by Cheri Lasota
“No one here has mentioned it, so we're good for now. You've done a damn fine job. When we get out of this, you're going to get a gold star employee of the week award.”
“And a vacation on a distant planet?”
“Absolutely. Now hold tight. They are about to take a vote.”
Benson had already voted to leave the Serica group behind. As had one other board member from the Nautilus-11 Trust Group who had funded the original retrofitting of the SS Challenge. She had been silent until now, but Solomon was happy to see she neither condoned Solomon's further torture nor her fellow board members' attempts to betray their original agreement. Or maybe she just didn't want to risk the potential mutiny once the Reachers discovered the truth. Either way, Solomon would take it. He could use all the would-be allies he could find.
Next up were Graversen, Justice, and Edge.
Alexandra raised her hand up so all eyes would be on her. “I'm in favor of the Serica group.”
“Shocker,” Solomon muttered under his breath.
“I vote in favor of the Serica group as well,” Graversen said, though Solomon heard a tinge of emotion in his words, which surprised him.
Why he ever trusted that bastard . . . Well, you live you learn. Danes, man. Tricky sons of bitches.
“You already know my mind on this,” was all Commander Edge would say.
Yeah, next? Solomon thought.
Jiva Yarod considered for a moment, and then finally said, “Given the potential for Reacher mutiny, I say we mitigate risk by allowing them to stay onboard. Remember, there is still the possibility that we will never get the answers we need out of Solomon Reach. He has no reason to give us what we want. He has nothing to lose at this point.”
“Except his life.”
Solomon broke out in a cold sweat at Commander Edge's matter-of-fact tone.
“I know beyond a doubt we can get him to talk,” Mads Graversen said, his accent as thick as his head.
You think? Solomon closed his fist, wishing they were back at MIT's Killian Court where he could bloody him senseless.
“We were making progress before your daughter interrupted us, Alexandra.”
Alexandra glared at Mads but said nothing, as eyebrows went up around the table.
“I vote in favor of the Serica group,” Flight Surgeon Sparks said after a moment of consideration.
All eyes turned toward the final voter on the board: Daniela Marcks. It seemed the docking commander was about to break the tie. Little did she know how much rested on her vote. If she chose the Serica group, she was about to find the Reachers weren't going to go down without a fight.
He heard Vida's sharp intake of breath behind him. He noticed he was holding his breath too. Marcks was deliberating. He could see the potential scenarios rolling across her pale face. When she had made up her mind, it was written in her eyes before she said the words.
“Send the Reachers to the ground.” Marcks's voice cut through a crack-fire succession of his thoughts.
“Vida, we've just lost our vote,” Solomon whispered. “We need to get out of here fast and regroup somewhere else.”
She nodded, but the board members were already moving away from the table. He heard snippets of their conversation as they began to scatter.
“I'm going to work on contingency backup plans,” the trustee said, as she headed out the door on the opposite side of the room.
“I need to get a full status update from Challenge and Janus Corp security teams on the airlock situation,” XO Alexandra Justice said to Commander Edge. “I'll be in Module D for the next fifteen minutes.”
“Page Gregore from the training room. Tell him to report to the Trafero 2 and wait for instructions,” Commander Edge said to Graversen. “We'll let the gym rat do the dirty work. I don't have time for it. And Graversen,” Edge said grabbing Mads by the shoulder, “do whatever it takes. Find a way to break Solomon Reach. We need that Cavitran Drive working by tomorrow, or we'll all share the same fate as the grounders.”
“Someone's coming, Solomon,” Dextra said, her voice a harsh whisper.
“Hide. I've got this,” Vida said, pushing Solomon back as she stood to face whoever was approaching the slider. This proceeded to shove him into Dextra, who fell backward into the shadows of the podium. His hand shot out instinctively, and he ended up hovering above her, their bodies barely an inch apart, his palm cradling the back of her head.
