by Debra Jess
Tamarja shrugged, pretending casual interest as her eyelids grew heavy. "If they're only here once a quarter, what would the colony do in between those visits?"
"I wouldn't worry about it too much." Jita finished her fussing and picked up her blazer, making ready to leave. "This far out from the corporate home office and Unity Homeport, there aren't a lot of prospects for pirates. It would take too many resources for them to target an unproven colony. Right now, our biggest threats are keeping Black Wave under wraps and the Shadows."
Back to the Shadows. Who were they and why were they a threat? She wanted to ask more questions, but her eyes shut for the final time. She heard Jita dissolve the door just before she fell into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"They're all dead?"
The words stuck in the back of Daeven's throat. This was almost as bad as Stratos, almost. This time he didn't know any of the victims.
"Not dead, disappeared. Only two chose suicide over capture. The others held out long enough to destroy most of the computer files we kept on-site. We've lost the ships, though."
Daeven shook his head as he slowly sat down in one of Joran's battered chairs. The dank basement apartment just got a lot gloomier. "Disappeared is almost the same as dead. We'll never see them again. Manitac will have them mind-wiped and working on one of their colonies before we can track them down."
Joran nodded as he left the ‘cast ‘net controls to join Daeven, still clutching his cup of claffien. "Even if we could track them down, what good would it do? We don't have the manpower to rescue them, and we don't have knowledge to reverse the mind-wipe."
"So they may as well be dead."
Joran took a sip of claffien, grimaced, and spilled out the liquid contents in a nearby planter. The plant was probably addicted to claffien by this point. "If you choose to see it that way. Your little girlfriend seems to be thriving despite her mind-wipe."
Daeven had never told Joran about asking Tamarja to meet him for lunch, yet he wasn't surprised Joran knew anyway. The man had his fingers on the pulse of Dawn's Landing. Even Daeven didn't know how far or deep his information network branched.
"Tamarja isn't like the others. She can still think for herself. She just can't remember her past, and she has one of their collars wrapped around her spine so she won't turn traitor again. She doesn't even remember she used to be one."
Daeven said nothing else. Puppets had been around for a long time, but most folks only saw criminals turned into useful, harmless things. The Shadows had tried to change that on Stratos, but ultimately they had failed. Daeven clutched his cup of cold claffien even tighter.
That was where his brother had died in an attempt to change the system. He had blamed the people of Stratos for a long time, until Joran had reminded him that Manitac deliberately started the cascade of events that led to his brother's death. That was when Daeven went undercover as a Manitac officer. That was how he met Tamarja Chase.
"All the more reason to stay away from her." Joran interrupted Daeven's thoughts. "She's a danger to our mission, dear boy. You can't trust her. That's what got you into trouble in the first place."
Easy to say. Of all the places for Tamarja Chase to rematerialize, why did it have to be at Dawn's Landing? On one hand, he was still angry at her for betraying him. On the other, she didn't even remember what had happened to her, to them. To make matters worse, she was still the beautiful, complex, fascinating woman she had been when he'd first met her.
He needed to steer Joran away from the topic of Tamarja Chase. "What do we do now?"
"We do what we're already doing—continue on with our mission as if nothing happened. Losing that base and those ships is a setback, not an end to the Shadows."
Daeven nodded. Leave it to Joran to see everything through the cold, harsh light of reality. They were Shadows, and they had a job to do. Daeven needed to find that same unyielding focus. He had had it once, before Stratos, before Tamarja. If he couldn't find the power behind his convictions, he could very well find himself dead.
Chapter Twenty-Three
"Tamarja."
Tamarja moaned as the first orgasm hit. It wasn't real, or at least it wasn't a real person causing her body to sing. She knew that. After so many nights of teasing desire from Rory—she now forced herself to use his name—she began to distinguish where her dream began and her reality ended. In her dream, she looked away so she didn't have to see Rory's empty expression, his indifferent manner.
