“You’re allergic to being in the spot light,” Bedivere added. “But it won’t be you, this time. It will be me.”
That calmed her. “Do you mind?” she asked him.
“Mind?”
“Having the entire galaxy know about you?”
“If it meant you’d be safe, I’d audition for a carnival side show,” Bedivere said flatly. This time, Catherine knew it was the tone he used when he was speaking raw truth.
“I don’t mind,” he added.
She let out a breath. “Cathain it is, then.”
* * * * *
Their heartbeats had settled and the warm quiet in Catherine’s bedroom had wrapped around them, much as Bedivere’s arms were. He pressed his lips against her cheek.
“You were lying, earlier,” Catherine said softly.
His lips paused. “When?”
“The connection between the College and the Federation…that wasn’t obscure enough for you to fall into your trance over it. I could have worked it out myself. I was almost there, already. You thought of something, then you lied to cover it up because you didn’t want to speak of it in front of Lilly and Brant. What was it?”
Bedivere sighed and rolled onto his back, his arm loosening from around her waist. “Could we talk about this later?”
Catherine propped herself up on one elbow to look at him. “Putting it off until later won’t make it any easier to speak about. Trust me, I know.”
He let out another deep breath. “Brant pointed out that no matter what I do, or any of you, the Federation is going to do everything it can to kill me. It jolted me into running the odds of making it out of this alive.”
“No wonder you lied,” Catherine said softly. “I couldn’t compute the odds. I can’t even tell you what’s going to happen in the next few hours. But I don’t need to figure it out to know that the odds right now are awful.”
Bedivere picked up her hand and held it, as he rolled back over on to his side to face her. “Brant said something a few days ago. It was part of the reason why we’re lying here together now.”
“What did he say?” Catherine asked. She wasn’t really surprised to find that Brant was at the root of Bedivere’s sudden seduction. Brant had been watching them both for a long time and his mind worked purely in terms of emotions and relationships.
Bedivere chuckled. “He said a lot about my less sterling qualities, but in among the vitriol, he also said that if I was afraid about the future and what I might subject you to because you’re with me, then I should give you the option.”
Catherine’s heart leapt hard against her chest. “The option?” She could barely breathe. Fear was flooding her mouth and her mind.
“To stay with me, or escape.”
She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. “Don’t even say it,” she whispered.
“I have to, Cat. I know the odds and they’re not good. They’re so far from hopeful it makes me feel sick to even contemplate them. Every agency and authority in the galaxy is coming after me. Not you. They couldn’t give a damn about you anymore. And that’s your escape route, Cat. You and Brant and Lilly. I could ground you on Barros and leave you here, out of the way.”
Catherine sat up, chilled. “No,” she said flatly.
“You should at least consider it,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “We started this together,” she said flatly. “I don’t walk away from a job half done.”
“So now I’m a job, huh?”
Catherine wasn’t prepared for the sudden sharp sting of tears. They spilled down her cheeks before she could halt them. But before she could wipe them away, Bedivere’s fingertips caught them and took them.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, unable to lift her voice any higher. “Don’t leave me behind. I want to fight for you, too.”
He was silent.
Catherine reached for logic, which had always won him over before. “The odds have to be better if I’m with you. Tell me they are.”
Bedivere drew her to him. “Yes, the odds are better.”
She knew he was lying, but it meant she could stay, so she said nothing more.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bedivere settled in his seat. “Cathain or bust,” he said and started up the jump gate prep.
Catherine glanced behind her. “Ready?”
Lilly nodded and Brant just gave her a tight smile.
She started reviewing the Itinerary and the raw data feeds on her console. “We’re on the far side of Barros from the gates,” she pointed out.
“We could wait until the station shows up, let it come to us,” Brant suggested.
Bedivere shook his head. “No more waiting,” he said. “I’ll sling shot around and that will build up velocity for the jump.”
“I’ll factor it in,” Catherine said quietly. She felt vaguely nauseous and recognized the sensation. She was afraid. She reminded herself yet again that this was the one best chance Bedivere had of surviving the Federation’s relentless pursuit. They could run, but sooner or later, the Federation would catch them because Bedivere couldn’t leave Federation space, not if he didn’t want to be bound to the ship forever. “Cathain,” she said, exhaling.
Bedivere picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “It’ll be fine.”
She tried to smile.
The ship was already building up speed as he skimmed it around the planet’s atmosphere, using the gravity well to increase speed. She busied herself with the long list of things she had to take care of to make the jump safely.
“We’ll be moving out of the Barros eclipse in a few minutes,” Bedivere said, his voice distant as he concentrated on his dashboards. “The gates and the station will be almost dead ahead.”
The engines were starting to wind up, building to the sub-sonic scream that heralded jump speed.
“I’ve contacted most of the media channels on Cathain,” Lilly said from behind them. “There’s interest stirring, but none of the official Board satellites twitched.”
“Because they don’t see it as a Board matter,” Catherine said. “We’ll take whatever we can get.”
