Quietly, she said, “I can’t know for sure, of course, but I suspect it was Gared Tomas.”
The answer startled him, but on closer examination, Rast supposed the idea wasn’t that far-fetched. “Keeping tabs on you, eh?”
“Most likely. Gared Tomas didn’t trust his own mother, let alone some woman one of his lackeys picked up in a bar when he was trolling for a pilot.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh and added, “I probably wouldn’t have trusted me under those circumstances, either. Now that I think of it, I was being a little too trusting. I never considered that Tomas might put a tracker on me — after all, when I was on Iradia, I was easy enough to keep an eye on, and of course I spent a good deal of time directly in his company, flying him between his various bases.”
Rast wasn’t aware of any particular shift in his expression, but she must have seen something, because she shot him a sideways glance and said,
“And no, there was nothing personal between us.”
“Did I say there was?”
“No, but you were thinking it.” Something approaching a smile touched her mouth, and she stood, going to him and wrapping her arms around his waist, pushing herself close against him.
It was one of the first voluntary gestures of affection he’d seen from her, and his arms tightened around her, even as he noted the enticing musky scent of their lovemaking, along with a whiff of something that smelled like smoke, probably from the mercenaries’ attack on the Thorn homestead. She felt right there, nestled in his embrace, even though she was such a tiny thing, really, her head not even reaching his chin. For all that, though, he could feel the steel-sharp strength of her, the force of will that had made her a captain at such a young age.
With her cheek still pressed against him, she said quietly, “He wanted me, but I said no, that I was his pilot and only that. There wasn’t anything between us.”
So those unpleasant visions of her sharing that cabin with Gared Tomas were only that — visions, foolish fancies, far from the truth. “I won’t lie and say I’m not relieved.”
A muffled laugh. “I’ll have to watch out for that jealous streak of yours. No, Rast, there hasn’t been anyone for quite a while. I was always focused on my career. What was the point in trying to make a connection with someone? The GDF frowns on its captains — especially the female ones — marrying and having families. That wasn’t for me.”
“And now?” he asked.
“Now?” She pulled away slightly and looked up at him, one eyebrow quirked. “I don’t even know what tomorrow is going to bring, so I’m not going to start thinking about the long term for a while yet.”
It would have been too much to expect her to say she would run off with him, start their own version of the Thorns’ domestic bliss. Not that he even knew whether Stacians and Gaians could interbreed. Such a notion verged on blasphemy for one of his race, since they had been focused on preserving the purity of their bloodlines for millennia. It was the only way to ensure the future of the Stacian people, as their world made short work of those who were weak or genetically inferior. And now, for him to be considering mixing his blood with that of a Gaian woman? He did not want to think how his family members might react to such a proposition.
“At the moment, it’s probably wise to not think too far ahead,” he said, laying aside for the moment visions of having this woman by his side for the rest of his life. “But will you come back to bed now?”
She hesitated, and again he noted the weariness etched in her face.
“Only to sleep,” he promised, although his body flickered with heat at the thought of taking her again. But he could tell she’d had enough for now. “As you said, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. How long until we reach Miris Prime?”
“Ten standard.”
“Well, then,” he said, and drew her away from the bridge, back to the cabin that had become theirs over the last few days. “Come and sleep, and leave tomorrow’s worries for tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She hadn’t thought it would feel so good to sleep curled up against Rast’s warm, solid body, to have his calm, regular breaths soothe her into a slumber so deep that she didn’t dream, didn’t do anything except lie there, as her weary muscles healed themselves and her mind sought its own healing. And when she woke, some seven standard hours later, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to turn to him, to run her fingers along the heavy muscles of his chest and arms, to reach down and take him into her hand, finding him hard and ready. They made love slowly, silently, and afterward took turns using the shower, scrubbing off the last traces of their encounter with the mercenaries and the doubt and worry that had come along with it, and making jokes about one day soon being able to climb into the shower together.
Some of her good humor evaporated when they came out of subspace and into the Miris system. Like Gaia itself, the system was located far out on one of the galaxy’s spiral arms, and the stars here were even more widely scattered than they were in the Gaian system. Miris itself was equally unprepossessing from orbit — dull gray in appearance due to the bands of perpetual cloud cover that wrapped themselves around the planet.
As with most approaches to Gaian Consortium worlds, she was contacted only a few seconds after beginning her approach to the coordinates Jackson had given her.
“Unidentified craft, identify yourself and provide your reason for coming to Miris Prime.”
The voice was male, neither friendly nor hostile. She thought she detected a faint note of apathy in his tone. Good. Bored people tended to be sloppy.
“Miris Control, this is the Chinook. Sending registry information now.” And thank God she’d cleaned up that data days earlier. A dedicated planetary security operative might be able to spot some inconsistencies in what she was transmitting down to Miris Prime, but she somehow doubted the man she spoke with now was anything close to that determined, or talented.
“Thank you, Chinook. You’re cleared to land in either of the ’ports in Sector Three. Have a nice day.”
