The Spiral Path

by Lisa Paitz Spindler

  “Actually, I’m all right. Let’s skip the drinks.”

  Lara held her breath and settled in an overstuffed chair. “Is it that bad? Whatever it is, just tell me.”

  Mitch ran a hand through his hair and sat on the couch opposite her. “I sent the Interlace into the wormhole. That’s what you’ll find in the comm logs. I know the phase frequency because I helped Rafe design the experiment.”

  Lara’s vision pinholed, her whole world stopping as if the planet had suddenly spun off its axis. “You what?”

  “During my years of visiting Creed, I’d heard stories that their scientists had long ago breached other dimensions. Creed publicly denied it, but still people told stories. Rafe and I both were intrigued and started researching the claims. Through my connections as Creed liaison, I obtained—legally—logs from some early dimensional experiments. In one account a Creed science ship had been accidentally destroyed, but the data didn’t support that notion. We discovered that Chimerans were especially sensitive to that area of space. We hoped if any remnant of the experiment existed, the Chimeran presence would draw it out.”

  She clutched the arms of the chair. No, no, no. She could not be hearing this from Mitch. “You used Chimerans as…bait? You haven’t changed at all.”

  Mitch sighed. “Hear me out, Lara, please. When we were ready to re-create the experiment, I’d been commanding the Interlace for months. In my time as Creed liaison I’d been sheltered from how the Union was treating the Chimerans. Then I witnessed it firsthand. Like I’ve said before, you were right.”

  “And your sudden awakening is supposed to make me feel better about you sending my brother into some kind of trans-dimensional prison? For withholding this information from me?”

  Mitch leaned forward, elbows on knees, and clenched his fists. “I didn’t just protest Chimeran segregation. When in charge of the Interlace, I desegregated the crew, and my command was revoked as a result. The mission continued without me, and it seems they faced a similar fate as the Bayne.”

  Her legs tensed to run, but Lara forced them still. She was done running. She needed Mitch to get Rafael back. “Regardless, you sent my brother into a dangerous situation.”

  “You go into dangerous situations every day. Do you honestly think I’d send Rafe—or anyone for that matter—into a situation I wasn’t personally willing to face? If everything had gone according to plan, I’d be trapped right now in that wormhole with him. I’d hoped to free him myself. I never imagined involving you. We’ve had our differences, Lara, but if you really think so little of me, then I’d better just go.”

  He stood and got as far as the table. For the first time Mitch might be the one to leave.

  “Wait.” Lara didn’t want to think of Mitch trapped by the Revenant. Rafael imprisoned there was quite enough, thank you very much. Plus, she knew her brother. “Rafael volunteered for this mission, didn’t he?”

  “All of the crew volunteered. Rafe and I were up front about the risks. This wasn’t an average mission.”

  Lara leaned forward and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Rafael has been infatuated with that fairy tale since we were kids.” Mitch’s head jerked up. “He didn’t tell you? Creed parents tell the story to keep children behaving. The names changed over the generations, but I think the story is about Calendra.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke.

  Mitch picked up her old photo. “I remember when this picture was taken. A beautiful, perfect day. Before the edict.” He yanked his collar wide. “It has to mean something that none of us ever had these removed.”

  She noticed the triple-star tattoo on his neck, just like Rafael’s and her own. For a short time the three of them had been so very close. Her and Mitch’s relationship had just cemented already cherished friendships. At that time, none of them could envision life without the other two. Lara had changed all that when she walked out on the Star Union and on Mitch.

  Lara tried, couldn’t look away from the intensity in his eyes. Eleven years of hurt showed right there beneath the surface. “Did you mean what you said earlier? That you would have left with me?”

  Mitch nodded. “I meant it.”

  Lara sighed. “I wish I’d known that then.”

  Mitch crossed back to her, knelt in front of her chair. “We can’t second guess ourselves. I would have been the only Terran among a lot of angry Chimerans.” He cradled her face in his hands. “I wouldn’t have fit into the life you built here. I can’t go where you can go.”

