Her Commanders

by M. K. Eidem

  "You mean bombs," he corrected.

  "What?!" Ja's eyes shot to Jamis's. "No! Well, yes, they are exact replicas of explosive devices, but they're not functional."

  "Really? Then what are these for?" Jamis demanded as he slid a circular object across the table to her.

  Ja's face lost color as her fingers captured the object. "I…"

  "It remotely activates your 'replicas.' Doesn't it?" Jamis sneered.

  "Yes, but…"

  "But, what?" The table shook as Jamis slammed his fist down on it.

  "Only to expel Erewhon," she said in a rush.

  "Erewhon?" Jamis’s eyes widened in shock. Erewhon was a common recreational drug within the Coalition that helped a being relax after stressful shifts. It was popular because it was inexpensive, nonaddictive, and its effects wore off in under an hour. It was also generally smoked through a qalyān. "Explain."

  "Wh… Whenever we launch a droid, I celebrate with a little Erewhon, and because I'm half Kanesh, I can't use a qalyān." She looked up to Jamis and saw he understood. Kaneshians became ill if too much moisture built up in their lungs. "So, I developed a dry delivery system."

  "Using your replicas."

  "Yes," she told him with a small smile. "I load Erewhon into the chamber where the explosive would normally go, then position the device so when activated, the Erewhon is disbursed into the air around me."

  Jamis picked up one of the replicas and studied it. He was impressed by the level of detail in it. He knew bombs, partly from the studies required to enter the Coalition, but mostly because he was Apre, and they were taught destruction from an early age. "So, if you placed an actual explosive in these…?"

  "It would explode as designed, but with such a small amount of explosive, the damage would be insignificant."

  "Unless you pack material around it creating shrapnel," he told her.

  "I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. "But I don't have access to any explosives."

  "Did you ever explain any of this to your quarter mate?" Jamis asked, ignoring her assertion.

  "To Oke? I, well, yes, I suppose I have, but she doesn't have access to any explosives either. She's just a worker."

  "And your other quarter mate?" Jamis’s voice was deceptively neutral.

  "Other quarter mate?" Ja's frown deepened at that.

  "Khatun Masala," Jamis reminded her.

  "She isn't my quarter mate," she immediately denied. "She's a friend of Oke's who needed a place to stay for a few dark shifts. Since I knew I'd be pulling doubles for the next standard-days, getting the next droid ready, I told Oke she could stay."

  "You haven't been to your quarters lately?" Jamis asked.

  "No, not for over two standard-days. I took quick rests in Engineering. My location thread will verify that."

  Jamis didn't speak, just continued to look at Ja, knowing Taarig was already confirming what she'd said. When his link gave a specific ping, he knew she'd been telling him the truth.

  "Did one of your replicas use actinic?" Jamis saw her swallow hard before she nodded. "Which one is it?"

  Ja's eyes scanned the devices on the table before returning to his. "It's not here. Did they forget it?"

  "No." With that, Jamis rose and left the room.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  "You believe her," Taarig didn't make it a question.

  "Yes. Ja wasn't there, but she's still complicit. I want these devices destroyed," Jamis handed him the devices he'd gathered back up in the bag, "after this is all resolved.

  "I'll see to it personally." Taarig took it from him.

  "I'll take the Iruphan next." When he walked into the next interrogation room, he watched the pink-skinned Iruphan lose nearly all her color.

  "S… Star Base Commander," she stuttered.

  Saying nothing, he sat down and waited.

  "Why… why am I here?" she finally asked.

  "Why do you think you are?" Jamis replied, revealing nothing.

  Oke remained silent, and Jamis could almost see her weighing her options, trying to figure out a way not to get punished for what he knew she was a part of.

  "It was all Vaine!" she finally exclaimed.

  "What was?" he asked.

  "Everything! The idea, the theft, the explosion."

  "The one outside The Brink?" Jamis wanted her saying it on the record.

  "Yes! Vaine was pissed at how she was treated, especially since she was a general's datter and Cali is just some rukking Earthan."

