Jack of Harts 2.5: Wolfenheim Rising

by Medron Pryde

  Malcolm chuckled. “Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

  Dawn shook her head in mock sorrow. “Not even the same book. We’re reading Gone with the Wind and you’re reading John Carter.”

  “Well, yeah,” Malcolm said with a shrug. “It’s a good story.”

  Olivia brought a hand up to rub her forehead. “I swear you two argue more and more each day.”

  “We don’t argue,” Malcolm protested, but Olivia just raised an eyebrow at him.

  “We practice verbal sparring,” Dawn clarified with a helpful smile and Olivia turned the eyebrow on her. Dawn met the eyebrow with total aplomb and no sign of retreat.

  Olivia finally shook her head and muttered something about deserving each other.

  “What was that?” Malcolm asked, wondering if he’d heard right.

  Olivia turned back to him with one of those expressions that suggested he shouldn’t ask that again. “I was wondering if you’d like to watch as we dive into the Pleiades Cluster.”

  That certainly wasn’t what she’d said, but Malcolm wasn’t about to challenge that look. So instead he aimed a gregarious smile her way. “Why, I would love to.”

  Olivia nodded, congratulating him on his wise choice. “Then if you’d like to stand back there,” she said, waving towards the rear of the bridge with a hand gesture that took the request out of the words.

  Malcolm followed her order without protest, walked back, and leaned against the bridge’s rear bulkhead. A quick glance at Dawn showed her amusement with the whole situation, and then he turned back to watch Olivia moving amongst her bridge crew. At each station, she paused to verify the systems it controlled were operating and whispered a word or two to the man or woman before going on. She finished her rounds in minutes and gave the bridge another long look.

  Once assured that nothing was going to fall apart in the next minute, Olivia walked back and leaned against the bulkhead next to him. After a few seconds of scanning the bridge again, she leaned in close enough to override his mind with the smell of her last shampoo. Strawberry. “You know, that was a good speech out there,” she said very quietly.

  Malcolm blinked as he pulled his mental attention from Olivia showering to speeches he’d made. For a moment, his mind drew a complete blank. Then it made the connection and he glanced at Dawn, who just smiled at him. It had been a secure communication channel between him and Murphy, and he didn’t like that anybody else had been listening in.

  Olivia pursed her lips and examined him. “Does it bother you that I was listening?”

  “Well, no,” he answered, not wanting to say that his senior captain had no business listening in on fleet business. But as he said it, he felt the untruth. It shouldn’t bother him, but it did, and he didn’t know why.

  Olivia crossed her arms, obviously not buying his evasion, but she didn’t call him on it. “So what’s her story?”

  Malcolm let out a long breath, wishing he could answer her. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. Olivia arched a disbelieving eyebrow at him. “Honest,” he protested. “I don’t know her.”

  “Right.” Olivia bored into his eyes for several seconds, and he felt like she was scanning his deepest secrets. It was bloody intimidating. “So you never met her?”

  “Well, we both grew up with the Hurst family.” Olivia cocked her head to the side in interest. “It’s a large family,” Malcolm explained. “Lots of branches that have business interests everywhere humanity has been.” At her skeptical look, he shrugged again. “Honest. I don’t know of a single major colony that doesn’t have at least one person representing the family. Often that’s someone who isn’t really part of the family but was raised from childhood with them.”

  Olivia nodded in comprehension, and he saw something click into place behind her eyes. “So that’s where you come in?”

  Malcolm spread his arms out wide and smiled. “Got it in one.” Then he shrugged. “She came in like that too, I guess.”

  “You guess?” Olivia asked, her tone skeptical.

  Malcolm cleared his throat, acutely aware of how guilty that made him sound. But he didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. “She was younger than me by a lot. Years.” Olivia raised an eyebrow, and he cleared his throat again. “That’s a lot to a kid!” he protested, and she relented. “So anyways, I don’t remember her. She was young enough, we didn’t hang out.” Olivia didn’t speak, obviously picking up on the point that he wasn’t telling her everything, and he cleared his throat one more time. If he didn’t stop that, she would know he was guilty of something. “Her sister was another matter,” he finally admitted.

