“Cloaking device? Even the Defiant has one of those…”
“The Defiant’s cloaking device is rudimentary at best, and I’ll be first to admit that. This isn’t a battleship. The Pride fired on the exact coordinates of the Nym ship. A cloaked one could still be fired upon. But the torpedo just sailed through the space where it was.”
Lily racked her brain, trying to recall her father’s books and what she understood about modern space travel.
“Fleet intel can’t explain it,” Rian said finally. “The Nym know something that we don’t, and we can’t figure it out.”
Fear sliced through Lily. “Could they actually be in the Commons and you don’t know about it?”
The look on Rian’s face made her hands shake around her cup. “That’s a possibility,” he said. “Fleet wanted to take you into protective custody. I’ve spent the last hour and a half in vidconference with a few admirals, including Kentz. Half want you in custody, half want you here. The Nym activity aside, we don’t know if they know you’ve even been found. They’re very reclusive.” He held up a finger, halting her next question. “We have excellent safeguards in place, Lily, I promise. If we didn’t, they would have invaded and annexed the Commons years ago. Our security is as good as theirs. They’ve never broken into our classified information, which includes you, nor have they invaded a station.”
“But everyone on this ship knows who I am!”
“And only this ship. That was inevitable. But everyone in Fleet is held to high degrees of confidentiality. When someone is posted to a ship or station, they aren’t at liberty to discuss secrets about their previous missions. That rule is strictly enforced.”
“You sound so sure no one breaks them,” she argued. “Taz told me about killing zombies once.” Damn. She hadn’t intended to let that slip out.
Rian shrugged. “Lethal autoimmune toxin on Corlon. It’s common knowledge. I was there, too. Half of Fleet was. But I guarantee no one on this ship has ever talked about classified missions, to you or with each other. Fleet has a mind-wipe protocol in place to discourage that.”
“What?” Lily dropped her cup. It smacked against the tabletop, and a few drops of coffee sloshed out the sides.
“You haven’t gotten that far in your course, then. It’s well-known. That kind of insubordination results in a mind-wipe. Memories of whatever shouldn’t be talked about are erased,” he explained patiently.
“That’s barbaric!”
“Possibly, but it’s an effective deterrent, one that hasn’t needed to be utilized in years. People respect the Fleet, Lily. And it’s the most drastic punishment we have. Commonwealth space doesn’t sanction the death penalty.”
“Then how did the media know I was on the Defiant?” she countered.
“Well, technically, they didn’t, although that mystery’s been mostly solved. All the media could make out was a rumor that someone on an unnamed ship was found buried alive in a pile of museum artifacts. That bit of information made it to Rubidge Station and was spread—we’re still unsure as to who let it leak. The newshounds picked it up and embellished on it. Unfortunately, they got it right. None of the legitimate news sources ran that story. We checked the tabloid vids, and Fleet’s been keeping an eye on the stories. One of Rubidge’s broadcasters made up an interview with the time traveler that was an obvious fake, and it died down.”
Lily sighed. “You have an answer for everything.”
“Not the Nym dilemma yet.” He gave her a small smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but it seemed strained and forced.
Lily was still thinking about what the media knew. “But the newsvids guessed things a little too accurately for it to be just a coincidence,” she pressed. “Are you sure no onboard has blabbed?” Catching Rian’s sharp intake of breath, she added, “Don’t lie to me.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “You’re right. We have noticed that the original story is a little too close to the truth. But you don’t know the tabloids and what they come up with.”
“You didn’t invent tabloids. Ours were making up stories about Bat Boy and Elvis sightings in truck stops long before I woke up in a coffin.” Rian raised an eyebrow in confusion, and she sighed again. “Never mind. The point is, newspapers have been making stuff up to sell more copies for thousands of years. Someone snitched, Rian.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“And it wasn’t Taz,” Lily added.
“Ensign Shraft didn’t do it. Neither did your friend Mora Kharn. We checked their transmits and comp activity already. They were the first suspects, and neither of them fit the profile of a traitor to begin with. Shraft has the Fleet, and only the Fleet, in his life.”
Lily nodded. Taz had too much to lose.
“Nurse Kharn’s father is an admiral,” he continued. “A mind-wipe would be the least of her worries if she betrayed us.”
“What about Ashford?” she asked. Her gut recoiled at the thought, and she instantly regretted the suggestion. The doctor was one of the kindest people she had ever met, and fiercely loyal to Fleet.
