Contact

by Susan Grant

  The man advanced on him. In that moment, Kào wished he had asked Trist for her weapon. He also hoped that his father didn’t have one.

  “It’s not too late, Kào. We have a future. Imagine all we can still do. I’m sorry about what happened during the war. This transfer of the refugees was supposed to correct that.”

  “Correct what?” Kào asked, incredulous. “You want to give these people to the Talagars to correct what?”

  “Your career.”

  His career? A sound escaped Kào, too clipped and bitter to be a laugh.

  “I want you to be a hero, Kào. To share in the credit of this rescue.”

  Kào jerked his chin at Steeg’s ship. “For giving them to the Talagars?”

  Moray swiped the back of his hand over his deeply flushed face. “You weren’t supposed to know of that part. And you weren’t supposed to care.”

  Kào saw the accusation in his father’s face. If he hadn’t gotten close to Jordan, he wouldn’t have questioned—or cared about—her people’s fate. The refugees would have been transferred to Steeg’s supposedly apprehended ship and, in his naïveté, Kào would have allowed it to happen. “No wonder you didn’t want me near her,” he muttered, his eyes returning to the switch. Only a minute had passed. It felt like hours. If he could distract the commodore a short while longer . . .

  He spoke with a deadly calm he didn’t quite feel. It reminded him of his weapons-officer days when he planned the obliteration of populated areas: One simply disconnected one’s emotions in order to perform. He needed to do that now. “You’ve always wanted me to have, in your words, father, a brilliant career. Power, influence. A good marriage,” he added, his mouth twisting. “I wouldn’t think you’d need to live vicariously through me, when you could take such power for yourself.” He’d often wondered at that, his father’s motives.

  Shock froze Moray’s features. “It wasn’t to live through you, boy! It never was. I want the best for you because . . . because you are my son.”

  “But you wanted me to gain the highest levels of government when I clearly didn’t have that particular ambition,” Kào insisted impatiently.

  The two men held each other’s gazes. Moray’s eyes pleaded with Kào to understand, to forgive. For a second or two, Kào tried to understand. Then it became clear. He jerked backward as reason for Moray’s deception hit him. “You’re a Talagar sympathizer. As a man of power, I’d be a valuable conduit of information for you.”

  Moray nodded encouragingly. Did he still think there was a chance to bring Kào over to his side? The man was delusional! “As an innocent byproduct of our interaction. Or,” Moray offered, “willingly.”

  Kào sneered. “Never willingly. But that wouldn’t matter, would it? Because I’d assume your loyalty to the Alliance was above question—because I’d trust you—I’d reveal things I ought not. Or so you’d hope.” He well knew the cost of exposing military secrets to the enemy. Unintentionally, involuntarily, it didn’t make a difference how it happened; the consequences were the same. “At least it’s finally clear to me . . . what you had in mind all these years. Why you kept a child alive when you should have killed him.” He swallowed hard. “A part of me now wishes you had killed me.”

  Moray’s face reddened with emotion. His voice was thick. “Listen to me, Kào. It’s true I had plans for you, but over time—over time something unexpected happened. As the years passed, using you as a means to harm the Alliance became secondary to my desire, as your father, to see you do well.”

  For a moment, Kào feared the man would weep.

  Moray clutched at his chest with thick fingers. “You were my son. My boy. I wanted the best for you. I wanted you to be . . . happy. You were bright, a tenacious lad. When you went off to join the Space Force, I did everything in my power to make you a hero. I knew you would balk at my efforts, humble as you are, and so I worked behind the scenes. Got you the best assignment on the best ship that I could.” Remorse crept into his tone. “And when I heard through my channels the Talagar shipbuilding facility had been left virtually unguarded, I made sure that information was passed to your squadron—your ship, where I knew you’d be monitoring incoming intelligence. A small price to pay for the Talagars to lose that facility. But for you it would have been the first of many steps in a glorious ascent to a brilliant career.”

