“And should I decide to do otherwise?” Russel asked.
“Otherwise,” Elena replied through a smug grin. “I wish you luck with the dead-ends Dr. Rickham has been stumbling into for years. He’s a brilliant man, truly, but he just can’t grasp the delicate complexity of the malmorphsy genetic matrix. You can’t blame him, though. There aren’t a handful of human researchers in the whole galaxy that can…besides me, of course.”
“Are you threatening me, Dr. Salzmann?” Russel said to Elena.
“If you force my hand,” she replied, straightening herself and locking eyes with the imposing deputy director. “Or if you kill me for forcing yours, I wish you luck finding that needle in a few trillion haystacks. Destruction of this data will delay us, but otherwise it changes nothing.”
John loathed the truth he had discovered about Elena, but the woman arguing their case now before the GalSec director was the brilliant, amazing woman he had fallen in love with. How could one person hold so much light and yet so much darkness at the same time?
Russel pounded the table. His voice raised and his face reddened as he wagged a finger at Elena.
“Do you think I will be swayed by this emotional tripe? This mutant has set our timetable back years, possibly decades. Despite your smug assurances to the contrary, this changes quite a number of things. The Prophane are encroaching daily. Resources are depleting, fighting a multi-front war. The Provisional Imperium may not survive this delay. This defiance cannot go unpunished!”
“Really, Mark?” Voide interjected, rising from her seat and drawing the barrels of the two nearest security officers in her direction. “What if it had been me who destroyed the data? Would you still be so hell-bent on an execution?”
“It wasn’t you,” Russel tersely replied.
“There is no difference, Mark,” Voide continued. “If you mean to kill Dub, you are going to have to kill me along with the rest of Star Wolf’s crew. You don’t murder one of ours and expect us to walk away.”
“One of yours, Yasu?” Mark said, his voice dripping with incredulity. He swept his arm to indicate the other Star Wolf officers around Voide. “Is that how you really see them? These people keep you around as a pet because you can fight. You’re their guard dog, nothing more. They don’t love you, I do. I know you had nothing to do with this. Join me now; you don’t have to die.”
“I’m afraid you are wrong, Russel,” Molon interrupted. “Voide is capable of a lot of things, but switching sides to save herself ain’t one of them. If you knew her half as well as you pretend to, you’d know that.”
“So you know her better than I do?” Russel snapped.
“She is part of my crew, and I know my crew. If you execute one of them, the rest wouldn’t obey an order to stand down even if I gave one. Which, by the way, I wouldn’t.”
Russel folded his hands and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before opening them again. An eerie calm flowed from him that left John feeling anything but comforted.
“Simmons, proceed with our original plan. Escort our guests back to their ship and allow them to enter the jump point to Furi.”
Simmons nodded, silently.
“Elena, I trust that will suffice?” Russel said, turning toward her. “Now, you and Dr. Rickham return to the lab, you have work to do.”
John wasn’t convinced. Desperate for some security beyond Mark Russel’s word they were being set free, he fought his revulsion and reached out for Elena’s hand.
“Why don’t you come see us off, Elena? I can’t agree with what you are doing, but we are still husband and wife. At least we can say a proper goodbye.”
The faked emotion almost stuck in John’s throat. Nothing in Elena’s feelings for him had changed. She still loved him. What had changed was John’s heart when she revealed her dark hatred of non-humans. Could he ever love her again, knowing now who she truly was?
He certainly didn’t feel it at the moment, but there were so many things going on inside, he would need a lot of alone time to sort through it all. Elena’s good will was the only thing standing between Star Wolf’s crew and execution. Russel couldn’t afford to jeopardize that cooperation by breaking his promise to spare John and his crewmates. Elena personally witnessing their departure was the best insurance John could think of to leverage that.
“You can say goodbye now,” Simmons said, cutting off John’s play. The icy monotone from Simmons left the meaning behind his words highly open to interpretation.
