They’d been asked to wait while La Plata’s lawyer and Seshulla Zheer herself tried to pry them loose from Space Div’s care. The room had no door, and they weren’t in custody, exactly, but Lieutenant Commander Omharu, the Khong Met Moi’s security officer, didn’t want to let them go without more “fact finding.” Little clues had sparked Luka’s intuition, and he’d ruthlessly used his talent on the woman. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake of avoiding using his talent and putting them all at risk. What he’d sensed made him believe Omharu was a CPS telepath, whereupon he’d instantly ceased cooperating and demanded the team’s formal arrest or immediate release.
Commodore Morris-Seeley had been indifferently unresponsive, but the second in command, Captain Okeanos, had surprisingly taken their side and used a fine knowledge of military code and procedure to keep Omharu at bay. Luka ordinarily disliked being a pawn in someone else’s conflict, but in this case, he wasn’t going to complain.
Luka’s talent said Okeanos was a good man—idealistic, loyal, and surprisingly lonely, probably from having to work with people like Morris-Seeley and Omharu. It was Okeanos who’d finally communicated with the La Plata ship that had accompanied the Space Div contingent to let them know there was a problem. So now they were stuck in jurisdictional limbo.
In truth, Luka was almost completely out of patience with everyone and everything. He’d been glad to get Mairwen onto a large, well-armed ship where she could recover her strength. He hadn’t left her side the entire time she was being examined and treated, and both he and Jerzi enforced her wishes with the medics when needed. She’d refused drugs and full-body imagers, but allowed them to use a portable bone knitter on her ribs, and to reapply dermaknit to her burns, lacerations, and leg wound. He would have liked a diagnostic scan on her brain, in case it was swollen from the concussion, but conceded that discovery of her secrets would kill her a lot more quickly than a possible mild brain injury.
When she’d finally been released from treatment, he returned the knives she’d entrusted to his safekeeping, then allowed the medics to treat his own injuries. Luckily, his thigh was knitting nicely and his shoulder bone had only been bruised, not fractured, as he'd feared. Multiple microjets of meds flushed the blood out of his tissue, leaving only hints of bruising. Jerzi’s broken nose and black eye were almost erased, and he said his bullet wound felt a lot better.
For the thirty-six hours after that, he, Jerzi, and Mairwen all agreed not to be separated from one another. They asked for shared quarters, ostensibly out of politeness to the personnel who might temporarily be displaced to accommodate them. They slept in shifts, so at least two of them were always awake, acting as personal security for each other. They went everywhere together and were only apart when being interrogated about the events of the prior week.
The Khong Met Moi and the two accompanying Space Div frigates were still in the Insche 255 system. Luka hadn’t heard what had happened to the exploration spacer or its crew, or if the hybrid planet was being investigated. At this point, he really didn’t care. All he wanted to do was go home and spend a month curled up with Mairwen.
It was a new kind of hell being so close and not being able to talk to or even look at her freely, much less touch or hold her, and he was aching for her. He sensed she was feeling it, too.
She was, thankfully, looking much healthier after sleep and food. She still favored her left leg, where the projectile had pierced it, and the sealed laceration on her head made a visible furrow through her asymmetrical haircut, but her eyes were bright and her color was normal.
At every meal in the dining hall, he’d made it a point to load extra selections he thought she might like onto his tray, then surreptitiously transfer them to hers. She raised her eyebrow at him a couple of times and said nothing, but she ate everything he gave her. He was secretly amused by the taciturnity she’d steadfastly maintained since they arrived, mostly because it pissed off Omharu.
After ninety additional minutes of enforced leisure in the briefing room, Luka used the shipcomm to politely request that the operator ask Captain Okeanos to authorize food and drink for them, since they’d missed the second-shift dining hours. When someone finally came, it wasn’t with a meal, it was Captain Okeanos himself with two others. Luka recognized the older man who wore civilian clothes. The younger, uniformed man’s collar insignia indicated he was an ensign, but his size and demeanor were those of an enforcement guard.
