The Gallant (Star Legend Book 3)

by J. J. Green

“Uh, sorry.” She rose to her feet, calming her dogs with shushes and pats. “I didn’t know you were here,” she went on. “I’ll take Darwin and Banks to my cabin. I won’t be long.”

  She stepped past him with the animals flanking her, their claws tapping on the metal.

  His glare followed.

  WHEN HE ARRIVED AT the meeting room, animated chatter was leaking through the doorway. He couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but he could take a good guess. At his appearance, everyone became silent and deeply interested in the table surface as he entered and sat down.

  “Ms Hale will join us in a few minutes.”

  Kekoa, Steadman, and Jurrah were present, as well as Xiao, the Cryosuspension Director, and Bourke, who Lorcan had recently promoted to Head of Security. He’d sacked the previous head after he let Hale escape.

  Had Bourke been the one who’d told Iolani of the location of her dogs?

  He fixed his gaze on the man, but Bourke had become fascinated with the grid covering the air circulation duct.

  “Can I say...” Steadman piped up “...I didn’t receive an agenda. Just checking there isn’t one.”

  “That’s right,” Lorcan replied. “This meeting is to formally welcome Ms Hale to the team and to explore how she’ll fit in as we go forward.”

  Kekoa idly scrolled the interface embedded in the tabletop. She was the main person responsible for the situation with Hale. She’d helped release the woman from her suite. If it hadn’t been for Kekoa, Iolani would be safely in cryo by now, not sticking her nose into his business and interfering with his plans.

  He drummed his fingertips.

  Waiting for Hale was extremely irritating.

  The door opened, and everyone looked up.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Iolani quickly slid into a seat.

  “So glad you could finally make it,” said Lorcan acidly. “Welcome to the Antarctic Project, Ms Hale. I’m sure we will have many happy and fulfilling days working with you.”

  Kekoa softly coughed.

  “Let’s not waste time on introductions,” he continued. “Ms Hale’s reputation precedes her, and I’m sure she has been aboard long enough for everyone to have made her acquaintance. As you probably know she’ll be acting as scientific adviser on various aspects of the Project, wherever her expertise is most beneficial. Let’s begin. From earlier conversations, I believe your first endeavor will be to work with Kekoa on assessing the habitats?” He aimed his final comment at Iolani.

  “No,” she replied flatly. Addressing the room, she continued, “I’ve spent the last few weeks looking at everything you’re doing here. I can see the vast amount of planning and work that’s gone on. So when I say what must be said, I don’t want anyone here to take it as a slight on their professional abilities. I’ve been forced to come to the conclusion that the Project is deeply flawed. It isn’t your work that’s the problem, it’s the concept. The premise of what you’re attempting is wrong.”

  She paused.

  Her comments were being met with blank stares.

  Lorcan was shocked too, but he was also trying hard to control his rage. How dare she criticize the Project? She was striking at the heart of everything he believed in, his life’s work. And she knew it. The little viper. She was clearly out to get revenge for what he’d done to her.

  “Have you quite finished?” he said between his teeth.

  “Lorcan, I’ve barely started.” She folded her hands in her lap. “In fact, it’s hard to know where to begin. The idea that millions of people are paying huge sums of money to be taken on this fool’s errand...” She paused once more. “I won’t go on. It isn’t helpful to be negative, and, anyway, the Project is too far advanced to cancel. The best I can offer is remedial action. We’ll have to hope to God enough people survive for the colonization to not be a complete disaster.”

  He had no words.

  “You have identified, I think, three potential planets?” She looked to Lorcan for confirmation, but he could only return her gaze, slack-mouthed. “Let me guess—their gravities are close to Earth’s and the composition of their atmospheres is very similar too. Maybe you also have an idea about the land mass to ocean ratios. I don’t know. The point I want to emphasize is, none of that really matters. What everyone seems to be forgetting is that these planets are alien. They are not new Edens waiting for the blessing of humankind to descend and grace them with their presence.”