“Two security officers,” Simmons added, addressing the kind-faced GalSec security sergeant. “See Dr. Salzmann and Dr. Rickham back to the lab immediately. The rest of you, come with me.”
The female GalSec sergeant pointed to two of the other security personnel and used a hand signal to direct them toward the doctors. She then motioned for the remaining three officers to form up around her and Simmons.
“John, I…” Elena said, her voice wavering.
Elena’s eyes darted between him and Russel. John could count on one hand the number of times he had ever seen Elena look unsure of herself. This was one. He saw his ploy for security slipping away in the face of Simmons’s icy impassiveness. His mind quickly scrambled for a backup plan as the security officer pulled Elena’s hand out of his and gave her a semi-gentle push toward the exit door.
“I will send you a message via System Express as soon as I get back to Tede,” John said as the security officers ushered the doctors out of the briefing room. “I’ll send you a picture of me at the place I took you on our first anniversary. Then you will know we got back safely.”
“I’ll wait for it, John. If you can ever bring yourself to understand what I am doing, come join me. I will be waiting for you. I will always love you.”
John felt nauseated leading Elena on like this. His heart rent. It was like he had never truly knowns his wife at all. He barely recognized her now, knowing this secret hatred for non-humans she had hidden from him all this time. Yet her affection for him, her belief that some way, somehow they might be together again was genuine. John could only hope that the prospect of Elena not receiving his ‘arrived safely’ message would be enough of a deterrent to any nefarious plans Russel might have in mind.
Simmons shook John from his speculation as he roughly spun John away from the door through which Elena and Dr. Rickham had just departed, and pointed him toward the doorway through which Star Wolf’s crew had entered.
Russel and Rear Admiral Starling stood and left through a third door without another word. The puzzled look on the faces of his crewmates told John he wasn’t alone in finding the suddenness of their exit odd. John wasn’t sure what he was expecting—certainly not a fanfare and parade. Still, Russel’s final look back over his shoulder as he glanced at Voide was concerning. There was regret in his eyes.
“If you would all be so kind as to follow me,” Simmons said with frosty formality.
Simmons gave a knowing nod to the GalSec sergeant, and then exited without so much as a backward glance to assure compliance. The security officers, however, motioned with their weapons, demonstrating that following Simmons was not merely the polite request it mimicked.
Dub and John were farthest from the door, so were the last to make their way out of the conference room. That also put them closest to the security officers. The GalSec security sergeant’s bright blue eyes locked in with John’s.
“It is going to be all right,” she said softly to him as they exited.
“So what’s with your new girlfriend?” Dub whispered to John as they followed the other officers down the corridor.
“Beats me,” John replied. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. At least she seems to be the one person on this ship not looking to shove us out an airlock.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Dub replied. “Remember an Ormathi sand rabbit looks cute and cuddly too, right up until it rips your throat out.”
“You know, you should hire out as a motivational
speaker,” John quipped, trying to lighten the mood of the ominous procession. “You have a rare gift.”
“I’ll give that some thought,” Dub grinned, “if we live long enough.”
“Yep, a true gift,” John repeated.
“Speaking of threats to our life,” Dub said, nodding toward Simmons. “I don’t trust that dark-haired short-stack. I’m going to ease up front with Cap in case things go sideways.”
“Be careful, Dub,” John replied. “I’ve seen that ‘short-stack’ toss Voide around like she was a toddler. Simmons is dangerous.”
“So am I, pal. I just look cute and cuddly to the untrained eye.”
“Like an Ormathi sand rabbit?”
“Exactly!” Dub said with a wink.
John smiled as the huge malmorph quickened his pace to catch up with Molon at the front of the group. He liked Dub’s twisted sense of humor, but he doubted the chief engineer’s own mother could call him ‘cute’ and keep a straight face. On the other hand, while malmorphsy might have disfigured Dub’s exterior, inside Star Wolf’s chief engineer was one of the most unsullied spirits John had ever encountered.