The connection was closed, and Lira smiled and shook her head, rerouting to Sector Three — which, luckily, was close to where they’d been headed anyway.
“Tight security out here,” Rast remarked, lowering himself into the copilot’s seat for their final descent.
“I think the weather must get to people on this world. You’d think they’d be a little more alert, since the ore mined here is worth a great deal.” She shrugged. “Then again, it’s a little more difficult to steal several shiploads of duranium ore than it is to walk away with precious gems or priceless art.”
“Is that what thieves are after these days?”
“So I’ve heard. Things that are difficult to synthesize are of course the most highly prized. Not that I know with any great certainty — after all, the captain of a starship generally isn’t occupied with chasing after intergalactic jewel thieves.”
“Ah,” Rast said, which could have meant anything. Something in his gleaming copper eyes told her he was somehow amused by the idea of intergalactic jewel thieves. Maybe he was considering that as the next step in their careers, once they wrapped up this whole Eridani mess. She wouldn’t quite put it past him.
They were now descending through Miris Prime’s murky atmosphere, gray clouds swirling past the viewscreen. Somehow it felt instantly colder, although of course the temperature in the cabin was calibrated to be exactly the same twenty-two degrees Celsius no matter what the conditions outside might be. As they dropped even lower, rain began to spatter against the Chinook, hissing as it hit the still super-heated alloy.
“More rain,” Rast said in resigned tones.
“What, I thought you Stacians prayed for the rain to come again.” She didn’t bother to keep the grin off her face as she smiled at his obvious distress.
“So we do, but I think that’s because those of us who don’t go off-world don’t realize how…inconvenient…it can be.”
Judging by
the information the ship’s external sensors were relaying to her, that rain wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon, either. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to hope that this contact — whoever he is — isn’t too far from the ’port. And that Miris Prime has decent public transport.”
Once they’d landed in the docking area designated for their use and had emerged from the Chinook, Lira realized she was going to be disappointed on both counts. The rain pounded down, heavier than anything she’d ever seen before, and although they both had coats they could wear to keep the worst of it off, neither of them had any headgear. Of course a ship based on Iradia wouldn’t have anything so prosaic as an umbrella among its store of useful items, either, so she and Rast had to stumble through the downpour to a kiosk that looked as if it might supply information on public transportation. That did prove to be its function, but it appeared they were out of luck again, as the branch of the subterranean train that serviced this part of Sector Three was closed for repairs.
“What now?” Rast looked positively miserable, rain sluicing over his golden skin and soaking through the matted masses of hair down his back. Lira wondered how long it would take for all that hair to get dry again and decided she probably didn’t want to know.
Then again, maybe the weather was a blessing in disguise. In his civilian garb, with the long black coat covering him to his chin, and in the muddy, muted light, Rast didn’t look quite so overwhelmingly Stacian. It might take a second or even a third glance for someone to recognize him for what he was. Even so, Lira knew the less time they spent out in the open, the better.
She pulled out her handheld and squinted at the coordinates Jackson had sent her. They had a walk of approximately a kilometer ahead of them, something normally she would have just shrugged at. But now, in this weather —
“We walk,” she said.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” But he only turned up the collar of his coat and followed her as she led him down the slick perma-crete sidewalk in the direction the handheld indicated.
At least the streets were more or less deserted. Lira had no idea whether this was because of the weather, or because Miris Prime was the sort of place whose inhabitants preferred to spend their time indoors. One would have thought that the shutdown of the public transportation system would send people out on foot, but long ago she’d given up trying to understand the idiosyncrasies of the various worlds she visited.
An aircar whooshed to a stop next to them. “Need a ride?” The unfamiliar voice had a slightly tinny quality; it must be coming from an external speaker on the ’car somewhere.
She paused, and could feel Rast bristling to attention next to her, his hand drifting down to where he carried his sidearm.
A laugh emerged from the speaker. “Jackson sent me. So get in, or do you want to walk a kilometer in this weather?”
Tilting her head up at Rast, she sent him a questioning look. He hesitated, then glanced from her to the ’car and back again. An odd movement of his hands, palms rolling skyward, which seemed to be the Stacian equivalent of a shrug.
Well, she could either allow herself to trust a little, or she could walk to their destination in the rain. Sooner or later she’d have to trust the stranger Jackson had sent them to see; it might as well be now.
Chin up, she approached the ’car, Rast only a pace behind her. The rear door slid open, and she got in, Rast following with some difficulty, as the vehicle was clearly designed to accommodate human frames, not Stacian.
As she settled herself into a seat and allowed the automated safety belt to lock itself on her, she stared forward to get a better look at the driver. From what she could tell, he was also Gaian, dark-haired, of Asian extraction. That surprised her a little; so many people from that part of the world had died during the Cloud that they now comprised a much smaller percentage of Gaia’s population than they once had, and overall they preferred to stay on their home world, striving to rebuild their peoples and their cultures as best they could.
“Jackson didn’t give me your name,” she said coolly, as if getting into cars driven by complete strangers was something she did on a regular basis.