  “That’s enough!” Lorcan managed to finally spit out. “Your implication of naivety is insulting. I don’t know where you got your impression, but it isn’t accurate.”

  “I apologize,” Hale replied. “I don’t mean to cause offense, but I’m trying to shock you into understanding just how unprepared you are. Let me give you an example. Have you considered how the human body will react to an entirely alien environment? It could easily be provoked into a profound and devastating immune reaction. Even attempting to breathe the planet’s air, with its unfamiliar microbes, spores, and dust, could result in anaphylactic shock and death.”

  She let this sink in, watching the stunned faces.

  “Assuming by some miracle your colonists’ immune systems don’t go into overdrive immediately, you’re going to have to hope they can eat the planet’s organisms without a reaction. Why? Because the chance you can get Earth flora and fauna to grow there is practically zero. As I explained to Lorcan not so long ago when he came to see me in Suriname, the systems that support life here on Earth are incredibly complex. We scientists have only just begun to appreciate that fact, let alone understand the systems themselves. I would lay everything I own on the probability that anything you try to plant in an alien soil will die, and any animal species you set free in the new environment will do the same. They won’t stand a chance. Of course, you can grow things like tomatoes and lettuce with hydroponics, but staples like cereals? Forget it. You need friendly soil.”

  Lorcan swallowed.

  Silence reigned.

  “What can we do?” Kekoa choked out. “You said the Project has gone too far to stop now. If we’re going to kill millions of people, I don’t want to be a part of it.”

  “I understand,” Iolani replied. “Neither do I. Yet here we both are.” She turned to Lorcan. “These are the two most significant flaws I’ve identified. There are many, many others, but they’ll have to wait. We need to focus on these two first. On the plus side, I don’t think they’re insurmountable. If I did, I would have left already. There’s a chance I can do something to help if I get some more experts on board. I have some contacts in human immunology I’d like to approach. There are treatments that suppress the immune system. They increase the likelihood of cancer and if we use them it would mean you absolutely cannot take any communicable diseases along with you.

  “As to the problem with establishing Earth species so the colonists have something safe to eat...the ethics and dangers of doing that on an alien planet aside...I have an idea how to solve it. The solution involves genetic engineering, something I can do myself, but I will need colleagues to work with. I have a few people in mind.

  “I don’t want to go through some massive rigmarole to get the people I need here. I have to have the freedom to operate independently on both these problems, without any interference. Do you agree?”

  Lorcan held her gaze, wanting, needing, something to say in retaliation to her challenge to his authority. But nothing came to him.

  “Keep me updated on your progress, Ms Hale.”

  He rose stiffly and stalked out of the meeting. Once he was safely alone in the passageway, he halted. The walls seemed to be flowing toward and away from him. He thought he might faint. He took deep breaths and waited for the dizziness to fade. When he thought he could walk without the danger of falling, he went straight to his suite and didn’t emerge again that day.

  Chapter Nine

  Wrapped in her sleeping bag and ground sheet, Taylan lay at the foot of an ancient oak. She alternated between shiveri
ng with cold and clutching her coverings around her, and then throwing them off when she grew unbearably hot. Her right thigh was a bundle of fire, her leg useless. She taken the last of the antibiotics in her first aid kit days previously. The short course might have fixed an infected cut or even incipient pneumonia, but a large injury from a pulse round was beyond its scope. Her food had also run out days ago, but she had no appetite anyway.

  In a moment of clarity, she reached out to lift and shake her water bottle. It felt about a quarter full. Feeling about with her fingertips, her hand alighted on the pack of sterilizer tablets. All the blisters were empty.

  Another wave of shivering hit her, and she shut her eyes. Her mind wandered.

  She was back on the hill near the orphanage, cutting the throats of the Crusaders who had tried to capture her. Their blood still crusted her clothes. So much blood. So much death.

