Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Not with mech in his body.”

  “With mech, without it. With computer assistance or without it. He deserves to live. He’s a person. You and your enforcers destroy thousands of individuals to keep the race pure. I save lives wherever I can, because those lives count. They add up.”

  Brant was breathing heavily.

  “Are you going to shoot him?” she asked. “Both of them? Because Sibéal is as much responsible for this as he is for his failing body. So am I. I arranged for the regulator to be built. I bought it and carried it here. Are you going to kill me?”

  “You’re…you’re not proscribed.” He said breathlessly, like he was in pain. “I left because of this. Because of things like this, right here.”

  Catherine nodded. “Which means you can think for yourself and that’s why I hired you, Brant. Deep down inside, you know that all life is precious, no matter how it has to survive. That’s why you couldn’t stay an enforcer.”

  He swallowed and closed his eyes. “This is…it’s wrong.”

  “Life is wrong?” she asked gently.

  He frowned, still in pain. She had him in a sharp corner.

  “I need you to breathe and let this pass, Brant,” she said softly. “I need you to move on.”

  He gave a strained laugh. “Why? To help you pervert human life across the galaxy?”

  “So I don’t have to kill you.”

  The rictus of a smile disappeared, like she had slapped him.

  “That’s not a threat,” she said, still speaking softly. “It’s just facts. I need your help, but if you’re going to let your dogma get in the way, then you’re no good to me and I can’t let you free to wander the galaxy and tell everyone what you know about me. When you signed on, you said you still believed, but you would not kill to enforce it. I want you to go on believing in the sanctity of life. I just want you to broaden your definition of what that means.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “I know you can.” She gave him a small smile. “You’re basically a decent man.”

  He swallowed and she could see the turmoil she had created in his heart and mind reflected in the confusion in his eyes. The doubt.

  Catherine turned away and spoke over her shoulder. “Talk to Bedivere, get a status. I’ll finish with Sibéal.”

  Sibéal and Rashnu had remained where they were, watching their intense discussion with open curiosity. As Catherine faced her, Sibéal smiled sunnily and skipped over to a cupboard and pressed her palm against the door. There was a solid click and the door swung open a little. She opened it fully and reached inside and withdrew a piece of tech inside a transparent, sealed box envelope.

  Catherine’s heart jumped. “That’s it?”

  Sibéal nodded. “Miniaturized down to human size.” She put the envelope on the table between them and put her hand on it almost reverently.

  Brant came up beside Catherine. “What is it?” he asked. He still sounded like he was in shock.

  “Status?” Catherine asked him.

  “All good,” he said, sounding more normal now. He glanced at the tech under Sibéal’s hand.

  “Your boss,” Sibéal said, nodding toward Catherine. “She drives the hardest bargain ever, ever, ever. I make things, I don’t sell them. I sell the license. Create the franchise. Then I make much, much, much. But Cat…she wants the copyright. No license. No duplicates.”

  “And I’m paying well for the privilege,” Catherine reminded her.

  Sibéal smiled. “I did not think she would ever make the price. This is my greatest work, my best. The price…you understand, it must cover anything I could ever earn from this.”

  Brant nodded.

  “The membrane, that brings me much, much. But from hundreds and hundreds of places.”

  “You created the molecular membrane technology?” he asked sharply.

  Sibéal dimpled modestly and patted the envelope. “But this. It would earn much, much, much-much! But it is not to be, so Cat, who will not let me earn, she must make up the difference.”

  “It took me seventeen years to pay for it,” Catherine said. “Then the price changed.”

  Brant glanced at her. “They wanted the regulator, too?”

  Catherine nodded and smiled fondly at Sibéal, remembering her frantic plea. “Sibéal has been keeping Rashnu alive in any way she can until I got here with it. It took another three years to arrange for it to be built.”

  “Why didn’t you just build it yourself?” Brant demanded of Sibéal.

  Sibéal shook her head. “Biotech, I do not know.” She glanced at Rashnu, who was listening intently. “But Cat knows who does know.”

  Brant looked from Rashnu to Sibéal and back to Catherine. “One life at a time?” he asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Bedivere shouted in her ear, making her wince. “Incoming! Get out of there!”

  Brant snapped to attention. “Out here?” he asked. “We’re nowhere.”

  “Someone is coming, Sibéal,” Catherine said urgently, undoing the front of her suit. “Bedivere caught them on long range scan, probably coming through the gates. That puts them eight hours away.”

  Sibéal pushed the envelope across the surface toward her. “Go. Go. We will be old couple retired if we’re alone. Your ship won’t fit that story.”

  Catherine stuffed the envelope inside her suit, under her left breast and refastened. Then, impulsively, she leaned over the counter and hugged Sibéal, who squeezed her back.

  “Good luck!” Sibéal whispered in her ear and let her go.

  “Moving fast,” Bedivere said. “They’re not slowing down. The speed they’re going….”

  “Federation,” Catherine concluded grimly and hurried over to where her helmet was waiting. Brant was already fastening his and Rashnu had the airlock door open, waiting for them.

