Cat and Company

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Connell slipped and staggered and Bedivere hauled him back onto his feet.

  “Dizzy,” Connell muttered.

  “Oxygen deprivation,” Brant said. It took him two breaths to say it. “Think it’s time you did your thing, Bedivere.”

  Bedivere handed Connell to Brant, who helped him stand up. He concentrated on reaching out to the Aliza and inserting himself into the systems and snapping them out of ready mode and into active status.

  “Hurry,” Brant urged him. “I don’t have a single weapon on me.”

  He didn’t respond. He was too busy flying the ship.

  The sound of the big engines boomed across the hills, rolling like thunder. Even the ground vibrated. The Aliza could navigate through atmosphere, but it was an interstellar ship and the power of the engines matched that capability.

  The glow of the engines lit up the night.

  “They’ll pick us out against that!” Brant shouted, over the sound of the engines.

  “If they fire, I’ll see them,” Bedivere muttered.

  Connell flinched as a shot whined off the ground next to them. It was exactly what Bedivere had been waiting for. He saw the muzzle flash in the dark and used it as a location beacon and fired the particle beam…a narrow, sharply focused shot.

  Seventy meters away, the ground lit up like sunrise, the water evaporating instantly and the dirt burning and fusing itself into instant glass.

  Two seconds was enough. He turned it off.

  Silence, except for the whistling wind.

  “All aboard,” he said and brought the ship over to where they were standing, close enough so that all they had to do was climb up onto the lower step of the gangway.

  * * * * *

  Bedivere didn’t have to worry about sneaking out of the star system the way he had stolen into it. He blasted off the surface at full power, leaving behind a supersonic boom that would rattle the teeth of anyone nearby, and leapt for the outer atmosphere.

  As soon as the atmosphere stopped dragging at the hull, he jumped.

  “That’s not Charlton,” Connell said from the navigator’s chair as the star field reformed in front of them.

  Bedivere turned his chair away from the dash, so that he could see both of them. Brant stood behind the defense console, checking the monitors and feeds. He looked up as Bedivere swiveled. “You need time to regroup,” he guessed.

  Bedivere rubbed at his temples. “It’s a lot to take in and I don’t think we have the luxury of time to analyses it down to the last pixel. I just need to breathe for a minute.”

  He really did. There was a knot loosening in his chest that had been sitting coiled into white-knuckled tightness for months. No, years. For the first time in a very long time he felt as though he could take a full breath and not choke on it.

  Connell spun his chair so they were all facing each other across the flight deck. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Why would Sarkisian destroy the Last Gate? Of all the people who might have done it, all the theories over the years, no one has ever suggested it could have been him. He’s a boardroom warrior and everything he did after that was to further his ambitions. Destroying the Last Gate…that doesn’t fit the pattern.”

  “It does if you’re thinking very, very long-term,” Bedivere said.

  “Everything he’s done since then says he was thinking in centuries, not years,” Brant said, in agreement.

  “Then, why?” Connell demanded.

  Bedivere looked at Brant. Brant shrugged. “The Periglus, of course.”

  Connell stared at him. “They came out of the Silent Sector…”

  “We always theorized Sarkisian ran to the Silent Sector when his deal with the Soward Cartel was revealed,” Bedivere said, “and something destroyed Griswold and everything on it, five years before the Gate was lost.”

  “Sarkisian has known about the Periglus all along. He learned about them in the Silent Sector,” Connell concluded. “Then he destroyed the gate…to slow them down?”

  “And to give himself time,” Brant added.

  “Time for what?”

  “To set himself up as a champion of the Varkan,” Bedivere said. “He knew the legacy gate system was compromised, that the Periglus stole useful technology they came across. Of course they were going to use the gates. The gates fold space for anyone who uses them. Sarkisian is used to thinking long-term and he could see a time ahead when the Periglus would reach the settled worlds and we would be forced to destroy all the gates. Once that happened, the Varkan would be the key to interstellar travel. Anyone with a stake in their success would benefit in a big way.”

  Connell was staring at him again.

  Brant looked unhappy.

  Bedivere shrugged. “He thinks long-term,” he repeated.

  “He’s trying to set up another Federation-style monopoly that he holds all the strings to,” Brant said, sounding disgusted.

  Bedivere turned back to the dashboard. “Let’s go home.”

  “Where he’ll be waiting,” Connell said darkly.

  “Good,” Bedivere said. “I’m sick of running.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187

  “The next time you go off the grid, you have to tell me!” Lilly railed via the screen as soon as Bedivere settled the Aliza on the landing pad. “I’ve been holding things together here by the skin of my teeth! Get back to the suite right now!”

  “What’s happened?” Brant asked her quickly.

  “This conduit is not secure. Use the back tunnels,” she said shortly and cut the connection.

  Brant glanced at him. Bedivere connected with the city systems and straightened in his chair. “Oh…Glave save us. He didn’t wait a single minute.” He pushed out of the chair.

  “Hell and damnation,” Connell muttered as he got to his feet, too. “They’ll lynch us if we go out in public anywhere.”

  “That’s why we have to use the back tunnels. No wonder Lilly is in such a flap,” Bedivere said.

