“Down here,” he said, his expression sullen, smoldering.
“Is there something wrong? Are you angry?”
He stopped walking and stared at her, brows drawn together, eyes narrowed, pupils like pin points. “Let’s leave our emotions out of the conversation. Just mission. Got it?”
She nodded, but her stomach felt empty and twisted. She didn’t want to stay with this guy, talk to him.
Funny. She wasn’t upset or even alarmed at the thought of going into a space battle. She had already faced death and knew she could do it again. But’s spending time with this guy was unpleasant beyond all comprehension.
This was going to be a rough assignment.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Aahliss, you have a call,” Trel said. He and Dglesh were already leaving the cockpit, heading to the back of the shuttle as she moved forward. It was nice that she didn’t have to tell them. They already knew that these calls were not for their ears.
She sat in Trel’s seat and opened the call. Eolith greeted her with a warm smile.
Not the person Aahliss wanted to talk to.
Eolith was one of the oldest women in the Council, and she liked to believe she was the wisest, most experienced and most judicious of all the counselors. She had a following, too, a whole flock of younger counselors who trailed behind her, both physically and philosophically, hanging on her every word, praising her for her vision, surrounding her with adoration.
No wonder she was scarcely aware of how those who disagreed with her felt.
“Good day to you, my sister,” Eolith said, a tremble in her raspy voice. Her head bobbed slightly, and the wattle of skin below her chin danced with the movement.
Aahliss didn’t try to smile when she returned the greeting. No point encouraging the elder counselor.
“Please tell me,” Eolith said, “how is your mission progressing?”
Oh no, that was not the reason Eolith had called. She was just trying to get Aahliss to drop her guard, maybe think Eolith had finally come around to her way of thinking.
Or maybe not. It was impossible to tell what anyone felt from this distance, over a communications link, something Aahliss found extremely disconcerting. She had never been good at guessing feelings just based on facial expressions.
“Does the Council want to know? Or is it just you?”
Eolith let her plastic smile slip for half a second before she recovered it. They both knew if the Council was asking, the final arbiter would be making the call, or perhaps the President of the Council.
“A group of us want to have an update.”
“All those who opposed? So that you can run back to the arbiter and say things aren’t going well?”
Eolith dropped her pleasant expression, now all seriousness. “Aahliss, my dear sister, we are concerned. Some of us have been afraid the humans would just kill you outright.”
Now it was Aahliss’s turn to fake a smile. “How very kind of you. But you will be disappointed to know the humans are cooperating. We should have a workable tactic in a week or two.”
“And how are they to deal with?” Eolith said. “Do they have feelings that disconcert you? Do they have anger hiding just below the surface?”
Aahliss stared at the screen, debating how to answer the question. Was Eolith looking for more reasons to bring to the Council to convince them to withdraw their support? Should she even give an answer to the question?
“Some of them do. We have to vet them carefully to make certain none of them will disrupt ship operations. But I have found several who are quite satisfactory.” She pressed her mouth into another smile she didn’t feel.
Eolith nodded grimly. “I hope you’re right.” She ran her hand across her forehead as if wiping away sweat. “The speaker has become agitated, and no one knows what’s causing it.”
Fear, like a trickle of ice water ran down Aahliss’s back. “When did this begin?”
“Two days ago.”
Two days ago. The day she’d first contacted humans. Did it have any significance? Did it mean the spirits were perturbed? Did the speaker even have contact with the spirits?
“Has she said anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Then we cannot know what it means.”
“It means the spirits disapprove. Isn’t it obvious?” Eolith yanked at her thinning hair, and a wad of wiry strands came out with her fist.
Aahliss looked away. The specter of the older woman so overwrought was unnerving.
The idea of guessing as to the spirits’ guidance was even more disturbing. Long ago they had made their wishes known through the speaker, but for the last 30 years they had been gone. No one ever saw them, no one felt the comfort they could give, no one heard the wisdom they provided.
If they hadn’t left… If they had stayed, they could have warned the fleet about Species X. They could have told the speaker what should be done.
They could have kept her husband from dying.
And they could stop the slaughter of Mralans now, if only they would return.
And she could be cleansed of her anger toward them.
Was the contact with humans further distancing Mral from the spirits? It was possible. The rules of the protectorate had expressly forbidden contact with low technology planets. But this was a special case, a situation that the absence of the spirits had driven them to. Surely, they would understand.
Or would they?
“Nothing is obvious,” Aahliss said. “Nothing.”
Mehta spent an entire day working on all the administrative stuff that leaving command required—evaluation reports on her direct subordinates, any awards she thought appropriate—there were two—not to mention initiating posthumous purple hearts for over 800 officers and soldiers. She worked late into the night, coffee pot by her side, hands shaking from a caffeine overdose.
Once she finally got to bed, she couldn’t sleep, so it was more coffee in the morning and a determination to at least look like she had things all together.
When Brown had said she was selected for this assignment, she had demurred. “I’m still in the middle of my command.”