"This isn't real." Her body didn't care as she arched her hips upward, forcing Rory even deeper inside.
"It used to be real."
A second wave of pleasure hit. She clamped her thighs around his, rolling them both over so she could ride him. "Used to be real. So this isn't a dream?"
She moved faster, her sweat-slicked body sliding along his, not ready to leave this heady cocoon.
"It's no dream."
She came again, tossing her head back, pulling her breasts out of reach of his hands. "No dream," she repeated. As she slid her body from his, dream-Rory looked at her, completely unaffected by their lovemaking. Tamarja screamed, grabbing his shoulders, shaking him. "Who are you?"
"It's not a dream."
Tamarja jerked upright in her empty bed and slapped on the lights. Blinking against the too-bright orbs, she tried to gather her wits as she yanked her blankets around her. She couldn't take much more of this emotional roller coaster.
Rolling out of bed, she padded her way to the wet room. The running water swirled in the sink, but she couldn't bring herself to wash her face and drink a glass of water as had been her routine since these dreams started. Instead, she stared in the mirror.
"It's not a dream." Her voice sounded rough, sluggish with sleep. It, not I. Not “I'm not a dream.“ “It's not a dream.“
Did that mean something? She slapped water onto her face and drank from her cup. It, not I. Why did that make such a difference?
What was it? Not Rory, she already knew Rory wasn't a dream. Up until now she'd figured her dreams were just a perverse reaction to loneliness—with Yohzad's affection out of reach and Daeven giving her confusing signals, her subconscious had grabbed hold of someone who couldn't hurt her, or reach her for that matter.
If it wasn't Rory, then maybe it was the lovemaking. She must have had lovers before her capture. Even now she could feel the pulsing smoke gathering around her brain, ready to overpower her memory.
Standing straight, Tamarja took a deep breath and imagined herself flying, not remembering, not pushing against the barriers that held her sealed inside the shell of the present. The fog floated away.
Pleased she had warded off a memory cloud, she refilled her cup and gulped down more water. Manitac had placed her memory off limits for a reason. Yohzad had even told her that her past wasn't something she wanted to remember. If her memories were so painful, so horrible, then they needed to stay blocked. Without her memory, she could only focus on the present, on survival. Her memory was a danger to her, her memory was…it.
The cup slipped through her fingers and bounced off the floor. It wasn't Rory or their lovemaking. It's not a dream. It's a memory.
Tamarja slipped down onto the toilet seat, her whole body shaking. She had remembered. She had remembered something from her past. Rory wasn't a fantasy—he had been her lover.
She tried to remember more, to reach back to the memory and find the thread that would lead her to the past, but the barriers snapped into place, the fog rolling over her, blanketing her in nothingness. Tamarja pushed harder, ignoring the warning signs as her head pulsed with pain. She fought and struggled, pressing her fists against her eyes, bombarded by dizziness and nausea.
After what seemed like an eternity, she pulled her hands away from her face and took a deep breath. She would stop fighting―for now. Another migraine so soon after the first wouldn’t do her any good.
She still had a few hours left to sleep. Her head ached a bit from her effort
s, but not with the ferocity of her previous migraine. Back in bed, she picked up the jug containing the remnants of Ornit's cure. Sipping just enough to get rid of the headache, she lay back down and turned off the lights.
She only remembered when she slept. Had Manitac missed something? She was, after all, an experiment―an attempt to create a more perfect ‘pet. Certainly they would want her to report this to Yohzad.
Yohzad, I've been having sex fantasies about a puppet. Can you make them go away?
Yohzad would laugh if he knew.
But he wouldn't know because she wasn't going to tell him. She wasn't about to put her one precious memory of her past at risk, even if it was the only memory she would ever conjure. Especially if it was the only memory she'd ever remember. It was hers, and she was going to keep it.
