“Thoughtful of you,” Makkon said. “I’ll ask her. We got off on a tangent.”
“I bet you did.” Brax’s snort was almost a laugh. Then he lowered his voice. “Look, enjoy a quick fuck if you want, but don’t get sidetracked. We have time, but not infinite time. Find out more about the artifacts and try to capture that other officer. The scientists all give the impression that she’s a well-known researcher and a valuable asset for the military. She might be our best hostage.”
“I’ll get her.”
“I’m sure you will, hunt leader.” Brax snorted again. “Keep me updated. Out.”
Brax was working his way up to a Challenge, whether he knew it or not. But Makkon forced down his irritation. He had lost his prisoner, and until he had Tamryn back, along with this other officer, he wouldn’t feel comfortable returning to the others.
• • • • •
The door to Captain Porter’s lab was missing. A wave of soot painted the walls on either side of the empty doorway, and shadows dominated the interior. Tamryn doubted Porter was inside, but she walked in, wondering if the artifacts had been discovered. Porter kept them in a vault when she wasn’t studying them.
The lights should have flicked on when she entered, but they remained out. Tamryn eased to the side of the doorway, sensing that she wasn’t alone. She almost stepped on the warped and blackened door. It had been ripped—or blown—off its hinges and dumped on the floor. The lab itself did not seem to have suffered damage. Counters with stools lined the walls, and a big table in the center held stacks of paper, as well as scientific equipment Tamryn couldn’t have named.
“Tam?” came a soft voice from the shadows in a back corner, a woman’s voice.
“Captain Porter?”
“Didn’t I tell you to call me Anise?”
“Yeah, but you were the highest-ranking person even before—” Tamryn cut off what she had meant to say. She didn’t want to talk about how Captain Ram and almost everyone else was dead, especially not when she had just been letting herself be fondled by one of the men responsible. “You’re a captain.”
Anise walked out of the shadows, glancing toward the corridor. She carried a laser rifle and wore her TacVest, even though Tamryn had never seen her with weapons before. Half the time, she wore civilian clothes, and she only came to P.T. about once a week. Even though Porter must have to qualify on the range every year with rifle and pistol, Tamryn wanted the weapons in her own hands, even if one of those hands ached wickedly from being contorted on its way out of the cuff. Anise’s short, brown hair stuck up in all directions—she’d once confessed she was far too busy to condition and primp long hair—and she wore smart-glasses that corrected her sight along with having myriad other functions. Judging by the lack of lights, seeing in the dark was probably one of them.
“Captain of research.” Anise snorted as she came around the table. She held out one arm for a hug, keeping the rifle pointed toward the door with the other.
Tamryn accepted the hug, relieved to have an ally, but she kept it short. She didn’t feel safe staying here. “You’ve seen them, I take it.”
“I went through all the station’s camera feeds while I was cowering in the vault, and wondering if it was safe to come out or if I was going to have to pee on some ten-thousand-year-old artifacts.”
“Did they know you were in there?” Given all the explosives floating around the station, Tamryn had a hard time believing the intruders hadn’t been able to find sufficient ordnance to blow open a vault door. “And would you mind sharing one of your weapons?”
“Of course not. I’ve seen you shoot.” Anise handed her the rifle and kept the pistol for herself. “There are some knives in that drawer over there. They’re more for dissecting ice frogs than for hurling at enemies, but you may find something useful. As to the vault, I don’t think they knew for certain that anyone was in there. They never saw me, and my scent is all over the lab, so it probably would have been tough to tell. And given the size of the vault, it doesn’t really look like something a human would stuff herself into, right?” Anise waved at the waist-high metal door in the back corner of the room.
“Not... willingly.” Tamryn checked the charge in the laser cartridge. It was full. Anise must not have fired at anyone yet. “What do you mean your scent?”
“All of their senses should be far superior to human average. Speaking of that...” Anise sniffed a few times. “You smell like you’ve been cleaning lavatories.”
“Long story. What do you mean their senses are superior? Do you know who they are? Why they’re here?”