  Olivia scowled at him. “Oh. You know you could have said that right away,” she noted, her tone stringent. “What happened?”

  Malcolm cleared his throat again, then sighed. Now she really did know he was guilty of something. “I was stupid,” he declared without reservation.

  “Of course you were,” she said and he glowered at her. She gave him the eyebrow again, and he released his glare. She was right. He had been stupid. “What happened?” she repeated.

  Malcolm shook his head. “In what had to have been a moment of total and complete insanity, I dumped her.”

  “Had to have been?” Olivia asked, her expression doubtful.

  “It was a century ago,” Malcolm tried to explain. “I don’t remember everything I did back then.”

  Olivia crossed her arms. “You know, a girl could ask that you at least remember why you dumped her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Malcolm answered and let out a long breath. “I was drunk. I honestly don’t remember what happened,” he explained, meeting her gaze without reservation. “All I know is that I dumped her and she never spoke to me again.”

  “And now her younger sister is chasing you?” Olivia asked in pointed tone.

  “Yeah,” Malcolm whispered. “And not in the happy funtime way,” he joked.

  Olivia frowned at him. “Are you sure you don’t know her?”

  “Yes,” Malcolm said in exasperation. “Scout’s honor.”

  Olivia pursed her lips and met his gaze for several seconds. “Say her name.”

  Malcolm blinked, then frowned at the request. “Why?”

  “Just do it,” Olivia snapped.

  “Caroline!” he hissed in instant response to her order.

  Olivia sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry. Say it like you’re talking to her, please?”

  Malcolm sighed. He couldn’t refuse when she asked that way. Besides, if he did, she’d think he had something to hide. He cleared his throat, shut his eyes, and brought the face that had charged into a Shang fleet back to his mind’s eye. “Caroline” he whispered, wondering once again what had possessed her to do that. When he opened his eyes, Olivia and Dawn were sharing an intense look. “What?” he asked, feeling defensive.

  Olivia just smiled at him. “Can you say her sister’s name like that?” He frowned again and she waved a hand to dismiss his objection. “Please,” she whispered and he relented.

  Malcolm rubbed his temple. The last time he’d seen her, she wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence. He wondered again what he’d done that night. “Dana,” he whispered. There was nothing he could do now. He shifted his gaze back to see shock on Olivia’s face. “What?”

  “Dana?” she hissed, her voice unnaturally high. “Or Danaka?”

  “Yes,” he answered in confusion.

  Olivia licked her lips and shook her head to clear it. “You dated Danaka Murphy?”

  “Yes,” Malcolm answered slowly, her reaction filling him with concern.

  Olivia’s gaze turned very, very hard. “Admiral Danaka Murphy?”

  A shiver ran down Malcolm’s spine, and he turned to Dawn in a wordless question. She cocked her head to the side, signaling that she was running through her databases. Finally she shrugged, obviously coming up blank. “I don’t know,” Malcolm returned to Olivia.

  “Right,” the captai
n returned with a sigh. “If it’s one thing you two didn’t break into, you had to choose the military personnel databases.”

  Malcolm opened his mouth to protest that it wasn’t the only thing they’d declined to break into, but stopped at a warning look from Dawn. She was right. It wouldn’t help him at the moment.

  The byplay was not lost on Olivia though, and she looked back and forth between the two like they were guilty children. “Do you have a picture of her?” she finally asked.

  Malcolm nodded towards Dawn and she smiled. One of Dana’s holos from his high school yearbook hovered into being in the air, and Olivia’s eyes narrowed.

  “Damn it,” she swore and shook her head. After a few seconds, she let out a long breath and gave him a look that demanded an answer. “What happened between you two?”