  She was with Patrin and Kayla in the pocket handkerchief of a garden outside their tiny, terraced house. She was throwing a ball for Patrin to catch while Kayla made a daisy chain. The sun was hot on her back.

  She was in the West BI Resistance hideout, preparing to leave. The members moved around her, shadowy in the half-darkness under the hill. They brought her items for her expedition, which she stowed in her backpack. The mood was somber. One of the group came to speak to her.

  She cut him off before he could speak. “I know what you’re going to say.”

  The serious, guarded look on his face had said it all already.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she continued. “I have to do this.”

  “Taylan, I’m begging you, think again,” he urged.

  His name was Meilyr, and he was the eldest of four brothers. All athletically built, pale-skinned, dark-haired and dark-eyed, their kinship was evident to anyone who saw them together. Angharad's sons, they were among the founders of the Resistance in that part of the BI.

  “We’ve only survived this long because we stick together,” he said. “If you go out there alone, who’ll keep watch while you sleep? If you get in trouble, who’ll help you fight off your attackers?”

  “I can look after myself,” she replied. “Probably better than you think.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s dangerous to be out there on your own. If the Crusaders catch you...” He didn’t complete his sentence.

  Taylan didn’t need him to elaborate. She’d seen what Dwyr Orr had done to Wilson, and she didn’t doubt Meilyr had his own tales to tell about what had happened to Resistance members who fell into the madwoman’s hands. He was just looking out for her.

  She touched his shoulder. “Meilyr, until I find my kids I’ll never be able to rest. I gave up the search once and it was torture. If I stop looking, how can I live with myself?”

  “Many of us have lost—”

  “If Angharad had been separated from you, do you think she would have given up trying to find you again?”

  He nodded reluctantly. “She wouldn’t. I can’t deny it.”

  It was all that needed to be said. She continued to push items into her backpack.

  “Lots of children went missing in the early days of the invasion,” said Meilyr. “A few were found. I hope you return soon with your kids.”

  She gave him a tight-lipped smile. She certainly hoped to see him again too, but not without Kayla and Patrin by her side.

  In the hour before dawn the next day, while the others were all asleep, she’d slipped away. Though she’d only known the Resistance fighters a short time they felt like kin. Goodbyes would be too painful.

  Dragged back to the present by a wave of agony from her leg, Taylan reflected she would give a lot to see Meilyr again.

  She would also give a lot to see Wright. What was the earnest major doing? Before she’d left the hideout, she’d heard the BA had launched a full-scale offensive in Jamaica. He was probably somewhere there, leading his Marines into battle. What an idiot she’d been to try to kiss him. Yet she didn’t regret it. Underneath his rigid formality, he was a sweet guy. It was a shame she’d probably never see him again.

  A fresh surge of pain welled up in her thigh. She grimaced, squeezing her eyelids together tightly.

  As the wave passed, a voice sounded in her head.

  “Corporal Ellis, this is Brigadier Colbourn.”

  What the f—

  Her implant! She was still carrying around the goddamned Royal Marines’ implant in her head.

  “What do you want?” she hissed.

  Surely it was dangerous for the brigadier to comm her? The Crusaders might pick up the signal and figure out her location.

  “The discharge you were given is invalid, Ellis. You’re still serving as a Royal Marine. I want you to—”

  “No,” Taylan gasped. “I’m not a bloody Marine and I don’t give a shit what you want me to do.” She let fly a further string of expletives, finishing with, “Stop comming me, or you’re going to get me killed.”

  Silence.

  She lay rigid, outrage consuming her. Colbourn had always been a bitch, but this was beyond the pale.

  Her fury bringing her to full consciousness, she took stock of her surroundings. Some hours seemed to have passed since she’d last been fully awake. Her most recent memory was of streaks of sunset colors filling the sky through the tree canopy. The colors had been replaced by twinkling pinpoints of light in a black void.

