Cass covered her hand. “Maybe it just looks that way from where you’re standing. Maybe cleaning it up will be simpler than you think.”
Sacha gave a short, desolate laugh. “Believe me, this is going to require an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner.”
“Don’t you think the commander will be happy to hear about the baby? I heard he’s leaving for Earth. Don’t let that change your decision. You’ve got plenty of other people in your life who can help you—”
She shook her head. “I hope he’ll be happy about it, because this isn’t something I can keep from him. But things between us are so broken, a baby is the last thing we should be bringing into the equation.”
Cass’s expression became guarded. “Are you saying you might consider termination—?”
“No!” Sacha pressed a hand into the middle of her chest, just the word making her heart pound. “That’s not an option. These might not be ideal circumstances, but I’m not going to take such drastic measures.”
Cass blew out a relieved breath and sat back. “Good, that’s good. I wasn’t prepared to be having that conversation.”
She dropped her gaze down into her half-drunk tea. “It’s mind-blowing, really. All those months Elliot and I spent trying to get pregnant and I spend one night with Kai—”
“Only one night?” Cass screwed up her face. “Well, no wonder you’re both walking around looking so cranky all the time. One night was obviously not enough.”
“Apparently it was more than enough, if this baby is any indication.” She laughed, everything seeming ridiculous all of a sudden. She’d spent so many months numb, not grieving Elliot and not moving on from the fact that both he and Kai were gone. And then Kai had returned and revived her emotions with all the subtlety of a tactical ballistic missile. In order to cope, she’d tried shutting herself down again, focused on being his doctor and nothing more, to the point she hadn’t been able to see reason, which only hurt both of them. In hindsight, it all seemed so simple; she should have simply let the emotions wash over her. Yes, they would have burned, but she would have emerged on the other side the better for it.
Instead, she’d probably destroyed their half-a-life-long relationship through stubborn and resolute blindness.
“So what are you going to do?” Cass asked quietly.
“The only thing I can do.” She rolled the cup slowly between her hands, nervous and excited about what this massive change in circumstance would bring. “I’ll tell him about the baby, and tell him the only thing I should have told him since the day he came back.”
“Which is what?”
“That I love him.” She focused on her friend’s face, ignoring the urge to cry welling up within her. There would be plenty of time for that later. “And that I’m sorry I hurt him, and I’ll do anything to fix everything between us. I just hope it’s enough.”
Cass sent her a misty smile, her eyes suspiciously wet. “If he’s half as smart as I think he is, then he’ll take you in a heartbeat.”
Her chest squeezed around her lungs, cutting off her breath at the notion of resolving things so easily. “God, I hope so.”
Cass’s moment of emotion seemed to have passed, and an excited gleam lit her gaze. “Call him now.”
“Now?” Well, there was no reason not to…
Still, a wave of apprehension made her light-headed as she pulled her comm out of her pocket. Or maybe that was the pregnancy hormones. Thankfully, the sick feeling had started to pass, whether it was due to the ginger-root tea or just the daily illness running its course.
She sent Kai a message asking him to meet her for lunch, and then she and Cass sat silently while they waited to see if he would reply.
Her comm beeped. Disappointment poured through her as she read his reply.
“He says he’s too busy for lunch today, and will see me tonight for dinner.”
“Pft!” Cass crossed her arms. “There’s no way he’ll be too busy to hear this news. In fact, you should go up to the command center now. I only wish I could see his face when you tell him. Take pictures, all right?”
She laughed as Cass stood. “Sure, I can just imagine how impressed he’ll be about that. Just hold that expression of dumbfounded shock while I take a photo for Cass.”
“You got it.” Cass shifted over to give her a quick hug. “I’m so happy for you, Sacha. You’re going to make an awesome mom. And I am going to be fun Aunty Cass, who always turns up with new toys and treats to spoil the heck out of this kid.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” she grumbled, returning the hug. “But you’re right. I’m going to head up and see if I can catch Kai in the command center.”