  Kào shook his head. “Hold on—that intelligence came from you?” He’d received such reports daily from operatives in the field, tasked with passing up-to-the-minute information to the fleet. “The targeting message was reviewed by me,” he thought out loud. “It was verified by my commander . . .” As procedure dictated, he’d passed along the intelligence and his own opinions to those responsible for making the final decisions. Regarding that particular gem, an unwary shipbuilding facility that just happened to be on their path, he’d pushed hard to go in and destroy it. But if what Moray told him was true . . .

  Sweat prickled the back of Kào’s neck. “The Talagars knew we were coming. They were waiting for us.” It hurt to think of what happened next, so he stopped and pushed the memories away.

  “They weren’t supposed to be there, Kào. I swear it! Someone double-crossed me.” Moray’s eyes had never appeared as black to Kào as now, when the man seemed to focus inward on the past. “Someone somewhere in Talagar intelligence figured out my plans for you.” Moray’s scowl deepened. “They sent ships to thwart that attack. I’ll find the faithless coward and kill him with my own hands, if it takes me the rest of my days.”

  “That little miscalculation led to my capture,” Kào said numbly. “And the others’. The Talagars learned of the Daldénne offensive from one of us—or maybe all of us,” he added, hearing in his mind Jordan’s voice, insisting that he’d become a convenient scapegoat because he was the only one left alive to blame. “If not for that, we’d have routed them. We would have won the war years ago. We wouldn’t still be fighting now.”

  Moray shook his head. “I don’t know what went wrong. And I arranged for your release after a short time. The Talagars were never supposed to keep you there. But they did keep you alive for me. They did that, at least.”

  A heavy weight compressed Kào’s lungs. His legs wanted to fold beneath him as Moray’s traitorous face wavered in his field of vision. At last, he’d learned the answer to the question that had haunted him: why he’d survived when everyone else had died.

  Sweat oozed out of his every pore. His stomach muscles were rigid. He longed to turn his back on the man he’d called father, but he couldn’t afford the risk.

  Focus. The commodore was the enemy, Kào reminded himself. The man was here to stop him from destroying Steeg’s ship; he was desperate and using revelations quite skillfully to distract him. But Kào knew that to let his emotions take over was to fail. Again.

  He’d die first.

  Slowly, Kào lifted his gaze. His jaw clenched. “I lost my entire squadron, spent years in prison, because of you. And now you tell me that you intend to exchange these refugees as slaves while disguising the entire event as a humanitarian effort. With no thought of how wrong it is. It’s just the first step in your plan to absolve me of my guilt. Is that why Sofu agreed to reopen my records? Or is that another lie?”

  Moray scrubbed a shuddering hand over his perspiring face. The airlock was frigid, but both Moray and Kào were bathed in sweat. “Please, my boy. Understand. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you.”

  Fear and hatred expanded in the pit of Kào’s stomach, hard and cold. “Not everything.” He cleared his throat. “What happened to my family?”

  Startled, Moray blinked.

  “You know, Commodore,” he said. “You were there.”

  “Yes . . . I was.”

  Kào swallowed to hide the longing in his voice. “Could they . . . be alive?”

  Moray was matter-of-fact. “I know that they are not.”

  “What happened?” He had to know.

  “They rioted during trans
port, hundreds of them, killing themselves along with the crew.”

  “By the Seeders,” Kào whispered harshly. He should be grateful. They would have suffered horribly had they lived.

  Moray’s hands hung at his sides. He looked old, tired. “I’ve done everything since for you, Kào. I did it for love.”

  Love. The man made a mockery of the concept. Kào knew little English, but one phrase rushed out of him. “Go to hell,” he growled.

  Moray could move swiftly for a big man, and he did so now. Kào dove for the floor, his hands cupped over the switch. Moray landed on top of him. The man was heavy, crushingly so.

  Fiery pain shot up Kào’s knees, which had weakened during prison. Gasping, he continued to shield the switch from Moray’s clutching hands.

  The green light blinked. Not done. Not done, it taunted. How big was Trist’s program? Or had time simply ground to a halt?

  Hold on, just a little longer.

  They grappled. Gasped. Grunted. Moray’s smooth, meaty hands plucked viciously at Kào’s scarred ones wrapped around the handle, until he managed to grab two fingers and bend them backward.