  “I don’t know,” Malcolm repeated with complete sincerity. “I would tell you if I did, but I just don’t remember,” he finished with a shrug.

  Olivia pursed her lips, her eyes boring into his again. After several seconds, she sucked in a long breath and nodded firmly. “Well, I think we can assume that she does remember. Now she’s an admiral, and I’ll give you one guess who sent her sister on this little mission,” she finished in a pointed tone.

  Malcolm shook his head, wondering if she was right. No, she probably was right. This wasn’t just about money. It was personal, and this fleet was in danger now because of that. “I’m sorry.” It was all he could think to say to her.

  Olivia nodded in acceptance. “I’ll release all the information I have on them to you. You study up on everything you have on her family. And you get ready to talk your way out of her gun sights the next time we meet, because we will meet again.”

  Malcolm licked his lips in worry. “And if I can’t?”

  Olivia’s jaw set, and he saw the starship captain in her staring at the displays. “I don’t want to fight anyone with the courage to charge a Shang task force like that.” She met his gaze, her eyes pleading. “Please talk yourself out of her gun sights again.”

  Malcolm felt a lump in his throat and cleared it. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, leaned back against the bulkhead again, and watched the bridge flow around them. Her shoulders shifted with her new attention, and he smiled at the sight of his senior captain surveying the world she commanded. A minute later, her shoulders shifted again and she leaned in close to him. “You know, a part of me always thought you were doing this because you like to thumb your nose at authority.”

  Malcolm shrugged and gave her a jaunty smile, doing his best to lighten the mood. “Well, maybe I do.”

  Olivia eyed him carefully. “Do you truly believe what you told her about this mission? About the aliens? Are we just some…random colony? Or is this really something bigger to you?”

  He met her gaze, wondering what she would think. Would she think him crazy if he admitted the truth? Would she agree with him? The uncertainty warred within him for what felt like an eternity, as he considered how to answer. He could crack a joke about things said in the heat of the moment. He could say that no mere colony mission could ever meet such grand ideals. He was the guy that found the little things people wanted. A random colony in the far reaches of space was the best he could expect. But Charles wanted something more. Malcolm did too, and she deserved to know that. He smiled and met her gaze. “I told her the God’s honest truth. Scout’s honor.”

  Olivia turned back to her displays. “Good,” she said with a smile. “I can live with that.”

  Malcolm let out a long, relieved breath and remained next to Olivia as Normandy and her charges accelerated away from Bosphorus. The lights of the Pleiades Cluster filled the sky ahead of them, pulsing with the promise of new vistas. New stars. New worlds, far beyond The War that waged throughout the stars they’d left behind. Malcolm licked his lips, wondering if he truly had what it took to lead everyone into the unknown like that.

  He glanced over at Dawn to see her smiling at him. The cyber gave him a knowing look followed by the slightest of nods.

  Malcolm pulled in a long breath, reassured by that small motion, and glanced at Olivia again. He’d found good people for this mission. Olivia turned a questioning look at him, and he answered with a simple nod. He had no doubt in her ability to keep them moving. She seemed to read that faith in his action and turned back to the Pleiades Cluster, her shoulders set.

  In that moment, Malcolm McDonnell, scion of an ancient and powerful family, realized that this place was the one place he wanted to be. Earth was no longer his home. New Earth never had been, but for a time he’d thought it could be. Now he knew he’d been wrong. This was his home. Normandy. The Wolfenheim Project. He belonged here.

  He was still standing there when the mass of colorful stars making up the Pleiades Cluster disappeared. A moment later, hyperspace surrounded the fleet, churned into a giant whirlpool of energy by the sucking gravities of over one thousand stars. A river of energy flowed into the maelstrom from the giant star behind them, and the fleet began to slide down into the rabbit hole it represented. They had a very important date on the other side of the Pleiades Cluster, and he could not wait to get there.

  Malcolm smiled.