As Dub moved forward, John noticed Mel dropping back to walk beside him. He wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with all the emotional baggage that went with his complicated friendship with the Fei communications officer right now. Still, he found her proximity comforting amidst all this chaos.
“Are you all right, John?” Mel asked.
“Ask me again once we are back aboard Star Wolf and safely in voidspace en route to Furi,” John replied.
Fortunately Mel didn’t press the issue, and they continued making their way behind Simmons. Two of the security officers moved partway up the line, to take a position in front of John and Mel, but behind Voide and Twitch. Close on Simmons’s heels ahead of them all were Molon and Dub. The inexplicably friendly female GalSec sergeant and one other officer brought up the rear.
As Simmons strode past a T-intersection with a corridor branching off to the right, Dub grabbed Molon’s arm and stopped the procession.
“Are you lost, shorty?” Dub said, addressing Simmons. “The hangar where Star Wolf is docked is this way.”
Dub pointed down the branching corridor Simmons had just passed.
“We aren’t going that way,” Simmons replied, as if that answer sufficiently addressed Dub’s question.
“Then where are we going?” Molon asked.
John could see, even from the back of the group, the hackles on Molon’s neck stand up on edge as the captain’s ears angled forward. The barest hint of the tips of his canines protruded from the edge of his subtly curling lip.
Voide too had dipped slightly into a crouch, her gaze fixed on Simmons rather than the security officer immediately behind her. Twitch, however, had already turned to face the guard closest to her. Intensity filled the air as the security forces sensed the tension escalation playing out before them. Star Wolf’s senior officers stood, tense and silent, as they waited for Simmon’s answer.
“Fine,” Simmons said, leaning his head from side to side, cracking his neck as if warming up for a workout. “I was planning to lead you all to another airlock where I was going to depressurize it before dumping you into deep space. Then I was going to instruct Revenge’s crew to cut Star Wolf loose and blast it to scrap. But now you’ve gone and ruined the surprise.”
The GalSec senior interrogator took no other action, but just stood staring at Molon, awaiting a reaction. Even the security officers looked around as if trying to figure out if Simmons was being serious or sarcastic.
After a tense moment or two, with both sides coiled and ready to spring into action, Simmons broke the awkward silence.
“Unfortunately, you are too clever for your own good. Fire!”
Before the order was even out of his mouth, Simmons had leveled a blurringly-fast sideways swipe with his left arm, delivering a vicious chop to Molon’s chest. The large Lubanian yelped as the powerful blow sent him flying down the side corridor. John could not imagine how the short-statured GalSec interrogator wielded that much power, but it shed some light on how easily he had bested Voide in their first encounter.
The next few seconds exploded with such fast action that John could barely process all that was going on around him. Dub dropped a massive overhand blow aimed at Simmons’s head, swinging his metallic glove-hand like a sledgehammer driving a spike. Voide, at that same moment, uncoiled like a striking viper, launching her body straight at Simmons, ignoring the GalSec security officer next to her whose weapon was trained on the springing Pariah.
It was not just Simmons who was a target. Before the hapless trooper who had been assigned to Twitch could even pull the trigger, Star Wolf’s executive officer had redirected the security officer’s blaster barrel toward the ceiling of the corridor and was wrestling with him for control of the weapon. She hooked a leg behind his and used her leverage to force the soldier off balance, slamming him into the corridor wall, making him choose between controlling his weapon or remaining on his feet. He released the weapon and flailed his arms against the wall and against Twitch, scrambling for balance.
Beside John, Mel had already turned and touched the trigger-hand of the security officer closest to her. She used no physical force, but simply spoke softly.
“Everything is under control. Your legs are very tired. It will be okay if you just sit down and take a rest, right now.”
The trooper’s knees buckled and his grip on his weapon loosened as the man slumped to the floor. He sat, cross-legged, smiling and holding Mel’s hand as he watched the drama unfolding around him.
