“Quite satisfactory, Officer Dilon.” She indicated a chair for him and seated herself. “Her Highness is not traveling for her personal pleasure. This is a highly important journey for her and for the planetary system she rules.”
“I’m aware this is a time of pilgrimage for your people,” Jake said. “We have a large number of passengers from the Tregallovan system on board for this flight, all headed to the shrine.”
“She must make this pilgrimage to be confirmed as the next queen.” Scorsshyn sat straighter. “There will be chaos on our worlds if her blood line loses the throne. Many factions wait and plot for such an eventuality, but as long as Falyn lives, the people will accept only her as ruler.”
“I’m aware of the political situation. I assure you the CLC Line is dedicated to ensuring the safety of all our passengers. Has there been some specific threat I should be aware of? Any more incidents like the one in the corridor outside the casino the other day?”
Scorsshyn’s thin, badly painted lips tightened, and she glanced away for a moment. “No.”
She’s lying. Jake considered his options. He couldn’t force her to talk. “My staff and I are at your service, of course, my lady.”
“Arln is the chief of Falyn’s security team. Ordinarily I wouldn’t be concerned by his temporary absence, as his second is an able warrior, but she, too, was stricken today, although not as ill as Arln.” Scorsshyn sat straight. Drumming her fingers on the table, eyes narrowed, the regent said, “What assurance can you give me that this outbreak of illness isn’t a disguised attack on Her Highness?”
“We’ve seen no evidence of human—or alien—plots. The doctor says this type of virus is common on cruise ships.” While he uttered platitudes meant to be reassuring, he tried to remember how influential Falyn’s dynasty was, how many systems their rule covered. It was a remote possibility the Mawreg, enemy of humankind and its allies, would try something this clumsy and untargeted. If the stakes were high enough, the adversary might indulge in biological warfare, but the more he considered the idea, the less feasible the concept became. He probably should run the scenario by some of his private resources as a precaution. “I can assign one of my staff to step into your security team full time until Arln and his officer recover, if you’d like?”
“Acceptable under the circumstances.” Scorsshyn leaned back, relief lightening her features. “Her Highness must not be troubled with these concerns.”
“Of course not. My officers will be discreet.” He circled back to his original inquiry. “You’re sure there’s been nothing specific, no intelligence, on a current threat Arln might have been investigating?”
Again, she shook her head. Rising from her chair, the elderly woman made it clear the interview was over. “When will your guard report to me?”
“I’ll have my officer here in an hour.” And I’ll tell him to keep his eyes and ears open. A threat against Falyn could be a danger to the whole ship. Having someone inside the delegation’s suite would be worth losing one person on the shift roster. He and the rest of his staff could work extended hours to cover the gap.
In the corridor a few moments later, Jake headed for the gravlift, unhappy misgivings about the mounting problems on this leg of the cruise fueling his bad mood. He’d report this new wrinkle to Captain Fleming and then send Red to watch over the princess. He was good with kids, not that Falyn was a normal child by any means. Red was also just as highly trained as Jake. If there was anything more to know about Scorsshyn’s security concerns, Red would find it out. And Jayna and Clint could continue their surveillance, unknown to Scorsshyn, who was probably playing her own deep game.
On her way to her cabin, Emily stopped in sickbay to see how Arln was faring. Accompanied by Pamla, the nurse on duty, she stepped into the cubicle off to the side where the bodyguard had been placed in a bed, surrounded by medical equipment designed to keep him hydrated and comfortable while monitoring his vital signs. Knowing how important human touch was, Emily took his pulse by hand. “I don’t like how nonresponsive the patient is,” she said to the nurse. “Has he had the full course of Galamialate?”
“Yes, Doctor, as ordered.”
“He should be improving steadily by now.” Emily thumbed through the updates on the AI. “I don’t see any signs of an underlying medical condition—oh, wait a moment, why wasn’t I informed of this?”
“Doctor?”
“The AI says he only has one functioning kidney, while the other apparently failed to fully develop. Of course his body’s having a hard time fighting the toxins the virus is emitting.” She tapped the screen. “I should have been notified when the information was added to the chart.” She glared at Pamla. “Where did you take your training?”
