“Oh, this is so awkward. She was so headstrong, and stubborn. I wish you had known about me before. If I had known, we wouldn’t be meeting this way,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not your mother.”
She waited a beat for Iza to register the words. ‘Not your mother.’ They rang back and forth between her ears.
“I’m her twin sister, Reagan Sundari.”
The room shifted, and Iza felt herself sway. The woman who claimed to be her aunt moved fast, sliding a chair beneath Iza before she crashed to the floor. Iza sat down hard on the wooden surface, grateful for the support.
“What do you mean?” Iza asked. “My mother never had a sister.”
“I believe my face speaks for itself. We are—were—identical twins. We grew up together, fighting, making up, and fighting again. To be honest, we always had a very tumultuous relationship right to the end. However, when we met the brothers, we…” Her voice trailed off.
“What brothers?”
Reagan took a seat on the edge of a couch across from Iza. “Are you saying your mother didn’t tell you about your father?”
“No, she’d been too busy mourning his death and planning her own.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Ten, and she didn’t die, she Left. She had a choice, and she chose death like a coward.”
Reagan’s lips tightened in a straight line. Something her mother did when she couldn’t decide what to say next. Iza didn’t want to look at her aunt anymore. There were too many similarities between them, too many differences.
“You must remember your father, then, if you were ten years old.”
“No, she didn’t tell me anything. Only that he died when I was younger. She removed every image of him from our house after his death. I remember her struggling to get out of bed sometimes and not a day went by when she wasn’t crying. Then, one day, she wasn’t there at all.”
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.”
“My question to you is where were you?” The tears burned behind Iza’s eyes now as she spoke.
“Of the two of us, your mother loved hard and almost never forgave.”
“Don’t tell me about my mother. All those years, when I didn’t have anyone, why didn’t you come for me?”
Her aunt stood up and paced the room.
Iza’s eyes fell on a picture of her aunt standing with a young boy with similar features. His eyes stared out at her from within the frame. A crackle of recognition filling her thoughts. The guy I keep seeing… he’s my cousin.
Reagan was still pacing. “I didn’t know about you. Not exactly. I reached out to your mother when I got pregnant. Considering our unique situation, I realized she might be pregnant, too, and that we might need to talk about it. But she never answered me, I assumed she was still angry.” She looked to Iza, the desperation in her eyes. “We didn’t part on the best of terms.”
Nothing her aunt said made any sense. It was as if her mother had died all over again. She’d gone without telling her daughter about her aunt or any of her people.
For what purpose did Trix bring her here? Had it only been to steer her from the idea that her mother might be alive? Iza stood up on shaky legs and moved to the door.
“Where are you going? We need to talk.” Reagan followed Iza to the door.
“You claim to know your sister and what kind of woman she was, so you should have known. You could have searched me out. But you didn’t. Instead, I grew up on the streets of backwards colony worlds where no one had more concern for me than an abandoned shoe. There’s really nothing more to say.” Iza opened the door and walking out.
Reagan raced to the door calling out from behind her. “Wait!”
Iza wasn’t willing to wait any longer. She’d been waiting her whole life for someone to save her from the mess her mother had left her in. Now, to discover she had an aunt the whole time—an identical twin to her mother—was a cruel twist of fate. Whatever happened to them, Reagan hadn’t tried to track down her sister whom she’d know might be in trouble. It wouldn’t have taken any digging at all to find Iza from there. Iza didn’t want to, and wouldn’t, make time for a woman who’d so easily walked away from her family. Iza needed to deal with more important and pressing matters.
Iza stomped toward the shuttle while Trix and Karter raced to follow her. No one said a word.
Once on the shuttle, they sat in thick silence for twenty minutes while they waited for Cierra. A couple of times, Karter looked like he wanted to ask about the conversation, but he wisely thought better of it. Annoyingly, Trix didn’t volunteer any explanation for why she’d felt the need to rip open Iza’s wounds from her youth.
Voices sounded outside as Cierra thanked two young men she had enlisted to help her carry the crates of food back to the shuttle.
When the provisions were secured, she sat down in the seat behind Iza. “Are we headed back to the Verity now?” she asked.
“Yes.” Iza started up the shuttle.
Her tone must have made it clear she wasn’t ready to talk, because Karter quickly seized the opportunity to find a new topic for discussion. “Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked Cierra.
“I did, I got lots to hold us over until our next planetside visit.” Cierra, however, chose to ignore Iza’s less than subtle hint. “What about you, Iza? Did you find your mother?”
Her stomach knotted. “She’s not my mother. She’s my aunt.”
“Oh.” Cierra looked at the others, not sure where to rest her concerned expression.
“Don’t ask,” Karter advised in a low whisper.
Trix reached over and put a gentle hand on Iza’s shoulder. “Families can be difficult. However, you have a home and you have surrounded yourself with people who care about you. Do not concern yourself anymore with the past.”
Wise words from an android. Her timing was terrible, but that might be due to the virus.
Still, Iza’s emotions were too raw. She hadn’t yet had the time to deal with the pain the way she always did, by pushing it down and ignoring it. Until she’d done that, the others ventured near her at their own risk.
