by P. R. Adams
Benson’s emerald eyes widened. She knew about what had happened in the ruins. Halliwell must have told her. Did she believe, though? Did she understand just how bad the situation had been with Patel, with SAID?
Can I trust her?
Someone had to be trusted. McLeod wasn’t signaling his support, and the other Navy officer was burrowing holes into the lieutenant with his dark eyes.
Stiles did her best to return the intense gaze. “Do I know you, Commander?”
“You do not, Lieutenant. Commander Barry Okoye. Acting captain of the Iwo Jima.”
“Acting…” Stiles turned to Benson. “Where are we? Did we escape?”
The two commanders exchanged a glance, then Benson bowed her head. “For the moment, we’re not the ones on the run.”
“The Azoren…?”
“We lost track of them. We gave them a bloody nose, and they ran.”
“And the prime minister?”
Benson and Okoye exchanged looks again, and the black man nodded; he was going to handle that. “The prime minister survived. Unfortunately, we lost more than three hundred sailors in the attack on our task force.”
“Oh.” Stiles had no idea things had been so severe.
“Easily twice that among the Home Defense Fleet.” Okoye rubbed the polished middle button of his coat. “Some of our best.”
“It was an SAID plot.” Stiles caught the scorn in Gadreau’s eyes, but it was the disbelief in McLeod’s eyes that hurt. She could still see a hint of curiosity on Benson’s face, though. “Commander, you have to trust me on this.”
Muscles twitched on the tall woman’s face. She was wrestling with the idea. “The text you sent—”
“Yes?”
“Where did you get that information? The claim about SAID—”
“A few sources.” Stiles ignored McLeod’s pursed lips—he disapproved. “We knew from Agent Penn that SAID was running an operation inside Azoren territory. But his objective had been to leave your crew behind to put us—the Kedraalians—clearly inside Azoren space.”
Okoye’s head reared back. “What’s this now?”
That finally motivated Colonel McLeod. “It was a joint GSA-SAID operation. The intent was supposed to be to test the effectiveness of signal-scrambling technology.”
“In Azoren space?”
“The DMZ.” The colonel clasped his hands in front of him. “It was very safe in theory. We’d run smaller vessels through before, even without the technology we were testing.”
“You’ve sent ships into Azoren space?”
“The prime minister has been briefed.”
That apparently didn’t sit well with the acting captain of the Iwo Jima, who fidgeted with the button he’d rubbed earlier. “Parliament would never approve such a thing. The risks are too high.”
“The DMZ is nowhere near as effective a deterrent as people like to believe.”
“That isn’t the question. There are laws and regulations.”
“We have some discretion in our operations, Commander.”
Gadreau snorted. “If we waited on parliamentary approval for everything, nothing would get done.”
Okoye’s cold stare wiped the sneer off the Marine’s face, then the Iwo Jima’s temporary captain turned back to Stiles. “You say SAID intended to implicate us in penetrating the Azoren border?”
Stiles took a breath. She was taking a risk here, jumping into the deep end. Trust had to be earned. “Yes, sir.”
“And you passed this information along to the prime minister?”
McLeod cleared his throat. “We, um, we lacked proof.”
“I—” Stiles swallowed. “—have the proof now. Of the conspiracy, of the SAID murder of the GSA team on Jotun, and of selling out the defense fleet and the prime minister to the Azoren.”
The colonel’s eyes darted from one person to another. “The GSA has always had suspicions there might be a bad actor or two—”
“Agent Patel had help from the GSA, Colonel.”
The colonel’s jaw dropped. “You have proof of that?”
“Agent Patel said so. And the data I took from his sister’s device confirms it.” It was a lie, but it was stretched over the truth. She hadn’t had a chance to read the details, but the devices had been hacked, the data was there. What mattered was the uncovered truth.
Okoye shook his head at Benson. “Commander, this seems preposterous.”
Benson rubbed her forehead with the heel of a palm. “Well, in the last several weeks, I’ve seen a…capable officer collapse under pressure. I’ve seen my crew slaughtered by pirates. And I’ve been corralled into leading an operation inside Azoren space.”
“The DMZ?”
“No. Azoren space.” Benson nodded toward Stiles. “The Jotun operation.”
“I—” The acting captain of the Iwo Jima let out an exasperated sigh. “It would seem I’ve been even more naive than I could have ever expected. To think the XO of the prime minister’s flagship might in some way have special insight…”
Stiles tested the restraining strap. “If you’ll let me free, Commander, I can show you the evidence.”
Benson tilted her head. “Where would that be, Lieutenant?”
“In my cabin.” Heat flashed through Stiles. Someone had brought her to the infirmary. That meant someone had already been in her cabin. “Who brought me here, ma’am?”
“I called orderlies. You’d passed out on your bunk.”
“You were in my cabin?”
“After we dispatched the two Azoren rearguard ships, I tried to call you again. When you didn’t answer, I let myself into your cabin. Your pulse was so weak, I thought you were dying.”
“My computer brick. It should have been on my desk.”
“I—” Benson shook her head. “I must have missed it.”
Okoye’s brow furrowed. “To make such accusations…you must have backups?”
