Lasher gave him the same grim nod that the others did. He took up a position at Bronse’s elbow and watched as Ender herded the Chosen Ones deeper into the ship.
“You know there are only six cabins on this thing,” said Lasher.
“It’ll be tight, but it’ll be enough,” said Bronse. “Surely the crew won’t mind sharing their quarters.”
“Some of us less than others,” Masin said with a smirk. Sitting with her back to them, Justice muffled a snort of laughter, but not well enough.
“Can we talk about the mission, please?” Bronse said sternly. He shifted with discomfort in his chair. It wasn’t that he minded being the butt of the occasional joke, but he was feeling bad enough that it was over his own questionable behavior. He wished he could somehow excuse it or explain it, but the truth was that he was just as baffled by it as his crew was.
“As I see it, the mission is over,” Lasher said. “It’s what will happen when we go in for debriefing that I’m sweating.”
“Me too,” Bronse said honestly. “I have to confess I’m at a loss here. We clearly know who we can’t trust; we know he isn’t afraid to be blatant in his attempts to get rid of me; and we know that as soon as we check in and debrief, he has the power to send us right back out, again and again, until we finally come up dead or die later from sheer exhaustion.” Bronse rubbed wearily at his eyes. “To compound the problem, I have to figure out what to do about Rave and the others. She’s actually talking about letting them be turned over to IM, but until I know that the corruption we’ve seen begins and ends with JuJuren, I’m really leery about the idea. She doesn’t understand … anything.”
“First of all, you can’t get paranoid just because someone’s out to get you,” Lasher advised, speaking lightly but making it clear how seriously he was actually taking it. “Caution is warranted, but you’ve made your life in the IM just as I have. This is a good outfit. A strong one. One corrupt bastard is not going to ruin it for me, and the same should go for you.”
“I just wish I knew what the hell it is that I know or did to earn JuJuren’s sweet attentions. It would help me make some sense out of this, and I really need it to make sense.”
“Men like JuJuren don’t have to make sense. They just have to be stopped. Why don’t you focus on that?”
Bronse tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair, drumming them steadily as he thought. “I think I have an idea. But I’m going to need a crew briefing before I take any action. We do this like we do everything, as a whole. As a team. I’m not going to stretch our necks any further until we agree on a game plan.”
“Fine. We’ll brief in twenty minutes. I’ll let Jet and Ender know. As to the problem of our Chosen Ones, let’s start with them getting physicals and inoculations, so wherever they end up going, they don’t drop dead of the Tarian flu or something like that.”
“Good idea.” Bronse frowned. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “Right here. I don’t want Justice out of that chair.”
“Feeling antsy?” Lasher queried, his tone flat serious.
“I don’t think I’ll stop feeling antsy until I get this all set straight.”
Ravenna waited until Ender left to go to his meeting with the others, then she called her Chosen Ones around her, bringing the boys and the girls together in one of the cabins they’d been assigned to. There weren’t enough bunks for them, even with them split by sex between this and another cabin, but that was the least of her worries for the moment. Right now, she had to make some hard choices, and needed all of the Chosen Ones on the same page that she was on.
“I’ve been forced to think very quickly about what we should do from here,” she began, walking a winding path among them as she spoke. “I know I can see the future, but even I can’t predict the long-term outcomes of the choices we are going to be making. So I have to do what I feel is best for us all. But I have never made a unilateral decision for you unless I was absolutely forced to, so I need to talk to you all about this.”
“What are you thinking, Rave?” Domino asked, as blunt as he always was. “And don’t coddle us.”
Ravenna looked at young Devan and Ophelia and wished she could coddle them. They were too young to be making such dramatic choices in their lives. They ought to have been cherished and protected from this until they were ready.
But that was not to be. She had to face it. And so did they.
“As I see this, we have two choices before us.” She linked her hands together at the fingers, squeezing tightly to keep them from shaking and showing her nervousness. She had to project confidence to them. It was so important that they come to the right decisions. “We can settle somewhere out there, out there anywhere, and try to live in peace together, try to adapt to no longer being in the temple and no longer having the protections that it afforded … when they were still in place. But we face many problems if we do. One, we will have to learn and adapt to an alien way of living. And two, we will run the risk of the exact same thing that just happened to us happening again. If our own people were willing to sell us out to the highest bidders, imagine what total strangers will do to us when they learn how different we are.”
“Then we hide our differences,” Kith spoke up. “No one has to know anything about us. We just won’t tell.”
“That will not happen,” Ravenna said gravely. “We all know that all it will take is Ophelia seeing one small injury or one very sick person and she will not be able to help herself. No more than I will be able to resist acting on any visions I might have. Besides, it goes against everything I believe in. We have these gifts for a reason. We’re not meant to keep them selfishly to ourselves.”
“And what’s your alternative suggestion?” Kith nearly sneered the remark, his taut body language telling her that he already had an inkling of where she was going to go, and he was preparing to do battle with her over it.
“We choose a champion.”
“I knew it. You mean Chapel.” Kith spat the name like an invective.