  How could she make him understand? “Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. We would have figured out a way to live.”

  “Like your parents have? A few days—no, hours—together at a time?”

  In his time, her father had been a Star Union hero, one of the original crew to travel to Creed. He’d lived there three months, long enough to fall deeply for Sabine and create twin lives—if not long enough to witness their birth.

  Javier would have stayed and died if Sabine hadn’t convinced him that their children needed their father alive, even if he lived in another dimension. Javier had spent his life since trying to find a way to return to Creed, to Sabine. In the meantime, they had only a few hours together at a time before one of them slipped out of phase forever.

  Lara clasped his arms. “We’re not them. I can go anywhere you can go.”

  “But that’s just it. You would not have settled the havens. We can’t keep asking ourselves ‘what if?’”

  Mitch sighed and tilted his head back, eyes closed. Those oh-so-tense shoulders dropped. Lara’s brain stopped working; she didn’t want to think. The tension deep down in her belly relaxed, liquid. After all those years apart, she finally had Mitch right here with her.

  She leaned forward and kissed his corded neck, just under that angle of a jaw where he wore the triple-star tattoo. Sandalwood, lemongrass and Mitch’s own musk filled her senses. How had she lived so long without this man and broken that bond? She teased her tongue along his earlobe. Mitch turned his head and caught her mouth with his own, tongues twining. His hand wrapped around the back of her head, trapping her against him.

  As if she might actually leave him. Lara’s heart twisted. What had they done to each other, these eleven years? What had she done to him when she left?

  She wound her hands up Mitch’s back, under his shirt, and caressed the ridges of his abdomen, the breadth of his shoulders. Then pulled the shirt over his head. Her own followed a minute later.

  Lara knelt and fumbled with his fly. Mitch stood, flipped open the fastening and discarded the pants in one motion. She smiled up at him for a second. A shock of straight dark hair fell over his forehead, and his cheeks flushed. She flicked her tongue across his erection and trailed kisses up the rest of his torso. Mitch slid her trousers off with his hands kneading all the way. She pressed closer and melded their mouths together.

  Was she really doing this? Getting so scary-close to Mitch Yoshida again could just be setting her up for another disappointment.

  It didn’t matter. Leaving without Mitch all those years ago had haunted her since. If this was her only chance, she would take it. This time he might leave her.

  One hand cupping her behind and the other clasping her shoulder, Mitch lifted her up and settled them both back on the chair. He settled between her thighs and hovered there, so close. He met her eyes.

  “I wish I’d gone with you. If I’d understood just what it meant—”

  Lara crushed her lips to his and pulled him home with her legs wound around his hips. She clutched the lean muscles of his back. For a second Mitch froze and then started to move as he kissed his way up her neck to her lips.

  They quickly found each other’s rhythm and, after that, all logic fled, replaced by sensation. The taste of his skin, the warmth of his body, the fine hairs of his chest on her breasts.

  Mitch came apart first, but the throb and pulse of his motion set Lara off seconds later. Her whole body tightened around him a
nd then exploded until every nerve ending vibrated.

  Of all the homes Lara possessed across the universe, in Mitch’s arms was the only place she wanted to be.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rafe floated on a cloud and let the Revenant queen take him away.

  Calendra rose above him, naked, her long hair a curtain that blocked out the rest of the world. Her slick heat slipped over him again as Rafe took one pale nipple into his mouth. He understood now that they were evenly matched in this haven. He need not fear hurting her. He pulled her into a kiss as the sensual release scattered them far from the prison they both lived in. Calendra fell on top of him where they collapsed on the couch in the remnants of Mitch’s captain’s lounge.

  Relics his friend left behind lay spread about the room. An ancient paper book sat next to the couch, a gift from Rafe. An extra uniform jacket hung in the gaping wide closet. An old photo of Lara lay in the top desk drawer. Would Rafe ever see either of them again?