Her eyes widened, glinting brightly under the lights above them. His heart charged into full race-mode. If they found him hovering over Justice's daughter in the corner of the boardroom, they'd arrest him on the spot, and even Alexandra wouldn't hesitate to break out the scalpels this time.
Solomon begged Dextra with his eyes not to make a move or cry out. He needed her cooperation more than anything else right now. Without it, he was a dead man. Something came into her eyes—a glimmer, a flash. She nodded as if to say, “You have my trust.”
It surprised him, and he nearly forgot where he was and what he was doing there with her. He laid Dextra's head down gently but held his position, palms down on either side of her head, gazing into her eyes because he had nowhere else to look. He should stop kidding himself. He stayed that way because he wanted to memorize her face and think about taking her dark mouth to his own. He was surprised she didn't seem to want to look away either. She met his gaze without hesitation, and it made his arms go a bit weak.
Jiva Yarod's voice crashed through his thoughts, and the moment with Dextra passed him by.
“Is there something wrong with the slider?” he asked Vida. Yarod didn't seem to realize who she was; otherwise he would have called for the cavalry immediately. Solomon glanced toward the other side of the room. It looked like the other board members had headed out the back way.
“I've been trying to figure that out myself,” Vida said. “I was on an errand and noticed it seemed to have gone faulty. Codebox probably needs a reset.”
“Did you only just arrive,” Yarod asked, sounding mildly suspicious, “or have you been looking at this door for quite a while?”
“Oh no, sir,” Vida assured him in her best you're-the-boss tone, “I literally just started taking a look at the codebox the moment you walked up. I was actually looking for Docking Commander Marcks and heard she was in here.”
“We've just come out of a restricted meeting,” Yarod said. “You'll need to come back at a later time. I recommend you contact the docking commander via DOT message as she will likely be detained by urgent business for some time.”
“No problem, sir. It's not critical.”
“Certainly. Good day,” Yarod said, and Solomon heard his footsteps fading as he made his way down the corridor.
“Are we all clear, Vida?” Solomon whispered.
“All clear.”
A moment passed, and Solomon rolled over Dextra to sit beside her.
“Sorry about that,” he whispered, holding out his hand to her as he got up. “Are you all right?” With a nod, she took his hand and rose to a sitting position.
“Come,” he whispered to Dextra. “Time to get you safely aboard the SS Challenge.”
After he lifted her to her feet, she touched his shoulder. “Solomon, what if I messaged my mother and told her I needed to speak with her urgently. At least that would get her aboard the ship, and she'd be none the wiser.”
Her steady gaze had a twinge of worry in it. So Dextra didn't agree with her mother, the Executive Bitch, for going along with Edge's unsavory torture methods, but the woman was still her mother, betrayer or not.
Solomon thought for a moment. At first glance, he didn't see a problem with it. Well, as long as they didn't run into Alexandra as they searched for Zander Marcks. “All right. Don't give her any indication of what we're planning, Dextra. It's for her safety as well as ours. If this goes horribly wrong, we could end up with a bloodbath between the Serica group and the Reachers. I don't think either of us want that.”
“Agreed.�
�
“Let's go.”
Vida glanced beyond them to see whether there was any danger. She nodded. “Hurry.”
Solomon and Dextra slipped into an adjoining compartment with Vida following.
“Let's debrief,” Solomon said after locking them in. “Vida, have you seen the Nautilus Docking Commander's son recently?”
“You mean that twenty-something lab tech whose been training to be on the Nanosilc Repair Team?”
“Yeah. That's him. Zander Marcks. And he's already been promoted to that team. Have you seen him?”
“He's usually in the SS Challenge's Astro Lab working, even when he's not on duty, right?” Vida asked. “He's a bit of an over-achiever, eh?”
“That's where I've usually seen him now that I think about it,” Solomon said. “I've come up with a plan that involves him and his mother.”
“I know exactly where Zander Marcks is,” Dextra said. “He's out spacewalking right now.”
Solomon's jaw dropped at that. “Who in the blazes authorized him to do that in the middle of all this madness?”
