut them off with a slice of his hand. “Enough arguing. When will you be sending Lenz and the data back to Moon Base?”

  Josef said, “There’s a shuttle coming in late tomorrow to pick up Ms. Leer and her people. We can send Lenz back on that shuttle with a couple men to keep an eye on him and the evidence.”

  Shaine said, “The alternative would be to send our emergency shuttle back sooner. But I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  Maruchek said, “Send him on the shuttle with Kathryn and her people. Make sure the OSA knows he’s on his way.”

  Shaine nodded. “Done.”

  Rogan said, “Find out what his ties are to Abraham’s people.”

  “We’ll continue to investigate, but with no further leads, I don’t know how much we’ll come up with. As Andy Lenz he has no ties to the colony. If his DNA can identify him, maybe there will be a link, but until we get that back, we don’t know.”

  The call ended shortly after that. Shaine headed back to the infirmary, her mind moving faster than her feet. It drove her crazy to know she probably had a way to find out more about Andy Lenz. Friday knew the way into the colony’s computer network. Unfortunately, she didn’t want Friday going back into that system. First of all, it was illegal. Second, she didn’t want Friday taking the chance of getting caught. Third, she knew she was a fucking hypocrite for wanting to use an illegal back door to find out who the hell Andy Lenz was.

  Friday was positive she’d seen him at the colony. Shaine had believed her from the start, but without any proof, her hands had been tied. She should have just brought him in. She strode past the hallway to the infirmary and jogged down to ops. She gave the on-duty security members a quick wave and locked herself into her office.

  Sitting down at her desk, she opened an encrypted com channel. The vid screen cleared and Shaine grinned at a disheveled-looking Kyle Ellerand. His hair was going in a hundred directions and he was rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He glared at her.

  “This better be good, Wendt,” he muttered.

  She smiled. “How would you feel about doing some hacking for me?”

  His mood shifted instantly and he grinned. “I think I would feel very good about it,” he replied.

  “Okay, this is the deal.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Morgan woke late in the morning, slowly swimming up to consciousness. The first thing she noticed was that the painkillers had worn off, because the burns on her upper arm and shoulder were throbbing in time with her pulse. The second thing she noticed was that she was alone in bed. She frowned. She rem
embered Shaine waking her earlier to give her another round of painkillers.

  Friday’s cot was empty, the blanket thrown haphazardly up over the pillows. Morgan hoped Friday was following orders and had someone from security with her wherever she’d gone.

  She stretched tentatively and untwisted from the quilt she’d wrapped around herself. Overall, she didn’t feel too bad. Favoring her right side, she pushed herself to a sitting position and swung her legs over the side of the bed with a groan. She reached up to push her bangs out of her eyes and couldn’t stifle the squeak that passed her lips when she lifted her right arm.

  Time to find the sling Lei had given her so she wouldn’t try using her damned arm again. She glanced at the chron on the wall. They were supposed to be doing the final part of the interview today. Shaine made the executive decision that the final section of the interview would be done on a closed set in the warehouse. Metlend wasn’t happy about it from an artistic point of view, but apparently he was spooked enough from the previous day’s incident that he didn’t put up much of a fight. Morgan thought Metlend could have fought all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to budge Shaine from her decision.

  Morgan was relieved not to have an audience. Her nerves felt raw and prickly. Being shot at was unnerving, even if the intended target may have been Friday and not her.

  It made her worry about the future. Was her life with Shaine going to be a series of dangerous situations? Was her newly discovered birth family going to make her a target for the rest of her life? How in the hell could she live her life constantly looking over her shoulder? Even so, it was better to be always running with Shaine than without her. She couldn’t even fathom life without her.

  She shook off the thoughts and decided to take a shower. Dr. Nguyen said she’d sealed the burns from water, so showering was okay.

  As she started to struggle out of the button up pajama top, the door to their quarters slid open and Shaine walked in holding two thermos mugs and carrying a small grocery sack.