“In a cloaked, Garradian…ship I flew up here.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
“Up…from where?”
He wished his mouth would shut up and kiss her.
“From hangers on the ocean floor.”
She grinned at him, but it faded into sober and she stood up. He did, too. She tilted her head back to look at him.
“It didn’t seem right being there without you on my six.”
It really was all right. He could see it in her eyes as her mouth curved invitingly. He touched the side of her face, his hand spreading across her soft, smooth skin.
“I do…like your…six,” he said, his voice husky.
“Next time I turn into a delta sierra, you need to call me on it. It’ll be good for my character.”
“I did notice.” Fyn slid his hands into her hair, still amazed he could. “I just thought I deserved it.”
“You did.” She grinned. “But I did, too.” Her hands settled on his bare chest. “I need a shower, but when I come out, I’d be happy to tell you all about it…as long as you promise to explain why you’re not in the brig.”
“Okay.” He wished he could join her in the shower, but he almost got stuck in there when he was by himself.
Her eyes softened, as if she knew what he was thinking. He hoped she did. Her mouth curved up again.
“I really am sorry, Fyn. It’s my stupid temper. No good ever comes from losing it. You’d think I’d figure that out by now. I should never have let Helfron pull my chain—”
Her eyes widened. Then they widened some more.
“That son of a bitch! That freaking, annoying, too smart for his own good, son of a bitch! I’m going to kill him with my bare hands. I’m going—”
Didn’t she just say losing her temper was bad? He grabbed her arms.
“Sara?”
“He did it on purpose. He knew.”
“Knew what?”
He wasn’t even sure what they were talking about.
“He knew you were Ojemba. That wasn’t a shot in the dark, Fyn. He knew.”
Fyn frowned. “But the only one who could know is—”
“Exactly. That son of a bitch is Kalian. He messed with my head, hoping to take advantage of the situation and it almost worked. I’m gonna kill him—”
She started to turn and Fyn grabbed her and held her. He could feel how pissed she was.
“Temper?”
“Oh.” She took a couple of deep breaths. He didn’t mind at all. “Right.”
She still looked mad.
“Can I spin his ship into a new orbit?”
“You can do that?”
Sara smiled, one heavily loaded with mischief.
“Maybe. Might stop my heart again.”
His brows shot up. “Don’t do that.”
He could feel her calm down. His felt like he’d been hit with a stunner. The pretty boy leader of the Gadi was the ruthless, brilliant Kalian? How was that possible?
“We can’t use the Gadi to pass a message to Xever. He won’t do it.”
Sara’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “I’ll figure out another way.”
Her gaze narrowed even more, but this time she was looking at him.
“I sure hope that’s not my towel around your neck, or we’re going to have another marital spat, cave man.”
Fyn felt his eyes widen. There had only been two in the head. He grabbed her waist and pulled her close. A distraction seemed like a good plan. He bent and kissed her, taking his time. She tasted good. Distraction seemed to be working. He knew he was distracted. He lifted his head and looked at her.
“How about I help you with those clothes?” He pulled her tee shirt up and off before she could stop him. “To make up for taking your towel?”
She sighed, a big one, but her hands were already sliding across his bare shoulders. That felt good, too. He went to work on her pants...
“I guess it’s…” She started to smile, but suddenly she froze, her eyes going wide.
“What?”
“Hotel sierra, I can’t believe I didn’t—I know a way to contact Adin without using the Ojemba—if we can get it to work…”
Fyn fell back on the bed, pulling her down on top of him. “You don’t have to do it right now, do you?”
She shook her head, her smile back on her lips. “I’ve been ordered to rest. I’m yours until 0600.”
Fyn rubbed his thumb across her mouth. I’m yours until…
They were going to war soon, going together. This loving a warrior, the risk of losing her—well, as Sara liked to say, it was a tough gig.
Part Four – Eighteen
It felt eerie and, yes, icky to be back on the outpost where she’d killed herself. Sara stood in the room where she’d died, not because it was crucial to the mission, but because she needed to face it.
Someone had cleaned up the blood and the food she’d thrown on the floor, but the remnants of the chains still hung off the chair. And the stone was stained a dark brown under that chair.
She could see it all, like a movie inside her head, and it even seemed as if she could still smell it. Adin’s scent as his mouth moved on hers. The heavy tang of the women’s perfume. The aroma of the exotic food they’d brought. The sickeningly sweet odor of her blood as it ran down her arms and pooled on the floor.
She’d been dragged in here by force and left it on a stretcher, more dead than alive.
She’d come back on her own two feet and packing lots of heat.
She tried to think of something profound to bring closure to the moment, but she was a military puke, not a philosopher.
At least this time, she’d be walking out on those same two feet.
Her radio crackled. “Donovan?”
It was Fyn trying to be a military puke, too. It was cute.
“Yes, sir?” She could play military puke with him. She’d had more practice.
Even though he had no rank, the Old Man had put him in charge of the operation. It was going to be a tough gig for both of them. She didn’t know which one of them had the harder job, the bait or the bait’s husband.
“What are you doing?”