“I have a hypothesis as to who they are, or at least whose descendants they are. I have no idea why they’re here, but obviously their intent isn’t friendly.” Anise’s lips flattened, but she gripped Tamryn’s shoulder. “At least we’re still alive. We’ll have to find a way to wash you. There’s not anyone tracking you now, is there?”
“Uh.” Tamryn felt like a ton of bricks had fallen on her. Superior senses. Back in those maintenance shafts, had Makkon been tracking her with his nose? If he had found her earlier, then he would have no problem doing so this time, with the lemon floor cleaner dried on her skin. “Shit.” She grabbed Anise’s arm. “We have to get out of here. I may have led them right to you.”
Her throat tightened as she strode for the door. She paused only long enough to grab a folding knife from the drawer and stick it into her pocket. She felt like such an idiot.
Fortunately, Anise did not resist being tugged along. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Tamryn could find a place to clean all trace of odors from her body, and they could—
Some instinct warned her of a threat in the corridor before she stepped out. She didn’t think she had heard anything, but she swung the rifle to the left, hoping to catch whoever might be coming before he arrived.
But Makkon stood right by the doorway. His hand darted out, and he caught her rifle by the barrel, knocking it up as she fired. The laser beam blasted harmlessly into the ceiling. Tamryn jumped back, trying to give herself room to shoot again, but he yanked the rifle from her grip and swept her legs with a kick. As she fell, she saw Anise leaning out to fire. Makkon disarmed her and had her face plastered to the wall before Tamryn hit the floor.
“Let’s talk about artifacts,” Makkon said coolly, looking at Tamryn rather than his new prisoner.
While leaning against Anise’s back, ensuring she could not move, Makkon slung the strap of his newly acquired rifle over his shoulder, then fished something out of his pocket and flicked off a cap. A syringe with a needle. A jet injector would have been more practical and could have held multiple doses, but Tamryn found herself staring at the moistened tip of the needle. Somehow it seemed far more ominous than an injector.
“Faster reflexes too,” Anise said, her words muffled since her face was mashed against the wall. Her glasses had fallen off, hanging on a slender chain around her neck.
“So I’ve seen.” Tamryn pushed herself to her feet. She glanced behind her, wondering if running would cause Makkon to release Anise in order to chase after her. Even if it did, she doubted she could get far. He would have time to run her down, fling her over his shoulder, and return before Anise had taken five steps.
She looked in his eyes, searching for... she wasn’t sure what. His gaze was intense and for her only, but it lacked the warmth that had been on his face briefly back in Comm and Control. He was probably irritated that she’d escaped, and that he’d had to waste time hunting her down again. Well, she was irritated that he’d found her. Didn’t he have any other duties to attend to?
“Inside,” Makkon said.
He was watching her too closely. Running would be pointless. Tamryn could have stabbed herself in the hand for leading him to Anise and then again for putting up such a poor fight, but all she could do now was hope for another opportunity to escape. Next time, she would know to hide her scent. If she could find a suit of combat armor that fit her, that might do it.
<
br /> Makkon waited for Tamryn to go in first, then forced Anise in after her. He directed them to the table.
“Sit.”
Tamryn was surprised he didn’t try to turn on the lights. Or maybe she wasn’t. Was low-light vision another of his superior senses?
Tamryn eased onto a stool at the table, one close to the door. It didn’t matter. Makkon stood between her and the exit, his brawny arms folded over his chest. Anise sat next to her.
“Tell me about these artifacts,” Makkon said.
Anise wilted slightly under his intense gaze and dropped her attention to her hands, which she folded on the table. Tamryn wanted to tell her not to explain anything, but Anise was the higher-ranking officer; she had to make her own decisions. In the end, it probably did not matter what she chose. If Makkon had drugs, he would get the information he wanted. Even if that was a bluff, and the syringe held nothing but water, he could make them talk eventually, one way or another.
