“I am free to leave?”
Doc signaled the SOs. “Of course. They’ll escort you to your ship.”
She started to rise, but he halted the movement with his hand on her arm. Doc fought the urge to flip him on his back and put her foot on his throat.
“You do not wish to know how we show attraction?”
Doc stared at him for a ten count. It wasn’t wise. It wasn’t smart, but she said it anyway. “No.”
Instead of looking pissed, he smiled. It was more charming than she remembered, but it still left her cold. “You do not speak the truth.”
Instead of an answer, Doc looked pointedly at his hand on her arm. He slid his hand down to her hand and lifted it to his mouth. Doc couldn’t hide the jerk of rejection she felt at the touch of his mouth against the back of her hand. She knew, saw in his eyes, that he thought her reaction was something else. Typical guy.
She got her hand free and left, aware he watched her until she turned into the hallway.
Can you keep an eye on him, she asked the peeps. She got an affirmative. When she had a minute, she needed to talk to them about sentience. Did they tell her they weren’t holding their breath?
She felt them flowing through the ship, flowing through her, as she headed for the lift that would take her to deck the where General Halliwell waited to talk to her. It felt good to be connected, to be plugged in again. She expanded her view to the outposts, before tightening her focus on Conan’s big ships. Smith hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d slowed them down. Their cloaks and weapons were bigger and better. Seriously better.
She saw Briggs heading her way, his long-legged gait a bit rolling, like he walked the deck of a ship, not a space ship. Did he know her? Did she still know Sara?
To her relief, he checked when he saw her. “You don’t look like you fainted.” The hint of derision in his tone was a relief, as was the concern he couldn’t quite hide.
“Don’t feel like it either.” Relief flooded in. Finally someone who knew her and wasn’t scared of her. “Are you heading anywhere in particular right now?”
“Commissary.”
“Can I ask you something?”
His face didn’t change, but she could feel him considering her request. His nod was a bit wary. He was such a guy.
“Do you…trust me?”
He hadn’t expected that question. To her relief he didn’t do derisive or take it lightly.
“Yes.”
That he also didn’t hesitate warmed her where she didn’t know she’d been chilled. Her smile was the one she’d learned from being with Hel.
“Thank you.”
He shrugged, a bit uncomfortable and not wanting to show it.
“Could I persuade you to take a detour with me? General Halliwell wants to see me.”
“Why?”
He could have been asking why she needed him or why the General wanted to see her. She assumed it was the first.
“I need someone who knows me at my back when I talk to him, someone who can vouch for me.” Briggs wouldn’t like it either, but he’d know she wasn’t crazy. At least not until he heard what she had to say. Then she’d find out how much he really trusted her.
Another pause for reflection and he shrugged. “All right.” He hesitated again. “Known him longer, Doc.”
“I’m not asking you to choose sides.” She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“Good.”
General Halliwell waited for her in his ready room. He looked the same, except for his eyes. They regarded her with barely disguised dislike. It hurt more than she’d expected, as life delivered her yet another loss. The look eased when he saw Briggs, one brow arching.
“I asked him to come with me, sir.”
His gaze returned to her, expression blanked out now. “You afraid of me, Doctor?”
She missed the friendly Doc he’d called her before. A slight, almost sad smile edged her mouth, despite her resolve not to go there. She needed his belief, not his friendship.
“No, sir.” Not strictly true. She was afraid he might have her confined. He’d believed Sara, she reminded herself. She trusted him. Doc had to trust him, too. And convince him to trust her.
“Fine. Sit.” His glance included Briggs, though they both showed a bit of puzzled around the edges. Without waiting for her to speak, he leaned forward, pinning her with a look. “I don’t know what your mission is, Doctor. Don’t want to know.”
He didn’t know her mission? She didn’t know her mission. It wouldn’t be anywhere she could find it either.
“Can you finish it before the Gadi get here? Because you’re running out of time. If they attack, we will have to abandon the outpost and possibly the galaxy.”
Without responding to his question, Doc turned to Briggs. “Will you tell the General how we met?”
His brows arched, but he answered the question instead of asking the one in his eyes.
“Captain Donovan introduced us.”
“Did she tell you how we met?” Doc prayed that hadn’t changed.
“You delivered Donovan’s baby.”
“You delivered Miri?”
“She went into labor while driving to Area 51. I happened by at the right time.” In the face of the general’s surprise, Doc added a touch defensively, “I am a trained physician.” She’d hoped that the rigors of medicine would help her with them but it hadn’t been enough.
Doc looked at the General again. Now he looked puzzled, but slightly less hostile.
“What’s all this about, Doctor?”
“You don’t like the Major.” He jerked when she said the name, his glance flicking to Briggs. “I don’t much like him either. He doesn’t matter here. Not now. I have some information that’s going to make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. I can prove some of it, but most of it, not a hope.”
