“Let’s begin with those,” Talon said. “I want everyone else on the bridge to learn about both devices when we use them. I’d like to evaluate their responses before we decide who else to give access to.”
“Agreed,” Thorn said while Tee nodded.
Chapter 6
The first thing Ria did after finishing her shift in the infirmary that day was to change her hair back to its natural color. It was an easy process using a hair wand. It was just time consuming with hair as long as hers and she’d been too busy to bother with it. Now she had incentive. She completed the job just in time to meet Vari in the corridor as they’d agreed earlier.
“I like seeing your hair back to its normal color,” Vari said as they walked toward the elevators.
“It’s a little shocking to see in the mirror,” Ria said. “I’ll get used to it soon.”
“You didn’t have time to change, did you?” Vari said.
Ria glanced down at herself and blushed. She’d hoped no one would mind that she was still wearing her work uniform of black cotton pants and white, long sleeved top with medical personnel patches on the sleeves, but apparently she was wrong. “I’m sorry, Vari. I’ll run back and change.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” Vari said. “Almost everyone in the cafeteria will be dressed in uniform. I was just worried that I didn’t give you enough time between getting off work and going to dinner.”
“I was working on the hair,” Ria explained as they stopped in front of the elevator and watched Vari press the call button. “It took so long I seriously considered cutting it off. I may yet.”
“You’ve always kept your hair long,” Vari said. “Do you really want to cut it?”
“I don’t know,” Ria said. The elevator arrived and they stepped in. “Where’s Pandora?”
“With Kai,” Vari said. “Hard to believe how determined she was not to like them. Now she enjoys spending time with them.”
“Life changes everyone,” Ria said quietly.
“Yes, it does,” Vari agreed just as the doors opened.
They stepped out of the elevator, then made their way into the cafeteria and back to the table the Dracon-Bats preferred to use. Ria saw that they’d added another small table to it for her, and felt a little guilty that they’d had to go to extra trouble.
She waited until Vari had greeted her men and they were all settled with drinks and had given their orders to the waiter. Then she grabbed onto her courage and spoke when the table fell silent.
“I’d like to thank all of you for making extra room for me, and for inviting me to eat with you,” she said, making eye contact with each of them. “I have something important that I’d like to say, if that’s okay.”
“All right,” Vari said slowly, a worried frown on her face.
“I’m on this expedition because of you four,” Ria said, picking her words carefully. “I appreciate it enormously because honestly, I had no idea what to do with myself after quitting med school. I have one big concern, though, that I’d like to address now.”
“What’s that, Ria?” Declan asked kindly, sensing how nervous she was.
“I don’t want you…any of you…to feel as though you’re obligated to invite me to eat with you all the time, or even part of the time, just because I’m Vari’s sister. As much as I appreciate being included, once in a great while would be more than enough. Like everyone else on this ship, I have a job to do. That job does not include imposing on the four of you.”
“That’s very kind, and very thoughtful of you, Ria,” Declan said. “We appreciate that very much.”
“Just remember that any time you need a little company, you’re welcome to join us,” Vari added.
“I’m accustomed to spending most of my time alone, Vari. But I thank you for the thought and I will remember.”
Vari’s surprise almost made Ria sigh. The more time she spent with Vari, the more she realized how little they knew each other.
“Have you had a chance to visit our training facilities yet, Ria?” Kai asked, feeling that a change in subject was needed.
“Not yet,” Ria replied. “Vari told me they’re really nice though. I meant to thank you again for the room. It’s really beautiful.”
“You’re welcome, Ria,” Jay said.
“What’s your preferred form of exercise?” Declan asked.
“I always did tiketa, before I went to college, but I haven’t done it since. I know now what a big mistake it was not to continue practicing and I intend to correct that during this expedition. It’ll take a while to get back to where I was but I’ll have the time.”
“Why didn’t you practice in college?” Vari said, then smiled. “Let me guess…friends, boys, parties, right?”
Ria looked at Vari in surprise before quickly dropping her eyes to the table. “None of those things. I studied.”
“That couldn’t have taken all your time.”
“I took extra classes so that it did.”
Vari nodded, remembering Niri saying that Ria’s record spoke for itself. She hadn't really thought about what that meant. Now, she wondered.
“Our training master, Lanok, is very good, Ria,” Jay said. “You may wish to speak with him about a training schedule. Tiketa is a difficult skill. He might be able to help you find something that’ll be easier for you.”
“Thank you, Jay,” Ria said politely. “I’ll think about that.”
The waiter chose that moment to deliver their meals. Ria remained quiet for the rest of the evening, relieved when Vari and her men began talking about people and matters she knew nothing about. It wasn’t until they were almost finished that Vari said something that caught her attention.
“Have you guys decided what day the Katres should come over for their weekly briefings? Lanok and I are trying to work out a class schedule for En Dairii. Nearly fifty people had dairi made before departure so they could sign up for classes. Apparently that many more signed up in just the past day or so. It’s amazing.”
“That is amazing, Miraku, but not surprising after what you did on the mission vid,” Declan said. “Too bad the ones who just signed up won’t be able to take lessons, though.”