The older man stepped into the briefing room.
“Razumovsky,” Luka said. He sat up a little straighter but didn’t stand. He was tired of games.
“Foxe,” the man acknowledged, then turned to Okeanos. “I’d like to talk to my clients alone for a few minutes.”
“Regrettably, privacy is hard to find these days, even on Space Div capital ships,” said Okeanos. His voice was a deep, rumbling bass. “This public briefing room will have to do.” His eyes darted briefly to two of the light panels in the room.
Razumovsky nodded. Okeanos and the other man stepped out into the hall and politely turned their backs to the open doorway.
“I see you’re all looking tolerably well, considering,” Razumovsky said, eying the blue taped patches on the side and sleeve of Mairwen’s shirt and the round hole in the shoulder of Jerzi’s. “Zheer is wrapping up details with the commodore. You’ll have to be available for an official recorded statement for Space Div investigators once we get back to Rekoria, but I expect you’ll be released from here in the next thirty minutes.” His gaze rested on Mairwen. “I understand some of you refused medical treatment?”
“Oh, please,” said Luka, mindful of the monitors Okeanos had subtly warned them about. “Morganthur doesn’t like hospitals or medics. They tried to make it out like she wasn’t competent to decide for herself. We convinced them otherwise.”
Razumovsky nodded his understanding. “Do you need anything from your bunks before we leave?”
“No,” said Luka, and Jerzi echoed it. Mairwen shook her head.
“Sit tight. I'll be back soon.”
He left with Okeanos, but the uniformed ensign stayed put outside the door. Luka exchanged a look with Jerzi and saw he also thought it unusual for the ensign to stay.
Luka knew Mairwen would hear someone coming a lot sooner than he could, so he casually angled himself so he could see her instead of staring at the corridor. Besides, he liked watching the beautiful woman he was in love with. The woman who miraculously loved him back.
They didn’t have long to wait before Mairwen subtly flicked her eyes toward the door. About ten seconds later, Omharu tried to stride through the doorway, only to be blocked by the ensign.
“Sorry, sir, no one in or out. Captain’s orders,” The ensign didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
“Countermanded,” snapped Omharu. She tried to step forward, but the ensign blocked her again.
“Sorry, sir, you’ll have to take it up with the captain.” There was a perverse enjoyment in the ensign’s tone. Maybe Omharu had made more enemies than just Okeanos.
Omharu was obviously used to overriding the chain of command. “Ensign Águila, if you want to keep your rank, you’ll let me in right skagging now.” Her voice was controlled, but her face was flushed with anger.
“Funny, that’s the same thing the captain told me about keeping people out.” Águila shrugged. The man’s body language said he was feeling confident. “Maybe we should ping the captain together and ask.”
Luka carefully schooled his face to keep his enjoyment from showing. Jerzi hid his smile by bending down to adjust his boot fastening.
“Ensign, you just bought yourself a whole galaxy of trouble.” She gave one last sweeping glare at Águila and everyone in the room, then stalked off.
“Asshole,” said Luka, just loud enough to be heard. Águila snorted, then turned it into a cough.
Razumovsky’s time estimate turned out to be optimistic, but an hour later, all the La Plata employees were finally trans
ferred via pinnace to La Plata’s commercial ship, the Padrashan Librero.
Zheer met them in the small landing bay and graciously thanked the pinnace’s pilot in flawless Mandarin, then ushered them all into the formal dining room that doubled as a conference room. Luka liked the Padrashan better than most ships, but he was more than ready for solid, planetside ground under his feet.
He was happy to hear the Padrashan would be going transit within ten minutes, with an ETA at Rekoria in three ship days. He’d had enough of the Insche 255 system to last a lifetime, and the farther away he was from the zealous security officer, the better.
A buffet had been set up so they could help themselves. He tried not to watch Mairwen, because he knew he couldn’t hide his feelings for her, and keen-eyed Zheer was bound to notice.
