by T. A. White
Not that it mattered. If the humans had broken the alliance, they would pay. Their treaty mapped out what was to be done when one of theirs strayed so far. They were to be returned to their people. The Tuann were protective of their own, and they didn't trust the humans to deal appropriately with their kind.
Not when the humans experimented on their own young, bioengineering unborn children for the purposes of war. They’d have no compunction about doing the same to another race’s children. If they got their hands on the Tuann’s unique set of abilities, there would be chaos in the galaxy.
The treaty might have put a stop to the practice of bioengineering super soldiers, but humans held the potential and desire to pursue the science. If they were caught mapping a Tuann genome or doing any tinkering with one of his, they would pay dearly.
Skarsdale's forehead furrowed. "I've known Captain Kira Forrest for many years. Long before first contact with the Tuann. She's not one of yours."
"No mistake. She bears our mark. She is Tuann." Graydon wasn't in the habit of having to repeat himself. He wouldn't do so again.
Liont leaned forward. "She did identify herself as a salvager when asked about her affiliations, and she didn't appear to understand our language.
Skarsdale's gaze flickered. Graydon's eyes narrowed, something in the man's manner triggering his instincts.
"Why do you react to that?" he asked.
Skarsdale hesitated, before meeting Graydon's gaze stubbornly. "Captain Forrest dropped out of view after the war. I wasn't aware of her current employment."
The words could be true, but something told Graydon there was more to it.
"She is Tuann," Fari insisted. "I saw the glyph. A human couldn't have done what she did."
Recognition flared in Skarsdale's eyes, quickly hidden.
"You know what he's speaking of." The words were a statement.
Skarsdale's mouth tightened. "She's had that mark for as long as I've known her."
The tight feeling in Graydon's chest loosened. The human was telling the truth. If that was the case, it was possible they hadn't knowingly violated the treaty.
He needed to learn everything he could about the woman and her purpose here.
"You may have not known before, but you do now. I want everything you have on her."
Skarsdale straightened, his expression polite but resolute. "As I've told you, it’s against our policy to share information about former servicemembers. It's for their protection, as well as that of our space force."
Graydon's smile showed his teeth. There was little warmth in it.
His chuckle filled the air, raspy and containing little humor. It was the sound a dragon made when eyeing its dinner. The prey’s struggle for survival might be entertaining, but ultimately it would fail.
"Your rules do not apply here. She is Tuann.” Because the other man seemed smarter than many of his race, Graydon offered him some advice. “You should walk gently right now. The treaty hangs on what you do next."
Jace's expression closed as Graydon delivered his threat.
"What would you do with Captain Forrest if, as you say, she is Tuann?" he asked.
"She would be taken home to her people."
"And if she doesn't want to go?"
"She is Tuann. She will go." Graydon's order was definite.
Jace ran a hand through his hair, frustration and a hint of amusement in his expression. "You really don't know her if you think that kind of logic will work on her."
Graydon's eyes narrowed. "Her desires do not matter."
Jace sighed. "I'll let you explain that to her."
Graydon's eyebrows contracted with the faintest signs of confusion.
Skarsdale straightened, drawing himself up as he spoke formally, "You've presented no evidence of her status as Tuann. This glyph could very well be a tattoo."
"It's the mark of a powerful House," Liont argued.
Skarsdale spread his hands. "So you say, but as impossible as it may seem, my statement stands." He turned to Graydon. "Do you have any evidence to support your claim? A blood test perhaps?"
Skarsdale waited with a patient expression. He knew the insult his words had caused.
The door slid open, and a woman appeared.
"What is it, Ensign Waverly?" Skarsdale asked with undisguised irritation.
"There is a message for you from Admiral Himoto," she said, her tone crisp.
He gestured sharply. She handed him a tablet.
He read the message, then shook his head before giving the tablet to the woman.
Skarsdale’s gaze was wintry when he met Graydon’s eyes. "I've been instructed by my superiors to comply with your demands and arrange for you to speak with Kira."
Graydon's nod was gruff. Finally, someone showed sense.
"I'll have her picked up," Skarsdale continued.
"Don't bother. My people have been trailing her since she left. They will bring her to me," Graydon dictated.
The man's expression filled with alarm. "That's a bad idea. She's highly paranoid and won't react well to strangers."
Graydon's chuckle held a note of darkness. "My men are elite warriors. I'm sure they can handle one young azala."
"That means child, right?" Jace asked. He didn't wait for Graydon's response. "I wouldn't treat Captain Forrest as a child. It’ll go badly for you."
Graydon ignored him, already gesturing for his people to prepare to move. "Take us to the children now."
Graydon didn't wait for an answer, already heading for the door, Skarsdale yapping at him the entire time.
His first snapped to attention at the sight of Graydon. "Problems?"
Graydon shook his head. "Tell Baran and Amila to intercept the woman."
His first nodded, sparing a glance for the frustrated rear admiral. Solal spoke subvocally into the auditory implant all his people carried.