  * * * * *

  It was a mad scramble back to the ship. Catherine could hear Brant breathing heavily through the comm link and Bedivere was silent, because he would be busy charting the arriving ships and plotting possible escape routes. But no one spoke and she could hear her heartbeat loud in her head, marking the passage of time.

  The air lock couldn’t be opened any other way than manually, once it was unsealed. She and Brant worked to open the heavy door, then step inside together and close it. The secondary hull door was swinging open when Catherine felt the shudder of the ship as the umbilical detached. They were free and immediately, the ship surged forward.

  She pushed Brant into the lock room and dogged down the wheel on the hull door and tore off her helmet. They still had to wait for the lock to go through its fill cycle even though there had been air on the other side of the hull. There was no way to override it.

  Impatiently, she shed the environment suit and put the tech envelope on the bench next to it. “Status?” she called.

  “Revised arrival estimate, four hours,” Bedivere said through the intercom. “It’s going to be tight.”

  “Four hours?” Brant shook his head as he stripped off the suit. “They have to be first response vehicles, coming in fast and hot.”

  “Lilita!”

  “Here, Cat.”

  “Can you make a mug of coffee and put together something high in carbs, about two hundred calories and meet me at the airlock door.”

  “On it!”

  Brant was already out of his suit and was pulling his hair back off his neck, letting the air under it. “How long is the cycle?”

  “It decontaminates, too,” she said. “So it takes longer. Two minutes.”

  They waited out the cycle, listening to the engines throb, even through all the bulkheads between them and the shield wall the engines were behind. Bedivere had them at almost maximum effort.

  Brant was staring at the floor. He had a lot on his mind and she had put it there. Catherine left him alone.

  The door chimed and slid open. She picked up the tech and hurried out, heading for the flight deck.
>
  Lilita was heading in her direction down the corridor, a coffee mug in her hand and a wrapped slice of sticky toffee cake in the other. She held them out to Catherine.

  “They’re for Brant,” Catherine told her.

  “Me?” he asked from behind her.

  “He’s in mild shock. It will help. Make sure he eats it, Lilly!” She raced for the deck.

  Bedivere glanced at her once as she settled into her chair.

  “What did you decide?” she asked.

  “Slingshot around the planet, use it for cover, keep it between us and the Feds. Only I didn’t know they would be moving this fast when I committed us to the course heading.” He grimaced.

  “Can we match them?”

  He shook his head. “No. But the gravity assist around the planet will add some speed and the planet is between Sibéal’s place and the gates, so we can use it for cover as we head for the gates. That’s why I didn’t see them at first.”

  It sounded like he was apologizing.

  “It is what it is.” Catherine said. “We only have to get a few light hours away. If they see us after that, they still won’t be able to catch up before we hit the gates. How long before the planet will hide us?”

  “Thirty-three minutes.”

  It was a long thirty-three minutes. Both Lilita and Brant came onto the deck to watch, silent and tense. At one point, Lilita said quietly; “Over-capacity by three percent.”

  “I’m aware,” Bedivere said softly, his eyes on the consoles.

  Catherine didn’t speak. At times like this, Bedivere seemed to commune directly with his instruments. His face became calm and expressionless and his eyes stayed on the consoles, moving from one readout to another. His fingers shifted decisively and it seemed like he was moving slowly, except that Catherine couldn’t match him for speed. She had long ago resigned herself to the knowledge that Bedivere outclassed her as a pilot and she didn’t come close to matching his skills as a navigator. She was glad, right now, that it was him at the controls and not her.

  Instead, she watched the less-critical readouts and secondary data and tried to keep half an eye on Bedivere’s stiff, upright figure in case he needed her for something.

  “Thirty minutes,” Brant said and his voice sounded loud.

  Catherine looked at Bedivere.

  “Almost,” he whispered.

  There was a clock on her console, calibrated to standard time. She watched it roll through a single minute and it felt like an hour. She swallowed.

  The readout rolled through another minute, taking a light year to do it.

  “Were they coming for us?” Bedivere asked and Catherine jumped.

  “They just happen to arrive through the gates to an uninhabitable world that no one ever uses, in their fastest pursuit class. They were there either for Sibéal or for us. The timing suggests it was us they wanted.”

  “How did they know we were there?” Brant asked.

  “And why do they want you?” Lilita added.

  “Us,” Catherine said firmly. “You’re tainted because you’re on my ship. The Federation have wanted me for years.”

  “Clear,” Bedivere said and sat back, letting out a deep breath. He glanced around at everyone. “Two minutes, then we have to finish jump prep.”

  Brant looked at Catherine directly, his odd eyes holding her gaze. “Would you really have killed me, back there?”

  “I was counting on you being a good man,” Catherine told him.

  “But you would have killed me if I had not, despite all life being precious to you.”

  Catherine smiled. “We’ll never know, will we?” She turned back to face the console. “Let’s get this jump locked in. I want to be gone from here as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Ivory City, Cathain City, Cathain III. FY 10.070

  Kare stood up.

