“Now wait just a goddamn second. I never said—”
“You should get back to your office before that coffee goes cold,” Ella threw over her shoulder then disappeared into the upper levels of the ship.
Rian dragged a hand through his hair and stomped toward the steps, hating that almost every time he had the simplest conversation with the woman, his equilibrium got knocked off kilter…and more often than not, another tiny atom of coldness inside him became warmer.
In his office, Tannin squinted at the viewer screen.
“I think this will be finished in another few hours,” the tech analyst announced without looking away from the crystal display.
Well, thank frecking christ. Some good news at last. Now all he needed was to hear from Graydon to find out what had happened to Mae, and things could get back to normal. Or what passed for normal around here, anyway.
“Good. Keep me in the loop.” He grabbed his coffee, added a final splash of brandy, and then made his way up to the bridge.
As he walked through the hatchway, Lianna said, “If you ask me whether or not I’ve heard from Lieutenant Marshal Petros or Captain Admiral Graydon, I’m going to booby-trap your control console to zap you next time you sit down.”
“Fine, I won’t ask you.” He set the cup down on his console and dropped into the captain’s chair. “Instead I’ll order you to comm-link me to the Swift Brion. I think it’s long past time I had a chat with Captain Admiral Zander Graydon.”
She brought up the communication systems across the viewport. Rian leaned back in his chair, enjoying his coffee and the few moments of silence while Lianna worked.
“The Swift Brion is still too far out of range to make a direct comm-link, unless you want to pay the fee for the signal to go through a transit gate—”
“Do it.”
She spun in her chair to face him. “But that will cost—”
“I know exactly how much it will cost, but I want confirmation of whether Mae made it to the Swift Brion, and to talk to Zander face-to-face. I want to know what’s happening onboard that ship.”
A frown drawing her features down, Lianna turned her attention back to her console. “Comm-link connection going through now.”
An IPC officer appeared on the screen, comm officer insignia on his uniform. “You have hailed IPC flagship Swift Brion.”
“This is Captain Rian Sherron. I need to speak with Lieutenant Marshal Mae Petros.” It was a gamble revealing his identity, considering his recently bestowed status as an intergalactic terrorist, but he was banking on his reputation in the IPC still holding weight no matter what charges UAFA leveled against him.
The comm officer straightened in his seat. “Major Captain Sherron, sir. Just give me one moment, sir.”
Rian clenched his jaw over a sigh. No matter how many times he told these people he wasn’t a major captain any longer, they still insisted on using his old IPC rank.
“I’m sorry, sir. Lieutenant Marshal Petros isn’t onboard. She spent one rotation with us and was then reassigned.”
Reassigned? He clenched his hands into the armrests of the chair. Reassigned, or killed?
“Can you tell me where she’s taken her new posting?”
The comm officer shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have that information readily available.”
“Fine, put me through to the captain admiral instead.” He’d get some answers one way or another. Damned if this didn’t go some ways to proving his worst fear—Zander Graydon was no longer human. There was no reasonable explanation for Mae disappearing after one rotation, unless the Reidar playing Graydon had somehow found out her true reasons for being onboard the Swift Brion.
“Of course, sir. If you’ll just wait one moment?” The screen blinked and showed two rotating symbols—one the official IPC military crest and the other the unique insignia of the Swift Brion. The two characters spun through half a dozen circles before the screen blinked again and showed the captain admiral sitting in his office.
“Sherron, didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again in such a short space of time.” Graydon sent him a relaxed grin, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. A chill took hold of Rian’s spine and shook hard. Zander’s gaze had always held a hint of irreverent charm and humor, no matter how dark things got. But the eyes in that familiar face were stone-cold dead and devoid of emotion.
“I was actually calling up to chat with Lieutenant Marshal Petros, but it seems she’s been reassigned.”
Graydon shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “Sorry I didn’t meet her myself. She requested a reassignment and left after one rotation.”