“Improving my situational awareness.” She’d been over most of the outpost, getting a feel for the layout. Not all the stops were necessary. The place where they’d kept the women was not a fun stop. In keeping with the ship they’d captured, the theme of discomfort had continued. The only comfortable room was this one and the one she figured the commander of the base had used.
She could still see the calm certainty in Adin’s eyes as he outlined the situation. How had he become the kind of person who thought he was entitled to take what he wanted, do what he wanted?
He looked so normal and was even charming on the surface.
Evie was right again. Some people’s “nice” was barely skin deep.
This was—Sara had to take a deep breath even to think it—her father’s legacy. He’d labeled it with his own name. He’d made the monster.
Sara didn’t wonder how her mother could have fallen for him. How might Adin have affected her if she hadn’t met Fyn first? Sara had processed enough of the data from the science outpost to know that her mother had lived and worked with a bunch of aesthetes who’d quit feeling anything but intellectual curiosity. That’s why there’d been no children there.
In her way, her mother had been as emotionally…starved as Sara.
Whatever mistakes she’d made, she’d protected her baby and given her a great dad. Kyle Donovan loved her. In her mind and in her heart, Sara knew this. Every memory she had of him, in every look in his eyes, there’d been no holding back, no shadow or sorrow when he looked at her. If she survived this and made it back to Earth, she was going to ask the one person who could tell her if Miri had loved him. Miss Anne, the neighbor who took care of her after they died, had been her mom’s closest friend. If she was still alive, she’d know.
“Dr. Smith says it’s read
y,” Fyn’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“I’ll be right there.” Sara took one last look around, then turned and walked out. It wasn’t closure, but it was a start.
* * * *
The last five days had been filled with determined preparation. From the briefings that Sara sat in on, and the insights it gave her into the Old Man’s plans, it was clear why he’d been chosen to command the Doolittle—and why he’d been the one to take his ship the furthest out from earth. He was a tough, smart son of a bitch. No matter the outcome, it was both an honor and privilege to have served with him.
He was too smart to put all his eggs in one basket—or all his pieces on the game board. Too much could go wrong, even if Sara was able to lure Adin to the outpost.
So the geeks on the outpost had turned their attention to getting all possible weapons up and operational. Non-combat personnel had been moved down to the outpost and into bunkers. Everyone knew the outpost wouldn’t be hidden once it joined the fight, though the Colonel was hoping they wouldn’t have to use its resources in the battle.
They did know the portal could be used to evacuate the outpost if it became necessary, but no one could say for sure where—or when—the final destination would be.
Dr. Smith and team had also been working on ways to disable or disrupt the Dusan transmitters. Both ships had the capability to transmit a broad range EM pulse, but there was no way to protect friendly craft from the disruption in their systems.
The Doolittle did have some experimental, short range EM pulse missiles, but the problem always came back to the numbers the Dusan could bring to the fight. In addition to their big battle ships, they had about one hundred mid-range craft and—potentially—thousands of fighter craft.
In addition to some traditional, earth style weapons, and the EM pulse missiles, the Doolittle and Patton also had a variety of high-tech, experimental space weapons. These were energy based and included plasma cannons and lasers. They also carried a full range of nukes, together with space mines that were being deployed along the corridor the Dusan had used in the two previous attacks.
The Garradian craft all had some seriously fine, ass-kicking weapons, in addition to their phased cloaks and shields. The colonel had assigned the minimum of ten men to each of the four ships. They’d stripped weapons and shields from some of the fighters and fitted them to a Dauntless squadron and a Hellfighter squadron.
Literally the biggest advantage they had over the Dusan in a fight was their semi-autonomous fighting force, which gave them the ability to react and respond faster to combat situations.
Sara had no idea what kind of deal the Old Man made with the Gadi leader, but Helfron had produced pilots for the some of the cloaked ships, a bunch of grimly silent men that reminded her of Fyn. No one said they were Ojemba, but it told Sara that the Old Man had read The Scarlet Pimpernel, too. Or seen the movie.
Not that Sara saw any of the Ojemba up close and personal. The Old Man wouldn’t let them on the Doolittle. Any training in the Garradian stealth craft took place under the supervision of the Patton. She’d had to sneak peeks into the Patton’s monitors to see them.
Apparently the colonel had trust issues, too.
Sara had opened an email correspondence with Hawkins, when he sent her wedding congratulations, so she knew the Ojemba guys were good. He hadn’t seen any sign of the Leader, which made Sara uneasy, though she couldn’t have said why. There was no way for Helfron to know she wasn’t on the Doolittle.
As soon as Sara was able to un-goon the various computer systems, and made sure all the shields in the fleet were at their maximum efficiency, she and Fyn were transferred to the science outpost, and then they had traveled through the portal to this outpost to put their part of the plan in motion.
She found Fyn and Dr. Smith in what had been the Dusan central command. They’d converted some of the Garradian systems not affected by Miri’s lock, though none of it was neat or pretty. It was as if the Dusan were dedicated to being opposite to the Gadi every way they could—a sort of uber sibling rivalry still being played out, even though none of them knew it anymore.