Graydon fixed Skarsdale with a long stare. "I will be taken to the children now."
The man sighed, knowing he’d already lost the advantage. "This way."
CHAPTER FOUR
Kira cut through the crowd, her steps unhurried as she ignored the clamor of her surroundings.
"How many do you see?" she asked Jin.
"Besides the two wizards? I count four wearing the station's uniform."
Irritation crossed Kira's face as she stomped along the terrace. Being shadowed by one group was bad enough, but two? She wasn't liking the odds.
The station personnel were at least being subtle about it, not making their presence too obvious. The wizards, on the other hand, didn't bother making an effort to blend in and remain unseen. It was like they were practically daring her to do something about it.
"You sure?"
"Yup. They're keeping their distance, but we've had a tail from the moment we left the detainment sublevel."
His assessment fit with Kira's. She'd made a point of moving aimlessly through the station, meandering in a circuitous route as she debated her next decision.
She hesitated to head toward Vander's until she knew more about why she was being followed and what they intended. It'd be too easy to be ambushed there. At least here, there were a dozen escape routes.
"You head to one of the comm cafes and I'll get what we need," Jin said.
Kira hesitated. She didn't like the idea of splitting up.
"It'll be fine," Jin assured her. "You still have to contact your little friend to hand off the data you recovered from the Tsavitee ship."
"We could sit on the data. Wait until a better time presents itself," Kira offered, knowing she hated that idea.
Jin made a rude noise. "Absolutely not. We didn't go through all this just to keep it to ourselves."
Jin didn't wait for her to argue, sinking until he hovered inches off the ground before arrowing away. He wove between the crowd's feet as he headed toward the lift, no one the wiser.
This wasn't the first time they'd used such a tactic. People tended to notice Kira, but t
hey always forgot about Jin. It allowed him to get away with things Kira never could.
Kira gritted her teeth but didn't follow, knowing their tail would be more focused on her. Hopefully, the distraction would give Jin enough time to purchase the part and get it to the ship before anyone realized he was gone.
She wasn't really worried about the wizards taking notice of his absence. They'd assume Jin was a normal AI, smart but ultimately unable to operate without direction. But the humans—Spitzy in particular—would be suspicious. They knew what he was capable of, knew his reputation and history. He was as dangerous as Kira. More so in some ways.
Kira looped around the terrace, walking with no apparent destination in mind. She stopped at small shops along the way, pretending to browse the merchant's wares before moving on. Most of it was junk, the type of thing meant for the souvenir-happy tourists.
A line of children on a tour followed their guide like little ducks as she explained the history of the station, pointing to the different reference points. Kira followed for a short time, smiling at the children's antics before eventually leaving them behind when they stopped to take photos in front of one of the monuments to those soldiers who didn't return.
After that, she flitted from stall to shop and back again, never staying anywhere long, never letting her guard drop.
To most, she would appear to be sightseeing, interested in watching the gondolas and hovercraft as they flitted from terrace to terrace.
In reality, she took the opportunity to keep an eye on her tails, using every small reflection to watch the people watching her.
The humans’ motivations were easy to guess, but the wizards’ interest was a mystery. One she couldn't yet solve. She had a habit of destroying the things she couldn't understand.
Nothing good ever came of someone with unclear motives stalking her. She itched to be off the station and far from them.
She'd done her time in the trenches. This was her retirement, and she refused to get drawn into whatever this was.
If O'Riley wasn't the only station in this sector with the parts she needed, she never would have stepped foot on it again. The station was like a curse. Every time she visited, it brought nothing but upheaval to her life.
Not this time. This time was going to be different. Even if she had to trample a few obstacles in the shape of people to do it.
She checked her watch. Had enough time passed for Jin to have ordered the part they needed? If she finished her business too early, they risked being stuck on the ship while station security made it impossible to leave.
She waited five more minutes before heading to the lift and taking it two levels down.
She chose one of the cafes with an outdoor space, wanting to sit at a table with a view of the terrace and atrium. The cafe was small, a charming cross between the little eateries of old Europe and the internet cafes of the late twentieth century. A bit of old-world flare mixed with the efficiency and comfort of the modern era.
This time of day in the station, the cafe was mostly empty. A blessing after the chaos of the terraces. A few people dotted the space, their heads bent as they sent or received messages from those off station.
A common fixture on any station, the cafes were civilian owned but government sanctioned. They were necessary so the masses could keep in touch with family and friends when traveling.
Most ships weren't equipped to communicate over the distances needed to reach any of the colonies or stations dotted throughout human space. Their reach was limited, a solar system or two in most cases.
It was possible to upload your files to the broadband satellites from the ship when you stopped at any station, but transmission was slow and laborious. It could take a week or more, depending on the data load and whether a bigger fish paid for priority transmission.
That's where the cafes came in. For a fee, you could piggyback off the station's network, one usually kept in much better repair than the civilian side.
Normally, Kira would never pay the exorbitant rates, but the data package she needed to upload was large and it would take forever using the equipment on her ship. The content was also a bit sensitive and she didn't want to chance it being traced to the Wanderer. At least here, she had some anonymity.
