by M. D. Cooper
“You’re going to end up caught. If it’s by Harken’s people I’m going to have to save you. If the SSF finds you first, you’re going to spend the next hundred years in the stockade.”
“I’d like to see the GFF try to take me,” Grayson said with a grunt. “And if the SSF picks me up, then I can try and find a way out of this for your crew. For you. I can find a way to make this right.” Grayson swung his bag onto his shoulder and turned toward her, his eyes asking her to move so he could leave his quarters.
Kylie didn’t move. “You don’t need to save me. I’m doing fine.”
Grayson didn’t respond but Kylie could tell by the look on his face that she hadn’t changed his mind. Kylie didn’t think she could reach him.
“I’m sorry, all right? Sorry Jerrod took over your mind. Sorry you can’t let it go. Sorry I had him removed without telling you first. But I was trying to free you, Grayson. I didn’t want to give him a chance to do permanent harm to you.”
Grayson shook his head. “That’s not what this is.”
“No? Prove it.”
He sighed. “Every time I see you, I see my own fist, my own arms, trying to kill you.”
Kylie was sorry for that, but she wasn’t buying it. It was an excuse. “It happened. Get over it. It wasn’t you.”
“Yet it was. I need to go,” Grayson said. “Please, move.”
“None of this is right. None of it. Were you even going to say goodbye?”
“We’ve never been very good at goodbyes, have we?” Grayson asked and tried to step past her but she put her arms out and blocked the door.
“I just got used to having you around and you’re just going to leave? Just like that?”
“You don’t need me. You have Nadine.”
That was debatable. “This is about you and your safety. Not my relationship with Nadine.”
“Everything’s about your relationship with Nadine, maybe you haven’t noticed. Please step out of my way, Kylie.”
She didn’t want to. “And if I refuse?”
“Guess I can’t stop you. You’re the one with the advanced tech. But I’m asking you nicely…please let me go.”
“And if we never see each other again?”
Grayson raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Maybe someday we will. Maybe I’m a fool.”
“A damn fool,” Kylie whispered.
“We had some good times over the years. But now I have a lot to make right, Kylie. For all of us. The lies, the deceptions. I can’t stay. If I do, it’ll only go badly. This is for the best for all of us.”
All of us? Did he mean Nadine? The crew? Why couldn’t he just say what he meant?
He leaned in and kissed her. Soft, but quick. Not a hello kiss, not an I love you kiss, but a goodbye kiss. An I’ll-see-you-later, I’m-hitting-the-road-and-I’m-sorry-for-everything kiss. Kylie tried not to fall into it, she tried not to wish for more as he pulled away, but the sadness in his eyes got her.
She didn’t say any of the things that she wanted to, and he didn’t either. He pushed past her and headed toward the airlock.
Kylie let him go. This time it was she who wouldn’t follow him, wouldn’t chase him.
She wouldn’t hold her breath on that.
Kylie sighed and wiped stray tears from her cheeks.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later, Kylie met Nadine in the airlock.
Kylie had donned a pair of blue pants and a short jacket. She had pulled her hair up, and her boots were low-heeled, but that was about as respectable as she was going to get.
Nadine, on the other hand, wore a long green dress, her hair light blue, and cascading over her shoulders in loose ringlets. She was a vision.
They nodded to one another wordlessly and stepped out of the airlock onto the dock’s long ramp.
As they walked to the maglev station at the far end of the bay, Kylie reached out to Winter and Lana.
Inwardly, Kylie wanted to groan. She didn’t want Lana acting like a tough girl to impress her, Winter, or anyone else. She hated this idea, but Winter was right about one thing; Lana was an adult and as an adult, could make her own choices.
Even stupid ones. She may as well join the club on that.
Kylie didn’t want to think about how sore her butt was going to get sitting and waiting. Still, Winter was trying to mend fences and maybe she should, too.
Kylie and Nadine boarded the waiting maglev car in silence. The trip was uneventful, and before long they arrived at their destination, the GFF People’s Republic Tower.
Kylie had to admit that for a government backed by pirates and crime syndicates, the GFF had a pretty nice setup.
The tower sat at the top of the Futz’s central spire, which was capped with a clear dome. Below the dome lay a wide park, over five kilometers across, and in the center, stood the tower.
It stretched up to within a hundred meters of the dome, its spire pointed at the world of Freemont, which dominated the view outside the station.
A wide boulevard ran from the maglev platform to the tower, lined with poles flying the flags of the various worlds, habitats, and major stations of the Gedri system. Interspersed amongst the others, the GFF’s yellow flag fluttered in the artificial breeze.