They could have used any of the Dusan controlled outposts, but she knew this one would really pull Adin’s chain. This was where she’d eluded him. This was the first outpost she’d taken from him.
Both Fyn and Smith were both standing by an open console. A vice held four of the transmitters they’d taken out of dead Dusan. Smith had connected them to the consoles power supply. The other two had been destroyed in the EM pulse tests.
Dr. Smith looked at her uneasily. She seemed to have that affect on him. Or maybe he just had trouble with military pukes in general.
“It worked with the sub-space transmitter deactivated,” he said. “So, it should work with it on.”
“Thanks, doc.” Sara gave him a quick smile, as she bent and studied the connections between the transmitters and the console.
“I still don’t see how this will help,” he said. “Without a, well, brain, to complete the connection, they are useless.” As he spoke, he closed the console cover and locked it down.
Sara looked up at him. “It probably won’t work, but the colonel asked me to try.”
No one but the colonel and Fyn knew that it would be her brain that would attempt to make the connection, that would try to use it to sever Adin’s connection with his armada. Talk about going into uncharted territory.
From what they could tell, the communication module had two streams: one to send input to central command and another that received commands from there. If Adin sent commands to the device, Sara should be able to receive them, and hopefully relay them to the Doolittle, using the portal to bridge the space gap.
On the downside, it was possible that Adin would be able to sense the connection and disable it.
So things could go really well or really badly.
Or both.
“You’d better get back through the portal, doc.” Sara looked up at him.
“Of course.” He hesitated. “Shouldn’t I stay to make sure it works properly?”
“We’ll be fine,” Fyn said.
He nodded and left with the two jarheads who’d shadowed Sara around the outpost. It was a relief to be alone with Fyn, if only for a moment.
“I don’t like leaving you here.”
She didn’t like it either, but she had to be alone.
Adin and his people shot first and didn’t ever think. Probably never occur to him that Fyn might be a pressure point for Sara. Sex seemed to be his only subtle card and it wasn’t that subtle. Was that also a hang over from her father? His way of hitting out at Miri for eluding him? Both sides seemed to be heavily laden with Freudian complexes. Really weird, intergalactic, Freudian complexes.
It would have been funny if it weren’t such a freaking mess.
The Old Man had given them a couple of the cloaked fighters and a squad of Marines. That’s all he could spare. The outpost had a few defenses, but probably not enough to hold off a sustained attack from a battle cruiser. Its main defense seemed to be its ability to cloak, to hide. Unfortunately hiding wasn’t an option this time around. This battle would be one of wits, not might.
If she could make the connection.
And if he came.
Miri’s hologram had been right about her conscious mind blocking stuff. Since she’d quit doing it, her ability to access and control the Garradian systems had tripled—though understanding it all was still problematic.
She looked at Fyn. He looked pretty good in ABU’s, even with dreads. She hoped the Old Man didn’t make him cut his hair. Maybe she could convince him that like Samson, Fyn would lose his strength if he had to cut it.
He captured her hands and lifted one, then the other to his mouth.
“I don’t want you to do this.”
“I know.” She didn’t want to do it either. What she wanted was to take her husband and go back to earth, and to build a home together—for them and their
baby.
The nanites kept her remarkably well informed about what was going on inside her body—sometimes too well informed. It wasn’t something she needed to know right now.
“I love you…sir.” She tried a smile. It was a bit shaky on the edges.
He touched her face, his eyes telling her what he couldn’t say. Then he stepped back and left her.
She covered her stomach with her hand for a long moment. If she’d known, would it have changed anything? If the colonel or Fyn had known, she wouldn’t be here.
Whatever they would have done, didn’t matter right now. She was here. It was time to pull Adin’s chain.
She closed her eyes and reached out to the first transmitter…
* * * *
Adin Xever surveyed the preparations for battle with his mind, as he sat comfortably in his quarters—what Sara would have called the Supreme Leader suite. It was much more…supreme than the room on the outpost. He still looked at the huge bed and pictured Sara there, her eyes, her mouth, her body welcoming him home.
Was it just because she’d eluded him that he couldn’t get her out of his head? Or was it something more?
There was…something about her, about her people that he found uncomfortably compelling. This…freedom she talked about, it was a dangerous notion, one that would put his people at risk. But it did make them…interesting.
They seemed…larger…than the other people they had conquered. Colored in rich textures, too emotional, too…happy…to be dangerous warriors, but they were clearly dangerous to how things had been, how they always would be.
They reminded him of a breeze. At first it seemed…refreshing, but when it begin to sweep all before it, began to change things, it had to be stopped.
He did not ask himself how a wind could be stopped. He just knew he had to do it, before the contagion of their ideas reached his people. If these ideas were to reach the network, it would be catastrophic. He had already eliminated the two men who had gone to the earth ship with them. He had felt their…interest in the earth people. He even understood it. But it could not be allowed to spread.
All was going well. On the morrow, the armada would move out and it would remove all trace of Sara’s people from this galaxy. The contagion would be contained, their ships captured for study, the people exorcised.
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