Stiles tried to recall. “My communicator had some of the data.”
“And that was in your cabin as well?”
“I had it on me.” She tried to pat her chest but couldn’t.
Okoye raised a hairless eyebrow at Benson. “Commander?”
The tall woman sagged. “I didn’t realize I should have been watching for something like that. I panicked. Lieutenant Stiles gave us critical information. If Captain Finkel had acted when I warned him—”
“Some consider healthy skepticism and a conservative nature a boon.”
“I’m sure the sailors who died in your escort ships might disagree with that assessment.”
A feeble shrug was Okoye’s only answer.
Gadreau grunted. “You can’t just ignore what she’s saying.”
Okoye straightened. “Does it seem Lieutenant Stiles’s claims are being ignored, Captain?”
“I don’t see anyone taking action. If she’s got the goods on SAID, seems like we’d all be a little more interested in seeing them. This is a conspiracy to kill sailors and Marines. Don’t we care about our brothers and sisters?” The way Gadreau sneered at Benson said he didn’t think she did.
“If you think you can find this brick…”
The Marine captain bowed his back. “Say the word, and I’ll have a few of my Marines tear her cabin apart. If there’s anything in that cabin, you’ll have it in your hands in two hours, tops.”
“And what if there’s nothing to be had, Captain?”
“You think she’d lie about something like that?”
Okoye twisted back to Stiles. “Lie, Captain? She suffered serious injury and lost significant blood. The mind becomes unreliable quickly.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think getting stabbed is going to make someone imagine this big conspiracy theory about assassinations and fleet ambushes.” Gadreau spun around to McLeod. “Colonel?”
Stiles understood the pain on Benson’s face. The Marine was still doing everything he could to marginalize her. Now he was maneuvering to be the hero, to show her up for
failing to locate something critical and obvious, something that could implicate the largest intelligence organization in all of Kedraalian space.
McLeod tapped his thumbs together. “If you think you can find it…”
Gadreau chuffed, then rushed out of the area where the interrogation had been taking place. He already had the swagger of someone who was about to snatch the biggest prize from a rival. His voice trailed back as he disappeared from sight; he had all that remained of his Marine detachment en route.
Neither Okoye nor McLeod seemed concerned, though.
They don’t believe me.
Stiles tested the restraints again. “Commander Benson?”
“I think it’s best…” Benson closed her eyes. She seemed almost physically smaller. “Without physical evidence, we have only your word that this was an SAID operation.”
“What else makes sense?”
“Well—”
“Commander, you know you were sent into Azoren space because of an SAID operation.”
“You’re GSA, though. You were involved.” Benson looked at McLeod.
The colonel studied his thumbs.
It was insane. Stiles could see the risks she represented, but there were obvious problems. Why couldn’t the others see that? “Commander, think about it. We made our way back from Azoren space as fast as we could. The course was efficient. The Istanbul and Marie Belle were the slowest we had. Do you really think they’d be any slower than a full Azoren fleet?”
“I don’t understand…” The commander’s emerald eyes flared. “You mean that the Azoren fleet was here already?”
“They attacked before we could close.”
Benson’s eyes narrowed. “And they could only do that if they were here before us.”
“Even though they would have moved at the speed of the worst Fold Space engine.”
“This wasn’t retaliation.”
Okoye set his hands on his hips. “If you wouldn’t mind—what is this, please?”
“The lieutenant’s right. When we finished our mission on Jotun, we made our way for Kedraal at top speed.”
“And?”
“And we would have been moving at least as fast as any fleet. We had some slower ships, but this Azoren fleet—you saw how slow they were.”
“You said they were probably allocating energy to their technology, this stealth system.”
“Even at top speed, I don’t think they could have matched us.”
“Then you think they were here already?” The Iwo Jima officer crossed his arms. “It seems to me this is hardly a tight argument, Commander. I’m not even sure I understand it. The fleet was here before you, and…?”
Stiles had been leaning forward on her bed. She relaxed. “Commander Okoye, even if the Azoren ships could outrun us, why would they have been here? They were in Kedraalian space…in the Kedraal system. Why?”
“We were in their space. You said as much.”
“And they assembled an entire fleet in response? They assembled it and sent it across to the Kedraalian system? Before our task force could make it back?”
“A response force. Something prowling the DMZ. You went in, they responded.”
Benson rubbed her brow. “Commander Okoye, if they were monitoring the DMZ, they would have responded to those intrusions, not sped into our space to attack the defense fleet. The odds of them knowing about our presence on Jotun aren’t good.”
The light seemed to go on for the man charged with protecting the prime minister while she was in space. He covered his mouth. “I see.”
Stiles tested the restraints again, this time without letting anyone notice. “They were planning this, Commander. They’ve been planning it for a while. And SAID was helping them.”
Okoye’s hairless brows rose. “All right. But we’ll need evidence.”
“To prove the obvious?”
“To make any accusation on this scale—”
McLeod looked up, startled, then pulled out his communicator. “Go ahead, Captain.” The colonel mouthed, “Gadreau,” then turned his back on them.
Benson balled her hands into fists, and her knuckles whitened.
