by Mason, Jolie
His father. Yes, he would have been an obstacle. What would Alec have given for a second chance for an heir to the kingdom he could control? Even as he thought it, he knew Ari had already been down this road. She’d given him to her brother. God, no wonder she’d left.
“And after Alec? He’s been gone a while. Why didn’t you tell me?” Jace open and closed his eyes trying to clear his mind.
She stood with her eyes closed. “Jace was happy”, she whispered.
Her voice layered with pain, she leaned her head back. “He had a mother and father, and he loved them. He had siblings and a future. I was supposed to just shatter that? For what? For you or me? We aren’t that important.”
Caden dropped his own head onto the inclined mattress. There wasn’t much to say. She’d been a kid, basically, and he couldn’t argue with her logic. Still, sparks of anger smoldered beneath all the reason. They’d lost much more than he’d ever believed because she didn’t trust him to come to her if she called.
“I would have come.” Anger seeped out in his voice. “You could have told me.”
“What would you have done?” She stood quickly. “Let me guess, you’d have stood up to your father. You would have fought for us. That ship sailed, Caden. The day you boarded a transport to go to a damn private school just like the old man wanted.”
“I did that for us!”
“I know! And I told you it wouldn’t matter. It didn’t. That bastard never stopped making me pay, not one day.”
“So, I had to pay? I had no right to know my own child!”
Fury built in Caden, but it wasn’t aimed at her. She was definitely getting caught in the crossfire, though. He had to fight the urge to break something. His father deserved so much worse than he’d gotten. The misery the man had dealt to an entire world was ludicrous. It had taken years to win the confidence of a populous that had been exploited, even as their world was polluted.
His stomach twisted. She would never forgive him. He might never forgive her. It was over. He’d been living a delusion.
“Get the doctor in here.”
She looked at him. He could see her relief. Jace, her eyes seem to rejoice. She waved the doctor over.
“What does my son need?” Caden asked the question tersely.
The doctor swallowed. “He needs several things. The damage is extensive. His spine is severed. There is a cloning procedure, if we get him to one of the inner planet hospitals, that would allow us to regrow the bone. He’ll need a bone marrow match, which you appear to be. Beyond that, he’ll need time and care. It’s going to be a hard road back. His other wounds are serious, but mending.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “There is also the matter of his being in a coma.”
“Coma?” Ari tensed again. Caden hadn’t taken his eyes off her for long since the doctor had entered the room the second time.
“Jace was still attached to the neural interface when the blast hit him. We can repair his physical injuries, but it’s no guarantee. The neural connections were unnaturally severed. It’s just impossible to predict how much damage there is at this time.”
“You mean, you think he’s in neural shock?” It wasn’t something that could be found on a scan yet, but it was a very real phenomenon. Jace hadn’t disconnected from the system using procedures. He’d been forced out by injury. It was probably a miracle he was still breathing, and the pain would be excruciating.
There was no guarantee, just as the doctor said.
Ari ran a hand over her eyes. “Which hospital?”
“I would recommend Sensor Prime. There is a center of neurology there that is the best in the galaxy. I have some contacts there who specialize in neural implant technology.”
Ari commed Luca with the new navpoint. “Captain, the shuttle from the Merriweather just dropped off some passengers. Are they coming with?”
“Yes”, she answered. “We’re in a hurry.”
Dr. Zann excused himself to see about his full house, while Caden continued to stare at Ari’s drawn features. He’d watched her every reaction as her secret unfolded. She probably wasn’t even aware of the vast mix of emotions she’d shown him. The one feeling she’d radiated more than any other was pain. It was hard for the part of him that was angry at her to stay that way. It was also difficult not to be mad at her. He rubbed his aching forehead at the confusing thoughts chasing each other around his already abused brain.
“You want to talk?”, he asked.
“We’ll be in Sensor in three hours, but we’ll need to go planet side and send the crew to the array to recharge the power cells. Do you need somewhere to rest or would you prefer to stay here?”
Caden looked around the medbay. “I’d say the doc needs the bed.”
“You can lie down in my cabin after we talk. I’ll be needed on the bridge soon.”
“That’s fine.”
She stopped in front of him, but turned her head his way. “You’re awfully calm for a new father.”
He stood and grimaced at the pain. “I’m really not, but I’m in no condition to argue either. We just need to get somewhere so I can sit down.” She breathed in as he moved to stand behind her.
“Fine. Let’s get you out of here. You need help?”
“Just gotta go slowly.”
Caden gingerly tested out his legs to find they were already much better. He walked a little faster behind her as they reached the open corridor. The largest concentration of personnel were helping in the medbay, so that the ship became strangely silent as they progressed to the other end of the crew deck to get to her cabin. It was isolated along the back of the ship above what would be the power cells on the deck below.
She opened the door and light automatically flooded the room. Caden stumbled a little as he approached her bed. Ari moved to help him walk the rest of the way. “You’re tired. You should rest.”
“When can we see him?”
“Doc says only if he wakes up. He’s apparently very weak. They don’t want him exposed to illness.”
