“Does he now? And what have you told him about me?”
“That you’re a spoiled, over-entitled daddy’s little rich girl.”
“You didn— ”
“I’m kidding. Not much I’m afraid. We’ve been a bit busy.”
“With what you’re doing that you’re not telling me.”
“Right.” She motioned Kennedy ahead of her into the ship.
Caleb was leaning casually against the data center, an easy smile lighting his features. He pushed off the table and met them halfway, his hand extended. “Caleb Marano. It’s a genuine pleasure, Ms. Rossi.”
She was as always the picture of grace and accepted his hand in style. “The pleasure’s all mine—and please, call me Kennedy. I understand you and Alex have had quite the two weeks.”
“It’s been…well, I’m very glad we met.”
A wicked grin fought valiantly to pull her lips ever further up. “Indeed.”
“And now, I will let you two get to work.”
Alex had paused at the edge of the couch to enjoy their introduction. Caleb came over to run his hands gently along her arms while pressing his mouth equally as gently to hers. She rested her hands on his hips and, when the kiss finally ended, whispered against his lips. “Watch your back, will you?”
“Always. I’ll only be gone a few hours. Promise.”
As soon as he had left Kennedy spun around, eyes wide as saucers. “Oh, girl—”
“Let’s go downstairs. You can help me get the module installed.”
“And you can tell me how you managed to win the romance lottery while cavorting in uninhabited deep space…Alex, are you okay?”
She glanced over her shoulder from the second step. “Sure, why?”
“You’re…limping. Stepping gingerly. I don’t know, not barreling through the ship as per usual.”
“Oh, yeah.” She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “I got shot.”
“You’re serious.”
“I told you it was worse than you knew.”
They reached the hatch to the engineering well, and she gingerly climbed down the ladder. “Which is why we’re heading back.”
Kennedy skipped the last two rungs and landed on the floor. “Back where? Not to Metis—not to the alien ships?”
“Yep. Though there’s no reason to assume the ships are still there. Regardless, we need answers and Metis is where they are.”
“You’re insane.”
She laughed a little and removed one of the panels protecting the core engineering systems. “That’s what Caleb said. But no one else is going to do it. I don’t trust anyone else to do it anyway. Someone, perhaps the aliens themselves—don’t look at me like that—doesn’t want the portal investigated. So it’s exactly what we intend to do.”
“Wait. You’re not planning to go through the portal, are you?”
“Um…” her nose scrunched up “…probably.”
“Dear god, you really are insane.” Alex motioned for the module, and she handed it over. “You know, you ought to think about….” Her voice trailed off as she peered at the floor. “What happened to your hull?”
Kennedy’s attention had been drawn to the wide streaks of almost luminous silver winding along the center of the hold. It matched neither the onyx of her hull material nor the muted bronze of the salvaged material from his ship.
“Caleb ripped it open with a pulse laser—to clarify, this was before we were sleeping together—and we had to patch it using scrap from his ship.”
“Which you blew up,” she mumbled, bending down so close to the floor she was all but lying on it.
“Right.”
“What was his ship made of?”
“Amodiamond. The discoloration is on the seams where we melded the two materials together. It started changing color once it cooled. Some kind of chemical reaction I assume. Do you think it’s weakening the structural integrity?”
“No, quite the opposite.” She reached behind her and pulled a small scanner out of her bag, then ran it above a segment of the discoloration. “Integrity is definitely solid. Stronger, even. The materials have fully bonded together and….” She glanced up at Alex. “Is it okay if I take a piece back with me to analyze? Just a sliver.”
“Sure, but why?”
“Because I think you’ve made something new.” A metamat blade materialized out of Kennedy’s bag; she carefully shaved off a thin three-centimeter long strip. She placed it in a gel pouch and dropped everything back in her bag. At Alex’s raised eyebrow, she chuckled and hugged her knees to her chest. “Ship designer, remember? Exotic metals turn me on.”
“Everything turns you on.”
“Hey, that’s low. True, but low—especially when your sex life is far more interesting than mine at the moment.” Her voice lost most of its teasing tenor. “I can’t help but notice you’re using ‘we’ and ‘us’ a lot.”
“I know.” Alex shrugged. “What do you want me to say? I like him.”
“Clearly. And I am the last person to dissuade you from running off on a crazy romantic adventure, but this is serious business. He’s accused of terrorism and murder and you’re already being sought for questioning.”
“He’s being framed. Someone tried to kill us, and did kill his boss. Besides, I could give a fuck about political posturing.”
“Believe me, I know—though I’m not certain I’d call the military police ‘political posturing.’ Regardless, I wouldn’t be your best and most marvelous friend in the galaxy if I didn’t point out there might be a few negative consequences from all…” she gazed upward and twirled her hand in the air “…this.”
“Well, as for the frame, Richard’s on it. It’ll get sorted out.”
“And your mother?”
Alex closed her eyes and dropped her head against the wall. “What about my mother?”
“You being implicated in the bombing is going to complicate her job, particularly since she—thank goodness—wasn’t there when the bombs went off.”