  Kào bared his teeth. The tendons stretched, began to tear. Kào panted as agony slashed ragged edges into his palms. Bolts of remembrance, of torture, tore through his brain, and his hold on the switch began to slip.

  Jordan ran at full speed from the 747 to the cargo-bay doors. There came another series of sharp clangs. The hook bounced higher. Any moment it would clear the bar. With every step, every breath, Jordan prayed she would not be too late.

  Halfway there, Natalie caught up to her. “Nice try, Captain. But I’m coming, too,” she said, barely winded.

  Jordan waved her off. “I’ve got it. Go back!”

  “Sorry. What would Batman be without Robin, Aladdin without Genie”—her face lit up—“Ben without Jerry?”

  Jordan gave a groan of surrender. “If we make it back to Earth, I’m getting you serious psychological help. How you can think of ice cream at a time like this, I have no clue.”

  They stumbled to a stop by the override device. The hook had gone still. For the moment. “When it starts up again, if they try one more time, Nat, that hook’s going over the bar and we’re history,” Jordan warned.

  The flight attendant’s lips were coated perfectly in the MAC lipstick shade Del Rio, of which she had dreaded the day she’d eventually run out. Those lips curved. “The brave don’t live forever. But the cautious never live at all.”

  “That works for me.” Together they grabbed hold of the hydraulic-assisted handle that Trist had used. The vibration began deep within the wall. Then the hook rattled. “Faster,” Jordan shouted.

  Their hands were blurred. They spun the wheel until the hook had settled fully over the bar.

  Jordan stumbled backward, wringing her hands. This time she didn’t fight the urge. She freakin’ deserved it! Triumph! “They can try all they want, but those doors aren’t going anywhere.”

  Natalie’s dark eyes were wide as they focused on the gigantic doors, large enough for a 747 to fly through, which it had. “They’re trying to kill us, this means,” she said quietly.

  “I know.” Jordan’s eyes shifted to the bottom of the tube from which they’d climbed down earlier. The sensation of dread that had dogged her all along skyrocketed. Kào’s in danger. Her heart knew it. Her instincts honed from years of motherhood screamed it. Did she ignore the warning, did she seek shelter in the airplane? “If they’re trying to kill us, that means something’s gone wrong with Trist’s plan.” She backed away from Natalie. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Go? Go where? You got to get your butt back inside, girl!”

  Jordan broke into a jog. “Tell everyone on the plane to buckle in tight, to secure all their belongings in case this compartment depressurizes. Whoever wants us dead won’t stop trying. They might come down here. They’ll see what we did.” She paused to think and catch her breath. “Brief Ben—take no longer than a minute. Then leave him in charge and go find Trist. Tell her. Whatever cover she had before must be blown. She needs to know.”

  Natalie shouted after her. “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “To help Kào.” Filled with a sense of rightness, of inevitability, of destiny, Jordan turned her back on the flight attendant and broke into a run.

  Moray’s hand gripped Kào’s. Their ragged breaths hissed. Kào’s neck corded. His hand burned with pain. His fingers were slipping. He cast his desperate gaze to the left. The wall. Curved. Near him.

  He lurched backward, and the move caught Moray off guard. The man’s hold faltered, only for a heartbeat but long enough for Kào to throw his hip to the side and his leg upward. His boots, first one and then the other, grabbed the wall. Rubbery soles provided traction, and using his momentum he ran his feet up and over the inner radius of the wall, landing heavily behind Moray.

  In a heartbeat, he’d captured the commodore in an arm lock and wrenched his head back. But Moray grabbed desperately for the switch. Fingers searching, clutching, fingernails scraping over the metal floor. Inches away from the switch.

  “No!” Kào grunted, yanking him backward. The man gurgled, wheezed. His hand shook as it crept toward the switch. The indicator light flashed on and off. “Finish, blast it!” Kào shouted.

  And then the light stopped blinking.

  Kào threw his gaze to the gleaming battleship looming silently at the opposite side of the airlock. “It went through.” He let go of Moray, who sagged to the metal floor. Kào skipped backward. “Say goodbye to Steeg.”

  Moray regarded him strangely from where he sat sprawled on the floor.

