The crew looked around to each other. Lee waited to see if any of his bridge staff would move to the door. Henry looked to each face, proud that he had spent time among such people. After a few moments, Josh Goldstein broke the silence with a bark of laughter. Lee looked confused as his helmsman nearly fell out his chair with barely contained mirth. More laughter broke out among the crew even as Alice stepped further into the bridge. Finally, Lee stepped past his command chair to stand in front of his first officer, Commander Farthing.
“What?” he asked. “What’d I do?”
“Captain,” the Vadne felinoid replied in his usual steady tone. “We undocked from the shuttle several minutes ago. I placed an honor guard on your father’s body and had the doctor place him in stasis. Once we saw Sergeant Major Moore, we assumed you would be breaking orders and going off on some … Lieutenant, what did you call it?”
“‘Some damn fool idealistic crusade,’” Josh replied. “I saw it in an old movie once and it sounded about right.”
“Exactly,” Farthing agreed, looking back to the captain with an open expression. “I believe Mister Goldstein is waiting for a course, sir.”
Lee looked in his bridge. The faces he saw were his family as much as Alice or his father. Once again, they had done the unexpected and prepared for him to do the same. He looked back to Henry, who was smiling near the door. Alice stepped back around the bridge to lay a hand on his shoulder. The knowledge of what Farthing had done for him and his father almost made Lee choke up. He stepped away and into the command well. Settling into his chair, he pointed to the projected view screen. It showed an image of the rings of the Jovian planet below.
“Tonal, Mister Goldstein,” Lee said. “And step on it.”
4
The twin hangar decks on either side of the battleship Resolute had been designed to carry equipment and personnel shuttles when the docking ring was unavailable or incompatible. Over the years of the war, they had been repurposed to carry the unique craft flown by Demon Squadron. The ships, highly modified Crowned Eagle class fighters, were small and fast with firepower nearly equal to one of the larger capital ships of the new fleet. Originally, six ships were kept in the darkened hangar, but the loss of Alice during the war had reduced their number to five. Three were kept on the starboard side, and two, one belonging to the captain, were kept to port with a small shuttle. In the deep ship’s night, Lee Pearce stepped into the hangar in the hopes of being totally alone.
The lead ship in Demon Squadron’s arsenal was the reflective gold vessel he had dubbed the Golden Eagle. As he stepped into the hangar, he reflected on how long it had been since he had felt the controls of the sleek fighter in his hands. Since the end of the war, duty and responsibility had kept him on the bridge or in meetings with senior officers, and out of the ship he had come to feel was a second skin. As he approached the ship he reached out and his hand glided along the molecularly bonded hull, so smooth he could not feel his fingers as they brushed the surface. It was a marvel of alien engineering, and the desire to pull the canopy closed and fly out tugged at his heart like he had never felt before. The ship’s translation to M-space prevented that physically, however, and his own sense of responsibility to Resolute kept him firmly on the deck.
The sound of plasma forged metal clanging off duotanium hull plate caught his attention and he realized he was not, in fact, alone. Although darkened, the hangar operational lights were not completely off, for safety reasons. Lee squinted and looked around for the source of the sound. A moment later, blistering obscenities could be heard blasting across the echoing deck. Lee relaxed as he recognized the voice behind the fiery language. He stepped around the bulky shuttle to see the other fighter, a milder-colored craft they called a Silver Eagle, sitting in a pool of overhead light. Two booted feet seemed to be growing from its undercarriage, occasionally kicking as more vulgar words erupted from within.
“Alice?” Lee said quietly, not wanting to interrupt her.
“What!” came the voice from underneath the ship. Another clang of metal hitting deck followed soon after. “Dammit! What the hell do you want?”
“What are you doing down here?” Lee asked, kneeling down to look at the woman he loved. “Why aren’t you back in our quarters? It’s late.”
“Lee?” Alice replied, finally recognizing the voice coming from outside her narrow view. “Lee, what are you doing here?”
“I think I asked first, Commander,” Lee replied, as Alice slid out from under the fighter. He held out a hand to pull her up from the floor and watched as she wiped her hands on her beige coveralls. “It’s almost midnight, Alice. What are you still doing up?”
“The damn flow regulator still jams up when you try to fire at full speed. The efficiency drops below ninety-three percent when you need it the most. I couldn’t let it stay that way if I’m going to take this ship.”
“Take the ship, Alice? This one belongs to Baron and I don’t think—”
“Baron only has one arm, Lee,” Alice said, raising her eyes to see her commander for the first time. “He won’t be able to fly for a while so I thought you might need a replacement if we got into trouble.”
“Are we expecting trouble?” Lee asked. “I thought we were just investigating at a bank. They usually don’t start firing unless you withdraw over your limit.”
“Seriously, Lee? When was the last time we did anything that didn’t result in our being shot at or blown up?”
Lee’s face fell as she watched. She thought about what she had said and realized he was thinking about his father again. They had been so wrapped during the investigation and return to Earth he’d barely had time to mourn for the man he had thought lost for so long and just gotten used to having in his life again. She relaxed and stepped close to him, wrapping her arms around him and holding tight. She was slightly taller than Lee, so her arms came up under his arms as she held him tight.
