Strike Vector - An Aeon 14 Space Opera Adventure (Perilous Alliance Book 2)
Page 29
But Kylie caught her hands and forced Nadine to back down. “Stop the lies, stop the manipulation and just tell me the truth. Did you kill Harken?”
She knew. Nadine saw the coolness in Kylie’s eyes. And for once, Nadine saw she wouldn’t be able to talk herself out of it. “Kylie.” Nadine’s chin quivered and this time she couldn’t control her tears. “Don’t ruin us.”
“If you’re the type of liar who could feign defenselessness and innocence for years, and then casually do what I saw on that video…then there never was an us, because there really isn’t a you!”
“That’s not true!” Nadine bared her teeth. “Five years I’ve been with you. Five years I’ve been by your side! You know me, Kylie, I promise. You know me more than anyone ever has.” It was so true, Nadine hadn’t realized how true it was until she’d said it. For once, her tears were genuine.
Kylie clenched her fists, anger in eyes. “We fought for you. We protected you. But now I’m not sure you ever needed it. Now, I think the woman I know—the woman I love—is a lie.”
“I’m not a lie!” Nadine’s chin trembled as she pushed her teeth together, trying to get some sort of grip on herself. She needed control. The words Kylie had said, they weren’t the first time Nadine had heard them, probably not the last, but they hadn’t torn her apart before now.
“I’m Nadine Devonire. You rescued me from a life of slavery. You freed me from that ship!”
“Did I? Because now I’m not even sure. Did you need rescuing or was I…” Kylie pulled her gaze away, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Did I find you because I was meant to find you?”
“Don’t ask me that! Don’t!”
“I guess I have my answer then, don’t I? I was a fool. You played me and I followed along. “All these years?” Kylie took a step closer, her hands trembling. When she spoke again her voice broke on the single word. “Why?”
Nadine opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again. She didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want Kylie to know. “I can’t tell you.”
Kylie sighed. “I’m not sure why I’m even bothering to talk to you. It’s clear what you are.” She turned to leave the room, but Nadine had to make her understand.
She grabbed Kylie’s arm. “Harken needed to go. The GFF is barely stable as it is. We didn’t need her throwing things up in the air. You needed Vaax and Maverick on our side so that’s what I did. I made sure we had their help.”
“Don’t make this about me.”
“It’s always been about you, don’t you see?”
Kylie shook her head. It was apparent that she didn’t see, she didn’t understand and Nadine couldn’t make her. Not without losing her forever. “Kylie, please.” Nadine reached for her, but Kylie swatted her hand away.
“I fell in love with a version of you that doesn’t exist.”
“So did I,” Nadine said quietly.
Kylie gritted her teeth and her jaw moved back and forth. She was thinking and Nadine didn’t want to know what it is.
“Did you tell anyone else?” Nadine asked. “Rogers and Winter…”
“I couldn’t bring myself to.” Kylie pushed past, somehow able to break Nadine’s grip on her arm. She turned and said, “You’ll do that yourself, and you’ll explain to all of us who the hell you really are before I kick you the hell off my ship.”
“Kylie…I can’t…”
“Move it, or I strand you here,” Kylie said and stepped aside, gesturing into the corridor without even looking in Nadine’s direction.
Nadine hurried through the door and Kylie followed close behind. Then a shudder rippled through the deck and the lights flickered.
“What the hell was that?”
STRIKE
STELLAR DATE: 09.24.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SAS Hanover, approaching Freemont
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
Samuel noted the time on his HUD. The twenty-minutes had come and gone.
He was about to reach out to comm when the officer on that station sent him a message.
He turned to Major Larson. “I want the Epredies and the Fallon to ready their drop ships. We’ll punch a hole in the defenses and give them a clear corridor. I want troops storming that station—starting on the spire. In thirty minutes.
“Yes, sir,” Larson replied and began communicating with the squadron leaders, assigning objectives and targets.
“Should we order fleetwide weapons hot, General” the tactical officer asked.
“Not yet,” Samuel said. “Not till the moment before we begin the run. I don’t want these Gedri bastards to know what hit them.
“Comm, one final message to President Vaax, if you would.”
“Channel open, sir.”
Samuel adjusted his jacket, sending full video this time. “President Vaax, I’ll award you another twenty-minute window to respond. Please comply and send confirmation that you have my daughter so we can continue our interactions in a non-aggressive fashion. Please respond.”
The communication officer sent the transmission and all eyes turned to Samuel. “Never tip your hand to the enemy when going to war.” Samuel grinned at Larson. “We attack the moment the Epredies and Fallon are in position.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Samuel looked down at the holotank. Today the GFF would fall, and it would be by his hand. But first came the part he loathed the most, the wait before the battle, but it was also the part he loved.
