by Sam Schall
“Damn it, Shaw, on your feet. Don’t make me come in there,” the guard all but growled.
Tremayne frowned. The last thing they needed was to further antagonize the young woman. Besides, were their roles reversed, she’d probably be doing her best to show as much indifference as was the young woman. Even so, she could understand the guard’s frustration. He was under enough pressure just escorting the two of them through the security wing. Collins was First Fleet’s commanding officer. Then there was Tremayne herself. So-called war hero, not that she thought of herself as such, and now a member of the Senate. To have a mere prisoner ignore his order in front of such “luminaries” had to be not only frustrating but humiliating as well.
Of course, there was nothing mere about Ashlyn Shaw and there never had been.
“Ma’am, I can go inside.”
The guard sounded unsure, not that Tremayne blamed him. She doubted there was anyone on the planet who didn’t know who Ashlyn Shaw was. Her war record had been stellar up until the time she’d been court martialed. Whether they believed the charges that had been leveled against her or not, they’d know she wasn’t someone you wanted to cross.
Tremayne frowned and shook her head. This wasn’t the way to proceed. If the prisoner wouldn’t respond to the guard, it was time to try something else.
Carefully judging the distance, Tremayne stepped forward, coming so close to the barrier that she could feel the energy dancing across her skin.
“Out of that rack, Marine, and on your feet!” she snapped in her best command voice.
Her order met with a more pronounced physical reaction from Shaw. This time there was no mistaking the way the young woman’s muscles tensed, as if preparing to sit up. Holding her breath, Tremayne waited. Would Shaw respond or would she force herself to return to her relaxed pose on the bunk?
Several long seconds passed as they waited but to no avail. The prisoner continued to ignore them.
Damn it.
“Admiral, let me call for backup and then we can go in.” Before the guard could reach for his comm, Tremayne’s hand closed over his arm.
“No.” Most definitely not. But they had to get through to Shaw somehow. Maybe it was time to put aside rank and go to the personal. “I know you can hear me, Shaw, so I’m just going to talk. I hope you’ll listen.”
God how I wish the last two years had never happened. Everything would be so much easier.
“Things have changed since you were brought up on charges. Those responsible are no longer in power, either in the government or in the military chain of command. That includes those who found you and the others guilty at your court martial.” She paused, watching, hoping for some reaction. Was there a hint of tension easing in the prisoner’s body? She wasn’t sure. All she could do was continue and hope for the best. “Some things haven’t changed however. We’re still at war. It doesn’t matter that we’ve technically been sharing a truce with the enemy. All it did was slow hostilities. The fact is things are about to get bad again and you know what that means.”
Surely that would get through to the young woman. In all the years she’d known Ashlyn Shaw, there’d been one thing she could rely upon – Shaw’s sense of duty. She just hoped the last two years hadn’t destroyed it.
“Shaw – Ashlyn.” She reached out, the palm of her right hand almost touching the security field separating them. As she did, she sensed the guard tensing, ready to pull her back before she made contact with the field. “We need you. Please.”
Finally, a reaction. A slight tremor ran down the prisoner’s back. Then a bitter laugh filled the cell. Tremayne bit her lower lip to hear it.
“You seem to forget, Admiral, that I still have three years to serve on my sentence. There’s not much I can do for you while I’m a prisoner. So, unless you’ve brought a pardon – for not only me but for my people as well – you can go to Hell.”
“That’s enough, Shaw!” Collins snapped. “You may be a prisoner but you’re still a Marine and you’ll respect the rank, if nothing else, and listen to what we have to say.”
“Respect the rank!” Fury filled the young woman’s voice as she rolled over and surged to her feet.
Tremayne gasped in shock. Gone was the promising young officer she’d known. In her place was a hard, scarred woman, a veteran of battles that had killed so many on both sides. But there was more. Her face showed scars that hadn’t been there when she’d been sentenced to the Tarsus military prison. A band of white ran from her left temple back, stark against the otherwise dark hair. What in the hell had happened to her in the last two years to bring her to this?
And would it prevent her from helping them, even if they managed to arrange for everyone to be pardoned?
“Ashlyn, please, just listen,” Tremayne said softly.
“I listened once before, Admiral, and it cost most of my people their lives. Those that survived found themselves brought up on phony charges, just like me, and sent to that hellhole of a military prison. But maybe you’ve forgotten that.”
Tremayne closed her eyes and breathed deeply, struggling for calm. She hadn’t forgotten. She’d kept the memory of that betrayal close to her. It had been why she’d resigned her commission and ran for office. She’d known she needed to work the system to get those brave souls freed and their names cleared. Unfortunately, she hadn’t expected it to take this long.
She still remembered all too clearly the events that had led up to Shaw’s court martial. Shaw had done nothing wrong. She’d done her duty. She’d followed orders despite her misgivings – misgivings she’d voiced not only to her immediate commanding officer but to the sector commander and to Tremayne as well. And what had it gotten her? Her company decimated in an ambush and the rest of them, Shaw included, court martialed and imprisoned and all in the name of face-saving by some damn-fool politicians and senior officers.