“Thirty seconds,” Bedivere warned. He started to straighten the ship up out of the parabola around the planet. The location of the gates was locked in by the Itinerary, so he could use the long range scanners to pick them out long before they were visible to even the highest focus the monitors could display. Bedivere kept his head down, watching the displays, adjusting minutely. It was only humans who needed to see where they were going. Bedivere could navigate purely by instruments.
Then he lifted his head sharply to look at the heads-up display, his jaw tightening.
“What is it?” she demanded, her gut clenching.
The engines were slowing. Bedivere looked at her and shook his head.
“Glave save us…” Brant muttered. He was at the weapons console and that had the same long range viewfinders the navigation dashboards did. Whatever had alerted Bedivere, Brant had seen, too.
Bedivere wordlessly adjusted the display. The station and the gates, which were both simple pinpricks of brighter light on the star field ahead, leapt in size while Barros become a giant blue-green arc to one side.
There were more bright pin pricks of light in front of the gates.
“Oh, hell,” Lilly whispered.
Bedivere increased the scale. Barros disappeared, the station slid past the edges of the display and the gates themselves grew to dominate the view. The pair of monstrous great curved structures hung in the sky, bracketing empty space.
In front of them sat Federation carriers and cruisers and three battle frigates, all facing in their direction, almost like they were waiting for them.
“…six, seven, eight, nine of them!” Lilly breathed.
“And six behind,” Bedivere said.
“More above and below,” Brant said, his voice hoarse. “They’ve boxed us in.”
“That’s not possible,” Cathe
rine whispered.
“How did they know we were here?” Lilly said. “I killed the locator!”
“Maybe it was sending more than just a locator signal,” Bedivere said.
Catherine bit her lip.
“You mean, it was listening?” Lilly cried.
“We spoke about jumping to Barros, just before we jumped there,” Catherine said. “That was before Lilly removed the locator.”
“Then Sarkisian knew, even while he was speaking to you.” Bedivere shook his head in disgust.
The ship came to a dead halt and hung in space, neatly in the middle of the trap.
An incoming communications request blinked red on the console.
Catherine looked at it, then at Bedivere. Bedivere shrugged.
She accepted it and brought up the heads-up display again, so that everyone could see it.
There was a man in Federation uniform looking at them. He had a burn scar that covered most of one cheek and made his mouth on that side snarl. Catherine found it hard to not look at the scar. In this day and age, tissue regeneration was a simple matter. That must mean that this man wanted to look deformed.
How odd.
“I am Admiral Marquering of the Federation defense fleet,” he said.
“Defense?” Lilly repeated softly, her tone dry.
On Catherine’s dashboard, a text message appeared. ALL Barros media satellites locked in and drawing on our visuals.
The media was paying attention.
“I will speak to the machine,” Marquering said.
Bedivere touched the communications pad in front of him and Marquering’s gaze shifted to him. “I have been instructed to tell you that the Federation does not make war upon its citizens. Release your human hostages and I will end this matter cleanly.”
“We’re not hostages!” Catherine said sharply.
“You have five minutes,” Marquering said. The screen dissolved into a dust cloud of pixels that separated and floated away.
Bedivere turned to face them all, his expression thoughtful. “Sarkisian,” he said softly.
* * * * *
Marquering’s second-in-command was an opinionated major who might one day make a good captain of his own ship, so Marquering tended to let him question as he saw fit. But now Angus turned to look at him with an incredulous expression. “We’re negotiating?”
“You heard me,” Marquering said. “I have orders.”
“The Federation doesn’t negotiate with criminals,” Angus argued. “Especially when we’re at the highest threat level you can reach without actively exchanging fire.”
“I am aware of that, thank you, Major Angus.”
Angus lifted his hands from his sides. “We’re just going to let the humans go?”
“Unless the machine twitches the wrong way, yes, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
* * * * *
“I need you to head for the life pods,” Bedivere said, speaking to all of them.
Cat jumped to her feet, instantly angry. “No! They’ll blow you out of the sky as soon as we’re clear.”
“They’ll do that even if you’re still aboard, once the deadline is passed.” Bedivere shook his head. “Sarkisian must have ordered this. No one else could direct a fleet Admiral. He’s trying to help you even now, Cat.”
“I’m not going. Whatever you’re planning, I can help.” Her jaw was set. Determined.
“You can’t help. Not with this. This is a chance—one I didn’t think we’d get. I had assumed that as soon as they spotted us, the Federation would open fire.” In fact, every projection he’d developed said they would destroy the ship the moment they were in range. Nothing in Federation fleet history said they might behave differently. This was unprecedented. “They’re going to let the three of you go. I can’t pass that up,” he added.
He could see that Cat was on the verge of panic and his heart squeezed. Her gaze was flickering around the room, sizing it up for enemies. Her knuckles on the back of her chair were white. “I’m not moving,” she said, her voice hoarse.
Bedivere looked at Brant. “Please, help me with this,” he said. “You know I have to do it.” Brant was the one person on the deck who might understand.
Brant’s gaze flickered toward Catherine. Bedivere understood. Cat would not leave easily.
