by Susan Grant
Outrage flared in his face. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Some of the passengers glanced their way. “Excuse me?” Jordan hissed, then waved at the line of passengers. “Are you going to tell them that? What’s happened, Kào? What’s wrong?”
“I have reason to believe that the plan isn’t to relocate you to a new home but to acquire you as slaves. There are slave-brokers aboard this ship that wish to make it so.”
Jordan’s vision dimmed as the blood left her head. “Someone wants to sell us into slavery?”
“Give us something we can really be scared of,” cried one of the men passing by.
The passengers around him cheered. An elderly woman raised her fist at Kào. “He’s right. We’ve heard it all. It’s just another threat to keep us quiet. Another lie. Screw ‘em! We’re going home.”
Jordan listened, open-mouthed. The passengers weren’t afraid. They were angry! She could almost understand why. They’d had to absorb one shocking revelation after another for weeks now. After a while, even the most traumatizing news lost its impact.
Kào gripped her shoulder. His voice was hoarse. Urgent. She had never seen him this way, and she began to get worried, too. “Stop your people,” he ordered. “Call them back. Trist is sending you to your deaths.”
“No, she’s helping us. The coordinates you sent to the Science Academy, the ones entered into the official database, they don’t correspond to Earth. We found that out, and she confirmed it. The coordinates are for a planet named Kerils. It’s not in the Alliance database, either. Someone’s lying. And it’s not Trist.”
He read his translator with an appalled expression. “The holo-movie I showed you was Kerils?”
“That’s right. Not Earth. Earth is fine. No comet hit.”
He watched her intently for several heartbeats. “Treachery is indeed afoot,” he said at last. Heat radiated off his lean and powerful body. He smelled like apple soap and male perspiration, his own unique scent, pheromone rich, because it aroused her in the midst of a situation in which sexual desire had no place. “And one of the traitors is Commodore Moray.”
“Good God. Your father?”
He winced, as if the term “father” had become unpalatable. He quickly told her about his flashback. About Steeg. About a child’s terror.
Of all the revelations, she knew it was Moray’s apparent betrayal that affected him most of all. “The man who raised me, who I thought genuinely loved me and perhaps still does, embodies all I detest, Jordan. All I fought against. Now I have to stop him before he hurts anyone else. Before he hurts you.” He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, but not before she’d glimpsed a flash of raw pain.
Jordan wanted to slide her arms over his stiff shoulders and soothe away his grief. She wanted to take him to bed and love him until his thoughts centered on nothing else but how much he was cherished. But in light of the unfolding conspiracy and the danger they faced, as well as their apparent opposite stance on Trist, she wondered if she’d ever have the chance to hold him like that again.
“I have a plan that will allow us to escape,” he stated. “A ship is due to rendezvous with the Savior—an Alliance government vessel that was supposed to bring me to Sofu for the hearing on my war record. When I board, all of you will, too. I’ll explain the details later.”
She fought to keep calm. “Trist said if we don’t follow her instructions, we’ll die.”
“Of course she told you that!”
“You have to trust me on this, Kào. Trist is on our side.”
“Where’s your proof?”
“Where’s yours?”
He reared back. She snatched his hand. “I didn’t mean that,” she said with tenderness, and his hackles went down somewhat. They cared about each other, maybe even loved each other. Emotion was running high. She knew that his forbidding scowl and the fire in his eyes were symptoms of his fear for her. Somehow she knew and believed that. And it meant a lot. “About Trist, I know more about her than you think. That night at The Black Hole, she covered for us; she helped us evade security. And before that, too. Though we didn’t realize she was helping us then. She gave us access to information on the computer that we couldn’t have gotten otherwise. Without it, we wouldn’t have found out about Earth, Kào. That’s a fact. And she told us about the locators that were sewn into our issued clothing, so we could sneak out of New Earth without being caught. Did you know about those locators?” she asked accusingly. “We didn’t.”
“Tracked by locators. Like livestock.” He looked appalled by the idea. “No, I did not.”