* * * * *
The itching brought him out of the deep well. Something was wrong. Menace thickened the air around him and a deep sense of loss hollowed out his chest. He lifted his lids, taking his time, to make sure he was alone. He was in the medical ward, a private room. For a moment a memory flickered in his mind. A flash of light and falling rubble…
The itch broke his concentration. He rubbed at it, relieved to be alone, though he had a feeling it wouldn’t last. Why wouldn’t his wrist stop itching? He looked at the spot and found a strange silver pattern embedded in the skin. What—
A ma’rasile mark.
He’d heard stories, legends about these deep mating bonds, but he’d never—how did he know what it was? Why was it there? Memory taunted again, a fast flash, an impression of a stone room that left him wanting more. How was this possible? He had not left this ship for a season. He’d been in conference with his commanders, discussing the Doolittle’s return to the galaxy. And then…nothing.
He needed to remember, if he didn’t…something was wrong…the persistent itch taunted him with what stayed just out of memory’s reach.
A door swished open, snapping Hel’s eyes closed. Footsteps approached.
“He still sleeps.”
Hel recognized that petulant, too imperious voice. Glarmere. His cousin on his mother’s side. Memory twitched again, as annoying as the itch.
“I need him awake. I need his command codes.” His companions did not speak. “Watch him. If he wakes, get the codes, then kill him.”
He swept out, the door hissing behind him as if it was annoyed, too.
Hel lifted his lids a fraction, careful to keep the movement slight.
What he saw sent a different jolt of shock through him.
* * * * *
Something in her neutral gaze awakened a sense in Halliwell that he’d been here, doing this with her. She knew Briggs, knew Donovan. She kind of reminded him of Donovan, he realized. Maybe that’s what he remembered. She had the same air of not expecting much from those around her. And he could see why people called her Morticia. All that long, dark hair and pale sk
in, not to mention a butt load of creepy.
That she didn’t like the Major made her smarter than he’d thought. That Briggs trusted her helped some. He may not know her mission, but he could guess: alien weapons.
It was the reason they were still here. He didn’t know why her handler thought she could succeed where their top scientists had failed. He’d come, postponed his retirement, for one reason: to protect his people. They’d stumbled into the war with the Dusan. This one could be avoided.
His official orders were to defend the outpost and to aid in negotiating peace with the Gadi. Nothing could make peace happen now. The reason Giddioni had held off attacking this long was his hope that the Key would return. The Key had stayed put. Once the Leader knew, the peace would be over. He couldn’t risk his people with a commander who didn’t know the issues and might waste lives holding out for the impossible. For two long years the scientists had claimed they were close to cracking the technology. Some of them had admitted they’d made no progress at all—the ones who knew the Gadi meant business this time. The others were too stupid to live, which wouldn’t stop him trying to save their lives.
“Sir, the Gadi fleet is the least of your problems.” She turned to his built-in HUD, but paused. “May I show you something?”
He nodded, though he knew the movement was short and sharp, suspicious.
She pulled a keyboard toward her and started typing, her fingers creepy fast on the keys. The screen resolved into a map of the galaxy. She typed some more and ships popped out in places there weren’t supposed to be ships. One of them lurked behind the Kikk moon, but the others were close enough to hyper-jump into weapons range without a lot of fuss or time. The deployment looked a lot like the one he’d used against the Dusan.
“What the hell?”
Briggs leaned forward, too, exchanged a worried look with him.
“These ships are from a planet called Keltinar. It’s in a dwarf galaxy about 300 million miles from here. What you need to know right now, what you need to understand, is that these ships have better armaments than both us and the Gadi.”
He stared at her, tried to think of something to say except “what the hell?” and couldn’t.
“What are they waiting for?” Briggs wanted to know. It was a good question. And then he answered it himself. “They’re waiting for us to fight it out with the Gadi. Then they’ll pick off the survivors.”
“That was my take on them as well,” she said.
“Why am I finding this out now?”
“Well, I have been unconscious, sir.”
Right. To hell with his orders. “We can start the evacuation. Leave.” Something on her face sent a chill down his back. “What?”
“That might trigger an attack. Their leader has been aboard this ship for several hours and—”
“What?” The word came out as roar this time.
She tapped some more and pulled up video from the security cameras. It showed a tall, primitive-looking type in the infirmary.
“His name is Vidor Shan, and he claims to be a local trader needing medical care. He’s not.”
“How do you know this, Doctor?”
“That would come under the heading of hard to explain or prove, sir.”
The screen split into some kind of scan, life signs but something else. His ship, people on his ship, but showing some kind of contamination.
“He’s tagged six of the women he’s come into physical contact with. Used an alien compound. If he can punch through our shields he could track and transport them, and we’d be leaving people behind.”
He felt his gut jerk. He didn’t leave people behind. His head buzzed. He shook his head to clear it. “How could you know this? You’ve been awake, what, an hour? Less?”
Her gaze met his, a look in them that didn’t track with what he knew of her, what he’d felt at their last meeting. Something was different about her. She was the same, but not.
“I’m one of the women he tagged.” A hint of color stained her pale cheeks. She shrugged. “Apparently creepy doesn’t put him off. It should. So he’s clever but not smart.”