“I’m afraid that would be a traitorous act in the eyes of the Fleet,” Anise said slowly, studying her hands instead of looking him in the eye. “My superiors would not look favorably upon me if I willingly gave up information to terrorists.”
A muscle ticked in Makkon’s jaw. “We’re not terrorists.”
Anise looked him over for the first time, showing more gumption than Tamryn would have expected in her frank head-to-toe examination. With his long black hair, the dragon tattoo, and his bare, muscled arms, he certainly didn’t look like a soldier or some noble warrior.
“No?” Anise asked. “What are you, and what’s your purpose here?”
Makkon walked around Tamryn’s back and stopped behind Anise’s shoulder. “I’m the one asking the questions. Now tell me about the artifacts and what you’re studying here.”
“I told you. I cannot willingly—”
“It need not be willingly.”
Before Tamryn registered the movement, he’d pushed down Anise’s collar and stuck the needle into her jugular.
Tamryn cursed aloud, almost more alarmed by the heartless jab than she had been by watching him shoot Captain Ram.
“Not a terrorist?” she asked. “Really?”
His gaze flicked toward her, but his features were masked, and she couldn’t guess at his thoughts. It made her shiver to think that she had been standing in his embrace not an hour earlier, letting him touch her.
Once his drug had been delivered, Makkon removed the needle and pocketed the syringe. Before stepping back, he held up a fresh syringe and looked at Tamryn. She glowered back at him. She didn’t know why he would want to bother with her when he had Anise, but he was deliberately letting her know he had another dose.
Makkon rested a hand on Anise’s shoulder. “Care to tell me about your work, Captain?”
Tamryn hadn’t realized he knew her rank or anything about her. Or maybe he had simply been standing outside the door and listening since Tamryn had arrived. Deeming that all too likely, she wished once again she hadn’t been such a fool. Running straight down here when Anise had thus far evaded the searchers...
“What work would that be?” Anise asked slowly. Her eyelids flickered, and one corner of her mouth twitched several times. She seemed to be trying to resist the effects of the drug, but after a moment, her face settled into a placid easy-going expression.
“What are you studying here?” Makkon asked.
“The alien language, of course,” Anise said happily, turning on her stool. She seemed surprised to find someone behind her, and her eyes widened as she took in Makkon’s stern visage.
Tamryn hoped seeing him would remind her that an enemy was questioning her, that sharing information with him wouldn’t be a good idea. Maybe her natural fear of the intruders would cancel out whatever amenability the drug had induced in her.
Anise lifted a hand toward Makkon’s chest. He tensed, watching her through slitted eyes, but he did not move back or stop her.
“Well, you’re a handsome specimen, aren’t you?” Anise asked.
Ugh, so much for fear. Anise didn’t appear alarmed at all. Indeed, she smiled up at Makkon, as if she couldn’t wait to please him.
How could Tamryn put a stop to this? Under the table, she slid her hand toward her pocket. Makkon had taken her rifle, but she still had the folding knife. But with his reflexes, it would be pointless to try using it on him unless something extremely distracting had his attention.
Meanwhile, Anise was perusing Makkon with open interest, as if she were out at a bar and shopping for a prospect to take home. Knowing Anise, it was probably scientific interest rather than sexual interest, but an unwelcome bit of possessiveness rose up in Tamryn, especially when Anise started running her hand over his chest, then squeezed his arm.
“How many generations removed are you from the original modified humans? You’re still stronger and faster than normal humans—I could tell that from the videos I saw. Quite alarming what you were doing to my colleagues.” Anise’s mouth turned downward for a moment, but her expression brightened again almost immediately. “But it’s so fascinating that you’re here. Everybody thought—well, the history books tell us—that all life was destroyed on Glaciem a century and a half ago. How did your ancestors survive? All of the animals died off; when our people started researching down there, all they found were a few scraps of DNA. Were you in some of the tunnels down there? They must have been very deep.”
Tamryn watched Makkon’s face, curious about his background, even if she was contemplating ways to stick a knife into the man. Would he answer Anise’s burbling? Was Anise right about her assumptions? She seemed certain, but Makkon didn’t give anything away.