“I’m sorry,” she said, burying her face in his hair. “I am so sorry, Lee. I didn’t think about—”
“It’s okay, Alice,” he replied, giving her a tight squeeze. “I shouldn’t have bothered you down here. I guess if you wanted to be alone, I shouldn’t have come over.”
“Lee,” Alice said, pulling back and looking in his eyes. “I came down here to take my mind off what’s been happening out there. You know I always feel more at ease under a ship than anywhere else. I didn’t think about why you might be down here. Maybe you need to be alone more than I do.”
“No, it’s alright,” Lee said, pulling away from her and stepping over to the shuttle. “Henry and I were trying to figure out what our next move will be once we reach Tonal. I didn’t want to wake you, so I came down here.”
Both officers began a slow walk around the shuttle. Lee’s fingers traced a smoky blast mark along the side of the vessel. As he looked around the small hangar, traces of previous damage surrounded them. The ship had been through so many battles over the last few years. It was amazing she was still holding together. Before the war, the outdated warship had been relegated to a storage field, waiting to be salvaged for metal and parts, before being rescued by a politician wanting to make a name for a son who would have been a junior officer. The young man had died in the initial Ch’Tauk attack and the politician was long dead, but the ship and her crew were still here and Lee was beginning to feel his age.
“You know the thing about losing someone…” he began suddenly. “Everyone wants to tell you how sorry they are for you. Everyone wants to talk about how much they feel for you, and you have to smile politely and thank them for reminding you how much it all hurts.”
“Oh, Lee.”
“The thing nobody lets you do is forget about the pain. You never get a chance to feel the pain because everyone else is sharing theirs with you and not letting you feel your own.” His voice was beginning to crack as they stopped by the open shuttle door. “And all the while, you have to be the one in charge and the one that can’t be seen cryi
ng…”
Lee turned to look back at Alice, his eyes now filled with tears he hadn’t been allowed to shed. Alice reached for him just as the first sobs racked his body and he collapsed into the shuttle. They were both pulled down into the small ship. Alice had fallen awkwardly against the inner frame of the door. She had to crawl over Lee to get a better view of the man she loved. He had turned to the side to avoid letting her see him, but she could still see his body convulsing as his pain was finally released.
“Lee…”
“Don’t say it!” he shouted suddenly, looking up to see her with unrestricted fury across his face. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. You don’t understand … I had him back. After all these years, I finally had my name back, my father. You don’t get to say you’re sorry. You had nothing to do with killing him.”
“I just wanted to—”
“I know what you wanted, Alice, and you have to understand how much I love you, but I just can’t do it alone anymore,” Lee said. “I can’t carry both of us anymore. I don’t have the strength to do it.”
Alice sat back, stricken. The pain he was feeling went much deeper than just the loss of his father, and for the first time since she had come back to him she really understood how selfish she had been and how understanding he had been. She saw him as the man she had fallen in love with. He was vulnerable and raw, but still the captain. She had once thrown herself at him in the hope of finding comfort for her own loss, and now she saw how much he needed her to be the strong one. For two years he had believed her dead or in the hands of the Ch’Tauk, and she had been, but now she was back and he had been strong enough not to pressure her for more than she was willing to give. The death of his father was the pin that had unlocked everything he had been carrying with him for so long.
“Oh, Lee,” Alice said finally, reaching out to put a hand to his face. “I didn’t understand what you were feeling. I just didn’t think about how much pain you had been in while I was being held…”
“No, Alice no. Please don’t say that. You were tortured by those bastards while I was out roaming the galaxy, playing at being crazy while the rest of the fleet held things down. You were the one who suffered. I was just … playing.”
“I’ve been the one playing, Lee,” Alice said, moving close to hold his head to her chest. “I’ve been playing with you and your heart all this time. They did things to me, that’s true, but that’s the past and I need to move beyond it if I have any hope of getting back to the way things were.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Lee replied, sniffing up the tears falling down his face and into her uniform. “The galaxy’s changed and so have we. I don’t think we can ever go back to what it was.”
For a long moment they held each other, taking strength from the contact they had taken from each other for so long. Lee had wanted to give Alice space to heal and Alice had no idea how much he had needed her too. In the small shuttle, they shed their rank and propriety, holding on to the warmth of human contact for as long as they could. After a long time, Alice settled back on her knees and held Lee’s face. He had a black streak on his face where the lubricant from her jumpsuit had smudged against him. She laughed as she spit on a thumb and tried to wipe it off. Lee laughed too, a pure sound she hadn’t realized she missed. They looked into each other’s faces before both leaned forward and kissed. It was a long kiss that filled them both with warmth and hope. When they finally parted, Lee saw a gleam in Alice’s eyes. She smiled wide and pulled back, reaching for the top button of her work coverall.
“Lee,” she said with a coy smile. “Have you eaten yet…?”