“Actually, they will be able to. Turns out Lanok can make dairi, which is why he was able to take on students during your other long voyages. He anticipated a lot of people wanting to learn on this expedition, so he stocked up on lots of blanks. He’ll just need to program them for each student, but that takes time, which is the main reason we need to get a schedule settled.”
“We narrowed it down to Wednesdays or Fridays and they chose Wednesday,” Jay replied. “If that’ll conflict with your class schedule we can change it.”
“No, we haven’t set anything as yet. I just wanted to be sure to keep the time clear.”
Ria set her fork down and pushed her plate back a few inches. Just thinking about the Katres being on the Bihotza once a week made her feel sick. She was glad she knew though. At least she’d be able to avoid them.
“Ria, are you all right?”
Ria jumped, then tried to smile to hide her reaction. “Yes, I’m fine, Vari.”
“Does your head hurt?”
It was only then that she realized she’d been rubbing her temples. “I have a bit of a headache,” she admitted. “I apologize; I didn’t intend to be rude.”
“It’s not rude to have a headache,” Vari said, frowning again. “Why don’t you go on to your room and get some rest.”
Ria instantly wanted to do exactly that. “Yes, I think I should, if you’ll all excuse me.”
“Of course,” Declan said, watching her carefully. “If the headache gets worse, go see Dr. Jula.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, but thank you. And thank you for dinner. It was really nice of you to have me.” Ria stood, then turned and left the cafeteria.
She stepped into the elevator, waited for the doors to close and then crossed her arms over her chest and held on to hers
elf tightly. When the doors opened she hurried up the corridor to her room, went inside and locked it behind herself. Only then did she relax enough to let her true feelings show.
She couldn’t face the Katres. She just couldn’t. The very thought of it made her want to run down to the emergency launch bay, climb into a life pod and eject it from the ship.
She tried to tell herself it was because she couldn’t take any more humiliation. But lying to herself never worked, no matter how much she hated the truth.
She hung her head and admitted to herself that she couldn't face them because she was afraid. Not of being their berezi, which surprised her quite a bit. She was afraid of seeing in their eyes what she’d heard in their voices in the cafeteria. If that happened, something inside of her would shatter into a million tiny pieces. And she would never be a whole person again. She rolled her eyes at herself.
Correction; I’ll never again be the not-quite-whole but carefully stapled, taped, and glued together person who somehow manages to fool people into thinking I’m whole.
After just a couple of minutes she decided, again, that she couldn’t run. Not just because she’d said she wouldn’t, either. Vari, the Dracon-Bats, and Dr. Jula had offered her a place and a purpose when she hadn't had either. She had no intentions of making them regret it.
Good. That’s decided. Now I just have to avoid the Katres for the next year or two. If only I had a rabbit hole I could carry around with me. Or one of those big balloons like the Mad Hatter used to take Dorothy to Kansas. Wherever Kansas is. What is a ‘hatter’ anyway? And why is he so angry? Wait…no…that’s not right. It’s the wizard with the balloon, not the angry hatter.
Ria shook her head to scatter her wayward thoughts. She’d noticed more and more lately that she’d begun using her childhood tricks to divert herself from unpleasant thoughts or impulses.
She started pacing as she focused on the issue at hand, which was, of course, the Katres. They hadn't reacted to her pheromones in the cafeteria so at least she knew the suppressants worked. If Vari hadn't shared her story, she’d have thought that was enough.
She was extremely grateful that Vari had shared her story, though. She’d certainly been right about her body reacting to their pheromones, and she had no reason to doubt the rest of what her sister had told her. That meant she couldn’t risk running into them, talking to them, even letting them see her if she could avoid it.
It shouldn’t be too hard, she thought. All she had to do was stay out of the cafeteria, the corridors, and anywhere else they might possibly be on Wednesdays. As for the rest of the time…well, they were Admirals of the Hilgaria, after all. Hopefully that meant they’d be too busy to drop in unannounced very often. Or ever.
And if they do drop in? Since I have no idea what they look like, recognizing them could be a problem.
She walked over to her nightstand and picked up her hand terminal. She didn’t turn it on, though. She just stared at it for a few minutes while trying to make up her mind.
On the one hand, recognizing them would be good, even though on a ship the size of the Bihotza if she saw them, they’d probably already be looking at her, too. On the other hand, if she found out they had black hair, she’d be hiding every time she saw someone with black hair which was a good percentage of the crew. There was also the very real possibility that they didn’t even have the same color hair. It would drive her nuts.
There was no rush, she decided, returning the device to the nightstand. It would be a week before they returned to the Bihotza, so she had that much time to think about it. A week was long enough for her to make up her mind.
Chapter 7
Thorn placed his hand against the bio-metric scanner on the wall outside the security surveillance room, then entered his ID code. The door slid open and he stepped inside, yawning as he crossed the room to a work table that ran along one wall. He stepped behind it, put his coffee down, pulled out the chair and lowered himself into it with a sigh.