“At the university hospital on my homeworld. I’m fully certified to work cruise ships, Doctor. I’ve worked with Dr. Meers for ten years.” The nurse drew herself up. “I don’t claim to be a critical care nurse. It’s not listed on my résumé.”
“It’s all right. I’m sorry if I sounded harsh. I’m very concerned for this man’s health and that we do everything we possibly can for him.”
“I understand, doctor.” Pamla seemed willing to meet her half way. “It’s difficult for all of us, caring for a patient here when he obviously needs the facilities that would be available at a major hospital.”
Emily nodded, glad the woman understood the root cause of her own frustration. They saw eye to eye on the well-being of the patient. “Another three and a half weeks before we arrive at Sector Hub. In the meantime, he’ll need a change of medicine and even closer monitoring from us. I’ll enter the orders now and perhaps we should schedule a short refresher course for the staff on intensive care issues. Always good to have continuing education credits, right?”
“Yes, Doctor. That would be wonderful. Dr. Meers never placed any emphasis on refreshing our training, which I’ve always thought was a pity.”
“We’ll figure something out then.” As she put her new orders into the sickbay logs, Emily felt encouraged that she was developing a better relationship with her co-workers, which would benefit all of them, including her, and the passengers.
Jake wasn’t sure what to expect the next evening when he arrived at Emily’s cabin, flowers from the ship’s florist shop in hand. She answered the door dressed in some flowy thing perfectly matched to her blue eyes and accenting her figure in the most graceful way. She also smelled like heaven. Her perfume was intoxicating—not too much, subtle but enhancing the effortless beauty Emily possessed. Oh yeah, he was a goner all right.
“For me?” She took the flowers as she drew him with her other hand into the sitting room of her cabin. She took an appreciative sniff. “Lovely. Not as gorgeous as the blooms in the garden perhaps, but damn close. You shouldn’t have, but thank you.”
He took in the cozy dinner table set up for two. Apparently, she intended for them to dine here in her cabin, despite her elegant attire. “Hey, what’s a salary for, if not to treat a pretty girl to flowers? Especially since you’re providing the dinner.”
“Let me put these in water, and then we can eat.” She took a moment in the tiny efficiency kitchen and brought his flowers to the table. She was laughing. “I had to stuff them into an ordinary glass, but we’ll ignore the plebeian container. The blossoms are beautiful enough to transcend the humdrum vase.” Setting the arrangement in the center of the table, she said, “Please, sit. I don’t want the food Chef Stephanie labored over for us to go cold.”
He pulled her chair out for her and then hastened to take his own. Emily watched with bright eyes as he took the covers off the waiting plates. “Azrigone beef with shamboix sauce? And side orders of Tahumaroa shrimp and Majumdan crabdevil?” Rubbing his stomach with exaggerated pleasure, he looked at her. “Now who blew their pay?”
“Chocolate Decadence Supreme for dessert. All your favorites. I asked Meg.”
He noticed again how charming her dimples were when she smiled. There was
a faint blush on her cheeks. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me.”
“Well, it’s not like I cooked any of it personally. Please, go ahead.” As he was handing her the first serving plate, she said, “Let’s not talk about work tonight. I had a long day, and I’m sure you did too, but I’d like to take a break from thinking about unpleasant stomach viruses. Enjoy dinner.”
He nodded. “I can agree to that, no problem. But are we doing better? Fewer new cases?”
Laughing, Emily shook her finger at him. “You just can’t help yourself, can you, Security Officer Dilon? Yes, there were hardly any new cases today. Yes, most of the passengers seem to be on the mend. No, poor Arln is still in critical condition, but he has an underlying medical issue unrelated to the virus. I treated an earache, several headaches, a broken toe, one benign bump and countless other minor complaints. The ship will bill the passengers an inordinate amount for services rendered. Is that enough of a report for you?”
“I didn’t have a chance to scan the updates,” he said in self-defense. “Thank you.”