“I hope you got what you wanted,” Iza grumbled to Trix.
The android turned her head to look at Iza but didn’t respond.
“Once we get back to the ship, I have some business to see to,” Karter said. “How long can we stay docked at the spaceport?”
“With the berthing fees they charge?” Iza scoffed. “I’ll give you an hour. Plus, if Mr. Arvonen has a presence on this planet—and he probably does—it won’t take them long to find us. We should be on our way as soon as possible.”
As soon as they docked in the Verity’s cargo hold, Cierra launch into an explanation of the goods she’d bought while the others filed off the shuttle. Iza hung back. She told herself the reason wasn’t because she was avoiding them.
After giving the others a head start, she disembarked the shuttle only to find Jovani and the dog waiting for her. The pain in her chest eased at the sight of them.
The dog bounded up to her, and she reached down to scratch his head, avoiding Jovani’s concerned expression.
“It didn’t go well,” he stated.
“Don’t ask.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I’m just—I wanted to be here for you,” Jovani said. He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, but she turned away from him.
“I’ll be in my cabin. When Karter finishes his business, we’ll be leaving the system.”
“Are you upset with me?” Jovani asked.
Iza stopped but didn’t turn around. He was a TSS Agent on some kind of mission that he hadn’t told her anything about. How hypocritical for him to stand there and act like she was the one being unreasonable. There was a fight coming, but at the moment she didn’t have the energy in her to hash it out with him.
“I’m tired and I want to be left alone,” Iza said. The dog pranced along beside her as
Jovani’s eyes bored a hole in her back. She plodded to her cabin without another word.
—
When an hour had elapsed and they were still docked at the Tararian spaceport, Iza wanted to be anywhere else. She stewed for another ten minutes before calling up to the flight deck. “What’s going on, why haven’t we departed? Isn’t Karter back yet?”
“No, he’s not,” Trix replied.
Iza swore as she prepared to drop the ship on Karter’s head.
“Not that it would matter,” Trix continued, “since we’re not going anywhere.”
Iza pinched the bridge of her nose. “Is there something wrong with the ship again?”
“The same problem we’ve been having,” Braedon chimed in. “Like I warned you, we were able to temporarily wall off the virus, but it’s found a way through again.”
“So Trix is still at risk, too.”
Braedon sighed. “Yeah, I wish I had better news for you, Iz. Since the two are linked most of the time, the virus could easily pass from the ship to her and back again. But here’s the thing—I severed those connections while you were gone, so Trix shouldn’t have had anymore contact with the ship’s systems. Except, the virus in Trix and the virus in the ship are behaving like they are still linked. I’ve checked, and it’s not using the Verity’s built-in interface; that connection is cold, like it should be. So there’s some other kind of communication going on that our tech can’t detect. Until we understand what’s going on, I suggest we stay put.”
“I understand the issue, but it’s not realistic to stay here,” Iza said.
“You’re asking if we can risk a jump. To be honest, we’d be taking a huge risk. If we lose something like propulsion or nav control again, we could end up stranded in the middle of an asteroid field.”
Iza ran two hands over her face. This was the last thing she wanted to deal with now. “Can you fix it?”
“Like I said before, getting rid of the sphere is the easiest solution. But I also get why we can’t do that. Viper and I are still trying to figure out a solution. I’ll let you know.”
“Until then, we’re stuck here?”
“For now, yes.” He dropped his voice. “But between you and me, Viper is almost as good as I am. We might have a more permanent work around before you know it.”
“Tell me as soon as you have something, not a minute later.”
“You’ve got it. Hey Iz,” Braedon began, “take it from someone who knows; family is a real mixed bag. You might be related to them, but you don’t have to be like them.”
Iza disconnected the comm link.
She climbed back into bed, where the dog curled up next to her. He tilted his head back and gazed up at her expectantly, but she still wasn’t ready to deal with him. Instead, she thought about what Braedon had said.
A knock at her door pulled her out of her thoughts. The dog bounded to the door to greet whoever disturbed her peace. Iza took a deep breath and answered it, prepared for the hurt look in Jovani’s eyes.
Instead, she found Raquel’s smiling face. She held up a bottle and two glasses. “You look like you need this.” She eased herself inside.
Raquel didn’t bother with the chair or the small table. Instead, she slipped off her shoes and climbed onto Iza’s bed, using the wall to prop herself up. She poured two glasses of the pale pink concoction and held one out to Iza.
Iza climbed up beside her, not bothering to undo her boots, and took the glass. When is the woman not drinking?
Balancing the bottle between her knees, Raquel took a drink. “I never told you how I got into archaeology,” she began. “It’s an interesting story, because I come from a family of inventors and opportunists. My parents consider themselves forward-thinking people.”
Raquel gulped down some of her drink and smiled. “They thought I was out of my mind to be digging in the dirt, looking for ancient artifacts left behind by civilizations long dead. They didn’t take it seriously until I made my first major discovery.” Raquel paused, as if reliving the story instead of telling it.
“What did you find?” Iza asked.