“He has too much to lose, too. This is his last posting before he retires on a full pension, and he doesn’t fit the psych profile, either.”
“Steg?” The security chief was not a fan of Lily or Rian.
Rian shook his head. “Grigha Steg has seen everything in his career, and you’re one more unusual occurrence.” He leaned back in his chair. “Believe me, Lily, Fleet has looked at the profiles of everyone on this ship and examined every piece of communication, including mine. Nothing fits with the Nym.”
“You’re missing something,” Lily said sharply. “Who’s to say that someone here doesn’t have, I don’t know, a two-way radio that acts independently from your ship? One that links directly to the Nym?”
“We already considered that.”
“Of course you have.” Lily knew she sounded petulant, but she knew she was right. They were missing something. She stewed in silence for a couple of minutes, sipping at lukewarm coffee.
“We did a check of energy emissions,” he explained. “All devices leave a detectable trail, I guess you would call it, after they’ve been used. If you use a computer to send a transmit to a friend on Rubidge Station, for instance, and you turn off the computer, its use can be verified by an emissions detector. Devices emit them, like an odor.”
Lily nodded, remembering the hype over Wi-Fi hotspots back at home.
“And nothing out of the ordinary has been detected,” she finished for him.
“No.” Frustration crossed his face as he ran a hand through his hair. “The odds aren’t great, but right now the only reliable hypothesis is the media guessed too closely.”
“Fleet’s questioned reporters?”
“Of course not. This thing is finally dying down. That ridiculous vid serial is starting a new series soon, and they’re all over that.”
Lily was grateful for the change in topic, a subject that kept going in circles. “You mean Lightning’s Luck? You watch it then?” She tried to keep her tone light.
“Don’t tell me the crew has you drooling over that excuse for a captain, too,” he muttered. “In real life, getting stuck in hyperspace can kill you.”
“I only drool over one captain,” she said. At his bemused expression, she added, “Well, not drool. But you get the point.”
“Noted and appreciated.”
“Wait a minute,” Lily said. “You mentioned the episode where Captain Trid and the ship got stuck in hyperspace. It was when the engines failed and he ended up having end-of-the-world sex with the navigator in his office.”
Was Rian blushing? “You watch it, too!” she crowed.
“I’ve watched a few episodes when I felt like turning off my brain for a half-hour.”
“I bet you watch it for the same reason all the other guys do.”
“To criticize its inaccuracy?”
“No, for First Officer Kila Devo,” Lily teased. The half-Kurra
n actress was tall, with light greenish-blonde hair, and her uniform highlighted her best assets, which weren’t her acting abilities.
“She wouldn’t make it past basic training. She can’t even hold a laser rife properly. She’d put a charge through her foot in real life.”
His comm badge pinged, interrupting him, and a disembodied voice said, “Rikk to Marska.”
Rian tapped it. “Captain here.”
“The transmit sensor modifications have been completed, if you want to check them out.”
“Be there in five.” He tapped the off the badge and stood. “I’d like to kiss you goodbye, but...” He gestured around the mess.
“I know,” said Lily. “What time are you off-duty? You could kiss me then.” She rose to her feet, too.
“Twenty-one hundred hours.”
“Your place or mine?”
The teasing tone evaporated from his voice. “Mine. I have to have my comm badge with me all the time, and if I’m in yours—well, you know.” He looked at her apologetically.
“I do.” She touched her fingertip to his sleeve. “See you tonight.”
Chapter 13
Rian left the bridge promptly at 2100 hours, to the surprise of his crew. He returned to his cabin and had changed into his civvies when his computer screen blinked an incoming message. He checked the transmit address: Nalia. Of course. His sister swore up and down that she could sense his whereabouts, and she was right more often than not. He also knew she would keep transmitting until he answered.
He pressed the accept tab, and Nalia’s face filled the screen. “Make it quick,” he said by way of greeting. “I have company coming.”
“Hello to you, too. Who’s the company?”
“A friend.”
“Oh, the ladyfriend. Well, well, well.” She grinned triumphantly.
“Don’t you have a husband to pester?”
“I do, and he’s watching the fight in the lounge with his brother.”
Rian knew there was some kind of zero-g boxing match happening; a few crew members were watching it on the small vidscreen in the mess. “Uh-huh,” he said. He left the transmitter and went to his kitchen, where he found last night’s half-full bottle of wine.