John was amazed at Star Wolf’s senior officers. They were good, and fast, but they were also outnumbered. John could only watch helplessly as the guard who Voide had ignored in order to launch herself at Simmons, leveled his blaster rifle at Dub’s back. Simmons, in the meanwhile, had caught Dub’s massive overhand blow with his right hand, stopping it cold. The GalSec interrogator twisted Dub’s arm, forcing the giant man to his knees to keep his arm from breaking. Molon had told John how much stronger Dub was than a normal human, and Dub had admitted as much. But Simmons handled the huge malmorph as though he were a parent controlling a misbehaving toddler.
Without ever breaking his concentration on Dub, Simmons also lashed out with his left hand and caught Voide in midair, grabbing her by the shoulder and flinging her aside. The security chief’s bodily trajectory was deflected sideways, slamming her hard into the corner of the corridor wall. John was certain he heard the sound of bones crunching as Voide’s shoulder impacted the corner, but her face held no sign of pain; only fearsome rage.
John was too far away to do anything about the security officer leveling a weapon at Dub, but there was one he could reach. The kindly female sergeant was standing directly behind John. He might not be much use in a fight, but at least he might be able to keep her distracted until one of his crewmates could help.
John gasped as he spun to face the female security sergeant. There before him was the kind-faced woman who had smiled at him and assured him everything would be okay. Yet now, behind her back extended large silvery, translucent, gossamer wings. They were magnificent: glowing representations of wings such as had graced the imagination of man long before the Angelicum’s existence as a race had become common knowledge.
The wings were clearly immaterial, some type of manifestation of energy emanating from the female sergeant. They pulsed with power as she extended her left hand in front of her, palm outward.
“Sleep,” the woman said, in a soft but commanding tone.
John heard bodies dropping to the floor behind him. He felt something like a light breeze pass over him at her voiced command, but somehow her power had not affected him. Glancing over, John saw that not only the guard who had been about to shoot Dub in the back, but even the one wrestling with Twitch, and the man who had been holding Mel’s hand, were all now lying on the deck, their eyes closed with peaceful e
xpressions on their faces. All of Star Wolf’s crew were still awake, but so was Simmons.
“You filthy Malak spy,” Simmons said, his face filling with more emotion than John ever recalled seeing from the normally impassive interrogator. “You’ve been a snake in our midst all this time?”
When the Angelicum did not answer, Simmons gave Dub’s arm an odd twist that brought the huge malmorph to his feet. Simmons grabbed the front of Dub’s shirt and executed a hip toss that sent the larger man flying, landing on his back with a huge grunt further down the corridor. Now only John and Twitch stood between Simmons and this mysterious undercover angel.
“Well, Malak,” Simmons said, using the term John knew was the highest biological caste of Angelicum. “You may have infiltrated GalSec and hid your nature all this time, but your petty mind games won’t work on me.”
Simmons tapped his temple with a forefinger, a never-before-seen malicious grin creeping widely across his normally expressionless features.
“I’ve got protection from your parlor tricks. You have no idea the money GalSec invested to prepare me for this. After all these years, I finally get my hands on a bona fide angel. This will be priceless.”
John saw Twitch ready the blaster rifle she had wrested from the security trooper. Before she could even bring it to bear, however, Simmons moved with unbelievable celerity, grabbing Twitch by the throat and slamming her head hard against the corridor wall. John again heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking as the XO slid, unconscious, down the wall leaving a vertical streak of blood behind as a testimony to the viciousness of Simmon’s strike. She lay on the floor, a strange sound coming from her as she labored to breathe.
John saw Molon, grasping his chest with one hand, stagger around the corner of the side corridor just as Twitch slumped to the floor.
“Twitch!” Molon growled out, his fangs now fully bared and his eyes fixed with deadly intent on Simmons’s back.
John knew he was the least capable person to stop Simmons, but if anything could be done for Twitch, he was her only hope. Ignoring the advancing GalSec interrogator, John rushed to Twitch’s limp body and gingerly began to triage the extent of her injury. She was still breathing, but just barely and most erratically.
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