Edge of Darkness

by Vikki Romano

  There was something ethereal about hovering in the vast silence of space. The void was nullifying, peaceful, and distracting. Silence so loud that it was deafening, and it allowed him to think.

  Bad idea.

  Thoughts of Sierra came crashing back, and so did the anger. Grasping his forehead, he closed his eyes and tried to blot out the myriad voices in his head. It was no use. When the voices weakened, he could clearly see her face in his mind. First smiling and laughing, and then bloodied and bruised, looking helpless.

  Fuck.

  Calder let out a roar and punched at the passenger seat. He tried to let out the anguish and regret in those moments. He could blame her all he wanted, but he also had to accept some of that blame himself, for not telling her how he felt years ago. For not acting on instinct. But he had never been good at relationships or showing emotions. He didn’t know how to do one without the other, and they were both very uncomfortable places for him.

  He’d managed to avoid most of it by joining the military. That was his life, and there were no relationships there, only comrades, team members. Everything was regimented, prescribed down to the minute. A soldier didn’t have time to fall in love. Falling in love meant loss, because eventually death found a way in. It was just easier to keep things on the level. Any kind of sexual gratification was for that purpose only. Gratification. There was no intimacy, no longing. There was just lust and relief. It was cut and dry. It served its purpose.

  Reentering the civilian world was a shock for Calder, but nothing could shock him more than meeting and then being partnered with Sierra Mason. She was tough, yet soft. Aggressive, yet compassionate. Eager, yet subdued. She was everything he could ever want and she was right in front of him. And he’d let her slip through his fingers.

  How many times had she given him a subtle sign? How many times had she flirted and he continued to back away, and for what reason?

  To avoid this very moment--the pain of losing her and he didn’t even have her. If he had, it would probably be debilitating.

  “Ghostwolf, this is base…” The voice startled him, and he wiped his eyes, blinking back his tears.

  “I’m here,” he said, tapping his HUD, realizing that he had drifted way beyond his allotted clearance. He looked in his mirrors and could see the S2 levels below him.

  Too far below him.

  “We need you back at base immediately,” the voice stated.

  Calder ran a hand through his hair.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Affirmative. What is your ETA?”

  Calder tapped a few coordinates into his HUD and scrolled through some info.

  “Give me twenty.”

  “ETA twenty. Over.”

  He tapped a few more coordinates into the HUD, then reengaged the jets to drop him back to the S2 level. What he hadn’t noticed were the blinking warnings that he had shut off earlier, and now they were blaring.

  “Opus, what’s our fuel readings?” he asked of his rig. Some numbers flashed through the HUD and then the system connected.

  “Fuel levels twenty-three percent, sir.”

  Shit.

  “How much fuel is needed for reentry into S2?”

  “Forty percent, sir.”

  He had burned half his fuel on his anger-filled joyride into space. And now he was royally fucked.

  “Opus, is there a refueling unit nearby?”

  More info scrolled on his HUD before the system clicked.

  “Negative, sir. Nearest fuel unit is thirty kilometers.”

  Calder blew out a breath and eyed the expansive void outside his rig. Even if he were able to flag someone, they wouldn’t be able to help him without the proper fueling equipment. His panic now became credible.

  “Ghostwolf to base…”

  “Go ahead, Ghostwolf.”

  “Belay my last, I’m having some technical issues, ETA unknown.”

  “Anything we could help with?”

  “Any chance you could get some fuel to my coordinates?” He keyed some numbers into his HUD and sent them off.

  “I’ll see what we can do. How much time do you have left on your tank?”

  Calder blew out another breath and tapped his HUD. He swallowed hard at the numbers he read there.

  “Fourteen minutes, fifty-three seconds,” he said, closing his eyes.

  It was a moot request. Base was twenty minutes from his location. Even at top speed, they could get to him in maybe fifteen minutes and they’d still be too late.

  “Ghostwolf, we can’t get to you in time. Do you have an escape pod on board?”

  “Negative, base, I do not. Will have to come up with a plan B. I may be able to flag a passing freighter.”

  Another moot point. Freighters didn’t come up this high. He could cut his engine and drop into a freefall, but then he wouldn’t have enough fuel to power his jets to slow him in time.

  Yeah, he was fucked.

  He leaned against the wheel and rested his forehead against his forearms.

  Think, God damn it.

  He looked up and bit his lip. He had no ballast, no additional fuel systems on board. He ran through a checklist of options in his head, and one by one, they were marked off.

  He had nothing.

  Another warning beeped and he looked down to see his decompression unit was nearly depleted as well. Grasping his neck, he squeezed, could feel the tension mounting, could feel his heart hammering, and, of course, at the most inopportune moment, he could feel him start to awaken.

  His hands were shaking. The oxygen levels were obviously diminishing rapidly. And as his windows started to fog, his vision began to narrow and then the bright flash of light overtook him. The pain was instantaneous but minimal, fading quickly as his perception suddenly went from white to black and then…

  “Onboard two two five, welcome, Calder McKenna…” The voice was disembodied, surrounding him, and then the blackness retreated and he was back in his seat.