“I can’t care about that right now, I don’t have the bandwidth. My mother can take care of herself. She excels at it. And if she needs to disown me in order to keep her power, so be it.”
“Alex—”
“Don’t, Ken. We’ve had this conversation dozens of times. Nothing has changed.”
“There’s another war. An impending alien invasion. Your life is in danger.”
“Granted. Look, I actually mean it. She needs to concentrate on this war—not the Senecan war but the war to come. If she has any sense—and she does, as much as I hate to admit it—she won’t let me interfere. It’s too important.”
“Have you told her any of this?”
“Well, I think so. I mean, I told her to do something. I thought I was pretty clear.”
“Oh, Alex, your communication skills are legendary for a reason….”
“Whatever. Okay, we’re good. The conduits and infrastructure were still in place so I only had to replace the main box. I’ll run some diagnostics, but I don’t want to hold you up.” She grinned. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now you’re off to…Messium, was it? Dare I ask why?”
Kennedy groaned and glared at the low ceiling. “The Board’s pimping me out for materials.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Well not literally. Oh, I hope nobody expects it’s going to come to anything so extreme. No, we require metamats to build ships—big surprise—and our primary supplier got blown up by your Pleasure Model’s military.”
“Ken!”
“Fine, fine…your dark, dangerous, subversively sexy intelligence agent’s military. Anyway, I’ve been dispatched to woo a potential new supplier.”
“Woo how?”
“With my name and my dazzling smile, apparently.”
Caleb returned to the spaceport feeling reinvigorated. He knew it probably showed, but he couldn’t help it. While out he had received a message from his sister…he read it again as he enter
ed the hangar bay.
Hey big brother,
I’m sure you have a lot going on and a lot on your mind right now, so I won’t bother you with a livecomm. I merely wanted to say I am certain you had nothing to do with the bombing. I know what you do—what you really do. I’ve always known. I understand you were trying to protect me by keeping it a secret, but I will never not be here for you.
I know your soul. And I believe in you.
— Isabela
In the space of two days, the two people he cared for most in the world—wow, the unexpected realization of that truth jarred him for a second—had both willingly accepted him, darkness and all. He’d spent so much time and effort over the years shutting himself off from others emotionally, erecting walls around his heart strong enough to repel any inquisitive soul…when maybe he simply should have had a little faith.
Then again, Isabela wasn’t just anyone. She was his sister— intelligent, strong, loving and understanding, but not foolish. And Alex…well, she wasn’t just anyone either. To say the least.
He had told her she was insane for wanting to go through the portal—and she was. But if she hadn’t suggested it he likely would have, because in truth he viewed it as the only strategy worth a damn.
It was one of the most fundamental lessons in his line of work, if one many never managed to learn: when you find yourself under siege, outnumbered and out of options—attack. Don’t play defense; the enemy’s superior numbers or position will whittle you down until you have nothing left. Don’t run away; the enemy will only shoot you in the back. Once you’re backed into a corner, you’ve already lost.
While you’re still strong, still have weapons and will and time, do what the enemy least expects—attack. Turn into the punch, grab ahold of the gun, leap into the arena. Take control of your own fate. If you’re quick, good and lucky, you just might survive and be out the other side before the enemy realized what had happened.
Thus far in his life, when it truly mattered, he had been all three. Now, though….
Now the enemy was maddeningly elusive. Hidden in the shadows and presumably spread across numerous worlds. There was no target he could locate to attack in settled space—and one very clear one at the edge of it. Every instinct he’d relied upon for almost twenty years to survive seemingly impossible situations told him the real enemy, the ultimate enemy, lay on the other side of that portal.
Alex intended to go through the portal to search for answers. He intended to go through the portal to win.
He stepped in the Siyane and found her at the data center, the Metis data spread in front of her yet again. He set his bag on the couch. “Kennedy leave already?”
“Yeah. The new module installed no problem, and she needed to head out. I’ve set diagnostic tests running, but everything checks out so far.”
“Well at least you were able to—” In his peripheral vision he sensed an…incongruity. Something was different. His gaze shifted toward the cockpit.
To the right of the pilot’s chair sat another chair. A bit more minimalistic in design than hers, it fit snugly but completely within the margins of the cockpit space.
He approached the cockpit curiously. “Alex, what is this?”
She briefly diverted her attention from the data to glance over, an uncertain smile tugging at her lips. “I got you a chair.”
“You…you got me a chair.” It was less a question and more a statement of incredulity.
“It’s only so I don’t always have to be looking over my shoulder to talk to you. It’s not safe, honestly. And I’m sure you must get tired of leaning against the wall.”
His hand ran along the top of the headrest; the chair glided smoothly beneath it. His gaze returned to her, a vaguely stunned expression on his face. “Alex….”
Her eyes slid away from him and her voice turned formal tinged with a hint of awkwardness. “It’s magnetically grounded, so it’s not like I tore up the floor or anything, and we can move it if we need to. It’s just practical.”