The calm before the storm.
EXODUS
STELLAR DATE: 09.24.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: People’s Republic Tower, The Futz Spire, Freemont
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
She pulled her black overcoat close and adjusted her dark sunglasses as she stepped off the private maglev car. Crowds swirled around her. Some passersby were rushing to defensive positions, or GAS ships, while others were civilians, getting to their vessel so they could break dock before the fighting started.
Ostensibly the station was still on lockdown, but Vaax knew that wouldn’t hold much longer. The second the first civilian captain left dock, the entire station would disgorge ten thousand ships in a matter of minutes.
It would be utter chaos—which would be perfect.
Vaax smirked. Spineless fool. He was going to give her enough time to do what she needed. She could get off The Futz, fly to Scipio, and open a galaxy-renowned teashop—all in the time it took him to make a simple decision.
She checked with the AI she had tasked with monitoring Kylie Rhoads and watched the woman as she headed to the detention center to take custody of her girlfriend. How sweet.
When they got out, they’d have to have a little talk with sharp blades and lethal bullets.
Being president was just too easy sometimes.
Vaax cut through an administrative complex, taking a shortcut to the lift that ran down to the detention levels. She turned down an empty hall, and stopped dead in her tracks.
There, blocking her
path were two of Mavericks girls in their tight matching dresses, holding their trademark oversized rifles.
“Out of my way,” Vaax said, stepping forward, only to see the women level their rifles.
“They don’t answer to you,” a voice said from behind her.
“Maverick,” Vaax said as she spun around. “What’s this about? How’d you find me?”
“We have business,” Maverick said. His black-gloved hand held the hilt of a plasma blade; off, but ready to spring to life.
“Oh, Mav.” Vaax couldn’t help a flirtatious little smirk. “You brought a weapon in here?”
Maverick’s eyes narrowed. “One has to be prepared, sweetheart. Girls like you are better off at my side, than out in front blocking my way.”
“Here I thought it was a game. Here I thought you wanted to join forces, when all along, you wanted the grand prize for yourself.”
Maverick gave a bashful shrug. “What can I say? Power attracts power. I thought I’d need you for a little while longer, but when I got word that the SSF was amassing at Einendart…”
His words were drowned out by a shudder in the deck and the blaring of a claxon.
Vaax grabbed a wall to steady herself. “What the hell was that?”
“Out of my way, Maverick! We can argue about who gets to be boss later.”
Maverick strode toward her. “No, there won’t be any arguing.” One of his guard girls grabbed her from behind, and Maverick clamped a hand over her mouth, forcing her head back as Vaax tried to scream.
Maverick bent over her body and carefully cut off Vaax’s head. “Bitch of a woman,” Maverick sneered. “Finally learned your proper place.”
One of the girls held up a case, and Maverick placed Vaax’s head into it and activated the cryostasis process.
“Girls,” he said as he straightened. “Time for us to use what Vaax had upstairs to take full control of Gedri, and find out who she was working for.”
* * * * *
“What the hell was that?” Nadine asked again as Kylie pushed ahead and raced through the detention center’s long corridors.
“It’s a long story but we have to get back to the Dauntless. The SSF is here. To retrieve Lana. Maybe us too unless I miss my guess, so we have to get moving.”
Nadine’s eyes widened. “The SA is making a power play? I knew this nano would lead to war but I had no idea that it’d happen so quickly. This is why Lana is dangerous and needed to be contained.”
“Obviously. I made a few mistakes along the way, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. We have to get off The Futz before we’re arrested, it’s destroyed, or both.”
Kylie stopped to peer around a corner. The front desk was unmanned and rather than questioning it, she counted her blessings.
“Come on.” Kylie grabbed Nadine’s hand—though she had been trying to avoid physical contact—and pulled her through toward the door.
“Stop!” a voice called out from behind them, and Kylie turned to see Chief Detective Lawrence chasing after them. She didn’t slow down and he fired a pulse blast in their direction.
Nadine broke away and ducked behind the front desk. A moment later she leapt up with a pulse rifle in hand.
Lawrence laughed as he approached. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”
Nadine cocked her head. “OK.”
Kylie was both surprised and entirely unsurprised when the pulse rifle fired and threw Lawrence back.
“Got some good nano, I see,” Kylie said. “I can think of a few times that would have been helpful in the past.”
Nadine tossed the rifle to Kylie. “You have no idea how many times my nano saved our skins on the Dauntless. I may have acted the damsel in distress, but I never was.”