“I better get back to rounds. Let me know how it goes, okay?”
Once her friend had left, Sacha took a deep breath, fortifying herself for the coming conversation with Kai. After a moment, she carefully stood, waiting to see if the recently cured nausea was going to make a comeback. When it didn’t, she took another breath of relief and headed out of the communal room, managing to get off med-level without anyone asking her for anything, which in itself was a miracle.
She made her way up to the command center in the middle of the ship and asked the guards manning the doors if she could see Commander Yang.
As she went over to a nearby couch to wait, her med-comm vibrated and she snapped it off her belt. The code read Charlie-One, which meant there’d been a major incident at the main base of operations on the ground. She abandoned all ideas of waiting for Kai, instead turning to run for the transit-porter.
As she made the transit just before the doors closed, she got Macaulay on her comm. “What’re the details?”
“There’s been some sort of explosion down on Ilari at the main base. They need all available medicos onworld ASAP.”
“What’s the verdict on the injured?”
“No clear, official report, but it looks bad. There’s a transport being readied on port level bravo, bay echo-five. We have to go now.”
“Grab me an emergency response pack, and I’ll meet you up there.” She disconnected the call and tabbed the transit screen to go into the upper levels of the ship, instead of down to med-level.
A few moments later, the transit doors opened to the chaos of soldiers and medicos boarding the shuttle headed for the ground. She scanned the crowd for Kai, though logically he couldn’t have gotten down here before her. Besides, now was probably the worst possible time she could tell him. Drop a life-exploding bomb and then go down into live action on Ilari? He’d have a coronary over it.
She rushed with Macaulay and the other medico staff onto the transport, worrying about Kai with every step she took. What would he do when he heard about the explosion? Would he demand to go down to Ilari as well? How would it affect him to be on the planet again? God, she hoped he’d stay on the ship and not risk any further psychological damage. Who knew what facing the CSS so soon would do to his precarious recovery?
Once she’d found a seat, she let out a sigh of relief that Kai wasn’t among the other people packed onto the shuttle, hopefully because he hadn’t been cleared for active duty. What if something happened to him before she got to tell him about the baby? He could still leave her for the posting on Earth when he learned the truth if he wanted, but at least she would know he was alive and safe somewhere.
Chapter Nineteen
Kai snapped a surgical mask into place as he followed medicos from the second wave of transports into the most damaged part of the complex. He’d gone in for one hell of an argument with Commander Emmanuel about coming down here. Technically the man wasn’t his CO, and he’d told Emmanuel in a few succinct words that they didn’t have the power to stop him. The commander had finally relented, but damned if the bastard hadn’t cleared him for weapon use. And Emmanuel had sunk the boot in by adding he was allowed to attend to any administrative or non-combative duties he saw fit, but was forbidden from actively engaging the enemy.
His heart pounded an
d a chilled sweat crept along his spine, but he forced himself to concentrate on his surroundings, not letting himself get sucked into the vortex of gut-clenching bad memories of last time he’d been on Ilari.
No one could tell him what had caused the explosion, if it had been an accident or deliberate attack, how many personnel were unaccounted for, or who was even in charge down here.
So far he’d only come across cadets and lower-ranked soldiers. He’d started getting the feeling that maybe all of the senior officers and soldiers who might have taken control of the situation had been caught in the blast. Which, to his mind, spoke of a calculated assault. Was this the next move from the CSS they’d been waiting for, ever since the fire on the Knox? They hadn’t found any trace of the CS Soldier who’d been posing as a UEF military guard, and a lack of any other leads had made the last few weeks frustrating to say the least.
The building looked barely recognizable anymore, the passage no more than a cave of twisted, blackened metal and debris. Able-bodied soldiers were scurrying back and forth, some putting out spot fires while others searched for victims. So far, only a handful of people had been pulled out alive. Most were coming out dead.