Worse, Shaw’s family – and the families of the other survivors – had also paid the price. Those in government service who hadn’t been willing to condemn their relatives had seen their jobs disappear. There had been other pressures brought to bear on those in the private sector. That could no more be forgiven than what happened to Shaw and her people, as the next round of elections had proven.
“Ashlyn, I can’t undo what happened. I wish to God I could.” Tremayne waved Collins back as he stepped forward. The last thing they needed was him losing his temper. She understood why he’d reacted as he had. It was his fleet about to head to the front lines. His people would be the first to die. Even more would die if they couldn’t convince Shaw to work with them. “All I can tell you is that things have changed since then. Fleet leadership has undergone a turnover the likes of which you wouldn’t believe. What happened to you and your company became a rallying cry at the last elections and those politicians responsible were voted out of office. There is no chance of a repeat of what you went through ever happening again.”
“At least until the next election.” Shaw shook her head and ran a hand through her short cropped dark hair. “Sorry, Admiral, unless and until you can tell me my people have been pardoned and are safely away from Tarsus, I’ve got nothing more to say to you.”
“Ashlyn, at least listen. Please.”
“Not until I know my people are free.”
With that, she returned to her bunk and once more turned her back to them. There’d be no getting through to her. Between past betrayals and whatever Hell she’d been forced to endure the last two years, she’d changed. But she’d given them a lever they could use, one Tremayne had already considered.
“Ashlyn–”
“Admiral, all I want is to finish serving my sentence. Then, maybe, I can finally bury my dead.”
“Please just think about what I’ve said.”
Tremayne turned and retraced her steps down the corridor. She’d realized it would be difficult to convince the young woman to trust them. As far as Shaw knew, they’d accepted the way she and her people were offered
up as political sacrifices just as most of the military leadership had. She didn’t know everything Tremayne and so many others done to clear their names and win their freedom.
What she hadn’t anticipated was the change in Shaw. Something had happened to her during her incarceration. The physical scars were proof of that. Those visible scars were bad enough but how deep did the psychological scars run? Obviously, she had her homework to do before she next tried to talk to Ashlyn Shaw.
“Miranda,” Collins began, his frustration clear.
“Later.” She needed to think before discussing what happened even with him.
* * *
The sounds of footsteps grew fainter. Part of her wanted to call Tremayne and Collins back, to ask all the questions she’d had no answers to for so long. But the other part, the part that had learned how to survive in the military prison, held her back. She’d trusted once and that trust had cost her and her command dearly. It would take more than Tremayne’s assurances that things had changed for her to trust again.
Despite that, it was so very difficult to stay where she was, to stay quiet. Swallowing hard, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself not to react. Just because the admirals were gone didn’t mean she wasn’t being watched and she’d be damned if she’d let anyone see how badly their visit had shaken her. She might not have known what to expect when she’d been brought back to the capital but this certainly wasn’t it.
A moment later she drew a shaky breath and held it. When she slowly exhaled, she forced herself to relax. So many emotions raged within her, too many. Among them was hope, something she hadn’t felt in a very long while. But she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of experiencing any of them and especially not the latter. Emotions were a weakness to be exploited. She might not be at the penal colony any longer, but she was still a prisoner. She’d give her jailers nothing they could use against her. Indifference was her best defense just then.
But it was hard. When she’d heard Admiral Tremayne’s voice, she’d thought for one moment she’d finally lost her mind. Tremayne had been the one person in the military she’d always been able to count on. She knew Tremayne had tried to speak on her behalf at that farce of a trial but the military judges hadn’t let her. Tremayne had been on her side then, just as she’d always been.
But now the admiral was asking her to help them despite how she and the remainder of her unit had been betrayed. Had she been wrong all this time in believing in Tremayne? Or had the admiral really been telling her the truth when she’d said things had changed?
She couldn’t think about that, couldn’t hold out hope. Not when her people were still on Tarsus. At least she’d been able to warn the admirals – if they understood. They had to understand. Or they had to at least wonder enough about what she’d said to start digging.
Dear God, let me be careful though.
Otherwise, she’d be joining those dead she’d talked about and, despite everything, she wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. She still had vengeance to mete out first.
Chapter Two
Major Rico Santiago stared at the image on his screen. He couldn’t believe it. There was no way she could be on-planet, much less be just three floors below his office. But, as the ancient adage went, a picture was worth a thousand words. In this case, it was worth a hell of a lot much more.
He leaned back and shook his head. Even after watching the scene in the cell for close to five minutes, his mind refused to accept what his eyes saw. The prisoner, dressed in the black jumpsuit that was standard issue for what the JAG euphemistically called “persons of interest”, was moving through an increasingly more difficult set of push-ups. First had been five standard push-ups. Then five knuckle push-ups followed by five fingertip push-ups. He’d continued to watch, even after catching the line of her jaw and the tilt of her head that gave him the one glimpse of her features that had him wondering if he was dreaming.