5
Tonal Banking Commission
Resolute came under attack almost the moment she entered Tonal space. Josh quickly plotted a micro-jump outside the system, while Farthing deactivated the ship’s Alliance transponder. However, they did not need to deal with any casualties or even damage. The attacking ships had come from the Tonal Orbital News nets, unarmed save for cameras and massively disruptive communications arrays. The moment Resolute’s identity signal was received, the swift little craft had been launched in pursuit. Every comm channel was clogged with requests for interviews and photos. One ship had even managed to land on the hull before the octopod fired a warning shot and the craft detached. Polarization of the outer hull had popped several trackers and listening devices off before the jump to M-space.
While Henry found the whole affair amusing, Lee was uncomfortable with his newfound fame and the consequences for his ship and their mission. He had hoped to slip into orbit quietly and conduct their investigation without drawing too much attention. He had forgotten that both his and Alice’s images, along with posters of Resolute in orbit of Earth, had adorned almost every window in the Alliance for months. The highly stylized images were disturbing to him, as was the constant harassment by the press. He began to miss the old days when staying below the radar actually meant life or death.
Instead of arriving together, they agreed to work together in two teams. Lee and Alice would take their own fighters, while Henry would take a team including Farthing directly to the banking commission headquarters. Henry’s team would come as uniformed Alliance Security agents. He had explained the quasi-military organization was probably already there, so the arrival of a few more of the gray uniforms wouldn’t draw attention. The disguises Lee and Alice would wear were a bit more complex. As undercover Terran Security force members, their cover would be the hardest to explain on the Tonal home world. Since the Raoists would be their targets, the presence of planetary investigators could be explained as overlapping jurisdiction to the usually skeptical porcine bankers. With so many organizations involved in trying to unravel the mystery of the bombing, disguising themselves as humans seemed the most effective way of getting inside.
Lee guided his Golden Eagle to a small landing port on the outskirts of the Tonal megacity. Towering skyscrapers blocked out the sky all around them for kilometers. Despite their smaller stature and aesthetics, the Tonal were incredible architects. Their habit of spawning multiple children in each litter made their species susceptible to overpopulation and crowding. Building upwards provided natural habitat was left over, and made the warren of buildings a perfect home for galactic corporate culture. The building they had chosen to land in was comparatively small and underused due to its location near the city’s reclamation facilities. The smell of decay and waste was nearly overpowering while they found a quiet corner to stow their easily recognizable ships. Modifications to their stealth systems, as well as a transponder hack, had made them appear to be a couple of corporate shuttles just in from Aleinhelm. But anyone passing would see the demon logos and know who they were.
Alice quickly made her way inside the facility and out of the fetid air, while Lee paid the parking fee and bribed the attendant not to look in the corner. He found Alice leaning against one of the support stanchions inside the building, coughing hard enough to draw tears from her eyes. He helped her further into the building, until she stopped wheezing. They found a public washroom and ran cold water over their faces to cleanse the smell from their noses. Finally, Lee found a lift down to the nearest transit station and the two left the putrid building behind without arousing suspicion from anyone but the young attendant. Lee was sure the boy would look at the ships anyway, but he didn’t expect it to be a problem for long. If the plan succeeded, they wouldn’t be on Tonal long enough to draw additional attention.
Working the transit tubes, Alice traced a route which would take them near the main Banking Commission offices at the city’s center. The exorbitant prices of travel made Lee wince each time he used the credit voucher Henry had given him. He had explained the voucher would draw from a blind account set up for Alliance Security agents who needed to disappear quickly. Lee tried to press the man about how he had come into possession of the artifact, but the teacher just smiled and turned away, avoiding the question completely.
The air outsid
e the main courtyard of the Banking Commission building smelled sweet in comparison to their former location. The round grassy area was clean and the grass felt spongy under their feet. Skimmers weren’t permitted anywhere near the building in case of attack, so people could be seen lounging on low benches or directly on the grass outside. Food vendors circled the area, dispensing cuisine from all over the galaxy to hungry money changers. The blending scents made Lee hungry for more than the processed vegetarian meals he had come to accept from the ship’s galley. Alice nearly pulled him inside the lobby of the commission as he stopped to savor a type of meat sandwich he had never seen before.
They entered the lobby of the massive financial complex. The two had decided on more subtle disguises rather than any major cosmetic changes. Henry had explained that in dealing with people who have probably seen your picture, a subtle disguise avoided more suspicion. Alice had chosen to darken her skin slightly and dye her hair red. To Lee, the effect was intriguing, and she’d slapped him when he expressed his desire to see her keep the look. Lee had chosen to thicken his eyebrows and widen his nostrils. His hair was lightened slightly. As Henry explained the process, it was better that people looked and thought you looked like who you really were than to recognize you in a mask. The gray uniforms completed the image of responsible lead investigators for the Terran Planetary Investigations Department.
Lee flashed a badge at the guard near the entrance and he waved them through with a snort. Tonal were not always the nicest people in the universe, and their security forces tended to be downright rude. As they approached the offices of the bank’s security chief, Lee heard a familiar voice booming along the corridor.
“I don’t care if Lee Pearce himself has been in your mainframe,” Henry’s voice echoed over the heads of the business people in the hall. “Alliance Security needs to run a final scan of your files to ensure there have been no further actions which could help our investigations…”
Resolute Alliance (The War for Terra Book 6) Page 4