“So I hear,” he muttered, crossing his arms. Yep, hearing a load of shite. “Can you tell me where she’s been deployed?”
Graydon shrugged one shoulder. “Not off the top of my head. I could probably find out, but it’d take a few days.”
“No need. I’ll find out on my own. You know I’ve still got plenty of connections.” He sent Graydon a grin that bordered on threatening.
The admiral sat forward in his seat again. “Well, if that’s all you need, I’ve got a ton of desk work to get through. We’ll catch up again next time we happen to be in the same region of space.”
“Sure, I’ll look you up. We can hit some bars and cheat some dirt-lickers out of their hard-earned currency, just like the good old days.”
“You might be able to get away with still doing that, my friend, but a captain admiral cheating at cards? That might be a bit hard to explain.”
Got you, slimy bastard. No matter his rank, Zander had never missed an opportunity to get out of uniform, hit some lowlife bar, and swindle a few of the well-deserving scumbag locals, even though it’d been years since they’d done it.
“Okay. Respectable drinks only, on your tab, Captain Admiral.” Rian added a barely acceptable salute after his words.
This time the smile Graydon sent him appeared clearly strained. “Good travels, Major Captain. We’ll talk again soon.”
Rian nodded, jaw clenched too tight to form any words, and disconnected the comm-link. Zander had pretty much never called him by rank, even when he’d still served in the IPC.
Frecking scum bastard alien. Fury and grief raked through the middle of his chest, that black hole inside him growing and swallowing up more of his soul. Two more lost to the Reidar. Okay, so he didn’t have proof that both Zander and Mae were dead, but considering the thing he’d just spoken to definitely hadn’t been Zander Graydon, his friends’ fates seemed pretty damned obvious.
Worse, he could now say with absolute certainty that the Zander he’d had onboard a few weeks ago had definitely been his old buddy.
In the short time since Zander had walked off his ramp, the Reidar had taken him out and had him replaced. Cold fury blustered harder, like icicles riding an artic blizzard, shredding his insides. He should have done more, acted quicker, when he’d seen Zander’s name on that list. Maybe he could have prevented this.
He unclenched his cramped fingers from the armrests of the chairs and reached out to wrap an unsteady hand around the cool coffee. He knocked back what was left in one long gulp, the brandy not burning enough to counteract the ice crystallizing inside him. Time to open that bottle of Violaine.
“Plot a new course.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the beads on his wrists clinking with their usual soft music. Need to add two more now. “Find out where the Swift Brion is, and even where she’s heading if you can. We’re going to take Graydon up on that invitation and surprise him with a visit.”
And with any luck, blow the goddamn frecking bastard’s head off.
“Yes, Captain.” Lianna wasted no time bringing nav data up onscreen. “Can I just ask, though, do you think—”
“That the Zander Graydon at the helm of the Swift Brion is a frecking alien piece of shite? Yes, I do.”
Rian shoved out of the chair and made his way to his office, where the disp
lay screen still ran lines of information, but with Tannin nowhere in sight. He snatched out the twinkling bottle of violet liquor and stalked through the ship, relieved he didn’t pass anyone along the way. If they saw him with the bottle, they’d give him that look.
He didn’t know what the frecking hell he’d ever done to deserve that particular expression from his crew whenever they saw him with his drink of choice. Wasn’t like he’d ever come on duty drunk, or gotten shite faced and embarrassed himself. Wasn’t like he hadn’t saved all of their lives several times over.
Wasn’t like you didn’t put them all in constant danger, either.
Well, christ. They knew the risks—it was their choice to be here in hell with him. Just like Mae had known the risks…but Zander. A bitter, acid ache twisted through his guts like a blunt knife, and he screwed off the top of the Violaine and took a quick mouthful as he walked down the rampway from the cargo hold out into the midafternoon sunshine. Fat white clouds drifted lazily through the bright blue sky, one casting a dark shadow over the Imojenna while a tepid breeze ruffled his hair.