But it wasn’t just practical. It was touching and kind and an exceptional gesture on her part. Giving him a place on her ship, even if only a simple chair—hell, especially a simple chair—was tantamount to giving him a place in her life. A real place, in the form of a chair.
He crossed the cabin and wound his arms around her, pulling her away from the data and into him. “Of course it is….” His lips met hers. “Thank you.”
No, she wasn’t just ‘anyone’ at all.
72
EARTH
VANCOUVER, EASC HEADQUARTERS
* * *
MIRIAM PACED IN TIGHTLY COILED AGITATION around the temporary office space. With a frown she nudged the temporary hutch flush to the wall.
Nothing had been salvageable from her office. Not the antique bookcase and certainly not the antique books, of which there remained none in existence to replace them with. Not the leaded glass tumblers that had been a wedding present to her and David and not the heirloom china tea set that had belonged to his grandmother.
She picked up the teacup—part of the set she had brought from home—off the temporary desk and took a long sip, then set it back down. Too hard; it wobbled unsteadily. Unless the desk was uneven….
She looked over at Richard. He leaned against the wall, quietly watching her flutter about. “I don’t care how angry Alexis may have been after the Board meeting. There is no way she was involved in the bombing.”
“Absolutely not. It’s an absurd idea. She’s not a killer.”
“No, she’s not. But this Marano character?”
“Oh, he definitely is a killer. His file says he took out two dozen criminal insurgents and blew up an entire hangar bay two months ago, and it’s merely his latest exploit. Conveniently enough he has something of a history of using explosives to get a job done. But he’s not a terrorist. He infiltrates and eliminates dangerous criminal groups in the service of his government. His record indicates no deviation into more questionable activities.”
She crouched and adjusted the rug beneath the desk. Perhaps it was the source of the unevenness. “We’re at war. Maybe he didn’t consider it terrorism?”
“From the Senecan perspective, arguably it wasn’t. But regardless, Alex swore he was never out of her sight except while he was in custody. Miriam….”
Recognizing the tone in his voice, she stood up and met his gaze.
“In the end it comes down to one very simple matter: either you believe her or you don’t.”
She sighed and let her eyes drift to the window. Logistics was all of twenty stories tall; outside were only other buildings. “I believe her.”
A smile sprung to life on his face, possibly in relief. “So do I.” The smile didn’t linger as his hand came to his jaw. “Which means we have a different problem. She said he was framed, and she’s right. The evidence was doctored to implicate him, and by extension, her. By whom? And even more importantly, why?
“Between the nonsensical Summit assassination, the Palluda attack nobody ordered and now this? Something is severely wrong with this entire situation. The explosives used on the upper levels had to be assembled inside Headquarters. Marano may not have done it, but someone did. They both claim the war has been manufactured by someone, and I’m beginning to suspect they’re right about that, too.”
She crossed the temporary space and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Luckily, conspiracies and subterfuge happen to be your area of expertise. Richard, get to the bottom of this. And most of all, do whatever you need to in order to clear her name. Please.” She patted his shoulder and returned to the temporary desk, her voice dropping in volume and perhaps in confidence. “I wish I knew where she’s gone.”
“You never know where she goes.”
“This is different.” Her gaze drifted once again to the windows, but the view had not improved. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Nevertheless, there’s nothing I can do about it for the moment. And now i
t seems I have to find a way to win a war.”
“There’s no way Seneca can stand up to our military strength in the long run.”
“It’s not that war which has me concerned…at least, not only that war.”
“Well, one thing at—”
The priority pulse forced itself into her vision.
Acting Chairman O’Connell requests your presence in his office in five minutes.
Her lips smacked in annoyance. “It appears I am being summoned to kiss the feet of the new Chairman.”
“He doesn’t waste any time, does he? He’s been here all of, what, half an hour?”
“Less than.” Another sigh found its way past her lips. “You know, Alamatto was a weak leader, but I’m afraid O’Connell is going to get everyone killed. You’re correct—Seneca can’t stand up against our military strength. But if he’s in charge, they just might outsmart us.”
She stood formally in the doorway while O’Connell discussed something with an aide. After twenty seconds she decided he was deliberately dragging it out in an attempt to make her uncomfortable. Silly, petty man.
After another thirty seconds he finally dismissed the aide and glanced at her. “Ah, Miriam.”
“Yes, Liam? You wanted to speak with me?”
He scowled and bowed up his stance in an apparent attempt to intimidate her with his towering, burly build. Also, slow to learn. “You’re as insubordinate as your daughter. I believe you meant ‘General.’”
“And I believe you meant ‘Admiral.’ You may be head of the Board for now, but you are not my superior officer. In public I will grant you the respect of your position. In private I will grant you the respect you have earned. Thus far you haven’t earned any.”
His eyes narrowed in blatant hostility. “You arrogant bitch. Your lax security allowed those explosives to be planted. Your daughter gave that fucking Senecan cocksucker inside access and caused the deaths of thousands. You aren’t worthy of your position or your rank.” He paused, as if to see the effect of his intimidation. She refused to flinch.
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