  “What the fuck?” he said. What the hell was that?

  “Oxygen levels at twenty-three percent. Your breathing is being regulated. Drop to commence in fifteen seconds.”

  Drop? What drop?

  And then he realized that even though he was panicked, he wasn’t… panicked. And he wasn’t just sitting in his rig. He was his rig.

  He could feel the metal body as if were his own, torquing under the pressure of space. He could sense the engine idle, reserving its energy as if holding its breath. And when he reached out to touch the HUD, his arm didn’t move, but the HUD came up in his vision. It was a part of him. He was a part of it.

  “Opus, what’s happening?”

  “You have connected to our onboard systems, sir.”

  “Connected? To the systems…” Oh my fuck… His augment. It had linked to his rig.

  “Yes, sir, you have initialized a drop sequence. We have recalculated sources and will safely bring you to S2 in five seconds… four… three… two…”

  Before he could react, he felt the rig dead-drop from twenty miles above earth. The rush was both exhilarating and terrifying as he watched the ozone below him get closer, digital readouts appearing in his field of vision, and he was able to see his altitude and attitudes before him without the use of the HUD. He could feel the static of the rushing air against his skin as if he were bodily flying through space. Electricity moved through him, finding pathways to the onboard units, charging him with an exhilarating connection to his rig.

  “We are able to pull eighteen percent more energy from your neural unit, sir. Entry into S2 has been completed.”

  Calder looked out his window, winded for the second time today, and he could see traffic moving below him. Looking at his HUD, he could see he had enough energy and fuel to get him safely to base.

  “Base, This is Ghostwolf. ETA to base eight minutes.”

  “Glad to hear that, Ghostwolf. You were able to get fueled?�
��

  “Negative, base.”

  “How were you…?”

  “Long story, will debrief in seven. Out,” Calder said, then swung onto the skyway with a smirk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It unnerved him to disengage. He was told, by his rig no less, to simply step outside and it would happen naturally. He wasn’t sure how naturally it would happen, considering how unnatural it felt to be connected in the first place.

  Calder took hesitant steps onto the pavement, and as he stepped back, he could feel the connection snap like a rubber band in his mind, and just as quickly, it was gone. And it left him feeling strange, the vertigo catching him off guard. He braced himself against the door of his rig until it faded.

  Taking a breath, he thanked the stars for getting him back safely, but he didn’t have time to consider the ramifications of what he’d just gone through, as a shrill whistle came from the alley door. Slamming his door shut, Calder jogged toward Gage, who stood there waiting.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he neared, and Gage put a hand to his back as he walked in with him.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Gage said as he pushed Calder toward the control room, where a crowd had formed.

  Calder noted his concerned look as he went inside, and saw one of the techs holding a hand to his ear as he poked at a monitor in front of him.

  “What…?” he asked, turning back to Gage, who pushed a chair toward him and gestured for him to sit.

  Calder was in no mood to fuck around, so he pushed the chair away and crossed his arms. “You asked me to come back because there was a problem. What’s the fucking problem?”

  “Sierra,” Gage started, and nearly didn’t finish as Calder leaned forward and grasped him by the shirt. “You were right about the boyfriend.”

  Ice spread through Calder’s veins.

  “Where is she?”

  “We don’t know. She sent a message, but it was clipped and there was a lot of commotion during the transmission.”

  “I need to hear it, now!” Calder barked, and Gage hushed him with a wave.

  “Michael, play the message for Calder,” Gage shouted across the room.

  The tech tapped a few things on his screen, and after a few moments the message played on the room’s speakers.

  There was a lot of static and rustling, but it was clearly Sierra.

  “I can’t go,” she said, and there was some other talking that was indiscernible. “They’re waiting for me. I told them I… there… Is that… me to say…” Her words clipped again and the line went dead.

  Calder turned his eyes back to Gage, his mouth dry. He didn’t want to speculate what was happening, but his mind screamed the name so loud he almost shouted it at the top of his lungs.

  “Eric,” he said blandly. “Did you go to his house--her house?”

  “No one’s there. We tried to triangulate the call, but it was too short. Steven’s trying to work his magic to see if he can catch us a break.”

  Calder nodded and sat finally, leaning into his knees, clasping his head.

  “Her tracker?” he asked.

  “No signal.”

  “What?” That was bad. Either she’d removed it, and he couldn’t think of why she would, or Eric had, and he had every reason to. “Surveillance?” he asked, ticking off ideas in his head.

  “We’re on it. Digital data is being scanned. Can you think of any place he’d take her?”

  Calder let out a hesitant breath. He should be the one giving them intel. He should be the one leading them to her, but he wasn’t. He knew nothing about Eric, didn’t know where he worked or what kind of car he drove, because the twat kept it in a garage.

  And he never thought to push. Sierra never mentioned anything about him that could be of any use. All she ever mentioned were arguments they were having or stupid shit he did to piss her off.

  He should have asked. Damn it, he should know.

  “I know everything about her, but nothing about him, nothing about where they go or what they do. Christ, I should know more.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair.

