by Gun Brooke
“Kellen, it’s Rae. Cloaked missiles attacked the Paesina.”
“And the ship?” Kellen found it nearly impossible to breathe. She drew in air, but it seemed empty of oxygen.
“Destroyed.”
“Jeremiah…” Her voice was unrecognizable, and suddenly Kellen felt strong arms around her. Owena stood next to her, one arm around her waist, the other around Dahlia.
“Is it Rae? What about Ewan?” Dahlia spoke tersely and her eyes betrayed nothing yet.
“Diplo—Dahlia? Jeremiah here. We don’t know your daughter’s status. They’ve lost contact with her and the others aboard the Paesina. Admiral Ewan Jacelon is safe. He is heading the search for the crewmembers. Several escape pods have been sighted drifting in the debris field.”
“I have to go back.” Kellen was ready to return to the ship instantly and turn it around. If not the whole ship, she was not beyond stealing a shuttle and heading back.
“Kellen. Kellen!” Amereena Beqq shook her arm gently. “Let them do their job searching. We need to do this. It’s what every single person who is part of this war effort subscribes to and is ready to risk their lives for. Come on, Kellen. Let’s get you back to the ship so you can find out all the details as soon as we get more word. You too, Dahlia.”
“Very well.” Kellen straightened up, unable to face anyone. She would break down if she glimpsed any of the sympathy she felt surrounding her. “Let’s go.”
Kellen strode to where they had left their hover cars and jumped inside the nearest one. She waited impatiently as Owena supervised two marines who were scanning the vehicle for signs of sabotage.
“Please be all right,” Kellen murmured. Glancing at Dahlia sitting slumped, looking nearly broken, in a chair behind her, Kellen took her hand. “They’re going to find her and she’s going to be all right.”
“Kellen. I can’t lose her.”
Oh, stars and skies, neither can I. I can’t live without her. How could I?
Chapter Seventeen
“Weiss, listen to me. He’s up to something. It has nothing to do with any of us blowing our cover. It has everything to do with the fact that he’s jealous of you and fears that Podmer relies more and more on you for the important assignments.” Madisyn gestured emphatically where she stood in their quarters. Distraught, almost panicky, she looked expectantly at Weiss.
“I really don’t think you need to worry. I’m not afraid of Struyen.” Weiss tried to reassure Madisyn without sounding condescending.
“It’s not just him!” Now frustration and anger had entered Madisyn’s tone, and she had begun to tap her foot. “Didn’t you hear me? Struyen was talking about you with at least three other people. You can bet that these four in turn have loyal buddies among the crew.”
“They all fear Podmer.”
“Maybe not enough.” Suddenly subdued, Madisyn sat down on her bed. “I just don’t understand why you can’t see the danger. Not only are we on a dangerous mission, but now it’s become personal.”
Weiss flinched. Stars and skies, it already was, and not because of Struyen.
“Madisyn, please, trust me when I say that I’m used to taking care of myself. I’ve done that all my life.”
“I’m sure you have, but that was before…before…” Madisyn looked down at her fists.
“Before what?”
“Before there was a war.” It was obvious Madisyn had meant to say something else. “This is such an intense situation, us constantly having to keep our guard up. Having someone with a personal agenda breathing down your neck might distract you.”
“I don’t distract easily.” And I lie so well.
“You’re pretty confident in your super-humanoid strengths and abilities, aren’t you?” Madisyn was starting to look angry.
“Hey, I appreciate that you worry about me. I really do. I just want you to realize that it’s not necessary.”
“And if it was me? Let’s say Struyen had found out the truth about me and was getting ready to either expose me or disable me.” Madisyn glowered at Weiss.
The thought made the knots in Weiss’s stomach turn to ice. “I’d kill him before he even got that far,” she said, her voice flat.
“But you’d be concerned.”
“Of course I would. You—” Not seeing the trap until she stepped right into it, Weiss sighed deeply. “All right. All right. I understand why you worry. What do you want me to do?”
“You have to leave the Salaceos. Have Jacelon pull you out.” Madisyn pressed her lips together, but it was obvious they were trembling.