Rian strode to the back of the spaceport and vaulted over the poor excuse for a fence then headed for a large tree in an otherwise empty field of low green grass. He’d never been down with the becoming-one-with-nature crap and most of the time preferred to stay on the ship. But sometimes getting out into the sun and wind, sitting on the grass and smelling the frecking roses, reminded him that, yeah, he was still alive, though by all rights he should have been dead a long time ago.
And maybe he was alive for a reason.
So while he was still breathing, he’d devote what time he had to trying to get payback for the things the Reidar had made him do, even though there was no salvation for him. Not since the Reidar stripped him bare and remade him in that godforsaken lab.
Chapter Fourteen
Tocarra
Mae settled back, casting a glance at a couple of passing passengers. She’d booked a private booth with a lockable door for Zander and her. For now, she’d left the hatchway open and had taken the seat that put her closest to the access.
The booth also had narrow, pullout bunks, handy for an overnight trip, though she didn’t plan on doing much sleeping. She was almost certain they’d gotten away undetected, but until they put distance between themselves and this damned planet, she wouldn’t be able to relax.
A static announcement declared the shuttle’s imminent takeoff.
“Hell, I’ve never been nervous about a single flight in my life, but after the way our last shuttle flight ended…” Zander’s shoulder brushed hers as he shifted, belting himself into the seat.
“Two shuttle crashes in one week? We can’t possibly be so lucky.” Chances of it happening were minute, but she still found herself reaching back and clipping the safety straps across her chest.
Zander sent her an exasperated frown. “I’m sure we could be. I won’t believe we’re home free until we’ve left this planet’s atmosphere. If I ever have to come back to Tocarra, it’ll be too soon.”
“I’d love to put it all behind me. But I doubt it’ll be that easy. Some of it was unforgettable.” She glanced at him, realizing too late how the words could be misconstrued, and heat flushed up through her chest. Idiot. Why did she have to say something like that when they were at last moving into a semicomfortable working relationship? She’d meant the brushes with death would haunt her, but as Zander clenched his jaw over an unreadable look, and a slow wave of heat unfurled within her, she admitted that night in the hot springs and cave would stay with her longer than the lingering terror of nearly being killed.
Zander touched her ponytail, running his hand down the length of it, and she tried to repress a shiver, wishing she had even half an idea of what was going on in that mind of his. Though he hadn’t been outright hostile since before the cave, he didn’t have full confidence in her honesty. And, of course, he was right.
Things had happened fast since they’d fled the hotel. She hadn’t given a second thought to burning her UAFA credentials to get them both offworld. Sure, she couldn’t return to the agency, knowing who her bosses really were. But she could have left without drawing attention to herself, simply turned in her badge and disappeared. Instead she’d put herself in their crosshairs. UAFA was nothing if not pedantic and fanatical about its rules and regulation. An agent who went off the books was taken care of hard and fast, disappeared in an imaginative variety of ways. And she had firsthand experience, having been tasked with tracking down rogue agents herself.
If she’d been on her own, she would have found some other way to slip offworld undetected. But the need to protect Zander had flashed hot and undeniable in her chest like a distress flare. Especially on the heels of that assassin they’d faced down.
Now she wanted to get him to Rian for completely different reasons. Knowing Zander wasn’t Reidar, and that the aliens wanted him dead, Rian and the Imojenna were the only safe place in the universe for him. And while unsettling emotion bubbled under the surface of her motivations, she didn’t have the luxury to think about what that meant right now.
This isn’t just about your job anymore, and you know it.
When he’d said those words to her, her heart had exploded into a frenzied gallop. Maybe he hadn’t meant them how she’d taken them, but there was no denying things between them had become an intimate, complicated mess.
The shuttle vibrated, and she looked through the viewport as the transport moved away from the docking berth and gradually rose above other ships and nearby shuttles. A moment later, they cleared the spaceport.
