Diffraction

by Jess Anastasi

  He finally got fingers on the comm and grabbed it, cracking his eyes open to glare at the screen. Colt messaged that he was about to leave Dunham and would be there in half an hour.

  He dragged a hand across his face, rubbing away the last dark vestiges of the usual dreams he had no matter how lightly he slept. The room was dim, the only illumination slicing in from an adjoining hallway while the low familiar drawl of Callan’s voice, followed by Jensen answering, came from the kitchen.

  Sitting up, he shoved his hair off his forehead, taking a moment to put the creeping darkness that always rose with the dreams back into the dungeon in the lowest pit of his consciousness.

  Once he was about as stable as he ever got, he shoved to his feet and went into the brighter hall, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. In the kitchen, Sen and Callan were playing cards, while in another room that opened out past the bench, Nyah and Ella were watching something on the viewer. Outside, night had well and truly fallen.

  “Colt will be here in half an hour,” he said to no one in particular as he went to the coldstore and pulled out a bottle of water. He twisted off the lid and set to downing the icy contents in a few long swallows.

  “Do we need some kind of contingency for that?” Callan asked, throwing his cards on the table, apparently losing the hand to Sen.

  “I hope not.” He crumpled the empty bottle and dropped it in the waste chute. But he still felt sticky, felt like his clothes were too tight, like something was trying to break free of his skin. “I’m going to hit the shower before he gets here.”

  He didn’t wait for anyone to answer, leaving the room with an even stride, good at pretending like nothing in the hell was going on with him, when really it was all he could do not to run as far and fast as he could until he collapsed into nothingness.

  Finding the bathroom, he released a long breath of pent-up tension as he stepped in and stripped his clothes like he couldn’t get them off fast enough. He lurched into the shower and tabbed on the cold water to high, letting the chill hit his almost fevered skin until he had his shite more together.

  Shutting the water off again, he flipped a towel around his hips and started toward the door but paused as he reached it. A light trickle of energy passed over his skin like a shiver, and he knew without a doubt Ella was out in the hallway, coming closer and pausing outside the door, even though it hadn’t been her intended destination.

  He wanted her to keep walking, to continue toward the bedroom he somehow knew she’d been heading for. But then he was reaching out, twisting the handle, and pulling the door open to find her standing near the opposite wall, stance relaxed and expression serene as always. Except now, he got the feeling the seemingly unperturbed countenance of the Arynian priestess was nothing but a façade.

  “When you first came onboard my ship, you were determined to help me, even though I didn’t want it.”

  Something that could have been surprise flashed through her eyes as she nodded, but it didn’t last, leaving him unable to read her, as usual.

  “I thought that was why I ended up on the Imojenna, that it was my destiny.”

  He stepped out of the doorway, but kept a good few feet between them. He didn’t need another demonstration of what happened when they got within touching distance.

  “And now?”

  She glanced away. “Now, I am reminding myself of my teachings, of what is expected of me as an Arynian.”

  He crossed his arms, muscles tightening on a wave of dissatisfaction. “That tells me absolutely shite-all, and you know it.”

  She snapped her gaze back to him, the light of something nearly fanatical kindling in her gaze. “Do you want help, Rian?”

  The direct question cut through him like a red-hot blade, burning and slashing in equal measure, laying him open and leaving him blackened. No one had ever actually asked him if he wanted help…well, not the kind of help Ella meant.

  And he didn’t. What was the point when he couldn’t be fixed? There was no salvation for him and the things he’d done. Only a merciful death once he’d found his bloody vengeance.

  “That’s what I thought.” She turned away from him and walked the rest of the way down the hall, not looking back as she stepped into a bedroom and closed the door.

  He hadn’t realized until this second that, since Ella had come aboard, a small part of his old self had been partly revived, and maybe that was why he loathed having her around as much as she intensely fascinated him. But with the knowledge that she really had given up on him substantiated, he got the sense of that last shred falling away. The hollow numbness returned, but this time he didn’t welcome it.