They pushed through the crowds around the platform toward the boulevard, which was also packed. She checked the time before leading Nadine onto one of the smaller paths that wove through the parkland toward the GFF’s tower.
Kylie didn’t know about that. Freedom from all this…all these strings. Her mind wandered as she thought about what it would really take to get free of this mess.
Nadine gave an audible sigh.
Kylie didn’t know that she wanted to talk about, or what she could even say. Right then fighting or making up both seemed equally difficult. She just wanted to get some coffee and get this day over with.
“Is this because he left?” Nadine asked aloud, the sound of her voice taking Kylie by surprise. “I heard from everyone that Grayson’s gone. You didn’t mention it, so I have to imagine you’re upset that he left.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say?” Nadine’s eyes widened. “I want you to say that now that he’s gone, things will be easier between us. That you always loved me…”
“I do love you. That’s true, Nadine
. That never changed.” Why was she making this so hard? Couldn’t they just let it drop?
“But you look like a heartbroken puppy. If his leaving affects you this much, well…” Nadine paused to wipe a tear from her eye and Kylie was sorry.
So damn sorry.
“It’s…damn it…. I made some decisions for him, that I had no right to. He lied when he shouldn’t have, and everything blew up on us. I regret our choices and things we said, so yes, I’m sad. Sad that we keep destroying each other.”
“You’re going to miss him, just admit it,” Nadine said with hurt eyes.
Kylie wouldn’t. She couldn’t. “He lied and manipulated me. He used my emotions, my former attachment to him as a weapon. And I fell for it. But in the end, he had my back. He had Lana’s back. He did what he said he would so we could rescue you.”
“Sounds hard.” Nadine bit her lip.
“It was. Is. I just want a few days where I don’t have to think so much.”
Nadine caressed her hand. “Is there a spot for me in those few days? Because a few days not thinking too much sounds nicer than I can even tell you. Maybe then we could find our way back because that’s what I want. More than anything.”
“Yes,” Kylie said and fought the surge of guilt and grief rising in her. But Nadine had sung a different tune over the past few days, so why the sudden change of heart? Was it because Grayson was gone now? “I’d like nothing more than for us to be together like that.”
Nadine graced her with a broad smile. “Then let’s get through this, all right? And no matter what you’re feeling for Grayson, I promise not to judge. I know how important he was to you at one time. I won’t punish you for however it is you’re feeling. I was wrong to throw so much grief your way.”
Kylie nodded and watched swans swimming in a pond they were walking past. Not because the swans were particularly interesting, but so that she wouldn’t have to deal with how she felt. She didn’t deserve a forgiving woman like Nadine. If only they could find their natural rhythm again and forget about everything that had happened. Kylie just wanted to get out among the stars and fly carefree, like they used to just a few short weeks ago.
A few weeks ago…it felt like years.
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the tower, but Nadine took Kylie’s hand as they climbed the steps and passed beneath grand arches, which scanned them and checked them for weapons.
Within the tower’s grand foyer, hundreds of people scurried to and fro amongst the colonnades, all apparently knowing where they needed to be.
Kylie checked the map on the public net, looking for the Ferric Hall when a woman carrying a sidearm and wearing a rather determined look on her face approached them.
“President Vaax is expecting us,” Kylie said.
“I know,” the woman—Terry, according to the indicator on Kylie’s HUD—replied. “You were supposed to wait by your ship for an escort.”
Kylie shrugged. “I didn’t get a message about that, but here we are.”
“Typical,” Terry said, and Kylie didn’t know if she meant her organization, or Kylie’s impatience to get to the tower. “You’re lucky that none of Harken’s people made a move on you. It’s no secret that your ship docked.”
“I thought that’s why we were on the government ring,” Nadine said. “To keep us safe.”
Terry gave Nadine a level stare. “Lady, you’re on the Futz. You stopped being safe the moment your airlock cycled.”
“We’re pretty good at taking care of ourselves,” Kylie said.
Terry’s no-nonsense gaze shifted to Kylie. “Sure. OK, well, I’ll escort you to the room. The committee moved to make the hearings open to the whole senate, so we’re going to the general assembly.”
The woman turned and strode toward a bank of escalators while Kylie and Nadine hurried after.
“Wait!” Kylie said. “Does that mean the hearing will be public?”
Terry laughed. “The senate airing their dirty laundry to the public? That’ll be the day. I’m sure some heavily edited version will eventually make its way out to the public. Then they’ll leak some other version that paints the loser of this little dust-up in an even worse light. Gedri politics 101.”
Terry led them up the escalators, and down a broad hall to the general assembly room. It was mostly empty, and Terry led them to a row of seats set aside for witnesses and guests near the front.
“Wait here,” Terry said. “It’ll start before too long, the senators just like to wait ‘til the last minute to show up.”