  The rest of the room had not endured so intact. In fact, entire parts of the ship were just…missing, as if some ancient monster had taken a bite out of the Interlace’s hull. In the distance the broken blue shell of the wormhole rippled, negative matter waves leaking through it.

  All Rafe’s training told him they should be dead. However, neither he nor Calendra needed the ship to survive any longer. The concept of life depended on a heartbeat, on respiration, and none of them, Interlace or Revenant, possessed either anymore. He still sensed the shifting phases in his body, though, which had grown in strength as his command of the exotic-matter tendrils increased.

  Calendra sighed, and Rafe couldn’t really discern where he stopped and she began. If they stayed here long enough, maybe they would meld together permanently. With each passing minute, his body faded a little bit more. Clinging to Calendra provided a few moments of relief. If he disconnected so deeply after only existing in the wormhole for this short a time, how had Calendra managed to survive a thousand years? Only a hollow semblance of a human being could have possibly survived in her form and yet he sensed so much more.

  She kissed her way up his throat and then gazed out to the chaos beyond him. “Look at it.”

  Rafe narrowed his eyes, open now to the world in ways he’d never been before. “We’re being pulled closer.”

  Ionic tentacles pushed into the maw of the ship and whipped around them. Calendra sat up straight and let one entwine her arm in a bizarre caress. “Soon we must leave this place.”

  Rafe pulled them both away from the opening. “Do you remember what caused the rift in the first place?”

  Calendra frowned and traced the angles of his face as she tried to recall. “The rift that sent us here closed shortly after we arrived. This one is new.”

  Telling her what Creed had since said of her history might push her back into madness. Her thoughts only whispered in the back of his mind at the moment. Calendra seemed more rational for the time being, but Rafe had no idea how long that would last.

  She cocked her head at an angle, heard his mind. “When you share yourself with me, like this—” she caressed his chest, “—I can think more clearly. The waves out there…” She pointed to the rift. “Those waves don’t feel a part of me right now. I don’t know how long this coherence will last. Tell me what you were doing in your experiment.”

  Rafe slipped on his shirt. If only he had access to his research, maybe he could solve their problem. “Like you, I was looking for new ways to generate a wormhole. I altered the proportions of exotic matter used in your tests. We both failed to find a new dimension, but maybe the rift is our way out.”

  She stood and nipped his jaw. “I should tell you to go. To at least try to take the ship through the rift, but I don’t want you to leave me here in this place. If I could bind you to me, I would.”

  Rafe couldn’t leave Calendra behind. Before falling into the rift, the woman had been a gifted scientist. She could be that again. “Come with me.”

  Calendra pulled away and picked up her shift from the floor. “I can’t. My people can’t. We’ve been here too long. Out there, we don’t exist. We have no cohesion. When you came here, when I sensed you, I realized you were different. I hoped you might help us, but you can’t.”

  He slouched back on the couch. “You can’t just give up. My sister will come for me. She won’t stop until I’m free. We can count on that.”

  Calendra closed her eyes and beckoned the wispy vines to her. They clustered behind her like wings. “You’re putting everyone at risk. Why?”

  “There’s risk no matter what we do. Would you rather continue existing this way or risk making it to the other side?”

  The vines lifted Mitch’s old jacket from the closet and carried it to Calendra. She slipped on the garment. “Very well. Send a message, if you can, through the rift with our coordinates. I don’t know how long the ship will last. It probably won’t make it through.”

  Rafe rose and cradled her face in his hands. “After I do that, take me to your ship. Take me to the Revenant.”

  “Not much is left of it. The wormhole has been eating away at it for so long.”

  “I need to compare what we each attempted. Discover where we both went wrong.”

  Calendra pulled Mitch’s jacket closed tight and shivered. “For you, I can try.”

  Mitch still tasted Lara on his tongue. Her musky scent infused him, engulfed him. It didn’t hurt that the woman in question lay curled up next to him, naked.