  …

  Rian waited down the block from the spaceport where they’d left the skimmer that morning, sipping an expensive cup of real coffee as he waited for Colt to arrive. Shortly after his weak moment with Ella, a comforting sense of the usual low-simmering rage had reignited, leaving him on familiar, manageable ground.

  He’d left everyone else at the cottage to pick up Colt, since they were about as safe there as they could be anywhere that wasn’t the Imojenna.

  There weren’t many people on the street; it was edging toward midnight, and while there was a trendy, late night café nearby, this clearly wasn’t a restaurant or club district. Most of the shops were dark and closed, only a handful of couples and small groups of people walking the block.

  When Colt turned the far corner leading from the spaceport, Rian pushed off from the sign he’d been leaning against.

  Colt gave a short wave with his free arm, other hand carrying a rucksack.

  “Evening,” Rian greeted as they got within speaking distance. He nodded toward the bag. “Decided to stay a few days to pick some berries after all, huh?”

  Colt sent him a grin, switching the bag to his opposite hand. “Decided to take a few days, yeah, but not to pick goddamn berries.”

  “Let’s get on with business then.” He led Colt to the aerocar he’d hired and set off in the general direction of the cottage. They didn’t make much in the way of conversation during the trip or the walk after they left the aerocar some ways off from the cottage in case anyone was tracking it.

  The silence was partly because he was never exactly chatty at the best of times, but it was also a test to see if Colt seemed nervous or on edge. People who were anxious often got more so when left to their own thoughts. But Colt was easy, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Which he probably didn’t, the lucky son of a bitch.

  Back at the cottage, Jensen, Ella and Nyah were nowhere to be seen, likely in bed, while Callan greeted them at the door with a hard, jaded expression and kitted up with a few more weapons than usual, probably because they weren’t on the ship. Plus, Callan had trust issues the size of a flagship.

  Rian did the introductions and then led Colt into the kitchen to sit at the table still littered with the containers of takeout they’d had earlier in the evening. He hadn’t eaten anything himself then, more interested in downing those ineffective bottles of red wine. He picked through a few of the wrappers and boxes until he found a burger and cold fries.

  “Leftovers?” He held a second, half-empty carton of fries out toward Colt, who was in the process of dropping his rucksack just inside the doorway.

  His old buddy waved him off, and with a shrug, he turned to reheat the food.

  “So you said in your message you could get a regular supply of what we needed. Got to say I was a bit surprised. I thought a single shipment would be hard enough to come by and would take you days, if not weeks.”

  Colt pulled a chair for himself and sat down. “Maybe for most people. But you remember my brother, Arlo? These days, he’s working in military munitions and supplies. You wouldn’t believe the amount of perfectly good merchandise that gets junked because of all kinds of reasons like oversupply or shipping damage.”

  Rian studied Colt closely, but saw nothing except a genuine offer in his open expression. Jezus, had he actuall
y stumbled onto a stroke of luck for a change instead of getting bitch-slapped by it like usual?

  “And Arlo can send it to us without anyone knowing?”

  Colt nodded confidently. “Once Arlo strikes supplies as unusable, he nominates a vetted company to dispose of it. That’s the only thing we’ve got to get around. If you’ve got some way to get a ship or crew cleared to handle sensitive IPC materials, then you’ve got as much as possible of whatever you need coming your way.”

  Rian glanced over his shoulder where his very own universal-class forger stood behind him. “Callan?”

  “Consider it done. Just point me in the direction of a ship.”

  “We obviously can’t use the Imojenna or Qae’s Ebony Winter. Besides the fact we’ve temporarily misplaced the Imojenna, either of them would be recognized in any kind of IPC depot.”

  “We could repurpose one of the Swift Brion’s shuttles,” Callan suggested. “Hull works, rip out the guts, the whole pimp-out.”