A lot of questions were coming, and Zheer and Razumovsky needed information now, but he wasn’t willing to spend all night at it. Or was it day? He really had no idea. He wished he’d had even five minutes alone with Jerzi and Mairwen to discuss what he was about to say, but it couldn’t be helped.
He started by telling Zheer and Razumovsky the story they’d been telling Space Div, with Eve Haberville as the martyred hero. Then he told them what really happened, more or less, with the emphasis on less when it came to anything that hinted at Mairwen’s abilities and skills, and the emphasis on more when it came to assigning certain extraordinary events to luck or to Haberville. Such as how they'd avoided being killed by the Berjalan’s sabotage, or how the four of them overcame a merc squad of fifteen, stole a light-drive transport, and defeated a military-style corvette with a rigged laser.
Jerzi, to Luka’s deep gratitude, supported Luka’s mostly true but slanted version of events, and the one outright lie, wherein Luka blamed the spacer crew for Haberville's death. Mairwen only contributed when asked a direct question, and otherwise maintained her usual reticence. Luka had to continually fight his impulse to look at her to see how she was taking it.
Zheer rotated her coffee cup in its saucer, a familiar habit of hers when she was thinking. “Why did you tell Space Div that Haberville was the hero?”
Luka had an answer ready. “Because once they start stomping around, all the cockroaches will head for the dark corners, and we won’t have a chance to confirm who she worked for, or find out who sabotaged the Berjalan, or even who hired the mercs, here or in Etonver. You can’t hide a hybrid planet without help, or at least willful ignorance, from the Concordance government or the military. And I sure as hell didn’t want a CPS telepath mucking about in our minds, or one of their cleaners removing inconvenient memories that might contradict whatever official explanation they concoct.”
Most of the Space Div investigators he’d ever worked with tended to be linear thinkers, so he’d told them a story that suited their view of the universe. He personally didn’t care if they ever solved the fökking case or not, as long as Mairwen was as safe as he could make her. That included misleading his employer and lying shamelessly to Concordance Command. Even if it meant no justice for the murders of Leo Balkovsky and Adina Schmidt.
“Haberville never said who she worked for?” asked Razumovsky.
“No,” said Luka, “but I’d lay odds on Korisni Genetika. Like Tewisham said, the pharma industry is full of spying, dirty tricks, and double agents.”
He took a sip of water, glad it didn’t taste of purification chemicals.
“My working theory is that Korisni found out Loyduk Pharma, or its partner, was having to abandon Insche 255C for a while, and saw a golden opportunity to hijack their samples and research. Or maybe they’d already had someone on site, siphoning off the best discoveries, and decided to steal everything once Loyduk terminated the operation.” He splayed the fingers of his left hand. It was fully healed, but he hadn’t forgotten the pain. “I think Korisni arranged my kidnapping and interrogation in Etonver. They asked what I knew about Loyduk, which was a stupid question if Loyduk had hired them.”
“You believe Haberville was responsible for the virus that attacked Ta’foulou?”
“Yes,” said Luka, keeping his tone nonchalant. “She knew he entertained himself by monitoring the emergency comm system, and didn’t want him listening in on anything she did.” While possibly true, it was more likely that she’d disabled him so she’d be the only pilot, and had been unpleasantly surprised by Mairwen’s expertise. “I imagine she listened to all of us from time to time, too, in case we made decisions that threatened her agenda.”
Zheer’s icy look would have stopped a star in mid-solar flare. “Had I known of Ta’foulou’s weakness, I would have terminated him immediately. I don’t tolerate such abuse on any ship I operate.”
Luka wasn’t sure Zheer’s policy was enforceable, but at least her words put the Padrashan’s pilots on notice that they’d better not get caught.
Jerzi spoke up. “When we hit Horvax Station, Foxe got a message saying there’d been two infosec breaches. What were they?”