Things were going to come to a head with Gadreau at some point.
The colonel nodded and turned back around. “I see. All right. You’ve done what you could. Thank you.”
He put the communicator away.
Okoye dropped his arms to his side. “Well?”
“Well.” The colonel’s eyes were full of disappointment and the same disapproval he’d shown earlier. “There’s no sign of any computing brick. In fact, Lieutenant Stiles’s cabin had already been ransacked.”
The three officers turned toward Stiles.
She tensed. “Ransacked. Colonel? Commander Benson? Can’t you see? Someone broke in and took them.”
But the obvious conclusion wasn’t registering with them. Instead, suspicions seemed to grow on their faces. What little trust Stiles had managed to establish vanished.
She had jumped off the deep end; she had tried to gain trust.
And she had failed.
15
Morganson dropped into the chair attached to his foldout desk and sucked in the calming silence and dark of his cabin. It was relaxing, a peace only true isolation could bring. And with life support running again, he had a short while to truly rest. The stress of combat and failure, the sense of everything collapsing—a respite would help him recharge.
He placed his uniform on hangers and shut the closet to allow the system to steam out wrinkles and perform a basic cleaning. The right thing to do would be an intense workout, a clearing of the head, but…
The fresh air soothed him as he flopped onto the bunk with a soft groan.
What release might dreams bring? What vistas might he perceive now that he was even for just a moment free of the terrors of war and the constant struggle to maintain control over crew and self? Could he find something that was undeniably his, something free of the influence of his creators and masters? He’d done so once before, drifting off to a place with bright blue skies and a white, sandy beach that burned the bottoms of his feet. The sun had quickly reddened his pale flesh, and the water had been so salty he’d gagged while swimming in it.
But the crash of the surf? The soft call of gulls? The sense of an infinite horizon free of anyone else, free of obligations?
There had been such happiness in that dream. If only he could find his way…
His cabin chimed.
Someone was at the hatch.
He activated the entry speaker. “I left orders not to be disturbed unless an emergency—”
“It is Commander Voegel, Captain.”
Voegel. Damn it all!
The captain pushed off from his bunk, unsure for an instant whether his feet landed in hot, giving sand or on the floor of his cabin inside the Spear of Destiny.
Firm. Carpeted.
The Spear, then.
When the hatch opened, Voegel’s head snapped back, revealing crystal blue eyes that were at the same level as Morganson’s, and alabaster skin framed by spiky hair pale to the point of whiteness. That hair was pressed down by a black peaked cap despite being aboard the Spear. The doctrine officer’s face was soft, untouched by time, as smooth as the black uniform, which was more tailored even than Morganson’s, emphasizing a narrow waist and what might be the slightest swell of hips. In the officer’s gloved right hand was an attaché case, also black, same as the gloves.
The doctrine officer squeezed past. “Captain. Close the hatch, will you?”
No one stood in the darkened passageway. If Morganson wanted, he could have left the hatch open and there would be no challenge, no probing and questioning. Voegel’s only concern was the captain.
Still, he wanted his privacy, even if it must be shared with Voegel.
Morganson returned to the bunk but stayed upright if somewhat slumped.
When the hatch slid shut, the pale-skinned analyst stared at the ca
ptain for several seconds, then set the attaché case down on the desktop. The gloves came off and were set down beside the case, then came the cap.
There was no need to brush back the spiky hairdo and no apparent interest in doing so had there been a need.
Fine fingers snapped the clasps and opened the top of the case, revealing a worn, brown leather binder and matching case. There wasn’t much room for anything else, and the officer seemed to need only what was contained within. The delicate fingers plucked the smaller binder out, then touched the seal, which opened, revealing a digital pad that flared to life, washing away any last hint of color from Voegel’s face.
Morganson chuckled. “Ghoul.”
A fine, straw-gold eyebrow arched up. “What is that, please?”
“Ghoul? You want the word or the meaning?”
After a pause, the analyst’s head tilted. “I know the meaning. The word had eluded me. Thank you. You have a strange obsession with things irrelevant to your position.”
“You mean I have a curiosity and imagination that leaves you concerned.”
“Not me, Captain Morganson. I am here for you.”
“But you speak for the Supreme Leader, and your ears are his ears.”
“The health of the Federation is paramount to all who study the Doctrine.”
“And the health of the Federation’s children? Hm?”
“The Children are the greatest servants the Federation has ever known. Your health is our health.”
A snort escaped Morganson’s lips. “You have known me since I was selected for the Special Section, Commander. How healthy do you think I am?”
The crystal blue eyes dropped to the pad. “Quite healthy.”
“A giant! The heart of a lion!”
“Physical health is meaningless without guidance from mental health.”
“A sound mind leads to a sound body! You think perhaps I have heard some of your platitudes before?”
Tap tap tap. Voegel was making notes on the pad. “You lost many sailors today.”
“And many ships. Sailors are replaceable, but the ships…”
Morganson hopped down from his bunk, teeth grinding. He paced, noting the way the doctrine officer didn’t move when brushed against. It was power dynamics and analysis and manipulation and who knew what else with Voegel or with any doctrine officer.