  “Good plan. I’ll comm Zander and give him the heads-up. He should be in the Barbary Belt by now.”

  Colt was clearly taking in the exchange with unconcealed interest. “None of that made any sense, unless we’ve somehow slipped into an alternate universe where you’re working with one of the IPC’s most wanted marauders. Not to mention Graydon taking the Swift Brion into the Barbary Belt? That can’t have been sanctioned. Rene Blackstone will blast the flagship into space debris well before they get within spitting distance.”

  Callan shifted to brace both hands against the surface of the table and leaned forward slightly. “He knows too much. You want me to take him out to the woods and kill him all quiet-like? I’m sure he’ll make great fertilizer for next year’s berries.”

  Colt tensed, hand dropping below the line of the table, presumably for a weapon.

  With a shrug, Rian turned and took out his reheated leftovers. “I dunno, you think he’s worth the ammo? He said it himself. Who’s going to believe Zander is taking the Swift Brion into the Barbary Belt?”

  “Pretty sure the IPC brass will, once they realize Graydon took the entire crew and the flagship AWOL,” Callan replied conversationally. “And Colt here could tell them all about how it was Rian Sherron’s idea.”

  Colt shoved to his feet. “You’re shamming me, right?”

  Rian shoveled a handful of fries in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

  “About which part? Callan wanting to quiet-kill you, or Zander stealing the Swift Brion?”

  But Colt didn’t seem to be fully listening, realization dawning in his expression. “I heard a report just before I left. The IPC had lost all contact with the Swift Brion after a scheduled stop at the Beta Seven Waystation. They were scrambling to find some trace, going on the assumption they’d been attacked or suffered some kind of catastrophic accident. But now you’re saying—”

  “Nothing happened to them,” Rian confirmed around a mouthful of burger. “They went off the grid on purpose.”

  “Zander Graydon stole a flagship?” Colt ran a hand back and forth over his short hair, almost looking dazed. “Holy mother of jezus, what the freck is going on around here?”

  Rian yanked out the chair across from his buddy and sat down, putting aside his half-eaten food. “Look, Colt, I really need this thing with Arlo to go my way. I want to trust you and need to know that you trust me.”

  “That’s a complicated question to ask considering I haven’t seen you for over five years, you’re a wanted intergalactic terrorist, and I just found out you’ve got something to do with Zander Graydon stealing an entire frecking IPC flagship.”

  Rian clasped his hands together on the tabletop, leaning forward a little. “Actually, if you put all of that aside and remember that once you were like an older brother to me, it’s not complicated at all. It’s simple. Do you trust me, Colter?”

  For a long, weighted moment, Colt stared at him, no doubt recalling those early years when he’d been nothing but an oblivious, runaway rich kid who thought joining the IPC and going to war would solve the problems in his life, not completely destroy it.

  Colt released a harsh breath and dropped back into his chair. “Okay, yeah, I trust you.”

  “Then before you leave here, we’ve got to have a conversation. But first, I want to organize that shipment.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Barasa

  Kira covertly studied the latest complication in their already convoluted situation. Jase Nevan had caramel-toned skin, dark hair and eyes, possibly a number of different heritages mixed into his family bloodline so that it was hard to pinpoint any one in particular.

  After announcing he might have a clue about Quaine Ayden, Tannin had led them all into the office where he’d been working, while Lianna kept close, looking nothing short of suspicious.

  “Don’t you think we need to clear him before we start taking his word on anything?” Lianna swapped the pulse pistol she’d been holding for the Reidar stunner.

  Tannin glanced up as he sat behind the display screens. “Sure, whatever you think.”

  He was already tapping away before he’d even finished saying the words, not looking the least bit concerned his old prison pal might be Reidar. Despite how many years she’d spent on the Imojenna and had known about the Reidar, she still couldn’t get her head around suspecting every single person they came across of really being a shape-shifting alien.