She came up on her toes and reached behind his uniform collar. Under her thumbnail, she felt a tiny rectangle. Twisting the locator between her fingers, she wrenched it free of the fabric and gave it to him.
He stared at the silver object resting in his palm.
Jordan touched Kào’s arm. His biceps were rock-hard under the gray fabric of his uniform. “We owe Trist an open mind, if nothing else,” she said.
His focus turned inward as if he were analyzing Trist’s actions over the time he’d known her, which would have been only a few months, Earth time. “By the Seeders,” he whispered harshly and threw away the locator. It landed soundlessly somewhere far across the room. “Moray put her in charge because he knows about you and me. About our nights.”
Her cheeks heated. “He does?”
“Trist told him. Or he guessed it with her help. Regardless, it’s an excuse—the accusation of my fraternization, my lack of professionalism—whatever one might call it. It was a convenient way to get rid of me now that we’re about to dock with the Talagars. He needs someone in place who’s loyal to him; who’ll do his bidding. And that’s exactly what she’s doing. They’re in this together, Jordan. Moray isn’t acting alone. Trist, the other Talagars—they’re involved. Every last blasted one. She’s worked to win your trust so she’ll be assured of your cooperation.”
“Your prejudice toward the Talagars is understandable. Even contagious sometimes,” she admitted with shame. “But who says there can’t be Alliance patriots who look like Talagars? Trist is one of them, I think. And there may be others like her onboard.”
He shook his head. “Talagar and Alliance patriot—they are mutually exclusive terms.”
Jordan shoved her hands through her hair. Her fingers snarled in the long strands, making her wonder briefly how disheveled she must look. A nice appearance had once meant something to her. How quickly events had taken precedence over vanity, she thought, tugging on the hem of a tie-dyed T-shirt she’d dressed in so often that she’d forgotten what it was like to wear anything else.
New Earth was now a ghost town, eerie and silent. Ben and Garrett the Marine followed the last of the passengers away toward the planes. Only Natalie and Dillon were left. Until the last minute, Dillon had been attached to the computer. Now Natalie dragged him from his chair and mouthed to Jordan: Come on.
“Kào, please. I’m not asking you to be friends with her; just talk to her. She might need your help.”
He made a sound of disgust. Jordan wanted to scream. She teetered on the edge of losing all she’d wanted—the chance to go home and saving the man she loved—all because he couldn’t see past Trist’s ancestry.
A vibration shook the ship. The floor seemed to buzz under Jordan’s shoes. “We’ve docked. We have to get to the airplane.” She shook her fist at him. “Don’t screw this up for us, Kào. Or I’m going to wind up on a slave freighter on a one-way trip to wherever the Talagar Empire is reforming, and you’re going to end up dead—all because you can’t see past your hatred of Trist.”
He caught her fist. “I do not hate her.”
“You hate what she is,” Jordan argued. “Who her ancestors are. But the last time I checked, brutality’s not limited to eye color or skin color. Ask your father.”
Kào bristled. His frigid eyes made her shiver.
The silence stretched. The air itself felt ready to shatter. But he
gave no hint of giving in.
“I see there’s nothing more I can say to you,” she whispered. “The decision is yours. I’ve made mine.”
The words hung between them before dissipating into silence. It tore her heart, issuing that ultimatum.
Promise, Mommy? Swallowing hard, Jordan turned her back to him and strode across Town Square to catch up with the others.
“Isn’t Kào coming?” Natalie asked when she did.
Jordan made a face. “He’s being stubborn. Come on, let’s roll.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Natalie whistled. “When it comes to lovers’ quarrels, your timing stinks.”
“Shut up, Nat.”
She didn’t look back at Kào again; she couldn’t. They clambered down a hole in the floor. It reminded Jordan of descending into a sewer but without the smell. The hand-ladders were located in narrow metallic tubes that connected the decks. Rings protruded from one side. Grasping the rings and feeling with her toes for the rungs below, Jordan led the way into the lower reaches of the ship, briefing Natalie and Dillon on Kào’s revelations as they went.