“Leave? I can’t do that.” Not until the words were out did Weiss realize how true they were.
“Sure you can. You can tell Jacelon you’ve been compromised. I can carry on the last part if you give me a detailed description of what was said during the meeting with the Onotharians.”
“I can’t leave. I won’t leave you.” Weiss moved closer and sat down opposite Madisyn, taking her clenched hands in hers. “That’s not negotiable.”
“Why not?”
“I had planned to leave, but now I realize how impossible it would be for me to abandon you among these thugs. You hate them, and you have good reason to. In fact, you have good reason to hate me.”
“What are you talking about?” Madisyn frowned, relaxing her hands and turning them inside Weiss’s grip, palm against palm, “Why would I hate you?”
Her heart hammering, Weiss tried to figure out a way to explain that wouldn’t turn Madisyn against her forever. “You know how everybody has heard of Weiss Kyakh aboard this ship.”
“Yes, that was a brilliant stunt on Jacelon’s part.”
“No stunt.” The words made Weiss’s throat hurt. “I am Weiss Kyakh.”
“What? Well, of course, but—”
“Listen to me. Jacelon drafted me into doing this mission after she captured me.”
“What are you talking about? I know your fake backstory says you’re this big-shot mercenary. It’s part of the plan, the ruse to make you part of Podmer’s inner circle.” Madisyn had begun to shiver, and Weiss knew she was beginning to backtrack every conversation they’d had, everything Jacelon had told her.
“We didn’t fabricate a background,” Weiss said hollowly. “I’m Weiss Kyakh. Until a while back, I ran my own operation, offering my talents for anyone with enough wealth to pay me.” Simultaneously filled with dread and relief, she tried to hold on to Madisyn’s hands. “I actually was part of a mission to help an Onotharian dignitary escape and helped him kidnap Jacelon’s mother.”
“You’re crazy. Why would you say something like this? Why would Jacelon place her mother’s kidnapper in a situation where she could easily escape and—” Madisyn stopped talking for a moment. She seemed to be holding her breath before she finally spoke. “You couldn’t, could you? They had to have something, a chip perhaps, inserted in you. And that’s why I received an order to keep a close eye on you. I figured they needed me to keep you safe.” A joyless laughter erupted from Madisyn and only stopped as she pressed her hand over her mouth.
“I had a chip. I disabled it.” Weiss’s tongue felt like a wad of cotton in her mouth. “So I could leave. I’d planned to.”
“What’s keeping you?” Madisyn pushed Weiss’s hands away, scooting backward on her bed, out of reach.
“You. You’re keeping me. I could never leave you.”
“That’s just perfect. A thug offering to keep me safe from other thugs.” A single, deep sob shook her body.
“I know. I’m all you hate, all you despise.” Weiss felt as if her heart was ripped out and shredded between her ribs. “The facts remain. Even if you probably think Struyen wants to get rid of me, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You disabled your chip, I’m not sure how, but I suspect it has to do with that time when I found you passed out on the floor. And, oh, stars, I was an idiot. How I worried.” Madisyn pushed her fingers into her blond curls and tugged at them. “I just can’t b
elieve I didn’t see this. I just don’t understand. You said pirates killed your mother. Was that a lie too?”
“No. That was all true.”
“How the hell can you become as despicable, as hateful, as the people that killed your own mother? How can you be so cold?” Madisyn’s voice escalated until it broke.
“It was all I knew. I lived with pirates from age ten until I was old enough to create my own future. By the time I learned what happened to my mother, I didn’t care. I was angry, I was cynical, and I had nothing to live for. I knew only one route to being safe—creating my own wealth. I started small and planned big. Nobody would ever be in a position to hurt me again, to use me again. Nobody.”
“So you became the user. The abuser.”
“Better than to have it done to you.”
“And then Jacelon captured you, and now she’s using you.” Madisyn laughed joylessly.
“Yes.”
“You must hate that. And everything, and everybody here. Damn, I’m more naïve than I thought. That’ll teach me to be so trusting.”