Kira paused along the edge of the tables where they spilled out onto the terrace. The cafe was nice. Much nicer than some of the dives in the stations she frequented. Each table had a console and the waitstaff were all dressed in freshly pressed uniforms.
Kira took a seat and swiped the microchip embedded in her wrist over the payment scanner. Fifteen minutes ought to work.
The waiter was there as soon as she finished the transaction. "Can I interest you in any beverages or food today?"
"A chai tea would be great," Kira said.
The man gave her a friendly smile and walked away.
Alone again, Kira wasted no time logging into her account. When she first began this little endeavor, she'd learned quickly she was in over her head. Deciphering the Tsavitee's starmaps and ship logs were outside her skill base. She was decent at some hacking, but parsing information as complex as this and breaking the code they wrapped everything in? No. Not even Jin's considerable skills would have been up to the task.
That's where her friend came in—a hacker without equal, a genius among geniuses, someone the human government would kill to get their hands on if they knew of his existence.
Her friend had recognized how dangerous this task was and how committed Kira was to following it to its end. The need for secrecy was high. The starmaps and data logs from a Tsavitee ship were capable of shifting the power dynamic in the Consortium. More so, if they could decipher the Tsavitee's way of coding their information.
Their partnership consisted of each having a set of skills just as important as the other's. Kira salvaged what she could from the Tsavitee ships and when she saw something interesting, she'd find a way to drop the data package into a hidden cache on the galactic web. There, Odin would sift through the information, trying to break the code.
Until now, they'd been getting nowhere fast. Everything she found was fragmented, nearly useless, except as a reference point. The data logs from this last ship had been in near pristine condition. For the first time in a long time, she had hope Odin might actually be able to decipher it and she'd be one step closer to her goal.
The drop point this time, was in a chat room for fans of a little-known game. Most of the users uploaded fan art or fan fiction. Some good. Most not.
Kira wondered if these were real users or if Odin had created them as ghosts to give the site more legitimacy to any who might stumble on it.
She started the upload process and glanced around to see her shadows keeping their distance. Good.
The file was sixty percent uploaded when a chat box popped up.
Allfather: You're being watched.
Kira's fingers hovered over the keyboard as she paused.
Nixxy: I know. How do you?
Allfather: I know everything.
Kira snorted. That wasn't arrogant or anything. Still, if Odin knew she was being watched, it meant her friend was close. Perhaps even on the station or taping into their feeds from a ship within the quadrant. The last should have been impossible, but she wouldn't put anything past him.
The file hit one hundred percent.
Allfather: Oooh, you hit the motherload this time.
Nixxy: Can you use it?
Allfather: Maybe. This is a lot of data. I don’t know if my setup can handle it. Without the proper tools, it could take me years to run the necessary algorithms.
Kira tensed, frustration skating along her neck. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. The words felt like a blow, stealing Kira's hope.
She dropped her head and shook it before looking up. This had always been a long shot.
Allfather: Be faster if we had access to Centcom's mainframe.
Kira shook her head. Odin knew as well as she did that wasn't go
ing to happen, and not just because of her history with Centcom. The moment Centcom got wind of what Kira and Odin had, they'd swoop in and snatch it from them—in the interest of galactic security, of course.
Any chance of finding the Tsavitee homeworlds would be gone. No finding and returning those taken by the tsavitee. Nothing. That information would disappear into a deep dark hole where only the highest levels of the military and government could access it.
She sat back, demoralized, as she looked around the cafe. Kira was one of the few using a console. It made her ridiculously easy to spot, but it also made keeping an eye on the wizards where they waited by a food vendor easier, given they weren't trying to blend in.
The man and woman watched Kira, their focus unwavering. Kira's gaze shifted away from them to where the station security watched them all from across the honeycomb.
She sighed. If she needed proof of why it would be a bad idea to get involved in Centcom affairs again, she only had to look out there.
Allfather: The wizards' starmaps could speed things up too.
Odin logged off immediately after, leaving Kira staring at a blank screen. That was unexpected. Her friend often spoke in vague terms, so she couldn't be sure, but it sounded an awful lot like he wanted her to infiltrate the wizards’ ship, find their command center and make off with their starmaps.
Not going to happen. She didn't have a death wish, and she wanted to stay as far from the strangers as possible.
A frown on her face, she glanced up at the people in question. They stood in the same spot they'd been since she sat. Unexpectedly, the man's gaze caught hers, an unmistakable challenge there. Neither of them looked away, the rest of the station fading into the background.
Once upon a time, before she took up a solitary life and when she still hung around people, she'd been told her gaze could be disconcerting, that something about the way she locked onto someone challenged them on a primal level, leaving them with the twin urges of fight or flight.
People who met her eyes when she was angry or upset wouldn't do so for long, finding a reason to look away. In extreme cases leaving the room for another.
She'd never understood what they were talking about—until now. Holding the stranger's gaze took physical effort.