The gray and blue United Airlines 747 and the hundreds of passengers climbing into it took up but a small part of the cargo bay. The jet gleamed, its familiarity tugging at Jordan’s emotions, conjuring thoughts of routine flights and Hawaiian layovers, stale coffee and too-late nights.
And mysterious lights in a dark sky.
In her mind, she saw Captain Wendt struggling to breathe, his clawing hands and blue face. The day Brian died of the heart attack felt like a million years ago. She was a different person then than she was now.
She jumped down from the ladder, but remained there, holding on to the lowest rung, peering upward into the dark tube from which they’d descended. After the longest, most excruciating moments imaginable, she heard the sound of heavy footfalls from above her head. When she saw Kào’s boots, joy welled up inside her. She stumbled back, allowing him to vault to the floor.
He stood there, a big, strapping, rugged man, his skin golden in the overhead light, his harsh features softened by his obvious feelings for her. “You came,” she said.
In the depth of his black eyes, she saw his uncertainty, his fear. His anger. “Whether or not we agree about Trist, you will have my protection in this venture. But should it go wrong, I’m taking over, and there’ll be no disobeying me.”
“That’s a deal,” she whispered.
Dillon appeared next to them. “You coming along?” he asked.
Kào narrowed his eyes at the red-haired Irishman. “I remember you from the Earth aircraft. You were the one who kicked me in the chest when my hands were bound.”
Dillon cleared his throat and looked at the bigger man. “That would be me.”
Kào nodded, sizing him up. “You are brave. I will like having you on my side for once.”
That was when Jordan noticed what Dillon held in his hand. “The defibrillator!” The AED might as well be a relic from ancient times, it felt so long since she’d seen it.
“It still works.”
Natalie showed up next with the Taser and the crash ax. “Take your pick.”
“Since you’re the cardio-kickbox queen with buns of steel, I’ll take the stun gun,” Jordan said. “And we’d better get inside the plane.”
Kào shook his head. “Inside we won’t be able to view who enters the cargo bay. I’ll stand guard here.”
Everyone volunteered to stay with him. But no sooner than they said the words, two men walked off the main lift from the decks above: one burly Talagarian security guard named Heest, the one she’d injured badly—and had pissed off—and another man whom Jordan recognized as one of Moray’s weasely red-eyed aides.
Kào went rigid. Jordan forced herself to breathe.
Heest brought his comm to his mouth. “Got ’em.” Then the two started walking forward, weapons gleaming in their belt holsters. “This area of the cargo bay is off limits. We have to take you into custody,” the guard called out, to the aide’s apparent glee.
Kào whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Don’t say anything about Trist.”
The lift opened again, disgorging two more security guards.
And Trist.
“I spoke too soon,” Kào muttered bitterly.
Trist and the two guards accompanying her wore gleaming guns in their belt holsters. “The commodore authorized deadly force to protect this area,” she said, drawing her weapon. The others did the same.
Seeing the guns aimed at them, Jordan felt off balance. Vulnerable.
Stupid.
Kào had been right about Trist, after all.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Two loud “zaps” tore through the silence—like the sound of monster moths being electrocuted in a bug light. Time bogged down. Passengers screamed. Jordan lifted her arms to ward off whatever had been fired at them as Natalie ducked, pulling Dillon down with her. Kào lunged at Trist, but she fired off a shot before he reached her.
Heest flew backward at the same instant that a second security man blew away a third, leaving Trist, the aide, and the one surviving guard.
Jordan lowered her shaking arms. An awful burning smell of scorched flesh prickled her nose. Thin streamers of smoke wafted up from the twitching bodies. Her stomach rolled.
“Well,” Trist said. “Not bad.”
Not bad? Jordan’s heart pounded erratically. She knew it’d be a moment before she got her voice back.