Kylie glanced at Nadine and shrugged as they both sat.
“Should have brought some snacks,” Kylie said.
Nadine smiled. “You’d just spill them all over your pants.”
Kylie crossed her legs and looked up the meeting’s itinerary on the room’s private net. It appeared there were a few smaller items to be dealt with before the main event. And once it got underway, her testimony was number twenty-three on the docket.
It was going to be a very long day.
DEBARKATION
STELLAR DATE: 09.23.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The Futz, Bay 12A, Ring 2, Freemont
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
Back when Grayson had Jerrod to chat with, he would’ve commented upon departing the Dauntless that he was looking forward to getting on with his life. Jerrod would have had some logical reply about planning and strategy.
Now, there was only silence in his mind.
Sometimes it was deafening; more than he could bear. He played music and ‘casts in his mind to make up for it, but it wasn’t the same.
He knew it was normal, he had researched what having an AI removed—especially without warning—could do to a person. There was nothing unusual about his symptoms. He just had to learn to deal with it.
He pushed his self-pity to the back of his mind and pulled up the listings of ships on Freemont. There were thousands to choose from. Just looking at them felt like it opened up endless possibilities.
But he didn’t feel like the future was one filled with opportunity. Just the opposite, in fact. When he glanced back at the Dauntless, Grayson only felt regret and grief.
But what choice did he have? There was no way he could stay. He knew where the mission was going to take Kylie, and while he supported her, he couldn’t condone assassination—especially not in the middle of a government hearing. Even if that government was corrupt and filled with criminals.
Perhaps he could’ve gotten through to her if there had been time. With Nadine around, well what was the point?
Kylie was a junker. And instead of trying to get away from the corruption in Gedri, she was sinking deeper. Trading favors with Maverick and Vaax. She seemed to have no issue with compromising her morals. Grayson still held to the Code of Military Conduct—even if he had sided with the enemy and gone AWOL. If he was honest with himself that was as much on General Samuel as him—not that the space force would see it that way.
Now, he had to find a way to make everything right. He needed to clear his name, and that of everyone aboard the Dauntless. But he wasn’t doing it to win her back—or so Grayson told himself.
He had listened to Nadine and Kylie imploding several nights ago. And he was the cause. Once upon a time, Grayson had loved Kylie, maybe he still did. However, she deserved to be happy, and since he couldn’t provide that for her, the best thing he could do was walk away.
The second best thing he could do was clear her name with the SSF so she wouldn’t be looking over her shoulder all the time.
He took a maglev to one of the outer docking rings. Marge had hooked him up with a fake ID—one that would get him onto a ship without too many questions—and some cash in an account. But it wasn’t enough to get on one of the high-class transports currently docked on Ring 2.
Grayson didn’t harbor any illusions about who had asked Marge to set him up. He felt like he should reach out to Kylie and thank her, but it
was best to let that wound start to heal before ripping it open again.
When the maglev stopped at the first platform on Ring 15, Grayson got off and took a deep breath of the smells permeating the air.
This was more like the Gedri he was used to. Coarse figures using coarse language pushed their way through the crowds, cargo haulers rolled down the designated lanes on the sweep, and dozens of cars flew through the air above.
On the far side of the platform, a holosign hovered over a string of counters with agents—some human, most automatons—standing ready to help anyone and everyone find what they were looking for.
Some offered local residences for rent, some sold personal security, but most sold transportation to the other worlds and habs in the Gedri system. Several also specialized in transport to interstellar locations in Silstrand, Scipio, and the fringe.
He approached the counters, scanning the destinations and prices. He could afford most, but it would eat into all the money Kylie—via Marge—had given him.
For all his idealistic thoughts of clearing names, Grayson had no clear idea how to do it. He considered taking a transport to Silstrand, turning himself over to internal affairs and trying to obtain a hearing where he could plead his case.
Even though that was the right thing to do, Grayson harbored no illusions that such a course of action would work out for him.
The more he looked over the list of ships departing, the more Grayson realized leaving was the wrong move. If he was to find some way to make things right, it would be on Freemont—where all the players were. Kylie, Lana, Maverick, Harken…. If he could produce Harken, or show ties to GFF senators, that could give him what he needed.
And Kylie would need someone to watch her back, even if she didn’t think she needed it anymore.
Grayson stepped away from the departure desks and turned down the ring’s main sweep.
The sweep had four levels, the bottom one filled with most of the heavy cargo-haulers. The next level was for dockcar traffic, and the top two were for foot traffic. On the left were the bays filled with ships, and on the right warehouses, shipping company offices, shopping areas, hotels, and no small number of restaurants.