  Jamis didn't react to Oke's words but inwardly raged that someone thought less of Cali because she was Earthan, even though it was why he refused to have a relationship with her.

  "Continue," he ordered.

  "She couldn't fly home with her tad, and no Captain would allow her to book passage on their ship, not for the few credits she had. They are all afraid of upsetting the Supreme Chairman."

  "But you're not."

  "Me?" Oke gave him a confused look. "Why would the Supreme Chairman be concerned about me?"

  "You gave a being, banned from all Wik Corp establishments, shelter in your quarters. Quarters owned by Wik Corp."

  "What? No!" Okie shook her head in denial. "While my quarters are in the workers’ area, my quarter mate is in the Coalition. That means my quarters are Coalition."

  "No, it doesn't," he told her quietly.

  Oke lost even more color. "I… I didn't realize…"

  Jamis nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, "That doesn't matter. Now tell me what happened and if you leave anything out, and I mean anything, or lie to me, I will personally make sure the Supreme Chairman knows."

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Jamis walked out of the interrogation room with a sick feeling in his stomach. How could something like this have happened on his Star Base? He prided himself on the protocols he and Taarig had set up after taking over the Star Base. To find out it only took the distraction of a female to override them was infuriating. Beings would be ended.

  "I'll have the arsenal guard brought in," Taarig told him.

  "Good and verify Khatun Tarka's location at the time of the explosion."

  "She's not Coalition," Taarig reminded him. "She doesn't have a thread implanted."

  "Check the visual records around the area of The Brink. Ja didn't design her remote for any great distance."

  "You think Tarka's more involved than she's admitting?"

  "I think she did more than just seduce a guard. Find me proof while I'm in with Masala."

  "You don't want to wait until I have it?" Taarig asked even as he handed him a tablet.

  "No!! I'm tired of this female causing havoc on my Star Base. It stops now." With that, Jamis entered the third interrogation room.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  "You have no right to keep me here!" were the first words out of Vaine's mouth when Jamis entered the room. "My tad will destroy you!"

  "Your tad will be lucky if he isn't ejected into the black once they discover you used his clearance code," Jamis growled back.

  "What?" while Vaine maintained eye contact with Jamis, her voice wavered. "You're cracked if you think he ever gave me his code!"

  "I never said he gave it to you. I said you used it. That might afford him some leniency from the Coalition Council, but I wouldn't count on it. The Council takes extreme pride in the security of their clearance codes."

  "You can't prove that." Vaine's chin jutted out defiantly.

  "I can," Jamis told her quietly.

  Vaine's hand instinctively stopped the tablet the Commander slid across the table to her. Looking down, she saw the lens feed from outside the Star Base's arsenal and the guard stationed at the door. As she watched, Oke entered the room, and after several minutes of talking and rubbing suggestively against the guard, the guard and Oke both left. Mere moments later, Vaine entered and went directly to the security panel. She entered a code and the door silently opened. It wasn't long before her image reappeared with one hand stuffed
in one of her pant pockets as she quickly exited the room.

  "That doesn't prove anything!" Vaine continued to deny. "So, I entered the rukking room. So what? You can't prove I took anything."

  Reaching over, Jamis tapped another button showing the inside of the arsenal and Vaine rummaging through boxes. Finally, she found what she wanted and reached inside, removing a small box that she stuffed into the pocket. As she stepped away, the exterior of the crate she'd opened read 'actinic.'

  "So?" Vaine continued to try and bluff. "It's not like I know how to build an actinic bomb."

  "You didn't have to. Engineer Le confirmed her replicas are fully functional when the explosive is added. All you needed to do was pour in the actinic and press the button on the remote."

  "And yet I was nowhere near The Brink when the bomb went off," Vaine smiled, knowing she had him there.

  "Prove it," Jamis demanded.

  "I don't have to. Check my location thread."

  "You have one?" Jamis found that unusual. Vaine wasn't a member of the Coalition.

  "Yes. My tad insisted on it because of all the kidnapping threats family members of powerful generals receive."

