“Shorthand version, since we’re pressed for time,” Treena started. “Big bad race called the Vusuls are flying around beyond the Border with something the Minon and Seeli need to resolve their genetic reproductive issues. Without this person, they’ll likely die off within a century or so, according to their own doctors and scientists.”
Benitor didn’t speak, but it was clear she was interested in the conversation. Her eyes were wide, her mouth opening and then closing as Treena continued.
“What information can you provide about these two races?” Treena asked.
“Only that they claim to be distantly related,” the admiral replied.
“There’s much more. The Pilia left Celevon a million years ago, sending five colony ships away. The Seeli and Minon are the results of two ships. We think these Vusuls are another, and they’re currently using a modified version of the same vessel.” Treena paused, letting the information soak in. “In a desperate search for the others like them, they obtained a ship, one of the colony vessels that had drifted in the dark for countless years.”
Admiral Benitor leaned toward them. “And they found life?”
“That’s correct. She may be the key to their salvation.”
“This is exciting,” Benitor said.
“Not quite yet. The Vusuls were waiting for their opportunity. They attacked the Minon world of Talepen and destroyed their entire fleet and the Border station. We think they have the girl now, and they’ve made a demand.” Treena stopped, wondering if the admiral would pick up where she was going with this.
“And they want something in exchange, don’t they?” The admiral sighed. “What is it? Riches? Nek ships? Greblok’s ore?”
“Not what, but who.”
“If it’s the Prime, then we…”
“It’s Lark Keen,” Rene cut in.
“Keen?” Benitor actually laughed. “What in the Vastness would they want with Keen?”
“We were hoping you’d tell us,” Treena told her.
Treena knew Brax had told the woman about Keen’s parting words with the Tekol chief of security, but she didn’t betray the knowledge now. “There could be a multitude of reasons. He was shifty, making a lot of deals with the outside worlds. I can only imagine what this would be about.”
“What do we do?” Rene asked.
“Treena Starling, what would you do if you had your own cruise ship and no communication with Nolix?” Admiral Benitor asked.
This was a test, and she had to play it right. Treena had one outcome, and she had to be truthful. “I’d bring Keen to them and make the exchange. Because Keen is only one man, and a slightly mad one at that. Without his entourage and fleet, he’s powerless. And we can leverage his wife and daughter to rein him in.”
The room was silent for a few moments before the admiral smiled. “Very good. That’s the right call. I’m sending you his coordinates. Try to learn as much as you can about these Vusuls, and do so cautiously. They may be extremely dangerous. I need more intel as to whom we’re delivering the enemy of the Concord to,” she advised them. “One more thing…”
The image flickered, and the projection vanished.
“Damn it.” Rene tried to bring the communication up again, but it was dead. “Looks like we’re picking up the cargo.”
Treena nodded, wondering what the admiral’s parting words were going to be.
“At least we have the location. Yin, what’s the timeline?” Rene asked her AI.
“Three and a half days, Captain,” Shu said.
“Good. Have Douglas set the course immediately.”
____________
The days passed slowly. While Gotran appreciated the finer suite to the hard floor of the prison cell, this still served the same purpose. There was no getting around it. They weren’t guests, they were captives. He’d given up on the surveillance, as they had nothing of use to disclose anyway.
Charlan—or Eve, as she’d remembered her real name to be—was calmer than he’d expected. Since the upgrade of their cell, she was at ease, taking to her new reality with grace. Gotran moved their empty plates to the kitchen and loaded them into the sanitizer. The technology on this huge vessel was strange, but Eve had working knowledge of each machine.
“How do you think it is that we’re on one of your colony ships?” he asked her.
“I don’t have an answer for you. We only had five. They may have found one, or perhaps one was sold to them,” Eve said. “I was never given much freedom. My father kept me isolated for a lot of the time. He was… protective.”
They moved to the couch in the living space, and she flicked on a lamp, turning off the harsh white main lights recessed into the ceiling.
“Tell me of Celevon,” he told her. There had been many stories circulating among the Minon over the years of their ancestral home, but he was confident the data was skewed, the tales altering slightly with each generation as they were passed on. It had always been one of his favorite topics when he was a young boy, and here he was, bound to one of the legendary Pilia.
“I only recall my own small piece of it. I grew up in the oceanside village of Viron.” Her gaze grew distant. “To me, it’s like I was there a month ago.”
She spoke perfect Standard, and it was another mysterious clue to the Pilia, one he didn’t have an answer to. When he’d inquired, she’d just shrugged and said it was their only language.
“It must be difficult.” He leaned closer.
“I can still smell the salty air. If I close my eyes, I can feel the cool ocean breeze against my face. We lived in a nice home over a rocky crag. Father was important,” she said.
“And your mother?”
“Died when I was young. The solar flares grew stronger, and over ten percent of our people were afflicted with a disease as a result. Mother was among the first to die.”
“How old are you?” Gotran asked. At times, she seemed a teenager; at others, she could be thirty.
“I am fifty-three cycles,” she said, but he had no way to convert that to Standard years.
“What happened? How did you prepare?”