A voice came over the Link and audible address systems.
“All personnel to emergency stations. All civilians return to your homes, or shelter in place. We are under attack by the Silstrand Alliance Space Force. All civilian ships, remain in your docking bays.”
“That’s not Vaax or Maverick,” Kylie said.
“No, that’s General Almier, in charge of Gedri Armed Services on The Futz.”
“Well look at you,” Kyle said as they ran toward the spire’s central lift. “Just know everything about who runs things here.”
“Please, let’s just get to the Dauntless, already,” Nadine said.
The lift doors closed, and Nadine touched the control panel. “There. It won’t stop till it gets to our floor now.”
Kylie shook her head. “Who are you really? Are all the Devonires...whatever you are?”
Nadine shook her head. “No, they aren’t.”
“Then who trained you like that? Do you work for Scipio?” Kylie asked.
“No, I don’t work for Scipio,” Nadine replied.
“Are you just going to make me ask every possible question to eliminate all options?” Kylie asked.
Nadine’s expression grew pained. “I can’t tell you what you want to know, Kylie. I wish you’d stop asking.”
“Well, give me something!” Kylie yelled. “Everything around me is a lie, I could use a little truth here.”
Nadine opened her mouth to speak, and then her expression turned to one of alarm.
“Kylie, move!”
Nadine reached out and grabbed Kylie, pulling her back. Kylie whipped her head around and watched as the lift’s doors had opened, revealing a pitched fight between Gedri and Silstrand troops on the boulevard outside.”
“Not our level,” Kylie gasped as she reached for the panel and hit the button for the next level up.
“We’ll work our way around,” Nadine said.
The lift stopped at the next level, which was another wide boulevard, but this one was empty. Kylie crept out, Nadine close behind. They stayed to the edge of the street, working their way toward the maglev platform five hundred meters away.
“Crowds ahead,” Kylie said pointing to the people swarming the platform.
“It’ll be good, we’ll blend in,” Nadine replied.
Marge said to Kylie.
Kylie was surprised Marge knew how to do something like that.
Marge’s probes showed no soldiers, either Gedri or Silstrand in the vicinity, and the two women picked up the pace. They were less than a hundred meters from the maglev platform when a voice called out from behind them.
“You two, stop!”
Kylie and Nadine turned as a dozen SSF soldiers stepped out into the street.
“Kylie Rhoads, you are under arrest for crimes against the Alliance,” one of the soldiers said. “Drop your weapon and get down on the ground.”
“They’ll have called this in,” Nadine said.
“I know,” Kylie hissed. “I was in the space force for a few years. On the count of three, dive behind that groundcar. I’ll lay down covering fire and see if I can draw them away.”
“You don’t need to play the hero anymore,” Nadine said.
“Get down on the ground, now!” the soldier yelled.
“One, two, three!” Kylie whispered hoarsely, not caring if Nadine didn’t want the help. Nadine, for her part, followed along and dove behind the car as Kylie opened up with the pulse rifle.
The heavily armored guards weren’t phased by the weapon, but she could tell they had orders to bring her in alive. They didn’t return fire, but four of them did rush toward her.
“Kylie, what are you doing?” Nadine cried out as Kylie rushed toward the four soldiers. When they were five meters way, she leapt into the air and landed behind them. She reached out and grabbed the stock of one of the soldiers’ kinetic slug thrower and wrenched it from his grasp.
Kylie opened fire on the soldiers, gunning one down while the other three scrambled for cover.
Marge said as Kylie raced to the groundcar Nadine crouched behind.
Kylie replied.
“That was nuts!” Nadine said. “Have you been tra—” her words trailed off as weapons fire came from behind them. They looked over their shoulders at the other end of the boulevard; a platoon of Gedri soldiers was approaching.
“Yay for our side,” Kylie said.
“Gedri is our side?” Nadine asked.
“Well, no, not really.”
The Silstrand soldiers fell back, and Kylie and Nadine slipped through the Gedri soldiers’ ranks, thanking them, but keeping their heads down and faces out of sight.
When they were in the clear, rushing toward the maglev platform, Nadine touched Kylie’s arm.
“You have it, don’t you? Lana’s nano?”
Kylie nodded as they slipped into the crowds waiting for a train. “When she almost died, it replicated in me. I wanted to tell you…but after your reaction to Marge…. I didn’t want to shock you.”
“Oh, I’m shocked all right. I’m shocked.” Nadine swallowed. “We’ll never be able to contain the nano now. And I have no idea what to do.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Her reactions confused Kylie. Why did Nadine have to do anything about it. The nano wasn’t in her.