He removed her roaming hands and took half a step back.
“Tell me about the alien language,” Makkon said. “What is it? Why is it important?”
“It’s a special engineering language,” Anise said brightly. “We’ve only just discovered it. The ancient aliens had three languages that archaeologists have known about for centuries. When the FTL engine was discovered, our researchers assumed the schematics and information recovered would be in one of the known languages, but they were wrong. The schematics were annotated in an all-new language. New to most of the system, at least. But one archaeologist had seen it before, and he came forward with information, with pictures of the ruins under the ice of Glaciem, ruins that were dug down to and investigated almost two hundred years ago. Before the moon was rendered uninhabitable.”
“You mean before it was nuked nearly into oblivion,” Makkon said through gritted teeth.
“Yes,” Anise said cheerfully.
“Explain this engine. FTL? Faster than light? Humans haven’t figured that out on their own yet?”
Yet? Tamryn frowned, again confused as to the way he phrased some things, as if he was an utter outsider who knew very little about the workings of the rest of the system.
“Alas, we have not. So many hypotheses over the years, but the energy requirements. Tremendous! And the prototypes. So many fatal accidents—so many lives lost. You’d have to talk to an engineer for more details, but you asked about the engine.” She smiled playfully and made a swatting motion. Makkon was too far away from her to be swatted, and she almost fell from her stool. He caught her and righted her again. She gazed up at him adoringly.
Tamryn curled her lip. She wasn’t sure what was more alarming, that the drug had turned Anise into a flirt, or that this was the way Anise flirted.
“Yes,” Makkon said. “Go on.”
“Last year, in another part of the system, another remote planet out here on the rim, a group of treasure hunters discovered an ancient alien ship-building facility, one nearly empty but fully intact, unlike with all of the ruins sites in the system, which are most assuredly ruins. The facility held something that had been sought after for centuries but which we never knew if we’d find. Two faster-than-light engines.”
Makkon’s face was as hard to read as a slate wall, but Tamryn felt he
rself intrigued by and drawn into the possibilities, despite their situation. She had come down to Anise’s lab numerous times, but had never asked what she was working on, having been told as soon as she arrived that Captain Porter’s work was top secret.
A faster-than-light engine. Humans had been trying to build an FTL drive since before this system had even been colonized. People had long pointed out how much easier it would be to explore the rest of the galaxy—and return to Old Earth to see if its people had survived—if a ship with such power could be built.
“The engines soon disappeared,” Anise went on. “One into a private collection, and I believe Fleet has the other, though I’ve only seen schematics. If one could call them schematics. We’re mostly mystified on the engines’ workings. But in studying them, I noticed independently of the archaeologist I mentioned that I’d seen some of the parts used in the engine before, in photographs from an old alien ruin site here. After bringing my findings to headquarters, I was allowed to lead a team of archaeologists back here, to Glaciem. We hunted down the original ruin site again, in a tunnel deep under the icy surface, and we brought artifacts and examples of their fourth language up here to study. This special engineering language must be deciphered if we’re to one day understand how the engines work and also how to copy them to build our own craft. Linguistics is my background, and I studied the three known alien languages in my undergraduate work, so I’ve had the honor of being the primary researcher.”
“Why stay here?” Tamryn wondered, almost forgetting Makkon as the story unfolded. “Why didn’t your team take the artifacts and language samples back to the core worlds, to one of the universities, where pirates and other threats—” she glanced at Makkon, “—wouldn’t be a problem?”
Anise chuckled and smiled fondly at Makkon. “Oh, there would be threats aplenty at a major university, the constant threat of thieves and spies, and the inquiries from the press would be tedious, if not dangerous. But as to why here, we’re still pulling up artifacts, for one thing. We’ve got three archaeologists down on the moon, hunting for more. Enough time has passed since the bombing that it’s safe to stay on Glaciem for short periods of time, if one can survive the weather.”
Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series Page 10