“I heard about it from Joany in the Astro Lab yesterday. Somehow he got wind of top secret information and started asking Command staff some awkward questions. So Commander Edge and his mother sought to distract him with a spacewalk today. He's out practicing a test repair on the forward hull as we speak.”
“Port or starboard?”
“Portside. He probably exited out one of the airlocks near the Astro Lab.”
“Maybe the secret he uncovered was the group in Serica Sector,” Vida said.
“Hmm . . . It's possible,” Solomon said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Damn, this is getting complicated.”
“I don't know the details of what he uncovered,” Dextra said. “I guess the docking commander supposed he couldn't get into trouble if he was out spacewalking.”
Even as Solomon shook his head, he realized he could use this to his advantage. He now knew where Zander was, he was isolated, and if he headed out there to intercept him, he could maneuver him up right outside the docking commander's fenestella up on the Nautilus Command Deck. Having his hand on her son's oxygen supply would soften up Daniela's stance on Reachers real quick.
He glanced back at Vida. “Where is your cap? You're going to need it later.” Even though it was a requirement, her standard issue leather cloche cap was nowhere in sight; she had coiled her hair into a tightly braided bun at the base of her head. That was his Vida. Always breaking the rules just enough to get away with it.
“Why?”
“You're going on a spacewalk.”
A sly smile crept into the corners of her mouth. “Well, hot damn. Where and when?”
Solomon smiled despite the situation. Chief Drive Ops Officer Vida Rosado had been with him a long time. No better ally.
“You need to get yourself from Nautilus to the Challenge undetected.”
“And taking a walk is the easiest way. Got it.”
“But first, I want you to get Daniela Marcks to follow you into Conference Compartment 4C. It was empty when we passed through there a while ago. Detain her in whatever way you can. Wait until I contact you. If she won't stay, make her. You can lock her in with the override code of 3056.”
Vida nodded. “Consider it done.”
“Solomon, you can't just—”
“Not now, Dextra. No time for protocol.”
She glared at him but didn't argue.
“Vida, I need your UiComm chip. Challenge Command took mine. You'll need to communicate with me via Daniela Marcks's DOT from here on out.”
“All right. Let me get it out of my chip slip.” Vida immediately reached back to pull away the hair behind her left ear. Solomon listened for the telltale beep-beep of the UiComm chip releasing from Vida's surgical jack.
“Thanks. But I'm also leaving you in the blind. Be aware that my plan is to find the docking commander's son and use him as a bargaining chip to force Marcks to undock the ship.”
“So you did come up with a brilliant plan after all,” Vida said, a smile of pride flitting across her face.
“Of course. That's what they pay me for, right?” The irony of that question was not lost on any of them. “Keep an eye on the Challenge. If you don't make it aboard via one of the hatches—and I don't think you'll get the chance—take a walk.”
“Got it.” Vida's eyes sparkled. She always got a kick out of spacewalking.
“You aren't even going to attempt to use a hatch, are you?”
“Nope.”
Solomon smiled. “Figured. Has Tavian contacted you yet, Vida?”
“No, I haven't heard from him. It worries me.”
“He got a Ui out to me via relay telling me he needed assistance in Propulsion.”
Vida's hand immediately went to her mouth. “Something's wrong. Tavian would never do that.”
“I know. I don't have any more details, though. So I'm going to head over there myself and see if I can spring him out of there. I have a feeling Command has detained him.”
Vida frowned and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Okay, but you be careful, Chief. That mad bastard Mads has probably got him, and Tav doesn't have enough sense to keep his mouth shut at the best of times. I mean, what if it's a trap?”
Solomon hadn't thought of that. “I'll keep to the backways. Don't worry.”
“I always worry about you, boss.”
A smile curved up at the corner of his mouth. “Which is why I haven't fired you yet.”
“Best boss ever,” Vida said, flashing a grin at Dextra, who couldn't help but smile back.