  "Arm," Jamis demanded as he lifted the tablet. Entering a code, he scanned her arm, and, as she said, she had a location thread. Downloading the data stored in it revealed everywhere she'd been since arriving on the Star Base, including inside the arsenal. But she was sitting in Dae’s End on the other side of the Star Base from The Brink when the explosion occurred.

  "As you can see, I couldn't have detonated that bomb," Vaine smirked at him and began to rise. "Now, I'm leaving."

  Before Jamis could respond, a notification came across the screen, alerting him that Taarig had found something. Tapping the message, it opened a recording from the concourse of the market area. Cali was walking out of one of the businesses waving behind her as she moved toward The Brink. As he watched, her gaze seemed to fix on something in one of the other businesses.

  Splitting the screen, Jamis tapped into another lens and was able to zoom in on what had caught Cali's attention.

  Oke. Standing at the business entrance, smirking, until she realized Cali had seen her, then she quickly moved into the business.

  Jamis kept both screens running, and after Cali has passed, Oke stepped back out of the business. The smirk was back on her face as she lifted her arm and pointed it toward Cali. An explosion immediately followed.

  Genetic markers from both Khatun Masala and Khatun Tarka were found on the recovered shrapnel. No markers for Engineer Le, Taarig typed across the screen.

  Jamis’s gaze shot back to Vaine, and in a deep voice, spit out, "Sit Back Down!!"

  The rage that filled those three short words had Vaine immediately freezing. Even she knew an enraged Apre was a deadly Apre. Slowly she resumed her seat.

  "Your genetic markers are all over the bomb remnants."

  "That's impossible! We wiped…" Vaine immediately snapped her mouth shut.

  "Down the device," Jamis finished for her. "Yes, Engineer Le will appreciate that. It clears her of any involvement in anything other than making the working replicas. But what you and Khatun Tarka forgot to do was wipe down every hair pick, glass sphere, or piece of metal that you packed around the bomb. Those items contained your genetic markers, meaning you and Khatun Tarka formed them around the device. And with this," he showed her the image of Oke with her arm extended holding the remote, "you will both be prosecuted by the Coalition for sabotage."

  "Sabotage?!!" Vaine screeched.

  "You intentionally activated and detonated a bomb on a Star Base. That's sabotage." Rising, he left a stunned Vaine sitting in the room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cali looked up through the privacy dome surrounding her table, to where Mae was working behind the bar when Mae pinged her link. She'd told her she didn't want to be disturbed. She wanted to give Crimson's business plan her full attention. With a sigh, Cali touched her link.

  "What is it, Mae?"

  "I'm sorry, Cali, but Commander Dexxirs is on the comm. Do you want me to forward him to you?"

  Cali had stubbornly refused to contact Jamis to get updates on the investigation even after Xanto had told her Vaine and Oke and been taken in for questioning. It was Jamis’s responsibility to keep her informed, and it seemed he was finally getting around to that. A screen rose when she touched the table in front of her.

  "Go ahead and forward it, Mae."

  In moments, Jamis’s face appeared before her, and she was surprised by his appearance. He sat behind the desk in his private office, and while his uniform was crisp, his face looked like he hadn't rested in days.

  "Khatun Baker," he greeted in a neutral voice.

  'So, they were going to be formal, were they?' she thought. 'Well, two can play that game.'

  "Star Base Commander Dexxirs," Cali replied, her voice just as impersonal as his. If it affected him, it didn't show.

  "I wanted to inform you that we've arrested the beings involved in the explosion outside your establishment and obtained confessions."

  "Beings?" Cali didn't let on that she already knew who was taken in.

  "Yes. There were three. A Coalition Engineer was responsible for creating the device, although it was for purely personal reasons. She had no knowledge or involvement in the explosion."

  "You're sure?" Cali demanded.

  "Yes. We confiscated the remaining replicas, and the engineer will be reprimanded and demoted."

  "Who else?"

  "Khatun Vaine Masala was responsible for obtaining and filling the bomb with explosives."