“The ships were already being constructed long before the flares elevated to a dangerous level. Father said they knew it was coming for a hundred or so cycles. Five colony ships, each with the capability to hold a million of our people.”
“And how many people were on Celevon?” A million wasn’t much when he thought of modern cities. Nolix’s capital alone had nearly a billion.
“Ten million,” she said quietly, which meant they’d left half of their population behind.
“This ship would have held a million?” he asked, pointing above him.
She nodded. “The entire first five decks were equipped with the stasis chambers.”
“And that’s where you were found by the Minon?” he asked.
“That’s correct.”
“And when did they pull you from stasis?” Gotran knew they’d discovered the floating craft a couple of years ago, but the sheer distance had caused the delay in returning her to Talepen.
“Not long before you shoved me into an emergency pod,” she told him.
“You’ve had a tough go of it, haven’t you?” he asked, moving closer. He put a protective arm around her. He missed his own children and hoped she didn’t misconstrue his care for something else. It was obvious she didn’t, and he stroked her long dark hair, calming the young woman.
“Do you have a family?” she asked.
“Yes.” At least, I did. Gotran left the thought to himself. With the recent attack, he could only hope his son Alron was safe on the surface of Talepen. He was training to become part of the next generation of Guardians.
“Tell me of them,” she said quietly, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I have a son a little older than you,” he said.
“And a wife?”
He cleared his throat. “No. Guardians are lucky to have children. Only the finest are permitted.”
/> “And you are the finest?” she asked, making him self-conscious.
“According to the Advisors,” he told her. “My son is to be a Guardian one day. If we live to see it.”
“Is it that dire?”
“I fear it is.”
“How have you been able to replicate?” she asked.
“The cost is extreme, and the effort immense. But they’ve only done so with Guardian stock for the last two generations.”
“And am I truly the savior they said I was?” Eve asked timidly.
The title was too significant for anyone to bear. “I think so. They estimate that by researching your genetic code, they can determine where we’re failing and fix it.”
“Considering I’ve lost everything in the blink of an eye, this brings me hope,” she said.
“We have a few hurdles in the meantime.”
“The captors.”
“That’s right. Them.”
“Do you think the Concord you spoke of will give them what they want?”
“I can only hope so,” Gotran replied.
“And if they don’t agree to the terms?”
“Then we join the Vastness,” he told her.
“What’s the Vastness?”
His mouth dropped open, and he quickly closed it, recovering from his shock. Surely the Vastness had existed while they were alive on Celevon? “You haven’t heard of it? It is all. The Vastness is life and death.”
She shook her head, still resting on him.
“Time goes on in the Vastness. Nothing ever starts or finishes, only continues.” He spoke softly, and she turned to him.
“What does that mean?”
“Since we have nothing else to do, let me speak to you of the Code.”
____________
“Captain, there’s been a transmission.” Constantine stood next to his bed, breaking protocol.
Tom rubbed the sleep from his eyes and took stock of the situation. “Wait, we broke through the barrier blocking the communications?”
“As it turns out, the predictions were false, and there was no radiation cloud. Something else occurred, but the cause is unclear,” Constantine told him.
Tom’s bare feet slapped on the cool hard floor, and he leaned his head into his hands. “What’s the message?”
“Commander Starling and Captain Bouchard are making the pickup,” Constantine said.
Tom hurried, avoiding the steam shower. In five minutes, he was dressed and heading for the bridge, where he found an alert Brax Daak and Ven Ittix, along with the others. “Were you able to determine what triggered the communication outage?” he asked Ven.
“Sorry, sir, but there’s not enough data. Perhaps if we had more time here, we could analyze it,” Ven explained.
This was the kind of time that Tom wanted to have Reeve nearby. She had a knack for this kind of thing, but she was off with his commander on another mission.
“I heard about the notification from Shu. Send them a response. Ask for the drop location, and we’ll meet them there,” he informed Ven, who sent the message without touching the computer screen. His executive lieutenant seemed comfortable on the bridge, having just left his people behind on Driun F49 the day prior. Tom was glad to see Ven had remained with Constantine. Since learning of the mission, he’d had a gnawing worry that the Ugna crew member might opt to stay with his own kind.
“What do you want us to tell Doctor Gaad?” Brax asked him.
Tom had completely forgotten that the R-emergence doctor had tagged along on this venture. “Let her know I’m coming over to discuss things. Continue moving in our current trajectory at in-system speed until we receive a response from Shu, and update me if we ever attain word from Nolix.”
“Yes, sir,” Ven said, and Tom left the bridge, heading for the hangar. On second thought, he stopped at his quarters. He told himself that he would have cleaned up for any meeting of importance, not just for the beautiful woman he was hoping to share another meal with, but he couldn’t fool himself.
It was an hour later when Tom was being escorted into Aimie’s meeting room again. This time, the lights were brighter, the fireplace projection turned off. She smiled as he entered and offered him a cup of steaming Raca.
“Thank you,” he told her. “Sorry for the early interruption.”
“I’ve been up for hours. I do a solid 5k run, then have an early breakfast. It gets my metabolism kicking,” she told him.