  “I’m not wired in, you two! Talk to me!” Brant demanded stridently.

  “As we walk,” Bedivere told him, waving him toward the entrance to the flight deck.

  “Or run,” Connell said, his voice low.

  They stepped off the ship and Bedivere paused to seal it up tight, taking his time over it and activating all the passive and active shields and security. He didn’t trust anyone in Charlton right now.

  Then he headed for the docking bay door, moving quickly. Connell and Brant kept up with him. “The meeting on the Hana just before we left for Mehtap,” he said.

  “We were there,” Brant reminded him.

  “Not afterward, when Catherine confronted me and screamed at me to stay away from her.”

  Connell sucked in his breath.

  “A ruse?” Brant said. “To deflect any suspicions?”

  Bedivere nodded.

  “You told her,” Brant said flatly, sounding disapproving.

  “I warned her, that was all. She put the rest together for herself. The public screaming was a way of distancing herself from me.”

  Connell had his head down as he strode. Then he lifted it sharply. “She mentioned the Darzi. Hell on wheels, Bedivere. He’s using it to make you look like a delusional addict. The clip is everywhere.”

  “I am an addict,” Bedivere said. “But I know I’m not delusional. Not anymore.”

  “Why expose you like that? What does he get out of it?” Brant said. “There’s no political mileage. You’re not a political figure and you never have been.”

  “It puts Catherine publically in his camp,” Bedivere pointed out. “He’s pulling up the drawbridge.”

  “He’s what?” Brant said.

  “Even I had to reach for that one,” Connell complained. “He means he’s setting up his defenses for a battle.”

  “What battle?”

  “He tried to take us out in Mehtap
. He’ll know by now he’s failed. This is the next step. Discrediting me before I point at him and speak his real name. It’s war,” Bedivere said, “just not a war that anyone can see yet.”

  “We can see it,” Connell pointed out.

  “Which puts you in the same danger.”

  “Wonderful,” Brant breathed.

  Connell was watching his feet again. “Most of the other city feeds are running pro-Devlin stuff. That biography of his, right after the Varkan bill of rights was signed.”

  “Of course,” Brant said. “Bedivere is bad. Devlin is good. And everyone who was airlifted out of Varnham or Sunita or Kashya will remember that Devlin knocked himself out saving them and swallow it whole.”

  “So did Bedivere. So did we all,” Connell said stiffly.

  “Besides, Cat did most of the work,” Bedivere added. “That’s not the way he’s spinning it, though.”

  Connell kicked at the floor as he walked. “What can we do? The guy is massively popular and you sound like a crazed delinquent, Bedivere. They’re calling for inquiries, wondering what the real reasons were for the decisions you made. They’re second guessing everything you’ve ever done.”

  “Wait until we get to the suite. I’ll feel happy discussing strategy behind a closed door,” Bedivere said.

  He didn’t say it aloud, but he also wanted to be behind a shielded and armor-proof wall, too. Suddenly, even these familiar and dear surroundings felt threatening.

  * * * * *

  Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187

  Lilly gripped Brant’s arm as soon as they stepped into the suite. Her eyes were wide. Behind her, Zoey stood stiffly at attention, waiting for orders.

  “Glave above, Brant! Someone beat Nichol August into a coma!”

  “What?” Brant said blankly.

  Connell gasped. He looked around the room. “Where is Yennifer?”

  “She left the moment the news came through.” Lilly hurried along beside them as they moved into the room proper. “Bedivere, they’re saying you did it!”

  Bedivere halted. “Me?”

  “There’s video,” Lilly said. “And you disappeared, all of you. I can’t prove you didn’t do it because you weren’t here!”

  “We don’t even know where August is,” Brant said calmly. “You and Connell have been searching for days. Do you know where he is?”

  Lilly shook her head. Her eyes were large and frightened. “There’s footage,” she repeated.

  “It’s fake,” Brant assured her flatly.

  “But it makes sense,” Bedivere said. “I’m crazy, remember? Unreliable and delusional. Finding Nichol August and beating him up sounds reasonable. It sounds like something I might do.”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Brant said quickly. “None of us would.”

  “No one else knows that. They can only see what Devlin is waving in front of them and what he’s showing them fits with what they already know, so they’ll believe it.”

  “Devlin did this?” Lilly cried. She looked more than shocked now. She looked wan and weak.

  Brant settled her on the sofa. “We’ve got a lot to tell you,” he said. He looked up at Zoey. “I’d like you to leave, Zoey, and I want the suite sealed once you’re gone. Nothing in. Nothing out.”

  Zoey nodded and winked out.

  * * * * *

  “He was found on Tordis,” Lilly said, rubbing her hand over her eyes wearily. She was holding a cup in the other hand and steam rose from it. “He had been beaten until he was unconscious and they’re not sure they will be able to bring him out. They might have to euthanize and regenerate. They found him naked, lying in a ditch. His DNA didn’t match the public records there and that was when they tried a wider search for a match. That’s how it became public knowledge.”

  “The footage?” Brant asked her gently, rubbing the back of her neck.

  “The quarters he was living in. Security feed.”