In the bowels of the building where the explosion had originated, the roof had been blown clear off, but at least that allowed bright sunlight to stream in, making the search easier. Up ahead, he saw Sacha and Macaulay organizing the sub-doctors and nurses into methodical teams, sectioning up the site so that no corner would be missed.
Since he’d made the decision to take the promotion on Earth, he’d been trying to keep himself detached from her, maintaining the most platonic relationship possible. It had put a definite strain on their already tenuous friendship, and if not for the fact he’d wanted to spend as much time with her as possible—awkward as it was—before he left for Earth, he would have simply started avoiding her altogether. It definitely would have been the easier option. But no, apparently he was a twisted son of a bitch who enjoyed spending time with the woman he wouldn’t allow himself to have.
With every little way Sacha looked after him, another part of his heart gave way to her. Yes, he had his issues to deal with, but Sacha had helped him see that the CSS hadn’t managed to destroy as much of him as he’d first thought.
At some point in the past few days, the realization had struck him that he could not live without her. Not an hour went by when he didn’t think about seeing her, or kissing her, or about taking her to bed like he had a month ago. But he refused to disregard the vow he’d made to himself about going to Earth and getting his crap sorted out so he could return to her a better man.
He watched while she directed one of the nurses to a corridor branching out toward the other end of the building, aiming a flashlight ahead of herself as she disappeared into the shadowed passageway. His heart clenched, but he turned from where she’d walked away and surveyed the scene in front of him. He couldn’t worry about her. She was doing her job. Just like she’d been doing for the past few years when she’d been with Elliot. Just like she’d been doing the last year and a half when neither he nor Elliot had been around.
Although the soldiers were doing their best, the search for survivors and moving of debris had a definite sense of chaos to it. Kai grabbed the nearest cadet and started organizing the kids into a calmer and more efficient approach.
He’d been working with the younger soldiers for about half an hour, and they’d found another survivor. Yet when someone handed him a hastily accumulated list of the deceased, his fear about the senior officers and soldiers was realized. Colonel Cameron McAllister wasn’t on the list…yet. But, he couldn’t dwell on the fate of his friend too closely, not if he wanted to hold his shit together.
“Goddamn it.” He shoved a hand through his hair and handed the datapad back to the cadet who’d given it to him. The CSS were behind this. Somehow they’d gotten into this supposedly secure, class-A facility and planted a bomb. Another mole? For a second everything started closing in on him, his chest getting tight, gut clenching as a cold spike railroaded right through his spine. So not the time to lose it. He clenched his fists and forced the rising panic down. He’d slowly gotten better at controlling the attacks in the past two weeks.
One of the cadets started to ask him something, but the words were drowned out by a deafening boom, eclipsed by a burst of super-heated air that knocked him from his feet.
Ears ringing and head splitting, Kai pushed himself up before he even registered he’d ended up flat on the floor. Around him, for a second, there was absolute silence and stillness in the wake of the explosion, but then chaos erupted like a second blast wave. Some people scrambled to their feet and rushed for any opening that could get them outside, some moved to help others, while a few remained ominously still where they’d fallen.
He wiped ash and dust from his watering eyes and squinted, looking for the source of the detonation. It hadn’t been in this room, because otherwise they’d all be dead.
Across the open space, smoke billowed out of a hallway, backlit by the orange glow of another fire. The corridor Sacha had gone down.
Sheer panic drove him across the room, and he stumbled blindly over twisted furniture and careened into someone else trying to get out. When he reached the opening of the corridor, he couldn’t breathe. Heat from the fire stole the very air from the atmosphere. He shielded his face from the radiant heat, feeling the stinging prickle across his exposed skin.
“Sacha!” His yell came out hoarse, barely audible above the roar and crackle of flames. Someone grabbed his arm and he wrenched away, turning in a wild swing to see Sacha’s friend, Cassidy, standing next to him.
“Commander, we have to get these people out of here.”