  Soft morning light filtered in from the window above and soothing but unfamiliar bird sounds twittered outside. At some point during the night they’d moved from the chair to the bed. Mitch had no idea what time exhaustion finally claimed them. Lara shifted and her curvy backside settled deeper against him, transforming his early-morning mellow excitement to a full-scale hard-on.

  He nuzzled the back of her neck and slipped one hand around to cup a breast. Lara squeezed his thigh and moaned. One small shift and—oh gods, yes—her warm, slick heat enveloped him.

  They settled into an easy rhythm like years before, their bodies syncing up well together even when emotionally they might as well have lived on different planets. Mitch didn’t want to think about the mistakes they’d made back then, couldn’t think about them right now.

  He would never let Lara walk out on him again.

  Mitch kissed her shoulder and smirked when the orgasm took her over. He’d never tire of watching the formidable Captain Lara Soto splinter apart and lose control. She cried his name as her body shook and then gripped him tight. The sensation sent him following Lara over that cliff. He ground deeper and dropped his face into her neck. Bodies liquid, they settled into the mattress in a dreamy otherworld state, a tangle of limbs and glistening skin.

  Tender words, words of love, swirled around in Mitch’s mind, but he couldn’t voice them yet. He didn’t want to risk ruining this moment, an event he had craved for over a decade. Later. The sentiment could wait.

  Lara rolled onto her back and pushed wavy, bed-head hair out of her eyes. She quirked an eyebrow at him and kissed him on the lips. “Coffee?”

  Sadly his attempt at speech came out a grunt, but Lara took it for the assent it was and hopped out of bed. She snatched up a stray T-shirt and tossed it on as she crossed the room, that curvy backside again in full view.

  Her commlink pinged from the main table.

  Lara caught his gaze across the bungalow as she answered. Guess that sentiment would really have to wait until later.

  “Soto here.”

  “Captain.” Rossa’s voice filled the quiet house. “We received a message from Commander Soto, ma’am. He’s sent us the coordinates of the Interlace.”

  Lara paled. At one point last night she told Mitch more about meeting Calendra on the Calypso. Rafe had managed to relay their coordinates. Was he now suffering for it?

  Or was this a trap?

  Lara cleared her throat. “Acknowledged. Assemble a crew and ready the Gry
phon for departure. We’re heading out in two hours.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Lara clicked off the commlink and without a word headed for the sani-unit off the bedroom.

  “Lara, wait. This is too easy—”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t even—Mitch, I don’t care if it’s a trap. I can’t let this opportunity pass.”

  He crossed the room, cradled her face in his hands. “You’re not leaving without me.”

  Lara sighed and leaned in closer. “No, not ever again.”

  Rafe’s knees buckled as they materialized onto the one-thousand-year-old Revenant. His flesh was not even human anymore, not even living, but still the transport wracked his molecules and pained him. Every muscle ached. No living thing could scatter themselves into particles, travel vast distances and recombine them at will. But that was exactly what he and Calendra had just achieved.

  So weary, he gave in to the inertia and let his body jumble to the floor. Or what was left of the floor. If parts of the Interlace were missing, then only parts of the Revenant remained. The mist had long ago devoured the bones of the ship. The floor directly beneath him was solid, but how far that ranged Rafe didn’t know.

  He sank his head into his palms. Calendra hummed a tune and floated away from him, her delicate touch fleeting across his shoulders. Mitch’s jacket hung loose on her narrow frame, but its weight did nothing to slow her drift around the room. Then, in a nanosecond, she sped across the room and her image seemed to be in multiple places at once. When she stopped, Calendra faced off a large cloud of mist and reached into it.

  Rafe gulped down his unease and flexed numbed fingers. “I expected to arrive on the bridge. What is this place?”

  Everywhere around them the wormhole’s foggy tendrils seeped, its hazy reach turning matter indistinct. That is, until Calendra touched it. Her wraithlike hands caressed a mass of mist and it hardened into a desk. She cupped a palm-sized cloud and it transformed into a picture frame.