“I should only expect a doctor to say something like that.” He laughed, wrapping his hands around the warm cup. “I was a little surprised when you agreed to join us. I thought you’d have pressing business at R-emergence.”
“I do, but it can wait. I’ve always wanted to help the Minon and Seeli, but my team failed to uncover an answer for them, even though we tried. If they have some kind of new information, I’d like to take a crack at it,” Aimie told him.
Her dark hair was braided, and her light brown eyes met his stare. “You never did tell me where you lived,” Tom said.
“Nolix. Ridele, to be specific,” she said.
The Tekol capital. “Interesting.” He grinned. “I’ve been offered a job there.”
She smiled, and he tingled at the sight. “Is that so? If you’ve been offered a job, am I looking at the Concord’s newest admiral?”
“Not yet. I haven’t decided if it’s for me,” he told her truthfully. He wondered why he was being so open with her about everything. He’d barely spoken to his own crew about the promotion opportunity, but here he was gabbing about it like she needed to hear his hot gossip.
“I can understand that. I worked my way up with R-emergence by traveling from Concord partner planet to planet, working on adding remote stations for our business. I was in charge of an expansion project that took an entire decade to fulfill. At the time, there was nothing more romantic than seeing each of our worlds, the cultures, the odd customs, the different beings; but by the end of my tenure, I wanted to only have a home with my own bed, and maybe someone to share it with.” She averted her gaze at the last comment, and Tom found himself leaning in.
“And did you… find that person?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Even being stationed on Ridele for five years, I’ve still been off-planet for half of it, and I’ve struggled to find a match.”
“I understand completely,” he told her.
“How is that possible? You’re the Concord’s most eligible bachelor. You’re a hero, captain of the most renowned cruise ship we’ve ever seen, and to top it off, you’re about the most handsome human I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Tom swallowed hard, forcing a sip of the rich beverage. “I know you weren’t searching for a compliment, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I saw you on my viewscreen.”
“Even if I was trying to sabotage your meeting?” she asked.
“Maybe even more so.” She laughed at this, the sound so light and carefree.
Tom noticed her press a button on the desk’s console, and heard the audible locking of the meeting room doors. The lights dimmed, and the fireplace projection crackled to life. She rose from her chair, setting her cup on the table, and stalked over to him.
“Don’t think I do this often,” she told him in a low growl.
“I won’t…”
She grabbed his collar, pulling him close into a kiss.
Twelve
It was strange being a guest on the cruise ship. Treena wasn’t a member of the crew, so she didn’t like to linger on the bridge with the others, and she had no office, which meant she found herself spending time either in her quarters reading up on the Pilia, or in the courtyard.
Reeve was on her third cup of Raca, and she was nearly vibrating with caffeine. “We haven’t heard from the Vusuls yet. Do you think that’s a bad sign?” she asked.
Treena shook her head. “You know what’s been going on with the communications. I bet it’s because of that.”
Reeve sipp
ed her drink. “I wish Tom was here, or that we were on Constantine. I’m not built to be a passenger. I miss my boiler room. I miss Harry, and my brother. God, I even miss Ven, can you believe it?”
Treena laughed. “I do too.”
“Everything’s going to be different when this is over,” Reeve said plainly.
Treena wanted to assure her that things would be status quo, but she couldn’t. “That’s life. Things happen, changes occur, and we can only adapt.”
“Too bad. I was just getting comfortable with our situation. You know, it’s been kind of fun being part of these important missions. I didn’t opt into this for the glory, but once you have a taste of the excitement, it’s difficult to turn it off. Even now, we’re returning to pick up the Concord’s single biggest traitor, Lark Keen. Baldwin’s going to be pissed.” Reeve laughed.
“He hasn’t been there very long, has he?” Treena asked.
“Not long enough to learn his lesson, that’s for sure,” Reeve said, gaze drifting over Treena’s shoulder toward the ServoBot at the café.
“The lieutenant’s here,” Reeve told her. Treena knew who she was implying, and rolled her eyes.
“Would you cut that out?”
“Thought I might find you here,” Conner Douglas’ voice said from behind her. “Mind if I have a seat?”
The courtyard was practically empty; a few off-duty Shu crew members lingered, reading or talking in small groups. Reeve rose, offering Conner her seat. “I should be going. Nee’s waiting for me at the… thing.”
Reeve’s attempt to make an excuse was terrible, but Conner didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
“She’s brilliant. Glad she was a couple of years after us at the Academy. She would have set a bar too high to meet,” Conner said. “Do you want something to drink?”
Treena read his eyes, trying to figure him out. She didn’t think he was aware of her predicament. “I’m fine.” Even though the android body could consume liquid, she’d all but given up on the pretense. “What’s transpired since we last saw each other?”
“Where to begin? I left the Academy and was issued a tour of duty on Tyler for the first few years. It was a thankless job near the Saridian system, keeping peace between two of our partners. They shouldn’t have been allowed into the Concord, but apparently, their resources were enough to bribe their way in. I spent those years working security at their trading post, a rusty old space station between the systems where they traded with one another. It’s astonishing how many fist fights I stopped over the price of Saridian wheat, of all things.
Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Series Page 97