  How much longer did she have before the infection entered her blood and sepsis killed her? She guessed not much more than a day or so, if the process hadn’t already begun.

  Two alternatives stood before her: Stay where she was and let death take her, or try to move. The latter choice was the less rosy. It would probably also end with dying, just more painfully. But, despite everything, she wasn’t ready to let go of the thread of hope that she could find Kayla and Patrin.

  She unwrapped the ground sheet from around her shoulders and then pushed down her sleeping bag. The influx of cool night air on her body instantly set her off shivering again. Doing her best to ignore her discomfort, she slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, and then packed only her most essential items.

  Panting and weeping with pain, she leaned to her right and grabbed the crutch she’d roughly crafted from a hazel branch. Using it as a prop along with the oak tree’s trunk, she managed to get onto her good foot. She inserted the crutch under her armpit.

  Her left leg hung free as she brought the crutch forward. Leaning heavily on it, she hopped a step on her left leg. Another shift of the crutch, and another hop. So far, so good.

  Something about what she was doing—the night air on her face and infiltrating her clothes, the exercise, or the short sleep—brought a sharpness to her mind she hadn’t experienced for days. The surrounding woodland appeared clear and defined in the moonlight, and her ears were picking up minor nocturnal noises of animals moving through the undergrowth.

  Perhaps it was only that she was near death. She’d heard the dying often rallied in their final hours, feeling better than they had for days.

  Move the crutch, hop. Move the crutch, hop.

  Chapter Ten

  “Move out,” ordered Wright.

  After five days’ wait, his platoon was finally leaving the Resistance field hospital. An ambulance would be arriving at some point for the Marine who’d undergone surgery, but everyone else faced a three-kilometer walk across Kingston to the rendezvous point. From there, they would travel by shuttle to the Gallant.

  The battle for Jamaica was over, to all intents and purposes. The Alliance had won. Yet no one seemed overjoyed by the victory. As the Marines walked from the former Ambassador’s Residence, their backs were bent and their rifles held loosely.

  Wright’s morale was low too. So many had died, and not only in his own platoon. He’d heard the Alliance’s losses had been heavy. And for what? During their time at the hospital, the Jamaicans had been cold and distant, barely tolerating the platoon’s presenc
e. It wasn’t like he’d expected overwhelming gratitude, but—as far as he knew—none of the men or women under his command were from around here. They’d risked their lives and died in order to free a country not their own. He didn’t think a little friendliness would have been too much to ask.

  He was not interested in politics or current affairs. He’d decided long ago that the Alliance was a force for good and fighting in its military was morally right. After that, he’d been content to follow orders. So he didn’t know what the Jamaicans’ beef with the Alliance was. Maybe it was justified. Still, it seemed unfair that the locals would take out their animosity on individuals who were trying to help them.

  On the other hand, Devon’s group had saved the platoon from certain annihilation.

  The leader had also shown Wright a route across the city that would take them through the safest areas. The mopping-up process was ongoing, and pockets of Crusaders were holding out, refusing to surrender. His Marines were battle-weary and he didn’t want to put them into any more conflict situations if he could avoid it. Carol hadn’t given him anywhere near such detailed intel. Despite their animosity, Wright trusted Devon’s information more anyway. The Resistance’s knowledge of the city and what was happening within it was intimate.

  “Major Wright!”

  It was Hans Jonte. He hadn’t seen the former head of SIS since they’d met in the garden.

  Jonte descended the steps at the front of the residence. Wright waited, allowing the platoon to go on without him.

  When Jonte reached him, he looked over his shoulder at the Residence before continuing, “I just wanted to check—”

  “I know,” said Wright. “The message. I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Good. Thank you. I can’t tell you how fortunate it’s been for me that you happened to come here. It’s very difficult to...” He struggled for the appropriate word.

  “Play two sides?” Wright offered.

  The former Alliance official looked somewhat embarrassed. “I suppose you could put it like that. But it’s for the greater good.”