  The shouting around the long, long table cut off as Kare’s heavy chair crashed into the floor behind him. He hadn’t intended to topple it, but it served him now, so he remained on his feet until everyone was looking at him. Those at the far end of the table, the junior members and the newcomers to the Federation, including the brand new Shantan governor, probably saw him as a mere dot, but the screens that hung down the middle of the table would have focused on him now and their view of the screens would be unimpeded.

  Good.

  In the silence that awaited him, no one coughed or cleared their throat, or shuffled their feet. They were watching him with expressions that ranged from surprise to dismay.

  Kare pressed his fingers to the dark clear, cool surface of the table. “The best response force the Federation could muster was out-run by one tiny, aging cruiser. That is fact. Arguing the hows and whys is a waste of my time. We failed. Absorb that and take what you will from it.”

  This time the reaction from the two hundred plus Board members arrayed before him was uniform. They were indignant.

  Let them be. He was suddenly tired of it all. “Bring me a solution when you arrive at one. In the meantime, no one leaves this room.” He glanced at the guards, who moved silently from their ceremonial positions to stances that barred the many doors leading out of the chamber.

  Then he turned and moved out through his private door.

  “But, Your Honor…!” someone cried, just as the solid, sound-proof door slid shut behind him.

  Kare picked up guards like an asteroid tail as he moved fast down the corridor, heading for his private study. As he passed the drawing room, Verna lifted her head from the book she was reading, her eyes opening wide. He should stop and explain to her why he had left the Board meeting so early and abruptly, but he knew he would not be able to deal with his wife with any fairness or gentleness, so he kept moving.

  Once the study door was locked behind him, he drew in a calming breath and leaned against the back of it. He was alone in here, one of the few places in the entire city where he could arrange such solitude.

  He neutralized the windows, so that the harsh white sunlight faded to a deep twilight, making the room a calm, dim retreat.

  Then he went to his desk and called up the images.

  There weren’t many. They arrayed themselves in the air in a pleasing arrangement. The one he liked the best was in the middle. The camera had caught her looking back over her shoulder, while a breeze lifted her red hair up and out of the way, revealing the strong jaw and the sharp chin.

  Her blue eyes seemed to be looking straight into the camera, as if she knew the image was being taken. It felt like she was looking right at him.

  Kare let his gaze rove over the other images. She was in each of them, sometimes alone, sometimes with other people. Most often, her current crew were in the images, especially the tall one with the golden brown hair. They had learned his name was Bedivere, but no one seemed to know anything else about him despite intensive scrutiny. The other two were more familiar to him now—Fareed Brant, the former Staff of Ammon enforcer, and the young girl, Lilita Washmaster, who was working her way across the galaxy like so many young ones did, hoping to see sights and have adventures before settling to a more sedate next profession.

  But his gaze came back to Catherine.

  Katie, she had called herself then.

  He closed his eyes. If he relaxed enough, he could sometimes convince himself he could smell her hair and once, he felt it drift across his shoulders as it had when she had lifted herself over him.

  A sharp alert from the door broke the spell. Only Jarek had the necessary codes to break through the privacy shield on the door and he would not have done so without cause.

  Kare put the images away and brought up the lights, then let the door open.

  Jarek stepped inside and shut the door gently. “It actually worked. They’ve moved on from recriminations now and are talking about next steps.”

  Kare held in his irritation. “That is why you disturbed me? For a status update?”

  Jarek’s eyes narrowed. He gav
e a short bow, as if to take away any offence. “I came to see if you needed anything.”

  So Kare’s anger and abrupt retreat had not fooled Jarek.

  With a sigh, he turned and looked out the window. Now it was transparent, he could see the private gardens below. There were children playing on the manicured greenery. Some of them may even be his. The College ran a nursery and school within the Ivory City for the offspring of staff and the Primary Family, so that the children raised by them would be marked by the privilege of their location.

  The yearning to be far away from all this, to be truly free, gripped his throat and stole his breath. Kare swallowed, as panic fluttered in his chest. Sickness swamped him.

  “Your Honor?” Jarek prompted, behind him. “Perhaps it might be prudent to return to the Board chambers. You have emphasized the priority of finding a solution to the Shahrazad problem for well over a year. It looks odd that you are not guiding the strategies now.”

  “As if a single woman from the fringes is such a threat,” Kare muttered.

  “You have represented her to be such a threat,” Jarek reminded him. “And in truth, she sows discontent and anarchy wherever she goes.”

  “She has been minding her own business for the three years since she emerged from therapy. There has not been a single riot.”

  “If she were to reveal who she really is, the riots would follow,” Jarek replied. “You have made convincing arguments that she must be contained before that happens.”

  “You believed me?”

  “I believed the facts,” Jarek said. “They speak at volume, without your championship.”

  “Then you believe she is a threat, too?”

  “You’re troubled by her presence in the Federation. I have not seen you so distracted before.”

  Kare swallowed. “Truth, Jarek? If she were to disrupt this peace of ours, I would welcome it.”

  Jarek didn’t look shocked. Instead, he merely nodded. “If that is the case, then may I point out that given everything I have read about her, I believe that the harder you pursue her, the more certain it will be that she will strike back.”