He hadn’t been sleeping well for the past few nights. He had the strangest feeling, like he’d forgotten something. Or that something was missing. Even his katrenca had been restless and edgy which rarely happened, and he had no idea why. He’d spent hours tossing and turning, then more hours walking the Hilgaria’s corridors and running in the Roar Room, but he was unable to shake the feeling off.
He sipped his coffee, set it aside, then slid the cover off the center portion of the desktop, revealing a massive control board. He’d spent a few days exploring the new software and hardware, getting the hang of what the system was capable of. Then he’d tested each remote security cam and mapped out which ones to monitor closely, and which to put on motion sensors. Now it was time to get the system online.
He hit a switch and one stack of six vid screens lit up. Another switch activated another stack to the right of the first, and a third switch turned on a third stack. The stacks were set in a slight curved shape, angled to give whoever sat at the work table the best view. Each stack displayed security feeds from one of the three ships. The stack to Thorn’s left was set up for feeds from the Bihotza, the center stack was for the Beacon, and the right stack was the Hilgaria.
Starting with the Bihotza, he began arranging the feeds to display on the screens. Security cams covering the main corridors, the hold, the training facilities, laundry and supply areas he put on motion sensor mode, giving each camera a small square of space on the fourth and fifth screens from the top. Any one of them could be selected and zoomed in on to display in a larger window overlapping the others at the touch of a button.
He put all of those feeds on motion sensors so they’d record only when the cams picked up motion within their line of sight. The system would also monitor all cams for illegal substances, weapons, people falling or fighting or otherwise injured. If anything suspicious was picked up, the system would display the suspect feed in a larger window, and an alarm would notify him.
The top three screens would record the more critical areas of the ship full time. These areas included the bridge, the armory, the cafeteria, kitchen, transport, auxiliary control, the engine room, and the infirmary. He divided each of the screens into larger squares, one for each feed, and tested each one for image and sound quality, and made sure they were all recording.
While he was testing the image quality of the infirmary feed a tall, slender figure crossed the waiting room and entered the triage area beyond. The woman looked familiar, but not. He frowned, wondering who she was.
He saw her stop near Dr. Jula and turned the volume up.
“Good morning Ria.”
“Good morning Dr. Jula. Is there anything special I should start with or just the usual routine.”
“It was quiet last night, so nothing special. By the way, Dr. Kannon said Thursdays are best for her. She wants two hours of lab time, but it needs to be in the morning.”
“Oh,” Ria said, nonplussed.
“I’ll split the difference with you,” Dr. Julia said. “If you’ll work one extra hour on Friday or Wednesday, I’ll mark the other as work time.”
“That’s very generous Dr. Jula, and I appreciate it, but I wouldn’t feel right about that. How about I work one extra hour on Wednesday and Friday?”
“Are you sure, Ria?”
“I’m positive,” Ria said. “I better get busy. I know there’s a long list of items I need to get from the fabricator.”
“All right, Ria, see you later.”
Thorn watched Ria Lobo walk out of sight of the camera and turned the volume off. Then he leaned back in his chair and reached for his coffee.
He hadn’t realized Ria worked in the infirmary but now that he thought about it, it made sense. She’d worked the Leaper infirmary too, he remembered. He couldn't seem to mesh the woman from the mission vid with the one he’d just seen. After a moment he shook his head, remembering that she hadn't been in the mission vid. Like Tee had pointed out, they'd only heard a few seconds of conversation about
her.
If she was the woman Declan and Vari had been talking about on the vid, someone had made a mistake. The Ria he’d just seen and heard was nothing like the impression he’d gotten. That woman would have taken Dr. Jula’s offer.
Was she a good actress? Or had he been that far off? And why in the red moon’s craters did he care?
He set his coffee down and returned to work. Setting up the feeds for the center stack took longer because there were far more security cameras on the Beacon, and it was a much larger ship. They'd decided to monitor a wider range of areas too. Unlike the Bihotza and the Hilgaria, the Beacon was not a primarily military or Jasani vessel. There were more people on it than on the Hilgaria and Bihotza combined, and they knew very little about most of them. It was far too easy for one person to destroy an entire ship, and the consensus was that if such a thing were to occur, it would take place on the Beacon. Therefore, it required closer monitoring.
He was almost finished setting up the Beacon’s feeds when he noticed it was lunch time. Unwilling to drop what he was doing before he finished, he called in an order then continued working until he heard a knock at the door. After bringing in his lunch he sat down at the desk and slid his chair over so he could put his lunch down away from the control panel. He looked up at the vid screens while he ate, scanning them for problems.
Once again his eyes caught on Ria Lobo, this time as she entered the cafeteria. She paused in the doorway, her arms crossed tightly across her chest in an unconsciously self-protective posture as she scanned the room. Then she made her way to a small table near the wall and sat down before pulling out her reader.
He ate his lunch, watching as she ordered, then ate, all the while reading something. Every ten minutes or so she’d look up and around as though scanning the room for trouble. He thought that was a little odd. What sort of trouble could she possibly be watching for on the Bihotza?
She finished her lunch, which had been very small, he noticed, picked up her reader and left. A couple of minutes later he saw her enter the infirmary and return to work.
Ria's Visions (Hearts of ICARUS Book 6) Page 8