Zheer’s expression went sour. “Someone cloned our entire info hypercube when we did a network upgrade a couple of weeks ago. It was auctioned to at least two bidders we know of. If Luka’s suppositions are right, one was Korisni, which caused them to hire Haberville, and the other was Loyduk, through a fixer named Hildree Fannar. Needless to say, we’ve improved our procedures in that area. We believe one of the bidders found the Amhur address and hired a crew to go there, looking for Onndrae. The Etonver police think members of a theft crew they recently detained might have been involved.”
Luka nodded, pleased that another loose thread was being addressed. “Connected to Loyduk, I’d say. Their corporate culture is stupidly tightfisted. I bet they thought they could save money by using their cheaper theft crew instead of hiring wetwork pros.”
“And the other breach?” prompted Jerzi.
Zheer and Razumovsky exchanged a look, and Razumovsky answered. “On the day the Berjalan left Rekoria, Foxe’s assistant Velasco went missing. La Plata assumed he had taken an unannounced vacation, which he’d been warned against several times before. Therefore, we terminated him, as Foxe knows from the message. However, he turned up three days later claiming to have been kept prisoner at a joyhouse and mentally interrogated by his sex partners. We later confirmed his explanation.”
Luka was amused by the lawyer’s careful answer, which implied a lot of damage control. Reading between the lines, they’d assumed Velasco to be an irresponsible oaf, which he mostly was, and had fired him, then discovered evidence that he’d been the victim he’d been claiming all along. La Plata probably had to offer Velasco his job back, or a monetary settlement, or both.
“Taking La Plata to court, is he?” asked Luka. Zheer’s acid glare confirmed his guess.
Razumovsky gave him a calculating look. “Since he’s your assistant…”
Luka interrupted. “I was already planning to request a new assistant as soon as we got back.” He knew the company lawyer, of all people, would know Luka’s contract made it his choice. Luka didn't care what La Plata did with Velasco, as long as they assigned him elsewhere.
A wave of mental exhaustion washed over him.
“Look, we’ll be happy to answer more questions and make all the reports you want, but Morganthur, Adams, and I have had one hell of a week. Could we take this up again after we’ve had about twenty-four hours of downtime?”
After only a moment’s hesitation, Zheer said, “Of course.” Razumovsky nodded his agreement.
Zheer looked at each of them, her eyes darting to the various patches and holes in their clothes. “Captain Okeanos was kind enough to inform us that you arrived on the Khong Met Moi with little more than the shirts on your backs, so we made some purchases from their supplymaster. I’ll have Ravan show you to your quarters.” She stood, which was the cue for everyone else to do the same.
More than clothes, sleep, or a hot shower, Luka wanted time alone with Mairwen, but he couldn’t think of a way to make that happen, not withou
t making them both the center of attention, which she’d hate. Helvítis, but it was going to be a lonely few days.
CHAPTER 27
* Interstellar: “Padrashan Librero” * GDAT 3237.047 *
For the entire debriefing, Mairwen had listened attentively to Luka’s careful weaving of truth and misdirection, confirming details when asked but volunteering nothing. It would take someone with Luka’s brilliance to unravel it, and no one else in the room came close.
All the while, she’d wrestled with herself over what to do about Luka personally. Actually, the wrestling had started when he hovered over her like a guard dog on the Khong Met Moi, ready to defend her with the nearest bone laser to prevent the medic from taking even a blood sample without her permission.
The cautious part of her brain, the part she’d diligently cultivated after escaping the CPS, urged her to fade into the background and wait to see what happened once they got back to Etonver. The fact that she finally figured out that she loved him with shocking intensity didn’t mean a relationship would work. Even if it did, it would at least be prudent to keep it secret.
They were all excuses. She’d known days ago there would be no going back into the shadows, not if she wanted to stay with Luka. She wanted that more than anything. She was deathly tired of merely existing, avoiding risk, not using her skills, never enjoying the freedom she’d fought so hard for.
That was all very well, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Was there some sort of social protocol for telling friendly co-workers like Jerzi, or powerful company officers like Zheer, that she planned to stay with Luka? She hadn't even told him. It suddenly occurred to her that even that wouldn’t be possible if she was still considered to be on duty.
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