She brought a blanket from her chair and spread it over his legs and torso. As she turned away, Caden found himself holding her arm. “Stay with me”, he said. His fingers splayed around her arm and up to her shoulder. “Please.”
She stopped moving. He tugged her closer till her knee hit the bed. She leaned over him confused. “Rest with me. Just a moment.”
Ari sat on the bed, then let him pull her into his body till she curled into his arms. “Are you sure this is something you want, Caden? You have a lot of drugs in your system.”
He smiled so tightly it was barely a smile. “It isn’t the meds. I need you.”
She nodded, but he didn’t think she really believed it as he curled himself around her slowly and went to sleep.
Chapter Five
Caden stood near the airlock watching the med team wheel his son out on a cart. A kid he never knew stretched out with ravaged features and wounds visible everywhere on his body. A man really, a soldier in his way. Caden pinched his brow, and his gaze slid to Ari where she stood issuing duty orders to the navigator for the twenty four hour charge cycle at the Array.
They hadn’t spoken much since last night. Caden didn’t want to be angry at her. It wasn’t fair to be angry at her, but it wasn’t much within his control either. He kept thinking he could have done something if he’d only known, played the hand differently. So they could all be together.
It had been disconcerting to wake up in her cabin surrounded by her scent, her warmth, and, deep down, he’d been livid. He’d wanted the years he missed with his son. He’d wanted to go back, make her call on him to protect them. He’d held Ari against himself and hated her a little, just for a minute. He’d left without waking her.
Picking up his bag, he followed the med team at a much slower, stiffer pace. His leg ached from the now healing fracture. Footsteps behind him clomped down the airlock, echoing as they moved through the dim track lighting. The faint odor of ozone t
hat always lingered in an airlock bothered him, and the tinny knocking of boots on the flexible metals in the tubing annoyed him more than usual today.
“Hey, you doing okay?” Abernathy shifted his kit from his right shoulder to his left as he flanked Caden to exit the airlock.
“I’ve been better.”
They walked up the ramp leading to the promenade where he would get in the ambulance transporting his son. He kept saying it in his head, and it still sounded strange. His son.
Abernathy looked him over shrewdly. “You are not fine. You, my friend, are a powder keg of crazy.”
“She didn’t tell me”, he said incredulously. “He’s eighteen! What? There are no comms in down space?”
Abernathy shook his head. “Look, man. You are talking to the one guy around here who met your dad, so don’t give me this song and dance. He was a fucking monster. You know it. I know it. She wasn’t wrong.”
“I know that! She... We could have disappeared. She never even gave me a chance.”
Abernathy chuckled. “How? You could play what if all damn day. You and I know you aren’t over that woman, and you won’t be till your dead. Save us all a lot of bitching, huh? Just get over it.”
Two massive doors rose before them in the hub terminal. The crowd thickened making it impossible for him to tell Kent where to stuff his advice. The bastard. He was the only man alive who could get away with saying it.
The medics stopped near a station and called the transport company from there. Beyond the terminal, the bright white lights of the Palinade glared on the glass. That was the local name for the long, commercial strip stretching across the down town of the major city. There were so many lights in the high rises around them that it caused a twinkle when you took in the view from space.
Lights flashed everywhere you looked. Come-ons in neon. Transportation units whizzed through tubes, and signal lights blinked. The voices of the crowd blended to one massive cacophony, even as tinkling music poured out of the pubcoms. Gambling kiosks dotted the landscape. Sensor Prime hadn’t changed a bit, since his undergraduate days, except in size. The attitude was the same; wine, women and song.
Caden had a multitude of reasons not to like it; pollution, crowds, and near death experiences numbering among them. The place stank with his bad memories. It was just possible that it would hold even more by the end of the day.
Ari’s voice behind him talking to a hubcab driver drew his attention, as it always did when she was in the room. Her dark tail of silken hair hung long down her back. She wore a knee length coat with clean lines and a few battered spots on the side. She looked more like a pirate than a trader sometimes. This was one of those times.
A flier painted with a hospital logo pulled up in the drive tube to receive Jace . Caden stayed close behind the group of medics as they loaded Jace into the back of the flier. He jumped up beside his son, and arranged his bag before he sat down. Abernathy took the passenger seat with the driver, in order to watch the route and identify security threats. While the door remained open, Caden watched Ari angle herself into a street cab. Smith, her first mate, rushed to help her into the cab. His touch on her lower back was intimate. Ari’s smile up at him was also intimate. He watched as Smith laughed at something she said like comfortable friends. The ambulance door closed with a loud bang, and he couldn’t see her anymore which was probably best for everyone.
Caden processed the scene carefully in his mind on the ride, trying not to let his current feelings for Ari cloud his thinking. They’d been lovers. Body language revealed things, and it had just clearly shown him that Ari had a relationship with her second in command. Did she still have one?
He wasn’t certain what he was feeling as the craft took off with a hard pull up into air traffic. He did know that whatever he felt was uncomfortable and there was entirely too much of it. He studied the medic checking tubes running into Jace’s arm, and at the rows of medical supplies in neat little cubes overhead. Finally, he forced himself to look hard at his son’s face. He had put it off. He wasn’t sure why.