The minutes were ticking down in his mind. The Admiral would not wait a second beyond the five minutes he had given him…if he got the full five minutes in the first place. Time was critical.
So Bedivere steeled himself. He moved fast, lifting his arm and driving his elbow into the vulnerable point just behind Cat’s ear in a short, sharp jab.
Her eyes rolled up and she crumpled, but he caught her before she hit the floor and hoisted her up into his arms. “Sorry,” he told her. “I’d rather you live to argue another day.”
Lilly was watching with big eyes, her lips parted. Her face was very pale. Brant caught her arm. “Hurry,” he urged her.
Bedivere followed them down to the bowels of the ship and into the starboard airlock chamber where the pods sat waiting. He had activated them on the way, so they had already drawn out of their ejection tubes. Their lids were open and ready, the interiors lit.
Brant helped Lilly into the first, kissed her hard but swiftly, then closed the lid over her. He pressed his hand against the armored shell for a moment, then stepped into the second pod. “You’ve got a plan, right?” he asked Bedivere.
Bedivere lowered Catherine into the remaining pod and arranged her limbs. “Sort of.”
“You’re not just going to sit there and let them take pot shots at you, are you?”
Bedivere found he could smile. “Does that sound like me?”
Brant smiled back and lay down in the pod. “You’ll have to tell me about it. Later.”
“Over brandy,” Bedivere promised.
Brant closed the lid on his pod and it hissed as it sealed.
Bedivere stroked Cat’s cheek, then forced himself to close the pod and seal it. The minutes were racing by, but even so, he found his hand hovering over the activation board. He was hesitating. The emotional, human part of him was stopping him from doing what he needed to do to keep her safe.
With a growl he slammed his hand over the start button and left the room. He didn’t stay to watch the pods leave the ship. He could monitor internally, using the tether. Ship systems reported back to him as the pods ejected with the speed of a bullet. It gave the pods velocity enough to race through space away from a ship that would be exploding, or burning, or otherwise unsafe.
As he monitored, Bedivere made his way back to the flight deck. At the same time, he brought the engines back on-line and got the ship moving, all as he moved through the now-empty corridors and rooms.
By the time he reached the flight deck, the ship had gathered speed.
The heads-up display in the middle of the flight deck formed, as that was the one closest to where Bedivere was. He could have tapped directly into the visual feed and “watched” it in his head, without having the display form, but he had spent so many years using human senses to interact with the world that it was automatic now.
Besides, Marquering was expected a human form.
Marquering was scowling, which distorted his deformed face even more. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“They’re off the ship,” Bedivere pointed out.
“You don’t really think you can ram through the blockade, do you? I have seventeen ships at my disposal, with more combined firepower than a star going nova. You won’t just be disintegrated. You will vanish. Even your atoms will be destroyed.”
“You haven’t given me any reason to stay still and let you do that,” Bedivere pointed out.
Marquering smiled and the expression was truly nasty. “You might be a machine, but you have demonstrated that you can make mistakes. You just made one by complying with my demand you off-load the humans. That tells me something you shouldn’t have let me kn
ow.” He looked off screen. “Destroy the pods. All of them.”
“Nooo!” The cry erupted from Bedivere, harsh and primal.
* * * * *
Angus and Marquering watched the cruiser start to bank in a tight, almost impossible curve. “What’s it doing?” Angus asked curiously. “It’s not…going back for them?” He turned to look at Marquering. “Protecting them?”
Marquering sneered. “It’s flying straight into the cross-hairs, too blinded by emotions to worry about its own skin. Send the order, Major. As soon as that cruiser reaches safe minimum distance from the nearest Federation ship, everyone is to open fire with everything they have.” He frowned. “Oh and don’t forget to clean up the pods while you’re at it.”
“The ship is shielding the pods,” Angus said. “We can’t see them from here.”
“There are ships on every side of the machine. One of them will be able to see the pods. Get them to do the job.” Marquering dismissed him with a wave.
* * * * *
The world had become a mathematical stage in his mind. Human thought patterns were too fuzzy and slow. Bedivere knew he had very little time left. So decisions became matrixes of possibilities, percentages and probabilities.
No external door or opening on a jump-capable ship would open by computer command when the ship was in the vacuum of space. So Bedivere left the flight deck once more, hurrying down the levels to the cargo bay, as he steered the ship back toward the hurtling life pods.
His heart was beating so hard it hurt and he was distantly aware of his breathing, which was harsh and hurried. But the silvered, calm plain of thought he had found before was beckoning. It wasn’t dark this time. It was light and bright and revealed all its dimensions. He could see everything, everywhere, when he mentally stepped onto it. It was peaceful there, with no emotions to buckle his thinking.
While he explored the oasis, he climbed down to the cargo bay floor and moved around the edges to the manual door control. The ship was vibrating around him. He was holding the engines at over-capacity and very close to their physical breaking point, as he maneuvered through space. Ahead of the ship and clear within his mind’s eye, the pods were trying to race away from him, but he was gaining.
Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance Page 19