“I was out on a dig in the desert fields of Phiris. If you’ve been there, it’s miserable heat during the day. I mean, three showers a day became the norm. I was out there by myself one evening when the others had gone off to bed and I found a stash—that’s what we call a small treasure of items buried together. The black box had several antique pieces, but the most important thing I found inside was an old subspace comm relay, the sort you’d use if you want to keep your messages off the grid. It had an external data backup drive with it. I brought it to my brother, who’s into electronics. I helped him clean it up, and we used old specs and rebuilt the thing. It was the most time he and I ever spent together. Then we turned it on for the first time.”
“What was on it?”
“Most of the data on the drive was encrypted by a cypher we’d never be able to crack, but we were able to pull a few files. The data linked to a file server with access codes to something much bigger. Though the communicator’s original owner was long gone, one of his beneficiaries had left their entire inheritance under encrypted code. As a result, all of that wealth was subsequently lost to the family. It turns out, that fortune belonged to old Wohali Terrades.”
“Of Terrades Transports?”
“The fastest hovercraft on the market until a few years ago. The very one. The files led us to his inheritance, which had been under constant debate since his death and the plans he’d written for future transports.”
“What happened to it all?” Iza asked as Raquel refilled their glasses.
“Funny thing, when the old man died, his kids went berserk about all the funds and they got tied up in the judicial system. Turns out he’d left them all a huge amount of money that he’d hidden away on Beurias, where he’d planned to make the Hyttinen’s an offer.”
“Is that how you two know each other?”
Raquel nodded. “When we discovered the plans had been meant for Karter’s father, we figured he might want to see them.”
“Of course, he did. I’m sure he didn’t mind putting those plans to good use, either.”
Raquel raised her glass and laughed. The dog took their combined giggle as a party he was missing and hopped on the bed at her feet. When they both calmed down, he curled himself up into a ball, resting his head on his paws.
“So the two of you never?” Iza asked as she and Raquel shifted to face each other.
“Oh, Karter. He’s such a quandary, isn’t he? No, the two of us never pursued anything. I considered the possibility, to be honest, but he already had someone in his life.” She raised her eyebrows at Iza.
“I wouldn’t stand in your way if you wanted him.” Iza finished her drink. She hoped her hint at the possibility was enough.
“I didn’t mean you,” Raquel said, downing hers too.
Iza perked up, put her glass down, and sat up. “What do you mean? There’s someone else?”
“I can’t believe you haven’t noticed. You are in trouble, aren’t you?”
“Tell me. Who is she?”
“His assistant.”
“Becca?”
“The very one.”
Iza considered it. “I thought the only thing between them was efficiency and respect.”
“Sometimes that’s enough. Sort of like you and that brooding little ex-Agent you’ve got following you around.”
“Jovani and I are complicated.” Iza looked away to hide the flush in her face.
“Not too complicated.” Raquel raised her eyebrows. “He’s loyal to you and respects your leadership. He’s a lot like Becca, in his own way. Efficient too, I’m sure in more ways than one.”
Iza laughed giving Raquel a friendly shove.
“No, he and I have something,” Iza searched for the word, “more. But it’s nothing I can pursue as I’m already engaged.”
Raquel made a sound in the back of her throat that said she had her
doubts. “Regardless, I’m not so interested in Karter that I’m willing to fight for him. Becca is patient and the woman that Karter will eventually see, if he doesn’t already.”
“Why didn’t he ask her to marry him, then?”
“No doubt he had his reasons for asking you, but that aside, marriage for a Lower Dynasty heir isn’t the thing you can just jump into without connections. His family was no doubt surprised he chose you over the many eligible women in his class, but I suspect his reasons are more political than emotional.”
Iza wasn’t sure what Raquel was getting at, but let it go.
“Can I see your sphere again?” Raquel asked.
Iza reached into her bedside table for the box and offered it to Raquel.
Raquel turned the object over in her hands, looking for the latch to open it.
“It’s weird, I know. No obvious way to open it.” Iza rubbed her thumb along the edge and lid hissed opened.
Raquel closed the box again and tried to replicate what Iza had done, but failed. “Well, that’s interesting,” she said, passing it back to Iza to open again. “Can you still hear the humming?”
“Yes, it’s low at the moment, but sometimes it’s louder. I’m not sure what makes the difference, but it’s annoying.”
“I can imagine.” Raquel turned the sphere over in her hands. “How did the box open the first time? Were you doing anything different than normal?”
Iza looked down at the far corner of the room. “I’d been crying.”
Raquel placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Well, that might explain it. I’ve heard of old tech that’s genetically keyed, though saliva would be a more common transfer method.”
“Why me? Why was I able to open it and no one else can?”
“Did anyone else try spitting or crying on it?” Raquel laughed, then shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible genetic material needed to get into the hidden seams, so it needed a liquid to get in there rather than dry touch alone. Maybe you were the first to handle it under the right conditions, and so it imprinted on you and now you’re the only one who can open it.” Raquel handed the box back to Iza, and she returned it to her nightstand drawer.
Divided Loyalties (Verity Chronicles Book 2): A Cadicle Space Opera Adventure Page 21