“No. I mean a body of people who are powerful as a whole with a trustworthy track record who will hire us to work for them and, in trade, they will protect us. Preferably we will work for a greater good. It will be up to us to locate such a group. Frankly, we know nothing of the worlds out here or how to go about finding anyone of note or of trust. We need to learn. We need a stepping-stone. A place to exist while we learn the things we need to learn.”
“I’ll bet she has a suggestion,” Kith said darkly.
“I do,” she countered, not at all swayed by his behavior. “The Interplanetary Militia. The people Bronse works for. They are the peacekeepers in this galaxy. They strive to make these worlds peaceful places. Even as sheltered as we were, we have heard of them. They are well meaning if nothing else. But the truth is, this will be a blind alley. All we have to base our choice on is the example we have seen set by Bronse and his crew. Now I don’t know about you, but they have proven to me that they are honorable and well minded and strive to make morally right choices.”
“Is that what Bronse was proving to you last night?” Kith’s derisive tone was cutting. “You can’t listen to her,” her brother said to the others. “She’s been completely taken in by him. Listen, Sis, you’re new at the whole sex thing, so let me clue you in. He’s a soldier and you’re just the flavor of the minute.”
Ravenna had to control her urge to slap him again, no matter how much her palm itched to do it. Acting wildly would do nothing but prove him right, and prove that her normally staid judgment was impaired by Bronse somehow. She refused to give him the satisfaction.
“Just because that is how you treat women does not make it so for everyone else,” she said as calmly and quietly as she could, her entire body tight with her emotions. “And my private relationship with Bronse is a separate matter from this. I am merely trying to find us the best possible home, if only for the moment. If we get to the militia and we show them who and what we are, they will covet us. Prize u
s even. They will want to use us as tools to achieving their peaceful goals, and we will make them compensate us with things we need, like food, shelter, and safety.”
“And if they turn on us?” This time it was Domino who spoke. “What if they decide to force us to do whatever they want, whether we want to or not?”
“If they prove themselves dishonorable, we will leave. And I think you know that we are more than capable of doing so.” She reached out to touch Vivienne’s cheek lovingly. “Right?”
“Yes. We can do anything,” Vivienne said. She bit her lip. “And this time you’d let me? You’d let me help us this time?”
The last time, Ravenna had called Vivienne off. She had known that if Vivi showed her power, it could come back to haunt them. Rave had feared that they’d all be taken, instead of just her and Kith. But should push come to shove, she and Vivi could do a great deal of damage together.
“I would. What’s more, I will suggest that we keep my other power to ourselves until such time as we all agree we can trust the militia. Vivi, you can show yours, but downplay just how strong you are. We should all take care to measure what we show at first. I won’t have us losing control again. And I won’t let us be separated. Temple or no, I am the leader of the Chosen Ones. I am your priestess. But I am also your sister and your friend, and I believe that this is the best thing we can do.”
“You know,” Kith laughed without humor, “I think you want to join the IM just so you can keep close to your new man. If you think you guys are going to actually make something of this thing going on between you, then you’re out of your mind, Rave.”
“Kith,” she said, forcing his name through her teeth, “you are an empath and yet you have no clue to my emotions. If you would stop balking like a spoiled child for one second and open your power to me, you would see that my motivations are to keep this family safe, fed, and well balanced.”
“He doesn’t need to see,” Fallon spoke up, stepping forward. “I can read your every thought, Rave, and I can assure everyone here that you have no ulterior motives. She never does,” he added. “And if you accuse her of it one more time, Kith, I’m going to knock your teeth down your throat.”
“Thank you, Fallon,” Rave said pointedly, appreciating him coming to her defense but not wanting to provoke any violence on behalf of her temperamental brother. “So I need to know what you all are thinking. Ask me anything. I will listen to all opinions, good or bad. Even yours,” she said to Kith, “if they’re not motivated by your own selfish jealousies.”
“You already have my answer,” he shot back angrily. “I’d rather we take our chances on our own.”
“I think Rave is right,” Vivienne said. “We need protection. As strong as we are, we have our weaknesses, and they could be exploited again. We could find ourselves doing nothing more than running away for the rest of our lives.”
“I’m with you, Rave,” Fallon said. “We have to trust someone while we get our feet wet. The IM is as good as any. Better because it isn’t as much of an unknown.”
“I think I speak for everyone,” Domino said carefully, “even Kith, when I say that you are our leader and always will be. You have taken care of us every moment since we were first brought to the temple, and you have yet to make a bad decision.”
“Except when it came to letting them take you prisoner,” Vivi said. “I know you think it would have been wrong to hurt the villagers, but it was wrong for them to separate you from us. Whatever we do, now and in the future, we do it together. This won’t work otherwise.”
With that, they all turned expectant looks to the dissenter among them. Ravenna had to give Kith credit for one thing: he knew when he was outnumbered and he knew that no manner of game he tried to play would work to make them doubt Rave’s choices. In truth, he knew that she had never once made a selfish decision in all of her life. Everything she had ever done had been for them all. Including taking a beating that she hadn’t deserved and could easily have avoided.
“Do what you want,” he said at last. “But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”
That said, he marched out of the room.