She inclined her head graciously. “My pleasure. Now your ship’s doctor prescribes food and lighter topics of conversation. “
The food was delicious, of course. Chef Stephanie wasn’t renowned in several Sectors for nothing. And she’d been the private chef for more than one generational billionaire at various times in her career. Jake couldn’t remember ever having such a fine dining experience, but he barely tasted the gourmet dishes, being so caught up in conversation with Emily. She was a lot more relaxed this evening than he’d ever seen her and the difference was breathtaking. Maybe her access to the meditation garden was helping with the PTSD, as he’d hoped. Or perhaps the reduced patient load as the norovirus subsided was contributing to her reduced stress? Whatever the answer might be, seeing her happy gave him a warm feeling.
“So tell me where you grew up,” she said, leaning over the table a bit. “No, wait, let me guess—Outer Sectors?”
“You got it. Sector Fifty-Three.”
She looked impressed. “Rough and tumble out there. A real frontier.”
“Yeah, we grow ’em tough there. So of course the military recruits heavily.” He took a sip of the excellent wine she’d ordered. Mistalor again, a rare vintage. “Pretty much all the girls and boys grow up aspiring to be in the Special Forces, but the service only takes the best.”
“No need to tell me—I’m sure you were at the top of your class.” She offered him more of the mashed tilka root, and he couldn’t resist.
“Pretty close to the top. I had to hit the books harder than my brothers or my sister, but when it came to the physical stuff, yeah, I had my siblings and the other kids in the colony beat by a mile. My dad is a former operator himself, so is my mom, actually, so all us kids learned the skills from an early age.” He smiled, remembering some of the family expeditions into the wilderness of his home planetary system.
“Your parents took their veterans’ acres on the frontier, then?”
“Sectors gives you an extra allotment for settling on the rim. Too good a deal not to take. Or so Dad told us kids.” He cut another bite of the Azrigone steak and savored the taste.
“But when you retired, you chose to stay here? In space?”
“I’m not a dirt farmer, not by nature anyway. Had enough of that helping out on the family farm as a kid. Not ready to settle down on one planet and stay there for the rest of my days. I sold my acres rights to Loxton Galactic, banked the credits. I can change my mind later, buy a spread if I want.”
She kept asking questions, drawing him out as they consumed the dinner and drank the wine. Jake realized he’d never talked about himself so much in one sitting. Somewhere around dessert, he leaned back in his chair and said, “Enough about me for tonight. I want to know more about you, lady. When did you know you wanted to be a doctor?”
“I can’t remember ever not wanting to be a doctor.” She laughed. “How much of my ambition was me and how much was my father’s determination to have me to follow in his footsteps, it’s hard to say. I have a strong suspicion all my toys from the day I was born probably had a medical twist to them. You know, miniature instruments, dolls in need of first aid…”
“Sounds kinda grim.”
“I don’t mean it that way at all. I had a great childhood. It’s just I had no doubts what I was going to be doing as an adult. Luckily, I was top of my class in school, possess a general disposition toward the healing arts, and I enjoy being a doctor.”
“And your mother?”
“She wasn’t part of my life.” Emily sipped her wine, but nothing in her expression indicated distress over the revelation. “She and my father had a casual affair. She didn’t want to be married, much less to be a mother. She left Dad right after I was born. Left the planet, in fact. I’ve never heard from her. Sure, I’ve wondered a bit about her, but my Grandmother Shane was my mother figure for most of my life. She died while I was in the service half the Sectors away from home.”
Jake took another bite of the cake and pushed his plate away to make himself stop eating the rich confection. “This was a dinner to remember. The chef outdid herself, and that’s saying a lot, given Stephanie’s five stars.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Emily set her own fork on the plate and held out her hand, rising from the chair as she did so. “Come sit on the couch and let dinner settle. Bring the wine.”
He did as ordered, grabbing the bottle and their two glasses, moving to join her on the low couch. Emily kicked off her shoes and curled up at one end, so he sat in the middle, not crowding her but not all the way at the other end either. He refreshed her glass and handed it to her before refilling his own. The Mistalor was powerful stuff, but neither of them had drunk enough so far to get more than a mild buzz. He raised his glass in a toast. “To battle comrades and true friends.”