A muted boom echoed, and the shuttle lurched.
Mae latched her hands down, the fingers of her left hand curling into Zander’s thigh, while the breath in her lungs stalled to a painful halt.
“Oh, hell no,” Zander muttered, leaning over to look out the viewport.
But nothing else happened. The shuttle evened out and swung around into a steep trajectory. Through the window, a curling black column of smoke rose toward the sky, and Mae stretched across Zander for a better look.
“Oh my god.” Her breath returned in a stutter.
Where the Tocarra Intergalactic Hotel had stood, a burning tower of rubble dominated the block, while nearby buildings and part of the spaceport had taken some secondary damage. What had once been an orderly streetscape was a scene of utter carnage.
“The hotel…they blew up the frecking hotel.” Zander dropped his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. “All those people…”
Mae turned away from the viewport to stare blindly at the empty seats across from her, stomach tightening into a nauseating knot.
Should she really be surprised at the lengths the Reidar would go to? After that comm-link to the Swift Brion, she wouldn’t play dumb—Zander had been the target. Still, this was a scale of evil she couldn’t comprehend. How many hundreds of people had died just now? And how many more would get caught in the cross fire before this was all over?
She gulped over the churning sickness in her stomach as the shuttle hit orbit, and she unclipped her harness with stiff fingers. She’d agreed to help Rian discover the truth about Zander, but she’d never imagined the cost of that promise would be so high.
Zander took her hand in a tight grasp, and she turned to look at him, but he still had his eyes closed, his expression pained. Despite everything standing between them, she laced her fingers with his. She needed the feel of his skin against hers, even if it was only their palms pressed together. Because for all the other insanity her life had become, what she felt when he touched her was simple.
With a long sigh, she lowered her head to rest on his shoulder, and he let go of her hand to curl his arm around her. The tightness in the back of her throat turned into a lump, and she swallowed as her eyes started stinging.
Though she’d warned herself to detach from Zander once they left the cave, her resolve evaporated into nothingness. She couldn’t help turning into his
embrace and wrapping her arms around him.
She’d always been alone, relying on herself for as long as she could remember. Her parents had been factory workers, and while she’d never gone hungry, as an only child, she’d spent a lot of time alone since they’d worked long hours. She’d left to join the IPC foundational military college when she’d been sixteen and her parents weren’t able to afford to send her to school any longer. A few years later, the Assimilation Wars had reached their planet, and her parents both died without her ever returning to see them.
Yeah, she’d become close friends with a handful of people over the years, but she’d always managed to keep her self-reliant walls up…until Zander. Turning to him now, when it seemed like things were getting too much, felt natural in a way she’d never before experienced.
“We are not responsible for that.” Zander’s low voice rumbled through his chest against her cheek, sounding as though he was trying to convince himself as much as her.
Logically, his words were true, but the bitter taste of guilt and regret at the back of her tongue told a different story.
His arm tightened around her while his other hand cupped her cheek. But she didn’t want to raise her head to hear whatever hollowly encouraging, soldier-like words he had to say, designed to keep her marching. Though no tears had escaped, her lashes were damp, and if she could just keep her face pressed to his chest for another second, she could put her lieutenant marshal mask back in place. And then they could get on with adding this moment of weakness to the already long list of deeds they pretended hadn’t happened.
Except Zander gently but surely urged her head up, and she closed her eyes, because no doubt they were red rimmed. The last thing a captain admiral needed was his personal assistant going to pieces in times of crisis. She’d kept her head this far. Why should the deaths of who knew how many faceless people in the hotel punch a hole in her chest and make it so hard to breathe?
Because they were innocent.
They hadn’t been military, they weren’t trained in warfare, and they certainly hadn’t signed up to risk their lives, unlike those on the Swift Brion shuttle. No doubt some of the dead would have been families and children… Oh god.
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