He had Ari’s nose. There was something about the chin that was all her, but Jace was tall and lean where his mother was average in height and curvy in places. After a moment or two, Caden started to see himself in the boy before him. He wondered if he ever would have noticed without this incident. He wondered if Ari would have ever told him.
The trip to the hospital was a short one. The ambulances arrived on the hospital roofs far above the teeming city below. So high, that wind whipped around their heads harshly as they rushed toward the lights in the central tower, making him grateful for the coat he’d had delivered to the Bell.
Sensor Memorial Medical Center stood high in the heart of the commercial district. It was made up of three large towers that connected to a central tower from which one could access the whole hospital as it contained the lift system and general administration offices. The hospital complex was huge, as big as a major city, and the doctors were some of the best in the quadrant.
The halls blended into a haze of brightly lit, falsely cheerful waiting areas, office suites and commercial art as they made their way to the Major Trauma Unit in the second tower. Jace remained still as stone. He was breathing. That was, in itself, a miracle.
The trauma unit took up a whole floor, and he’d already called ahead to toss creds around to ensure Jace got the best care. It wasn’t his style to use his money this way, but it was useful to change in the face of new circumstances. His son would have the best. He’d missed enough of his life that he felt no compunction at giving him what he could now, comfort and lifesaving treatment.
Medical staff had readied a room prior to their arrival, and tests were scheduled throughout the night. Jace’s treatment would begin immediately.
Caden arranged a work space at the table beside Jace’s bed where he could keep up with the developments in the investigation into the pirate base and taking of the ship. He was also awaiting word on the decryption of the chunk of data Jace had managed to upload to the Bell. This way he could be apprised of test results at the same time.
He was there nearly an hour before Ari and her FM arrived. Smith walked behind her, standing out in his crisply laundered ship uniform. Ari, on the other hand, looked soft and approachable in civvies. She also looked like she may have been crying in the last few minutes.
Looking up from his datapad, he said, “Ari? What’s wrong?”
She waved a hand at him. “I’m fine. What do we know yet? Where is he?”
“They took him for some scans. He’ll be back soon.”
Ari walked toward the table where Caden sat trying very hard not to glower at Smith, who stood back but clearly on guard. Judging from his body language, Smith saw Caden as an enemy. Well, that feeling’s mutual, Caden thought.
“Any word on what they found? In the data?” Ari asked.
He shook his head, then he considered her question. “Why?”
“It needs to be worth something. If he doesn’t... It just needs to be for a purpose.” She broke off as though the rest of her thought were forbidden.
“He’d say so, Ari. It saved his... his dad.” Just like that. It was back again. The suffocating loss of years. “Does he know anything? About us?”
Ari shook her head. “He was young when I left. What we couldn’t convince him was true we had implanted”, she said the last part on a shamed sigh. He still felt that confusing anger, still he had to tell her one thing.
“You were right, you know.”
Confusion on her features made her eyebrow lift and her eyelids lower. How many of her expressions had he been playing in his mind like old recordings? This one was as familiar to him as if he’d never left. Disbelief. Skepticism.
“My father would have seen him as a guarantee of his legacy, an object, a pawn. I doubt he’d have even let me know he existed since I’d shamed the family so.” Caden pushed on the interface and shut his computer. “I understand what you had to lose.�
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She sat. “You understand.”
“I’m not saying I’m over it, or that I don’t believe we could have avoided this, all of it. I am saying I understand the choice.”
“You think you could have convinced your father to let us go?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Caden drew in a deep breath. He’d inadvertently pushed a button. She was angry now. The expression he saw clearly was her fury squint. She’d been giving him that squint since she was sixteen.
She took her own big gulp of air, like she’d been punched. Where he’d expected temper he suddenly saw calm and anguish, as if the fight had drained from her in a rush. “You’re forgetting something. I’d already been left behind to fend for myself. I had no way of knowing what you’d do. You were as likely to go along with your father as you were to fight him. It was too much risk.”
“You knew I meant to come back for you.”
“I knew you thought you would. No one really believed you would come back for New Haven ghetto trash. After a while, I didn’t believe it either.”
Caden stood suddenly causing the chair to jump with a bang. Smith moved closer as if to protect Ari. That infuriated him. He was the bad guy? “Would it be possible to have a private conversation here?”, Caden growled at the larger man.
Smith shook his head. “Not bloody likely.”
Ari said quietly, “Jack, don’t. Caden’s not going to hurt me.”
The two men squared off, reading each other. Smith didn’t believe Ari’s assertion that she was fine with him, and he considered Ari his to protect. Caden saw it, and, without saying a word, conveyed that his feelings were the same. The two were in stalemate, and they’d never be friends. At least, now, they understood each other.
“Hey, our rooms. We need to claim our rooms at the hotel. Could you do that for me, Jack? They might give them away, if the town fills up, and I want to be here when the doctor comes.”
Caden watched the big man struggle with the need to say he shouldn’t go, but, instead, he nodded at Ari because that’s what she needed. But, it bothered him. Oh, brother, did it bother the man?