“That was no accident.” Kào’s arms were stiff at his sides, his fists flexing. “You killed those men intentionally.”
If Trist had been in a western, she’d have blown smoke from the muzzle of her pistol. “To put it mildly. It was a planned assassination. To save my mission here—and you. Just be glad we caught up to them.” With both hands, she smoothed her ivory hair away from her face. “Rono, Pug-marten, hide the bodies.”
Her companions dragged away the dead men and disposed of the corpses in a storage room. Then Trist closed the distance between her and Kào, her hand extended. “Tristin Pren, Colonel, Alliance Special Forces. Trist still works fine. I’m pleased to re-make your acquaintance, Lieutenant.” Her lavender mouth tipped crookedly at Kào’s obvious shock. What was he going to do know, faced with the proof of Trist’s loyalty, something he obviously didn’t expect from a woman of Talagarian descent?
Kào didn’t take Trist’s hand. He placed his weapon in it.
Jordan released a gust of air. Now that they all were on the same side, the prospect of getting home got a little bit brighter.
“That’s ‘mister,’ Colonel,” he corrected quietly. “Not lieutenant.”
“Actually, it is lieutenant. Perhaps even a higher rank at this point, if you count time served toward promotion. Your war record is clean. We found out some things about the incident at the depot, some things I’m not at liberty to discuss. But it will lead to a pardon; that I know.”
Kào paled, and Jordan’s heart leaped. Leading his squadron into the ambush at the weapons depot had brought him enormous personal shame. Now with a few words, he was free of it—if completely bewildered by the information.
Kào’s voice was understandably hoarse. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“The war is far from over. The Talagars are rebuilding on the Rim. They need human labor badly, thus Commodore Moray’s eagerness to deliver these people and go back for more. They needed an uncharted world. Who knew such a world existed? But it does—and unfortunately Moray found Earth before the Alliance did.”
“That’s why he wants to keep us a secret,” Jordan said, glancing at Dillon. “So he can return for more.”
Dillon shook his head. “Slave harvests.”
Jordan’s esophagus gave a spasm, and for a heartbeat she was afraid she’d be sick.
Trist sought her gaze. “The Alliance will not allow that to happen. All we have to do is keep Earth’s location from getting into
Talagar hands.”
“It already is,” Jordan, argued.
Trist shook her head. “No one knows but me and Moray.” She tapped her head. “I wiped everything from my hard drive once you got your peek. And I made sure nothing accurate was sent off this ship.”
Kào stared at Trist as if he’d never seen her before. “There’s a government ship due to pick me up and bring me to Sofu. We can transfer Jordan and her people to the vessel.”
“There is no ship, Kào.”
Kào dispassionately absorbed the impact of another of his father’s lies.
“To be more exact, the government didn’t send anyone for you. Moray did. He was transporting you to Sofu to get you off the ship. The dispatched vessel is now under Alliance control. It won’t be docking with the Savior anytime soon.”
His jaw worked. “How are you going to do it, then?”
“Save the refugees? Or destroy Steeg’s battleship?”
Jordan exchanged a startled glance with Kào. “Both,” he said.
“Jordan will wait with her people aboard the aircraft. No one will think to look for them there. I have some of my own in security,” she explained with a glance at the surviving guard, Pugmarten. “Moray thinks the refugees are awaiting transfer in the holding room on Deck One. And of course the new primary intercessor, Trist, confirmed that.” Trist grinned.
With those words, Jordan realized how much Trist herself risked in this bid to send them home. But then there was much more at stake, like galactic peace, of which Flight 58 was a very small part. “And when they figure out we’re not there?”
“Pugmarten will pretend to investigate. He’ll stall and confuse. By the time they find you, it’ll be too late. We’ll be on our way.”
Pugmarten spoke up. “I’d better get back to work, or they’ll be looking for me.” He dipped his head and strode away.
Trist glanced at her wrist computer.
“How are you going to destroy the battleship?” Kào asked. Clearly, his military instincts had been roused.