“Jacelon needed the job done.”
“And when we’re done?”
“You won’t have to see me again. I’ll be very far away.”
Madisyn’s face was all angles and her lips a fine line. “I don’t care where. Just keep your distance from now on.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about not knowing who I am. How could you know? We fed you a story.”
“You’re forgetting something. I do know about pirates,” Madisyn spat. “First I knew the ones who killed the girl I was and forced my grief-stricken parents to turn me into a freak. Then I knew what the pirates did to my parents years later. So I would say I know plenty.”
“You’re right. You do know far too much about piracy from the victim’s angle.” Weiss could have tried to justify herself, saying she had never deliberately or directly gone after civilians, which was true in a sense. Her past actions had resulted in major collateral damage, so she was responsible for the loss of life among innocent civilians. Suddenly she was back in the Disian village on Corma, where her spacecraft had crashed in a residential area, killing and injuring countless people. The stench of burning wood and melted metal, and the sound of panicked voices screaming for help made her gasp and slump back on her bed against the pillow.
“I wish you would leave.” The words came slowly, but with emphasis, as Madisyn pushed at her covers. She slid in between her sheets and pulled them up to her chin. “I wish you would just follow through with your plans to double-cross Jacelon and disappear.”
“I can’t. I will see this mission through, because I refuse to abandon you to fend for yourself among these people. Once we’re done, when we have enough intel to send back to the admiral, we’ll both leave. I’ll personally escort you back to Guild Nation, and if you still don’t want me around…then I’ll leave.”
“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so adamant about staying. You were obviously dead set on stealing away just a day or two ago. I won’t tell you again. I don’t need you.”
Sheer raw pain made Weiss feel like her head would implode. “I know. And I won’t tell you again. I’m not budging no matter how many times you tell me to. Lights out.” She couldn’t bear to see the hatred and hurt on Madisyn’s face a moment longer. “I wish…” Weiss stopped herself, mortified at how close she was to making a complete and utter fool of herself. Madisyn loathed her and everything she stood for. Had stood for. So much had changed, and the Weiss that would have easily thrown someone like Madisyn to the wolves seemed to have vanished.
“What do you wish?” Madisyn sounded gruff in a way Weiss wouldn’t have thought possible only moments ago.
“Nothing.” Weiss pulled her own covers close around her. She was suddenly cold all the way through. “Just that things were…different.”
*
Madisyn lay awake for a long time. She could hear the rustling of bed linen as Weiss tossed and turned. Trying to understand the implications of what Weiss had told her, she knew sleep would be a rare commodity that night. Weiss Kyakh was really the pirate and mercenary that the doctored file Jacelon had sent her implied. Madisyn remembered being quite impressed with such a well-constructed background. What a fool she’d been, and how gullible. No doubt, Weiss had laughed at her naiveté.
Weiss was someone Madisyn had come to rely on, to trust, and—yes, care about. Knowing that love would never be for her, Madisyn had come close to nourishing hope for at least some physical closeness. Weiss never acted like Madisyn’s biosynthetic makeup was an issue. Given that Weiss was obviously skilled at deception on a large scale, of course she must have wanted to lull Madisyn into believing that she cared for her. Now Weiss was trying to sell her the idea that she had lost her mother, in the same way Madisyn had lost her parents. This only served to twist the laser knife and cut off any chance of acceptance and sympathy on Madisyn’s part. Clearly, Weiss saw this mission as a way to escape from a life sentence in an SC prison. Stars and skies, she’d kidnapped the mother of an admiral. Madisyn remembered something about Jacelon’s mother being a diplomat and her father a high-ranking senior officer. That would give anyone a free pass to an off-world, MAXSEC prison even in a humane society like the SC.
Madisyn buried her face in her pillow, desperate not to cry. One thing her biosynthetic body didn’t do well was tears. Every teardrop caused physical discomfort, and if she gave in to her sorrow now, she would cry half the night. Weiss wasn’t worth it. She was a lying, murdering, backstabbing pirate. She was right too. Madisyn did hate pirates, and her, more than anything.