Several minutes later, Jet and Ender were on the bridge of the ship, allowing Justice to turn in her chair and join in. Bronse could no longer sit still, so he was pacing the deck before them.
“I have a few ideas, but I need to run them past you guys first. I know I’ve asked a lot of you all this trip, that I’ve done things I wasn’t supposed to, acted out of the norm, made choices that weren’t by the book. Until now, I’ve swept you all along with me. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
“Damn. And it was such a fun ride,” Ender joked.
“I mean it. I should have been more up-front with you all. I can’t change the past, but I can start being more forthright. Justice, can you make it so that we come in during the middle of night cycle on the station?”
“Sure.” She did a quick calculation in her head. “All I have to do is slow us down a little. Why the night cycle?”
“Fewer witnesses for one. For another, it helps me put the debriefing on a different footing. I’m thinking of calling in a favor. I’m going to call my old commander, Chaser Abingdon. He’s an admiral now, in the justice department. It’s time we clued IM Justice in on JuJuren’s activities. If we come in at night, JuJuren will be asleep. We can arrange a debrief without him and with Abingdon present. As I see it, it’s the only way we can keep ourselves on that station and not chasing after JuJuren’s next death trap.”
“And the downside to this is …?” Justice asked leadingly.
“It could blow up in our faces. Or we could end up docked for a good long time while IM Justice court-martials JuJuren. You know how IMJ hates to lose its prime witnesses.”
“Ugh. I hate being mollycoddled,” Lasher groaned.
“So do I,” Bronse said. “But it’s important to expose the admiral for the backstabbing bastard he is. Our mission reports are the only thing we have so far to prove it.”
“Hopefully Trick has found more while he’s been on bed rest,” Lasher said.
“We can’t count on ‘hopefully.’ I have to act on what I have at hand. And that leads me to the next point.” Bronse cleared his throat. “We’re not hiding anything from our reports. Nothing. Am I clear? That includes whatever you have to say about … about my behavior as far as Ravenna is concerned.”
Justice snorted. “Look, Boss, as far as we’re concerned, you’ve been a perfect gentleman. Besides, it would all be conjecture anyway. The only thing I’ve seen is a kiss or two. I don’t see how that fits into our report.”
“It fits if it affected my decision making,” Bronse pointed out quietly. “Staying at the temple last night was a bad choice. Any admiral worth his salt will see that. He’ll wonder why. Hell, I wonder why.”
Lasher was dismissive. “It’s not the first bad choice you’ve made. At least this was for a good reason. But how are you proposing to introduce the subject of Rave and the others?”
“I think Ravenna has plans to introduce herself. She wants to protect her family, and she’s willing to let the IM do it in trade for what the Chosen Ones can do for the IM. But I’m not comfortable with JuJuren ever finding out about what they can do. I don’t even think she should approach IM until he’s been excised.”
“But there’s the time factor,” Jet mused knowingly. “They’re on board here and now, and they got here during a mission that you’re about to be debriefed on.”
“Exactly. So I don’t see how I have much choice in the matter,” said Bronse. “None of us seems to have a real choice here. Not until we take care of this problem with JuJuren.”
“So make the call. After these past few days, I’ll enjoy the downtime,” Ender said.
Bronse appreciated the gesture for what it was. If there was one thing that Ender despised, it was downtime.
“Okay, so I make the call.” Bronse looked at them all. “One other thing. We need to share b
unks. Justice, you can double up with Vivienne. Ender, you can have Fallon. Ophelia and Devan get one of the spare rooms, and Kith and Domino get the other.”
“And Ravenna?” Lasher asked with a troublemaking sparkle in his eyes. “Is she sharing with you?”
Bronse didn’t dignify the question with a response.
He didn’t even know the answer.
It was nearly ten hours later before Bronse got up the nerve to leave the bridge. Damn it all, he’d faced down some of the scariest shit that the three worlds had to offer, but one woman had somehow managed to tie him into knots to the point where he was afraid to run into her. He didn’t know what to make of her. She was a peaceful, nonviolent person, but she was willing to embed herself in the military? Just like a lot of things about Ravenna, it just didn’t make any sense. It was as confusing as her naïve fearlessness and as baffling as her effect on him.
Bronse stepped into his rooms but stopped immediately short after the threshold. The lights were on and there, sitting in the middle of his bed in a rather peaceful, cross-legged position, was Ravenna. She looked like she was waiting for him, as if they had prearranged to meet there.
“How did you get in here?” he asked as the doors slid automatically shut at his back. “It has a secure lock.”
“Let’s call that my little secret,” she said with a winsome smile that just about sucked the breath right out of him.
No, damn it, no! He had to keep his head on straight these next few hours! He couldn’t afford to be so easily distracted by her smiles and the exotic warmth of her scent as it filled his quarters.
“Ravenna, I have work to do,” he said dismissively, walking over to his workstation and sitting down as if he was going to start right then. But the truth was, he’d already written all of his reports. In fact, he’d been pretty impressed at how easy it was to avoid any mention of having been intimate with a civilian while on-mission. Too easy.
Three Worlds 01 - Seduce Me In Dreams Page 22