“What about Kasen or Brooker?” Solomon asked.
“Nothing.”
“I need to make contact with Brooker ASAP. He's supposed to contact you first, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I have your Ui, so hopefully I'll hear from him soon.”
“And what of those left on Nautilus?” Vida asked, turning serious.
“Our focus must be on Reacher safety. If you see any Reachers on Nautilus, tell them Reach orders are to board the Challenge and muster aft on Watch Deck 16.”
“My mother?” Dextra asked, her voice unsure.
Solomon nodded. “Send her that encrypted message we talked about. But tell her to go to the Command Deck. That should keep her out of harm's way.”
Dextra immediately turned to the side and began composing the message on her DOT.
Solomon hoped this wouldn't backfire on them, but he wouldn't try to stop her. If it were his own mother, he'd probably do the same.
“And Edge? He is the ship's commander . . .?”
Solomon shook his head. “Don't worry about Challenge Command members or the board. They are good at looking after their own necks. If they can find a way aboard ship, they'll make it,” he said, rubbing absently at the bandage on his hand.
Vida nodded toward it. “What happened?”
“Oh, it's nothing,” Solomon said.
“It wasn't nothing,” Dextra said, anger tingeing her words. “Edge tortured him with Graversen and my mother looking on.”
“Bastards . . .” Vida nearly shouted. “Come here and let me take a look.”
“Don't worry about it, Vida. I'm fine.” Solomon hoped his gaze would convince them both to drop it.
Vida impatiently strode toward him when he wouldn't budge and pressed on his bandage, making him wince. “Fine? Not even. I'd like to Taser them all right now, but that won't do anything but get me thrown in lockdown. We've got work that needs doing. The sooner we do it, the sooner I can give Commander Edge a piece of my mind—or my fist if I'm so inclined—when next I see that pompous ass. You two go. They'll be after you soon.”
“Take care of yourself. At a certain point, I'll be holding that kid's life in my hands. When that happens, all eyes will be on us. That's when you need to make a break for the ship. Don't delay.”
“Understood.”
“Are you ready?” he asked Dextra
.
She pressed a few more buttons on her DOT and nodded. “Done.”
Peering out the compartment's slider, he found that the corridor was clear.
He glanced back at Vida. “We won't leave you behind. I swear it.”
Vida flashed a smile as she nodded.
Solomon hoped she'd succeed in coaxing Marcks to follow her. Every element of his plan depended on it.
***
Solomon and Dextra stood nonchalantly near the entrance of the SS Challenge's docking module. He still had no useful plan for boarding the ship undetected. A glance at Dextra told him she didn't either. He knew Founder crew would be guarding the Cryo Hatch, and if they had been notified to keep an eye out for Solomon, it was going to be nearly impossible to board without the whole Founder crew detaining them.
“What if I went up first and talked to them? Distracted them like I did before . . .?” Dextra asked him.
“Hmm . . . Or we could go together. If they stop us, you could say Challenge Command requested we report to them.”
“That might work. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. I never professed to be a good actress.”
“You're actually quite good at this, you know,” Solomon said.
“Don't tell my mother that.”
“I'll try to refrain.”
Solomon peeked around the corner and got a quick lay of the land. He was surprised to see the girl, Neyve Colgan, again. And her uncle, his best bioengineer Dugal Colgan, walked beside her as they moved down the module toward the hatch. He thought it odd that Dugal would bring her this close to the ship, but they were likely saying a final goodbye. He hoped Dugal would hurry and board. Chaos could easily erupt in the next few minutes, and he didn't want to put either of the Colgans in unnecessary danger.
“All right. There's nothing for it,” Solomon said, feeling an anxiety welling in the pit of his stomach as he cradled his spasming palm. “Let's get on with this.”
They walked out into the center of the module's long corridor amid mostly Challenge and Nautilus crew and the odd passenger here and there. It wasn't overly busy, but Solomon hoped they would blend in a bit even though their uniforms were hard to miss.