Suddenly raising her head off her pillow, Madisyn sharpened her hearing further. Had that been a sob or a moan coming from Weiss? Hardly. If it had been, it was only meant to manipulate her.
An annoying inner voice tried to ask what motive Weiss would have to stay with her and finish the assignment. In doing so, she risked being exposed. Struyen and his cohorts could go after her, and if they were compromised, she would be killed. It didn’t make sense unless she really did care, despite her sordid past. Recoiling, Madisyn shied away from such a thought. Pirates didn’t care about anything but getting their grubby hands on other people’s wealth and power. Weiss most likely saw an advantage in this mission, a way of turning the tables on the SC and Podmer so she’d gain all the profits.
Another deep sigh from Weiss’s bed made Madisyn turn her back and pull one pillow on top of her head. She turned her hearing down to its lowest setting and pressed the pillow tight to her ear. Perhaps if she cut out any sound from a clearly distraught Weiss, she might be able to catch some sleep. Something inside her, something weak, or perhaps merely far too soft, suggested that she reach out to Weiss.
Madisyn immediately slammed this embryo of a notion. She had to find her way back to the way things were before Weiss Kyakh stepped aboard the Salaceos. Until then, Madisyn had done well and lived a fulfilling life as a successful operative for the Guild Nation and the SC. She ignored the little voice that said it might have been easier in many ways, but it was also far, far lonelier.
Chapter Eighteen
Kellen strode through the corridors of the Circinus, the heels of her tall black boots hammering against the plating. She forced her fear, all-encompassing and overwhelming, into a small corner of her mind, where she had constructed a mental door, and locked it. The news from the battle that had cost Rae her ship, and, stars forbid, her life, were still sketchy. After Kellen spent most of her night on the bridge with Jeremiah Todd and Dahlia, waiting to hear one way or the other, the ship’s physician had finally forced her to try for an hour’s sleep.
At first, Kellen reacted with anger and resentment, but when Ayahliss and Dahlia promised to go with her, said that all she had to do was rest on the couch in Dahlia’s quarters, she relented. Dahlia was obviously nearing complete exhaustion and wouldn’t rest unless she did.
Ayahliss and Reena ended up joining them, and all four of them
took turns sleeping for about an hour each. Curled up in two armchairs and on the couch, covered in SC-issued blankets, they had murmured among themselves and rested as best they could.
Jeremiah paged them just as Kellen was ready to return to the bridge. He had news from Ewan Jacelon. Quickly rousing Dahlia, Kellen asked Ayahliss and Reena to escort Dahlia to the bridge. Kellen had to go right away or she might lose what little calm she still possessed.
Entering the conference room right next to the bridge, she saw her father-in-law’s bruised and battered face on the viewscreen.
“Kellen,” he said, his bloodshot eyes brightening marginally as he saw her. “Dahlia?”
“She’ll be right here.” Kellen swallowed something bitter and swollen in her throat. “Rae?”
“Still no word.” Ewan stroked a hand across his face. “There’s so much debris, and the released antimatter—”
“Antimatter?” Kellen’s blood chilled until her fingers seemed numb. “Someone used antimatter in the battle?”
“Yes. Rae fired antimatter-capped missiles in order to keep the command central vessel safe.” Ewan’s expression changed, his eyes fastening on something behind Kellen. “Dahlia. I…” His voice failed him.
“I heard. Antimatter.” Dahlia stopped next to Kellen, placing an arm around her waist for support, or perhaps to offer support. Behind them, Ayahliss and Reena stood quietly waiting. “Are you all right, Ewan?”
“Yes. A few bruises.”
“Have you been seen?”
“Not yet. No time.” Ewan’s short-cropped words told Kellen not to debate his decision to not see a physician yet. “Fortunately we have recovered sixty-five percent of the crew and have monitored more life signs in escape pods.”
“What about the Paesina?”
“Debris. Some larger parts, but nothing that sustains life support.”
“Oh, Gods.” Dahlia’s fingers pinched Kellen’s side.