She clinked her glass against his, and they drank the toast in companionable silence. Then she set her glass on the small table and leaned closer. “Tell me about the day we met on Fantalar.”
He was so surprised by the change of subject that at first he thought he must have heard her wrong. Distressed, he put his glass next to hers on the table and fumbled for the right words. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin the easy, relaxed mood they had going “No, really, I don’t need to talk about it. I know you don’t like people thanking you for saving their life. I was just one guy out of what? Hundreds you operated on?”
“Too many, for sure. Sectors Command kept throwing men and women into that battle zone, and the enemy kept chewing them up.” She blinked and focused on his face, her blue eyes sparkling. “I want to hear your story of the time you met the Angel of Fantalar.” She rubbed his arm gently, her touch warm and oddly soothing. “I warn you, I probably won’t remember any of it even when you do tell me. I-I recall bits and pieces, flashes of those weeks, but considering what came after, sometimes I think I’m lucky I made it home knowing my own name. But I will appreciate hearing about your perception of events.”
He still wasn’t sure she genuinely wanted him to unpack his combat experience as it related to her, but she kept her hand on his arm and nodded encouragement, so he decided to start the story. If he could tell it was distressing her too much, or triggering a flashback for either of them, he’d stop. Having made up his mind, he took one more sip of wine and said, “I was on a Team operating way behind enemy lines. We’d strike and run before the bastards knew what hit them. Played cat-and-mouse games for months, softening up the Mawreg and Betangray forces, keeping them off balance. We were one of a bunch of small groups doing the same thing.”
She nodded. “I was embedded at several forward operating bases in the Sector over the time of my deployment out there. I know.”
“We were effective. The enemy hated us, put a huge bounty on our heads.” He gave her a proud grin. “I wish I could tell you some of the things we pulled off, but it’s all classified. Can’t discus
s the details.”
“No problem. I can guess. So what happened that brought you to me and my beach?”
“I don’t know if we got cocky or the enemy got smart, but there was an ambush.” He leaned against the couch and closed his eyes. He could smell the stink of the Mawreg in his nostrils, hear the explosions faintly. “I got caught in a blast, not too bad, could still shoot. My buddies got me out of there, along with Frankin and Boddie, who were injured worse than me, at least initially. We were on the run, hunted hard, calling Command for extraction. And there was another ambush. Squad was decimated. Six good operators, gone. Nothing left to bury. Jayna and her partner, Sills, got me out. We’d lagged behind, because of my leg, so we missed the primary blast.”
“Jayna was on your team?”
He nodded. “Yeah, she’s a tough customer, good to have at your six.”
“Good to know, reassuring. I’ll make a note to call her if I ever need backup and you’re not available.”
“You sure you want me to keep talking?” He searched her face, but she seemed calm.
“You haven’t got to the part where we met.”
“Emily—”
“This is the one time I’m making the offer to go back to Fantalar, Jake, so if you want to go there with me, you need to tell me the rest of the story. Unless it’s too much remembering for you tonight?” She cupped his cheek with one soft hand. “I don’t want to force you to talk about it.”
The memories had a death grip on him now, although he could shut up if she needed him to. But she was encouraging him to continue, and he’d never told anyone the full details of his encounter with her. So he swallowed hard and continued as Emily leaned on the pillows with her elbow and watched his face. “All right. The enemy was pressing us hard. Somehow they had intel or made a good guess about our strength and location. I think their commander wanted to capture a few live operators. Which wasn’t happening. We’d have lured them in and blown ourselves up if it came to such dire measures. Taken as many of them with us as we could, you know? Anyway, we eluded them until nightfall, made it to the alternate extraction point, dug in. Jayna patched me up. Another team was coming in hot, needed to hitch a ride on our gunboat to get out of the zone. Their pickup ship had been intercepted and destroyed. Unfortunately, the enemy was hot on the trail, came in behind them, so we were in another battle. I got blown up defending the extraction point. Jayna and Sills told me weeks later that after the action I was bleeding out, too shredded for the clotting factor and the field dressings to do more than delay the inevitable. We got to the beach, where you were—”
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