  “The beating took place in his apartment?” Connell asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. They can make it look like anything they want,” Bedivere said. “What are they saying my reasons are for doing it?”

  Lilly sipped from the cup. “They’re not, really. They don’t have to. You’re unhinged. You were seen entering and leaving the building. And everyone knows you’re inclined to disappear without warning these days, because you’re unstable. Ergo, you did it, for whatever reasons only your delusional mind understands.” She shook her head. “This is just horrible.”

  “All Varkan disappear without warning,” Bedivere said calmly. “Because we can. Most of the time, we’re jumping humans to wherever they want to go, only that will be overlooked. So will the fact that Devlin and August were drinking buddies.”

  “They were,” Connell breathed. “August sponsored Devlin when he first asked to live here.”

  “They go back a long way,” Bedivere said. “I think that what really happened was that August reached out to Devlin for help from his bolt hole on Tordis. So Devlin sent someone, but it wasn’t to help him.”

  “Why?” Lilly said. “Why is he so set on making you look so bad?”

  “Because Devlin Woodward is really Kare Sarkisian,” Bedivere told her.

  Lilly stared at him, as the coffee ran out of her cup and onto the floor, unheeded.

  * * * * *

  Once they had cleaned up the mess around the sofa, they moved to the dining table by unspoken accord.

  Brant put the brandy decanter and glasses on the table between them as Bedivere told Lilly about Akira Sala and the formation of Devlin Woodward. She sat with her hands folded on the table in front of her, her lips pressed together and her eyes very large and listened without interruption.

  It took a long while to explain it all, because he found he had to back up and explain everything that had led to him Akira in the first place. That explanation led to a dissecting of the last one hundred years, along with everything Bedivere could remember and that Connell had been able to put together about the miserable years he had spent in dark space.

  “I knew you couldn’t have dived so deep without help,” Lilly said at last. “I just never, for a single moment, ever considered that Kare Sarkisian might be still alive and at the root of it. It’s…fantastic.”

  “It sounds fantastic at first,” Connell said. “Once you get used to the idea, it explains so much that hasn’t made sense for a long time.”

  “It does,” she agreed and smiled at Bedivere. “You must be relieved to know you’re not the wreck you thought you were.”

  “I was a wreck and I’ll carry those scars forever,” Bedivere told her gently. “Sarkisian only pushed me there. He didn’t force me the sign the contracts or take the Darzi. I did that.”

  “Only because he’d already convinced you over the last eighty years that you were that person,” Brant said sharply. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  Bedivere shook his head. “Everyone has the capacity for darkness and deeds beyond ken. Even sweet Yennifer. He knows that. He just pushed me to the place where that darkness could emerge. I don’t like knowing that. I don’t like that he broke me. I just don’t have to stay broken.” He gave Lilly a small smile back. “That’s where our advantage lies. He still thinks I’m weak, that I can’t fight him. This August thing is just his way of making sure I stay down.”

  The alarm in his mind made him jerk with the unexpectedness of it.

  Connell swore, scrambling to his feet.

  “What’s happening?” Lilly cried.

  “Varkan. Under fire!” Bedivere cried, leaping from the chair into a dead run for the door.

  * * * * *

  Catherine scrambled the ship as soon as Mael alerted her. Devlin wasn’t aboard and that was unfortunate, yet the Varkan were just as happy to take her direction and there wasn’t time.

  It really was a scramble. Everyone had relaxed in the last few days, with the last of the Sunita people reloc
ated, finally. There were no emergencies to take care of and Devlin had declared that the Hana wasn’t going to move from the docking pad for a month at least, while they all recovered and rested from the marathon of the last two months.

  More than half of the permanent Varkan crew were scattered across the city. There were enough on board to run the ship and she really only needed one Varkan pilot to make the jump, anyway.

  Catherine strapped herself into the empty navigator’s chair next to Mael as the Hana moved out of the bay at a speed that had her drawing in slow, calming breaths as the walls and doors streaked past them. “Where are the Periglus?” she asked, trying to tally up the known systems that were closest to the three the Periglus had claimed. “And how did they get there so fast?” she added. “We destroyed all the gates.”

  “Kashya,” Mael said quietly, staring ahead.

  “Kashya?”

  “They pursued one of the routine Varkan patrols,” he said. “Then opened fire on them.”

  “Tell the stupid Varkan to jump away!” she cried.

  “They can’t. We need engines to physically move the ship. The first volley took out their engines.” He glanced at her. “They knew exactly where to hit.”

  Catherine shut up. Instead, she brought up the common feeds where the news would first appear and read the streams as they revolved. There was nothing there. This was too new and there were no humans and therefore no feeds in the Canum system where Kashya was. The alarm had been passed among the Varkan only.

  Mael jumped the ship as soon as it was a few lengths beyond the city superstructure. Catherine just had time to see the hundreds of ships pouring out of the city into the space around it and winking out of sight as they jumped, then the ship shivered and the star field reformed in front of them.

  Kashya lay ahead. The planet was green, where once it had been mottled brown and white. There was cloud cover.

  “They’ve developed weather already,” she breathed, stunned.

  “There,” Mael said, pointing.

  She looked.