He fought back the impulse to crack a joke about the Major and a sense of humor. What struck him with blunt force was the realization of how young she was, when she let her creepy shell go down. She was…lovely. If this man wanted women, of course he’d want her. That she didn’t know this surprised him almost as much as what she’d just told him.
“How did you know you’d been tagged?” Briggs asked the question, his tone mildly curious.
It was the question Halliwell should have asked. Her answer was another kick in the gut.
She turned her palm up and beads of light rose out of her skin.
“How the hell did you get nanites?”
Her gaze slammed into his, a look in them that left him winded and baffled.
“You gave them to me, sir.”
“What?” He felt stuck on roar.
“I’m aware you don’t remember it, but you did it to save my life. I’d like to return the favor.”
“I saved your life?” He tried to sound outraged, angry, anything but what he felt. “And when did I do that?”
“Two days from now. In another timeline. Which brings us to the things that I don’t have a hope in hell of proving.”
* * * * *
Doc wasn’t surprised to be confined to her quarters. Wasn’t shocked she’d been escorted there by four, very well armed jarheads. It wasn’t enough of a guard, but Halliwell couldn’t know that. This Halliwell lacked critical experience with Doc. He’d weathered each information blow pretty well, considering how crazy she sounded. At some point, Doc had felt a shift in him, a point he started to believe her, even though he didn’t want to.
Briggs had blinked a couple of times and grinned when she told them there was a bond between her and the Gadi Leader. She didn’t mention it was a marriage bond. Doc did necessary dangerous things, but she had a strict policy against waving red flags at angry bulls with the power to order her shot. At the end, the General started thinking again. She’d give him time to come to terms with it all, time to come to her conclusions. If he didn’t, well, the jarheads outside her door couldn’t stop her leaving this room, this ship, if she had to.
Some part of the General must know he had limited ability to stop her. He was one of few people who did know what the peeps could do. He’d known it when he’d grilled her about their options. And he’d still sent her to her room. Did that mean he trusted her or that he wanted her to go off book? She couldn’t read his mind, so she decided to read her email. Someone had tried to lock her out. They couldn’t. They’d tried to get into her email, too, she noticed. Couldn’t do that either.
She had an email from the Major. Didn’t want to read it. If she survived, she’d send him a resignation. If she didn’t, he’d get the memo. The email from Sara she opened.
It was chatty and fun. She’d been to see the new Star Trek movie. It was about an alternate time line and how crazy was that, but also very fun.
Fun. Yeah, Doc was having a hilarious time.
She rubbed her face, managed to craft a response that didn’t include a wail of anguish. Curious, she pulled up their emails for the last two years. It was a relief to find them much as she recalled. At least that hadn’t changed.
She closed down her email and turned to her room. It looked like she remembered, devoid of personal details that gave people insights into who she was. She opened a cabinet and found her weapons. Did that mean she’d gone down to the outpost without them? That wasn’t like her if she had. On the upside, she could put them on now. She stopped at the visible ones. Not part of the plan to get shot by a jarhead.
With some reluctance, her brain circled and landed on the subject of Hel. It had been hard to explain events to someone who knew her. How hard would it be to convince him if he didn’t know her? The ma’rasile mark itched. Was that from missing him, or from wanting proximity? It had gotten more d
efined with every light year the Gadi ships got closer to the outpost, but now the ships appeared to have paused a hyperjump away, just like Conan’s ships. Would there be a last diplomatic effort or was this the prelude to battle?
Whatever it was, the General was out of time.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, she got her summons back into his presence. What it meant that she still had an escort she didn’t know.
* * * * *
She was too well informed, knew stuff she shouldn’t. Donovan trusted her. Briggs agreed it was crazy, but crazy didn’t make it bogus. She hadn’t been near Miri’s lab. He’d checked. She hadn’t been on the outpost long enough to do much of anything before she’d collapsed into a still medically unexplained coma. The thoughts of any kind of link with Giddioni made him want to hit something. The thought he might be a prisoner on his own ship helped. But none of it solved the basic problem.
If she was right and this Vidor Shan character could pluck the tagged women off his ship, then he had a problem. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t stay. His only way out was with Gadi help and that was a long shot. She hadn’t sugarcoated any of it, he’d give her that. They were in a tough spot, even if the Gadi came down on their side again. They’d expect access, possibly a complete withdrawal from the galaxy by the expedition. His bosses would be pissed. Good thing he was retiring after this deployment.
Asking the Gadi for help made his gut burn, no question about that.
He looked up as the doors slid back, the SO detail delivering the Doc back for round two. He used the power of his eyes while he waited for the detail to leave the room. This appeared to amuse her for some reason. He thought about calling her on it, but there was no time. If the Gadi attacked before contact could be made, they were screwed.
“Why do I have the feeling you have a plan, Doctor?”
“I always have a plan, sir.”
When she laid it out, Halliwell almost couldn’t find his voice to ask the question. “You go in alone? That’s your plan?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t right.
“Anyone you could send would just slow me down.” She almost smiled. “I require a high level of autonomy. It allows me to be functionally flexible, and I don’t have to explain anything I don’t have time for.”
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