  Kào snarled, “Now get up. We have to get out of here. When that ship blows, so will we.”

  “I did all I could,” Moray replied in a defeated voice. “But it went so wrong.” Then his hand went to the breakaway handle, the docking release.

  With a horrible, impotent fury, Kào knew that his father was going to pull the release handle. The airlock would open to space and they’d be sucked out of the ship like so much dust. Every cell in Kào’s body screamed. “No!” he bellowed hoarsely.

  Moray’s hand shot up. “Stay where you are.” His florid coloring remained, but oddly, his facial muscles were relaxed. What could only be peace glowed in him. The realization conjured a fresh surge of urgency in Kào: The man was going to destroy himself, and take him along for the ride.

  Kào focused. Analyzed the target. The man was five maybe ten paces from him. Between them was the open pressure door, useless as it was, hanging open. Moray noticed the direction of his gaze, and his hand flexed.

  Kào’s mouth went dry, and he backed away from that thought. If he tried to close the door, Moray would act. Kào’s shoulders sagged and his arms fell to his sides. “So you’ve kept control of me to the end, Father,” he said resignedly. “It seems you will even choose the hour and the manner of my death. You couldn’t do it on Vantaar, but you’ll do it now.” And it was worse now that he had so much to look forward to: the promise of a future for the first time in his life. He grieved for all that would never be. But instead of weeping, he started to laugh. It was a dreadful sound, but he couldn’t hold it back. All along, he’d struggled with his emotional inability to deal with the tragedies he’d endured, and now that the emotions vented, they were all the wrong ones. Yet strangely, when he recovered, wiping the back of his hand across his face, he felt purged, purified, like a prisoner who had been prepared for execution.

  Moray watched the entire spectacle, his knuckles white. In silence, Kào waited for him to pull the release that would kill them both. He didn’t know what else to say to this man who was both fiend and father. And he didn’t know what to do when Moray’s gray eyes clouded over with tears.

  “Ah, Kào. Look what I have made of you.” A tear made its way down his reddened cheek.

  Kào stared at the droplet, half in horror and half in pity.

  “To say I’m sorry is pitifully in
sufficient. Sometimes . . . sometimes a man’s life gets away from him, you see.”

  “Just do it,” Kào coughed out. “End it.”

  Suddenly Moray’s gaze shifted and his mouth spread into a sad smile. Perhaps he saw the Original Ones before him; it was said that they appeared in the hour of death. “Ah, Kào. Here she is. Your refugee. She’s what you want, isn’t it? That life. So be it, my boy. I can give you that, at least.”

  Kào whipped his head around. On the far side of the airlock, he could see Jordan’s blond head bent to the task of opening the outside door. His heart exploded. “No, Jordan! Go! He’s going to open the airlock!”

  Her eyes were wild with fear. For him, he thought. Not for her. “Can’t it be closed electronically?” she screamed at someone with her.

  Two heavy boots slammed into Kào’s rear. The powerful shove sent him skidding over the floor and away from the manual breakaway.

  There was a wrenching hiss, a shriek of wind. Vaguely, Kào was aware of Jordan and others entering the airlock, clinging to handholds themselves. She’d never make it to him in time. She’d kill herself trying.

  The air turned to ice. He couldn’t shout to her, to tell her to save herself. His lungs expanded to the bursting point at the same time his eardrums exploded in white-hot pain. A storm of loose detritus stung his exposed skin as he was wrenched backward.

  The noise was deafening as he slid over the floor, hurtling toward space, a destination he couldn’t see because the air had turned opaque with fog.

  He grabbed for a handhold with frozen fingers and missed. He tried next to stop his slide away from Jordan with the rope connected to the safety harness he’d forgotten he’d donned, but it scorched his sliding hands like molten metal.

  His cheeks and lips rippled with an outward rush of air from his lungs that he couldn’t control. Blindly, he clutched for something, anything to stop himself.

  Then, abruptly, the roaring in the airlock subsided to a shriek of wind that whistled into silence. His eardrums wrenched with a powerful reverse in pressure as the opening in the airlock shut, commanded so, he was certain, from the bridge.