Kai pointed a shaking hand toward the yawning mouth of flame and smoke. “Sacha went down there.”
Cassidy’s lips pressed into a grim line, but she didn’t look toward the inferno.
“I know. We can’t help her while the building is burning. We have to clear everyone we can from this room.”
Howling despair wrenched through him, making him want to fall to his knees and scream in desolate fury. Instead, he clenched his fists and nodded awkwardly, tearing his gaze from the impenetrable hallway and surveying the new chaos in front of him.
Cassidy reached down and squeezed his hand, and then moved off to help a sub-doctor with an unconscious cadet. The one who’d compiled the list of deceased. Kai squeezed his eyes shut for a second as panic twisted insidiously through him, making his eyes smart. Please let that cadet just be unconscious… Please let Sacha be okay.
More numb than he’d ever been, even when he’d been at his lowest in that godforsaken hell of a CSS prison, he made himself move forward and randomly chose a fallen body to examine. Male. Nurse. Alive. Nasty gash on the head. It was a start. Kai picked the man up, swinging the weight over his shoulder into a fireman’s hold, and focused on getting as many people out as he could.
…
Sacha gasped in a lungful of air and then curled in on herself as a fit of coughing seized her throat and lungs. She rolled over on the grass and looked up toward the rear of the building she’d just come out of. Smoke billowed upward into the blue sky, flames thrashing in the broken windows and licking up toward what was left of the second level.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. If she hadn’t come out here trying to get a clear comm signal—
Her heart froze, becoming a chunk of ice in her chest as she pushed up on her elbows and took a wild, searching glance for the nurse she’d teamed up with. There were chunks of debris scattered across the once-pristine lawn, but nothing even close to human-sized. She scrambled to her knees, but a sudden spasm of nausea made her double over again, bringing up everything she’d been fighting to keep down all morning. By the time the gagging subsided, her chest was aching and her heart hammering a strained rhythm in her chest.
With a groan for the fact she hurt everywhere, she swallowed over the bitter bile and shoved
unsteadily to her feet. She had to get back to the main part of the complex, had to find Kai.
Another round of retching threatened as her breath hitched. Kai. God. What if he’d been somewhere near that explosion? She’d caught a glimpse of him as she’d left the main room, where most of the rescue effort was concentrated. But who knew what he’d done after that?
She picked her way carefully out of the debris field and paused at a garden tap to rinse her mouth out and drink some water. Okay, not a top priority right now, but it made her feel better. She straightened, trying to work out if there was a way to get back around to the parade ground where the transport had set down without cutting through the buttressed set of offices and amenities. Her heart skittered at the thought of going in somewhere, only to be caught in another explosion.
There seemed to be no direct route, apart from going all the way around the fence perimeter. The buzz of an engine overhead made her pause. She looked up, expecting to see another rescue transport, but instead she saw a battered, smaller ship, the CSS emblem blazoned in yellow and red across the vessel’s underside.
CS Soldiers in the compound? Though her mind had already come to the conclusion that two explosions weren’t likely to be an accident, the sight of an enemy ship touching down without the slightest hesitation sent a spurt of fear tripping through her limbs, setting off a definite flight response in her brain.
Sacha spun to make a run for the fence line, and came face to face with three ragtag-looking soldiers jogging toward her, all armed and wearing a patch over their hearts that proclaimed their allegiance. She backed up a couple of stumbling steps, gaze darting for an escape, but they’d already seen her. With the ship landing at her back and three armed soldiers coming toward her, she didn’t have anywhere to go.
Chapter Twenty
Kai crouched down next to the sub-doctor he’d just helped evacuate from the twice-blown-to-hell building that had once served as Ilari’s onworld command post. He took in a ragged breath and then coughed at the raw catch in his throat from inhaling so much smoke and dust. Someone handed him a near-empty canteen of water. He took a mouthful, and then gave it to Sub-Doctor Moore sitting next to him.
Escape Velocity Page 18