“Hunter Chao. Nice to meet you, Captain Jannholm. Or are you not using the ‘Captain’ anymore?”
So Jackson had related something of her circumstances. She was not overly happy with that knowledge, but she supposed he’d needed to give this Hunter Chao some information to work with. Next to her, Rast stiffened, obviously expecting to be addressed next.
But Chao said nothing else, only piloted the sleek late-model car through the sodden streets to a blocky-looking building of four stories made of some grayish perma-crete material. He pulled into the building’s underground parking area, which was a little more than half full, and pushed a button to open the ’car doors once they’d come to a stop.
Lira got out, and Rast did the same, clutching the doorframe and more or less levering himself out, a fearsome scowl on his face during the entire procedure. Somehow managing to smother a grin, she turned to Chao, who motioned for them to follow him.
They went to an elevator and got in, and he pressed the button for the fourth floor.
Their mysterious host still didn’t seem overly inclined to conversation, so Lira followed suit and remained silent as the elevator rose to the building’s top floor. Rast looked dubious at best, but at least he refrained from comment as they got out and followed Chao down a hallway as gray and unremarkable as the building itself, and through a door into his — apartment? Office?
It appeared to be a mixture of both, a huge space that took up what must have been one whole side of the structure. On the far wall was a compact kitchen area reminiscent of the one on board the Chinook, while not too far away there was a screened-off section that she guessed was the sleeping area. In the main part of the loft were tables and desks littered with a variety of computer equipment, scanning devices, small 3D printers — everything someone would need to duplicate the sophisticated I.D.s utilized by the Gaian government.
“Take a seat,” Chao said carelessly, going to one of the computers and typing in some rapid-fire codes. Then he paused and looked up at Lira and Rast where they waited a few feet inside the door. “Oh, hey, on second thought, get rid of those coats first. I don’t want you getting water anywhere near here.”
Luckily, there was a set of metal hooks on either side of the door whose sole purpose seemed to be keeping sodden outerwear from getting near Chao’s precious equipment. Lira took off her coat, and Rast did so as well, although she noticed he was slower about removing his, intent gaze roving the interior of the loft before he began to undo the buttons and then finally hung the garment from one of the hooks. Underneath, they were more or less dry, as their coat fabric had been treated to be water-repellent.
She went ahead and sat down on one of the chairs their host had indicated, but although Rast approached, he remained standing, as if prepared to go into battle at a second’s notice, should the situation warrant it.
Chao flicked a glance up at the Stacian and then shrugged, obviously not overwhelmed by Rast’s stature, even though he had to be a good thirty centimeters taller than Chao.
“Okay,” he said, after apparently satisfying himself with what he saw on the one computer screen in front of him. “Jackson says I’m supposed to give you the full workup. New identities from top to bottom, including new retinal scans.”
Rast flinched a little at that, and Chao grinned.
“Don’t worry — those big copper peepers of yours will look exactly the same.”
“I am not worried about my personal appearance,” Rast said stiffly, and again Lira had to fight back a smile.
Maybe you’re not, but I am. I’ve gotten used to those amber eyes of yours. She inquired, “And fingerprints, and full I.D. replacement?”
“Of course. My job is to make sure your new armor is impenetrable.” He typed in another quick burst of data. “You, Lira, are no problem. But th
e big guy?” A quick lopsided grin. “He’s going to be a little tougher. You can’t exactly hide a Stacian.”
Again Rast stiffened. It was clear that he didn’t appreciate being referred to as “the big guy,” let alone discussed as if he weren’t even in the room.
“Jackson trusts you, so I trust you,” Lira said simply.
“I am very good at what I do.” Chao appeared to finish whatever he was working on, and swiveled his chair so he faced both Rast and Lira. “Rast, you’re now from Syrinara, a minor bureaucrat in the colony’s agro department. That makes it plausible for you to be off-world, since part of what you do is investigate new crops that could be grown on the colony. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rast replied, although Lira saw his lips thin a little. He probably didn’t much like being demoted to a bureaucrat, and a minor one at that, but really, what their new identities did wasn’t the point, only that they didn’t raise too many warning flags.
Chao’s gaze shifted to Lira, and she wondered what on earth he was going to come up with for her. “You’ll be working for MonAg, trying to sell Rast here on your company’s products.”
At first whiff, she didn’t like that much at all. MonAg was one of the galaxy-spanning corporations that had a stranglehold on the Gaian Consortium’s policies. If it didn’t earn a profit, it didn’t get done, and even the GDF had to fight for funding every year as the lobbyists came up with new arguments about its lack of profitability.
A peacekeeping force wasn’t about being profitable, but Lira knew that was an argument she’d never win. At least as a captain she hadn’t been forced to deal with those sorts of confrontations. Admiral Horner had been in a choice few, that much she did know. Say what you wanted about the man, but he was willing to go to the mat for the people under his command.
On the upside, it would make sense for a MonAg rep to be seen with a Syrinara-based Stacian whose job was agro development. Clever of Jackson to come up with alternate identities that were extremely plausible…and which she and Rast would both dislike, for very different reasons.
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