His fingers moved quickly over the virtual keyboard as he typed in a series of commands. He paged through the readouts, moving them into order, his eyes quickly scanning the results. Then he leaned back and blew out a breath. There was no doubt about it. Not only was she on-planet but someone had managed to get her there and into the security complex without him ever getting wind of it.
And that most definitely wasn’t good.
He was one of FleetCom’s top intelligence officers. It was his job to know everything before it happened. The fact this had almost slipped by him spoke volumes about who had issued the orders to bring her back to the capital. He had no doubt those orders had come from well above his pay grade. No one else would have had the pull to not only send a ship for her but to get her released to local confinement. Who and why he didn’t know – but he would.
Frowning, he drummed his fingers against the synth-wood of his desktop. Could it be there were others besides himself and his immediate CO looking into the circumstances surrounding Shaw’s court martial and conviction? If they were, what was their motivation and why had they brought her back?
He hated not having the answers. Any intelligence officer did. Unanswered questions could easily mean death, if not for the spook then for others, usually innocents.
Damn it, what the hell was going on?
Before he could begin the search into finding what ship had brought Shaw back, his comm-link sounded. Impatient at the interruption, he glanced at the incoming code. A slight smile touched his lips as he recognized the code. Interesting that she should be calling him just then. He reached out to activate the link with his right hand while, with his left, he input a search command for the video feed from the security wing of the brig.
“Santiago.” He didn’t activate the video feed. The code might be one he recognized but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been cloned by someone. That suspicious mind had kept him alive for years and he wasn’t about to be careless now.
“Rico, it’s me.” The caller waited a slow count of three before activating the video feed on her end. He carefully studied the image that appeared before him, checking his readouts to make sure it wasn’t a composite.
“Good morning, Admiral, or should I say Senator?”
“Admiral will get you an answer quicker, old friend,” Miranda Tremayne replied. “You know I’ll never think of myself as a politician.”
“You should have thought of that before you resigned your commission, ma’am. You know we were working on other alternatives,” he reminded her. As he did, he fought back a smile. There, on the secondary display, was the confirmation he’d expected. It also explained a great deal about how Shaw came to be on-planet without even the faintest whisper about her arrival reaching him.
“You don’t have to remind me and I don’t have to like it.”
No, she didn’t, but it had been her decision.
“I take it this isn’t a social call, ma’am.” He leaned back and wondered how long it would take her to get to the point.
“Unfortunately no. Let me start by saying that Admiral Collins is here with me.”
Interesting and, now that he thought about it, not all that surprising. In the years he’d known Miranda Tremayne, Santiago had been aware of the friendship and respect she held for Richard Collins. He’d suspected for a long while that the two had been lovers but he’d never found any evidence to support that suspicion. The fact that they were working together on whatever it was that had brought Ashlyn Shaw back from the Tarsus military prison made sense.
“I have to admit you’re beginning to worry me, ma’am.”
“Good because I’m already worried, Rico.” She paused and he could see how she searched for the right words to explain the reason behind her call. “Rico, I need you to do something for me. It has to be off the record and it has to be done now.”
“I’m listening.”
“I need to know what’s been happening at the Tarsus military prison over the last two years.”
He tried not to smile but it was hard, especially since it al
ways felt good to have his suspicions confirmed.
“Is there anything in particular you want me looking into, ma’am?” Not that he had to ask, not with that reason sitting in a cell below his office.
“I need to know if anything out of the ordinary has been happening.”
Oh, she was being very careful with what she said. For some reason, she wasn’t ready to tell him that Shaw was back on-planet. Maybe it was because she trusted such information over a comm-link no more than he did. But it could be there was more to it. If that was the case, he needed to know.
Of course, he could be wrong. She could be asking for his assistance because the prison administration refused to allow any contact with Shaw and those sent there with her. He’d run into that very same roadblock each time he’d tried to reach out to the former captain. He’d even made a trip to the prison, only to be told on his arrival that he should have checked before coming. According to the prison commandant, Shaw had been in the infirmary for days with some sort of virus and couldn’t see anyone. No, there was no timeframe on when she’d be cleared for visitors.
That could be why Tremayne had contacted him but he didn’t think so. He’d bet his last paycheck that she’d been behind bringing the captain back to Fuercon. As a senator, she’d have the resources to find some legal reason for bringing Shaw back and she certainly had the contacts within Fleet to arrange for Shaw’s transport on the QT. She certainly the contacts to do so without any but a handful of select members of Fleet knowing about it.
Perhaps it was time to cut through the verbal sparring.
“Ma’am, does this have anything to do with a certain mutual acquaintance of ours, one who shouldn’t be on-planet but is?”
Tremayne shook her head, one corner of her mouth quirking up. That confirmed it. She had been involved with bringing Shaw home. “It does and I’m very interested in hearing how you happen to know her whereabouts.”