“No big deal,” Brown said.
“It is a big deal. This assignment will determine whether I make general.”
“General, huh?” Brown thought for a moment, then smiled confidently. “I guarantee you, if you come back with enough stuff to get us into space, you’ll get promoted.”
“I don’t think you have the authority to promise me that.”
“I don’t, but the President does. You want a letter from him?”
“I want to finish my command.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You don’t get to choose, Colonel. The decision has been made. Now, you just go with it.”
So in the morning, she packed her small bag. They were told all their food and clothing would be provided on the ship, so they only needed to bring personal or sentimental items. She brought her letter, written on gleaming White House Stationary.
Their laptops were already loaded on the shuttle, together with one printer, and instructions on the required power source to keep their computers operating. Hopefully, the Mralan engineers could figure out how to make that all work.
The temperature had already reached the high 70s when she arrived at the flight line, where the shuttle sat gleaming in the sunlight.
Trel stood beside the open ramp, and Maj. Gen. Uboldi waited nearby. When he saw her, he hurried toward her.
“Your team will be here in a few minutes.” His bald head reflected a shard of bright sunlight into her eyes and she turned her head. Too bad the flight line was a no hat area. His shiny skin could use a cover.
The tarmac reflected waves of heat toward her, and the humidity made sweating useless. “Is Aahliss inside?” She asked. That might be a good excuse to get out of the hot air.
“She’s with Col. Freeman, making sure the communications work betwe
en us and their ship.”
A couple of staff cars drove up.
“Here’s your team, now,” Uboldi said.
The first person to get out was a tall black Lieutenant Colonel who looked so much like… She blinked. “Colonel Davis? What are you doing here?”
“Part of the team, ma’am,” he said in a booming voice, his smile as broad as she’d ever seen it. “They asked, and I jumped.”
She smiled as she shook his hand. He was a great pick, knowledgeable in all the staff functions. He would be perfect.
Behind Davis came Lieutenant Colonel Ramirez. He also shook her hand. “I think we’ve already met.”
“Yes,” she said. “Welcome to the team.”
“Thank you.” He walked past her to stand by the ramp, his expression solemn.
This might be a serious problem if the Mralans continued to react to him as they had earlier. She was going to have to talk to someone about that.
Next came a lanky Asian woman wearing a flight suit. “Major Hiranaka,” she said, loudly and clearly, and with a pleasant expression. Mehta took a moment to engage in some small talk, then sent Hiranaka to join the others by the ramp. Colonel Freeman stood by the staff cars.
She approached him briskly.
“Here are your orders,” he said handing her a couple of papers, folded in half. “The others already have theirs.”
“John,” she said as she snatched the paper from him, “why is Ramirez in the group? You know —”
He put up his hand as if to block her words. “He’s the only one qualified.”
“I can’t believe that. With all the military around here, you’re telling me you couldn’t find anyone else who knows intelligence?”
“Look,” he said, voice lowered and looking away from her as though he was about to share a secret she shouldn’t know, “his selection came from way higher than me… Higher than Uboldi, too. I didn’t like it, but I did the best I could for you.”
“How high?”
“I’m not sure. May have been the commander-in-chief himself.”
“This is not going to work.”
He put his hand on her arm. “You’ve got to figure out a way to make it work.”
“I have to fight this one.”
“Pick your battles,” Freeman said. “You won’t win on this one.”
“Damn,” Mehta said, letting out a loud breath. And what else was going to go wrong before they even started? Once again, she was having to make do with the results of some idiot’s decision, and this time, she didn’t even know who to blame. What if the entire mission failed because of this one, simple assignment?
She looked down at the paper, sagging as it soaked up moisture from the heavy air. It looked like a sad set of orders — only a couple of pages.
She opened it, then swallowed. These weren’t operations orders. Just administrative orders putting her on temporary duty in outer space. It looked like she was going to have to come up with everything else.
Freeman handed her a canvas bag. “These are discs with all the manuals you asked for, and then some.”
She took the bag, then gave Freeman a look of resignation. “Wish me luck. I think I’m going to need it.”
“You’ll make your own luck,” he said, sounding very confident.
Damn. What had she gotten herself into?
“Just one piece of advice,” Freeman said then. “Don’t go native.”
She gave him a chuckle. Did he know how attracted she was to Trel? Or was this just something spies had to be careful about? “Not with this bunch,” she said, thumb indicating the alien craft.
They shook hands, then she walked back to the shuttle and instructed her team to enter. When they got inside, she patted Ramirez on the arm. “I want you to take the very back row.”
“Understood,” he said. No evidence he had taken any offense.
Davis plopped himself down beside Ramirez, and Hiranaka took a seat in the row in front of them.
Trel approached the group with a canvas bag strapped over his shoulder. “Okay, let’s get you taken care of.” He lifted a baseball-sized glass orb out of the bag and handed it to Mehta indicating the string embedded in it. “Tie this to your belt.”