  "How the ruk was she able to get her hands on actinic?!!" When Jamis didn't answer, she pushed. "Commander Dexxirs!"

  Jamis knew he shouldn't reveal Coalition business to Cali, but he also knew that with her connections to Wik Corp, Cali would discover it soon enough. "She obtained it from our arsenal using her tad's clearance code."

  Cali gave him an incredulous look because even as blind as General Masala was when it came to his datter, she didn't think he'd go that far. "He gave it to her?"

  "Khatun Masala has denied that. It still needs to be investigated."

  That meant Vaine somehow learned it independently, and Cali could picture how she'd done it. She could see Vaine leaning over her tad's shoulder, pretending to hug him as he sat at his desk, entering his code. Masala would think she was a loving datter. He'd never consider she was memorizing his code. This security breach was going to cause a massive uproar within the Coalition and bring every general’s code use under scrutiny.

  "What the ruk was she thinking," Cali whispered in disbelief. "Could she actually believe it wouldn't be discovered? That there wouldn't be consequences?"

  Jamis said nothing because they both knew Vaine was so used to her tad cleaning up after her that she'd never considered he wouldn't be able to do the same with this. "While Khatun Masala was the instigator in all this, she wasn't the one that detonated the bomb."

  "Oke did." Jamis didn’t have to tell Cali.

  "How did you know that!" Jamis immediately demanded.

  "It wasn't that hard to figure out. I recently fired Oke then overheard at the bar that she'd opened her quarters to Vaine." Cali wasn't going to tell him that Xanto had told her that. "So, it made sense she'd be involved after you said Vaine was."

  Jamis had a feeling there was more to it than that but could tell Cali wasn't going to explain further.

  "So, what's going to happen to them?" Cali asked.

  "As I've already stated, Engineer Le will be reprimanded, her other replicas will be destroyed, and of course, she'll be demoted."

  "She had other replicas of actinic bombs?"

  "No, just the one. The others were from a variety of other devices she helped build."

  "All the miniatures were operable?" That surprised Cali because it took incredible skill to be able to do that.

  "Yes."

  Maybe she could do something about
that. Wik Corp could always use a talented engineer. "And the other two?"

  "They will be tried for the sabotage of Coalition property and most likely treason." He saw Cali's eyes widen in shock.

  "Treason…?" Cali hadn't seen that coming.

  "Because of the use of the clearance code."

  "But neither is a member of the Coalition," Cali didn't know why she argued against such a punishment, especially for Vaine.

  "Khatun Tarka intentionally and knowingly detonated a device on a Coalition Star Base. It was blind luck no one was killed. As for Khatun Masala, she's always been very vocal about being the datter of a Coalition general. She's used it time and time again to her advantage. Now it will be a disadvantage. For her and most likely, her tad."

  "All this because Vaine is a spoiled brat," Cali murmured.

  Jamis wanted to agree but knew if he did, this conversation would go on much longer than it should, and he couldn't allow that. Not if he wanted to distance himself from Cali. He needed to end it now.

  "Now that I have done my duty and informed you that there is no longer a threat against you or your business, I will let you get back to whatever it is you do." With that, he disconnected the transmission.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  "That was rather harsh, wasn't it?" Taarig asked from the other side of Jamis’s desk where he'd been sitting for the entire conversation.

  "We need to make sure she knows we're not interested in continuing a relationship with her," Jamis defended the way he'd spoken to Cali.

  "And you think pissing her off will do that?"

  Taarig's expression told Jamis how stupid he thought that was. "It's worked with other females."

  "Cali's not like other females," Taarig said quietly.

  "In this, she will be. Now," Jamis rose from his chair, "are you going to join me for third meal?"

  "You seriously want to eat in the Common area?" They only ate there when they were looking for a female to start a relationship.

  "Yes," Jamis told him decisively.

  "I'm not sure I'm ready to do that."

  "It's only a meal, Taarig. What are the chances there will be a female that will interest us?" With that, he went through the door.