  Jase had stopped next to the desk, stiffening when Lianna brought the razar up and aimed it in his direction. “Wait. What—”

  Lianna squeezed off a round. The energy passed through him without any discernable effects, leaving him looking more than a little confused.

  Kira let out the breath tightening her chest, not even realizing she’d been holding it. In these close quarters, she hated to think what would have happened if Jase had been an alien.

  “What was that?” Jase looked down at Tannin, who had his attention on the screen in front of him.

  “A security measure. Don’t worry, you passed. Now tell me about what you saw.”

  Jase eyed Lianna for a second as if he thought maybe she was going to shoot him a third time while he wasn’t looking then braced one hand on the desk and the other on the back of the chair Tannin sat in.

  “This rough-looking guy came here a bunch of days in a row, demanding to see your father. Apparently refusing to see people is a thing with your dad. But this guy was pretty insistent for nearly a week. I don’t know whether he got his meeting, but he stopped turning up, and I haven’t seen him since. I overheard one of the staff say he was a childhood friend of the chancellor’s son.”

  While Jase was talking, Tannin had taken to the house security archive files. “How long ago was this?”

  “A week ago, maybe a bit more.”

  “That fits in with the timing.” Tannin leaned a little closer to the screen, fingers moving in a blur as he accessed the stored footage. On the screen, an image came up of a man standing outside the gates. He had a mop of shaggy hair falling around his ears, well-worn but neat clothes, and the wiry muscled build of a laborer. From the angle, it was hard to see his face, so Tannin flicked through several different views until he found a clear one.

  When the shot of his face came up, Tannin blew out a hard breath and sat back. “That’s him. That’s Quaine.”

  “What do you think he wanted with your father?” Zahli asked.

  “I have no idea. But maybe we can find out.”

  Tannin dove back into the archives using some kind of facial recognition program to zero in on Quaine’s face. “According to the logs, this is the last recorded image of him.”

  “Of him entering?” Lianna asked. “What about inside the house or leaving?”

  Tannin worked at another screen. “No, nothing, and there’s a whole chunk of archives missing. Which probably means someone deleted it, but the backup files are still here.”

  There was no audio, but on the screen, Chancellor Everette came out
into the foyer to meet Quaine, not looking all that friendly. The chancellor led Quaine through the house into the very office they were all sitting in.

  “Can we get audio, hear what they’re saying?” Lianna asked, shifting closer, like they all had, watching Quaine and Tannin’s father arguing.

  Tannin shook his head. “I probably could find it and match it with the—”

  He broke off when, on the screen, Quaine advanced across the room, clearly enraged, and attacked the chancellor. But he’d barely gotten within reaching distance when his father grabbed Quaine and brutally snapped his neck like it was a twig.

  Jase made a low noise of surprise, while Tannin glanced away from the screen.

  “Well…” Lianna cleared her throat. “That was unexpected.”

  Tannin reached out and slapped off the footage, blanking all the screens, then shoving to his feet.

  “My father killed Quaine. Guess at least now we know what happened to him.” He paced a few steps away, clearly struggling with what he’d just witnessed.

  “Did you see how fast he moved,” Lianna said when no one else offered anything. “I don’t think that was your father, Tannin.”

  Zahli stepped over to intercept Tannin’s pacing. “This wasn’t your fault, and you couldn’t have saved him. None of us could have known—”

  “That my father is Reidar?” Tannin gave a hollow laugh.

  Zahli caught his hands, shifted closer, nothing but love and concern in her expression. “So maybe it wasn’t really him who abandoned you all those years ago.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Tannin ducked his head, but Kira caught the sheen in his eyes before he lowered them. She grabbed Varean’s hand and tugged, nodding toward the door.

  As they started making a hasty exit, both Lianna and Jase got a clue, following them out.

  “Well that sucked,” Jase announced as Lianna pulled the door shut. “But I need some blanks filled in. I thought the chancellor was Tannin’s father, but now you’re saying he’s not? And what the hell is a Reidar?”