  Gage shrugged. “And how much does she know about you?”

  Calder glanced at him sideways. Where was this going?

  “Does she know about NE2?” Gage continued, raising a brow.

  Calder sat back and leveled a gaze at him. “So we’re going there now?” he asked, straightening.

  “You didn’t think I’d let you into our group without checking your credentials, did you? This isn’t metro. We don’t keep secrets here.”

  “I’m sure you don’t know my whole story,” Calder said smugly. What did this guy know about him, and who did he tell? Holy shit, did he tell Sierra?

  “I know about Chicago, I know your parents won’t speak to you, and I know you have a sister.”

  “You could have gotten that info from my military files. They aren’t too hard to crack.”

  “I know you aced your entry skill tests and were given the opportunity to go OCS, but you decided to go into ground recon. Why? That’s like giving up the golden ticket to become a janitor.”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “They were dumb reasons.” Gage frowned, and then continued hesitantly, “I also know you were engaged once, before the military, and were planning to marry.”

  Calder’s eyes closed on that remark, and he swallowed the knot that suddenly formed in his throat like a ball of broken glass. It was a part of his past that he had buried and tried to forget.

  “That and a dollar will get you what?” Calder asked with a sneer, and sat back.

  Gage eyed him warily.

  “It’s the one thing I still haven’t figured out about you. You’re a decent-looking guy, I’ve seen you turn a few heads, yet I never see you with any women. Or men, for that matter,” Gage said with a smirk of his own, and Calder didn’t hesitate to extend his middle finger. “You didn’t date anyone in boot camp or SO training, and you haven’t made a play for Mason. Why? What happened with the fiancée?”

  “I really don’t want to get into this right now,” Calder growled. “We need to figure out where she is and we need to make sure she’s safe. Whatever you want to know about my life, I’ll tell you later. It’s really no epic tale. I got dumped, plain and simple, and I haven’t had time for women since. Now, can we get on with this investigation?”

  “Sure,” Gage said, narrowing his eyes momentarily, then he shook his head. “I have some other news for you. We got more intel on GenMed. There’s a ton of files we need to go through so we can get moving on that. We’re running out of time. From what I can see in the data, they’re moving on something big, and it’s going to happen in the next week.”

  Calder sighed and ran another hand through his hair. “Wonderful. Like there isn’t enough shit going on right now.”

  “We’ve got to focus. I know Mason is important to you, she’s important to this team too, but GenMed is the target. We need to take it down and it needs to happen soon.”

  “I hear you. We’ll get it done. I’m just worried about her, you know? He treated her like shit. I know he hit her, but I don’t know if he’d do anything really… seriously… violent. I don’t want to take that chance.”

  “Yeah, me either,” Gage said, getting to his feet. “We’ll find her. We have a good team.”

  Calder stood as well, and followed Gage through the crowd. There were people at every monitor looking over digital feeds, trying to retrace Sierra’s steps after she’d left the safe house. His mind continued to scramble, grasping at tidbits of memories, trying to find that needle in the haystack. She had to have left a message, a code. It was standard protocol. Anytime they were in danger, agents knew to record code words. Even if they were being detained, they knew to say something that would trigger information on location.

  He had to listen to it again.

  “Michael, I need to hear her message
again,” he said, tapping the back of his head. “I need to upload so I have a personal copy.”

  Michael, the tech at the monitor, nodded firmly and began tapping at the monitor, swiping and moving things around. After a few minutes, he turned and handed Calder a data stick.

  Calder looked down at the generic stick, and a shiver ran through him as déjà vu played through his mind. Puffing out his cheeks and blowing out a breath, he turned his wrist over, tapped a few numbers into the grid there, and waited for the data to load.

  The upload was, thankfully, quick and uneventful.

  “I’m going into your office to listen to this in private. I’ll let you know if I find anything,” he said, tapping Gage’s arm as he passed him. Receiving a thumbs-up, he turned and jogged down the hallway to the office at the corner of the building.

  He didn’t turn on the lights. He wanted it to be dark. He concentrated better in the dark.

  He sat on the leather sofa just inside the door and kicked the door shut with his foot as he sat. Blowing out another breath, he touched the grid on his wrist and sequenced the audio playback. Within moments, he could hear Sierra’s voice inside his head.

  “I can’t go… they’re waiting for me. I told them I… there… Is that… me to say…”

  Calder squinted as he tried to decipher the sound of her voice. She wasn’t crying or angry when she spoke, but it was clipped. It wasn’t her normal melodic tone. Something was there. Something had to be there.

  He tapped his grid a few more times and closed his eyes. Her words replayed again, this time clearer, the rustling in the background defined. And there was a strange hum, like a whine that he couldn’t figure out. He played it a few more times, furrowed his brow as he listened and relistened. He had to clean up the talking in the background, see if he could figure it out.

  As he concentrated on her voice, something happened. He could picture her in his mind, and tried to decipher what she was doing as she spoke. He strained to hear the unspoken words and then, suddenly… he was inside the data as if he were holding it in his fingers, juggling it to find order.