She snuggled into her pillows. She and Rory, probably arrested at the same time, convicted of the same crimes. Was it a coincidence they both turned up on Dawn's Landing? Did Manitac even pay attention to where it assigned their ‘pets?
Did Rory have any dreams of her?
Probably not. Aside from him being completely mind-wiped, she had only been having these dreams since the party at the Teloris' home. The party that had ended in disaster because―she'd drunk the Black Wave powder.
"Black Wave can return my memory," she whispered.
She wanted to pace the room, but the migraine concoction kept her eyes shut. Now that she had another key, she needed to know more. If just drinking a little Black Wave could return one memory, maybe ingesting more would return other memories, possibly unblock all of them.
It couldn't be that easy. From what little she had read, Black Wave, while inducing a powerful high, it also eroded the synaptic impulses in the brain. This occurred slowly, over time, so the user didn't even realize what was happening to them. Too much Black Wave all at once would have the same effect as her collar: brain death, leading to complete death if she didn't receive medical treatment soon enough.
She needed Black Wave, but she also needed more information—and she knew exactly who could supply her with both.
Chapter Twenty-Four
"We don't have much time."
Aura nodded, activating the privacy screen that enclosed her seat and Ramsey's just as the adjutant settled down. After three days of confinement within Facility Prime, Aura had decided to lift the security restrictions. They still didn't know why that woman had breached their security ‘net or how she'd acquired enough Black Wave to suicide before security could question her, but Aura couldn't justify keeping her guests confined any longer. Not if she wanted those contracts.
That's why she had escorted the more important delegates to each of their project sites. The security threat might have caused the delegates to lose faith in her to deliver on her promises. By showing them she had detailed knowledge of each project, she could regain that lost confidence and bolster their diplomatic ties.
Which was how she found herself eating lunch on board her shuttle while the delegates crowded the small restaurant at the base of Twenty-Two, squeezing in a long overdue meeting with Ramsey in between tours. The shuttle was the only place they could meet besides her own office that would guarantee their privacy, even with the pilot, Chase, eating her own lunch in the cockpit.
"What have you found out?" she asked Ramsey as she manipulated her stylus, her fork, and her lunch with practiced ease.
"Not as much I would like." Ramsey paused to take a swig of water. "The suspect had a legitimate background check. The witnesses we interviewed prior to her arrival have known her since childhood. She was born, raised, educated, and worked on the Devarian colony. As far as we can tell, she had only left home twice—once on a school field trip to the Unity Homeport and once to Stratos, a full standard year before the uprising, as an intern to a colony representative. There's no arrest records, no connection to any organized criminal element, no drug use. No reason to suspect she would try to replace the actual Devarian delegate to Dawn's Landing. Who still hasn't been found, by the way."
"Stratos, huh?" Aura mused over the possibility as she picked at her salad. "Any Shadow activity on Devar?"
"Nothing official, but the farther away you get from the Unity Homeport, the less Shadow activity gets reported. Of the few I'm aware of, some have supporting documentation, but the rest are rumors." Ramsey activated her own data prompt to start transmitting her notes.
Aura acknowledged receipt of the research. "So at some point, probably on Stratos, this woman makes contact with and becomes a Shadow. They switch her for the actual Devarian delegate and send her to Dawn's Landing. What for? Communications network? Mission support? If she was a rep's intern, she had diplomatic skills. Anything else?"
Aura continued to eat while Ramsey shifted through more records. "She had a pilot's license."
Aura paused with her fork halfway from the plate to her mouth. "Really?"
"Atmosphere and space qualified." Ramsey lowered her stylus. "That presents many possibilities. Maybe she wasn't a Shadow after all. If a drug syndicate wants an easy way to distribute Black Wave, they could use a pilot for pick up and transport."
"They don't need a pilot to get the drugs off world. Not if they've found a way to sneak their stash past decon and our security checks. She also could have waited on Jarvis Station for the pickup and proceeded from there." Aura shook her head, setting aside the rest of her lunch. "Run a deeper probe of all AuRaKaz employees, especially the ones who would have the knowledge to circumvent our decon and security protocols. If someone has found a way to deliver Black Wave off world, I want to know how and who."