“What is it?” She took it, then realized it wasn’t glass, but something soft and pliable, and light as a ping-pong-ball. She slipped the strings through her belt while Trel handed more globes to the remainder of her team.
“Your emergency space suit. If you ever need it, just slap it against your hip. It’ll do the rest.”
“Got it.”
“Good deal,” Davis said.
It was another ten minutes before Aahliss arrived. Mehta greeted her at the door while Trel slipped behind her and into the cockpit.
As Aahliss stepped inside, her expression changed from pleased to disconcerted. “Oh, my,” she said on a soft laugh, “put several of you humans together and we get lots of unpleasant feelings.” She patted her chest with a fluttering motion.
Mehta looked back at her team. Ramirez had his head ducked behind the seat back in front of him. Yeah that was probably the only way he would get on board.
“Well,” Aahliss said, “I think I’ll ride in the cockpit. Dglesh, can you sit back there?”
The copilot got up and took a seat near the door.
The ramp moved into the closed position.
Mehta sat beside Hiranaka and watched the younger woman’s startle reaction when the restraining fields popped on.
“Oh, my goodness,” Hiranaka said.
“You get used to it.”
Hiranaka nodded.
Mehta looked toward the cockpit. She couldn’t see Trel, but she could hear his smooth voice. “Path to orbit is clear. Engaging.” The ground and buildings that had stood in front of the shuttle were instantly gone, replaced by black sky, and stars that glowed solidly.
“Wow,” Hiranaka said, “you think we got teleported?”
“Who knows how their technology works.” She gave Hiranaka a reassuring smile. “Oh, look, there’s the main ship.”
Hiranaka stared at it for a long moment, watching it slowly approach, then she sat back. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
Mehta smiled at that. Surely there was more than one thing, but she understood what Hiranaka was trying to say. “And what’s that?”
“Were supposed to be teaching them how to fight, right?”
“Something like that.”
“But we don’t know anything about their technology. We don’t even know what it’s capable of.”
“We’ve got a lot to learn, then.”
“So how can we also teach them?”
Mehta stared at her for a moment, her stomach feeling like it had been sucked empty. Was this the level of understanding she was going to get from her team members? It didn’t sound like they had been vetted very well at all.
“The technology may change, but the principles of war remain the same.”
Hiranaka’s eyes grew wider for just a second, like she was going to say something like, “Oops, what are the principles of war?” But she didn’t say anything, just nodded and swallowed hard.
What else would go wrong, indeed?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Once the shuttle reached the ship, Trel maneuvered it to a round door that had opened a minute before. The shuttle fit neatly inside, like a banana in its peel. The door to the outside closed with a thunk, and then another door opened on the side, allowing the ramp to deploy.
Mehta headed for the door as Aahliss moved toward her, a deep frown darkening her face. Mehta motioned for Aahliss to debark first, as she was the senior person on the shuttle. But Aahliss stopped at the door. “Why have you brought that man? Wasn’t it clear to you that his attitude will disrupt the operations of the ship?”
“I didn’t really have a choice,” she said. “There wasn’t time to find someone else qualified.” It was like so many other operations she had been involved in durin
g her long career—the leadership was always in a hurry, resulting in a culture where there was never enough time to do things right.
“I thought you had the strength of will to stand up to those men,” Aahliss said, small drops of spittle flying from her mouth. “You should have told them you would oppose their decision.”
“Oppose?” Didn’t Aahliss realize how out-ranked Mehta had been down there? What did she think a mere Colonel could do in that kind of situation?
“I don’t understand you,” Aahliss said. “And I can tell you, now that I see how you operate, that this whole alliance thing is not going to work.” She turned and walked down the ramp.
Mehta shook her head, then called Ramirez forward. “You know she was referring to you, right?”
He nodded. “I can’t help what I’m feeling.”
“Yes, you can. You take your thoughts about whatever it is that’s unpleasant, and you come up with some thoughts that are just the opposite. Then you repeat them in your mind, over and over.”
His face looked pained. “I don’t think that will work.”
“You haven’t even tried it.”
“But I don’t believe those thoughts you want me to repeat.”
“You don’t have to believe it, just think it. I don’t want you to have to be kept away from the Mralans. Your expertise is too important.”
He glanced away, his scowl growing deeper and angrier. “I’ll try,” he said. Sounded like it was a strain to say it.
“I have confidence you can overcome this,” Mehta said.
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.” With that, she turned and descended the ramp, into a cavernous, dome-shaped room, its vaulted ceiling painted with diamond shapes in several shades of green that repeated themselves around the room in a spiral, a Fibonacci sequence, like the center of a sunflower. The smell of the air was fresh, like she was in a forest or a well-kept garden. Nice. If you were going to be confined to a space ship for months on end, this was definitely the way to do it. In the corner, three tall, transparent tubes ran from floor to ceiling. They looked like bamboo trunks, or maybe the pipes of an old organ
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