"I can start that review right now." Ramsey also set aside her lunch, as she exited one file and pulled up another. "I heard from the Guardian about our new pilot."
"Anything of note?"
"You mean besides the fact that she's collared?"
Almost nothing could surprise Aura anymore, but now she stared at Ramsey. "A prisoner? She can't be. She'd be a puppet by now."
Ramsey smirked. "She should be, but she isn't. The Guardian couldn't find any medical report saying otherwise. They'd never let a puppet fly anyway, no matter how high functioning they sometimes appear. It's too dangerous."
Aura quickly glanced through the clear privacy screen to see Tamarja eating her own lunch in the cockpit. "That's interesting."
"Especially since Manitac is desperate for more puppets." Ramsey continued. "They've pretty much depleted the population of Unity prisoners, and Unity isn't filling their prisons as fast as they used to. There's only so many people Unity can arrest and disappear on behalf of Manitac."
"So how did she escape that fate?"
"I don't know, and neither does the Guardian. He had to dig really deep to find the little bit that he did. Her records were erased from the main archive. The Guardian had to hack into an off-world backup and even then had to run a trace for anyone using the same surname. Lucky for us, her name never changed. Someone wants to keep Chase's situation a secret."
"And we can't blame her for not advertising her situation." Aura rubbed her wrinkled forehead, tempted to make use of the shuttle's luxury and activate her chair's massage. Though she personally had requested the added luxury for the shuttle, Aura had not risen as far as she had by giving in to temptation. At least the colors she had selected, the cool blues and greens, were still soothing to her sore eyes. "I don't need these complications. Not now. We're not ready yet. Send me what the Guardian found. I'll review the report tonight after we return home."
Ramsey nodded. "We'll review them together. I think Chase has an interesting story to tell."
Tamarja crumpled her lunch container and tossed it into the shuttle's recycler. Through the cockpit door, she could see the director and Ramsey deep in conversation behind a privacy screen.
She had welcomed Ramsey's comm early this morning, telling her she was back on duty for the duration of the delegates' visit. She felt better physically, Ornit's remedy alleviating he
r migraine and giving her a clear head. Flying kept her from ruminating on her decision to find more Black Wave.
It really hadn't been much of a decision. The only person she knew who could get her the Black Wave without getting arrested was Daeven. Would he do it, though? She still suspected he knew she was collared. How could he not when Jita had said he'd held her the night she was exposed to Black Wave? Since he'd held her, he might have found the collar nubs. As a security officer, he would know what they were, would know what they meant. He would know she was a puppet, if not a full-fledged one like Rory.
She would have to convince him how important it was for her to remember her past. If the man had any heart at all, he would understand at least that much. He didn't have to know the rest—about Rory, about the warship, at least not until she had more information herself.
The fact she would be lying to him didn't sit well in her stomach. His eyes, so clear and bright and blue—she could see a reflection of her own hurt and confusion there. Maybe that's why he'd kissed her, why he felt drawn to her, yet tried to keep her away. He didn't deserve to be lied to, not when he put his own career at risk to protect her. Not when he'd kept her secret.
On the other hand, if he hadn't found the collar and didn't know she was a prisoner, she'd have to find another way of convincing him to give her some Black Wave. How she was going to accomplish that, she had no idea.
First things first. She needed to see Daeven again, needed to get to know him better, gain his trust. Then maybe, if he didn't already know her secret, she would tell him.
Maybe.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her stylus. She had just enough time for one personal comm.
The messenger blipped a few times and then made the connection. He still looked good, even with the tri-d distortions. "Daeven. I expected to leave you a message. Thought you would be on duty."
"I'm between assignments. Some of the delegates need an escort to Facility Eighteen. Not originally on the schedule. I'm on my way to pick them up."