“Where did you go?” He heard the irritation in Nalia’s voice.
He returned to the screen. “Getting supplies for my company.”
“What’s her name again? Just tell me truth, and promise you’ll sit down for a proper talk in the next couple of days.”
“Lily, and yes, she’s coming over. And I have a lot of work to do and some other issues have cropped up, as they tend to in the military. But I promise we’ll get caught up very soon.”
“So you’re still seeing her?”
Gods help him. Rian could have told his sister that the Nym were slicing through the Defiant’s hull right now and his personal life would still be at the forefront of her mind. “Yes, and I hope to continue to,” he said finally. Knowing that answer wouldn’t placate Nalia, he told her the truth. She’d guess, anyway. “I can see this being serious,” he admitted. He hoped it would be.
But he wanted it to continue. Lily was smart, inquisitive, and cared about him and Fleet. She was understanding of their situation, but didn’t mind—at least thus far. An image popped into his mind: stepping down to commander and settling on a station as an executive officer to an admiral or senior captain. He had been offered that before accepting acting captaincy on the Defiant. He could have Lily with him, and she could work in the station’s clinic. No one would know exactly who she was, and they could share an apartment and take furlough together and be a real couple. He had never thought of anyone in those terms before.
Nalia was staring at him. “You just completely zoned out there for a few minutes. You’ve got it bad.”
“Just thinking,” he said. “And probably getting ahead of myself.” Definitely getting ahead of himself.
There was a chime at the door. “She’s here,” Rian said. His fingers hovered over the disconnect tab. “I have to go.”
“Can I meet her?”
“Another time.”
She pouted with childish gusto but waved. “Have fun.”
Rian groaned and ended the transmit. “Enter,” he said, and the cabin door opened. Lily walked in, in her usual black pants and blouse, dark pink this evening. He kissed her in greeting and palmed the lock on the door.
“I got my exam results back,” she said excitedly. “Ninety-four percent. Only three more to go.”
A tiny shard of pain sliced through Rian. Only three more exams for her to write before she left him. He pushed that thought away. Whatever he had with Lily wasn’t a military operation. He wasn’t even sure if he had the right to ask her about how he fit into her plans.
Too soon. He didn’t want to frighten her off. There had been too much upheaval in her life already, with more to come.
“Besides all your conferences, what happened today?” she asked. “Some security grunts were talking about a smuggler being picked up.”
“Not a smuggler,” Rian corrected. “Just a freight ship with illegal weaponry and communications upgrades that showed up on our sensors. That indicates potential criminal activity, but they didn’t have any cargo or known criminals aboard.”
“So what happened?”
“Their modifications were disabled and their illegal torpedoes confiscated. We fined them, too, and now we have their ship on our watch list.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.” He poured two glasses of wine and held one out to her.
She tasted it. “So not a lot happens here, then.” She sounded disappointed.
“That’s a good thing, Lily,” he pointed out.
“I’m on a spaceship for the first time. I was hoping there would be more action.” She barked out a short laugh. “I mean, seeing aliens besides the Nym.”
“There aren’t a lot of non-humanoids in Commons or Kurran space. If we were on a battleship closer to the Sorkan border, maybe. Sorkans are tall and scaly.”
Lily waited for an explanation. “The Sorkans have been pissed off at the Commons for years,” he continued. “Border dispute. It’s a long story, but they don’t invade our space, they just take shots at any ship that shows up on their sensors. Patrols along that border use battleships just in case. I spent some time on one when I was a lieutenant.”
“And?” She sat on one of the chairs around the kitchen island and leaned forward expectantly.
“And nothing. The shields deflect their cannons and we don’t fire back. They do it just to remind us they’re there.” He sat down next to her and changed the subject. “We’re docking at Kevnar Station in fourteen days, after we drop off the science team.”
“What’s at Kevnar?”
“Fuel and fresh water, and we’re swapping a few officers. Not Steg, unfortunately.” He was babbling. When the hell had he turned back into an awkward adolescent?
She caught it and was looking at him like she knew something. He reached for her, fighting his impulse to crush his mouth against hers and drag her off to the bedroom like an animal. But there wasn’t a scary vid playing, just the two of them in his kitchen. He was out of ideas.
She framed his face with her hands, a small smile quirking her lips. She leaned up and kissed him gently, no more than a light brush of her lips against his, and that did him in. His arms locked around her waist and pulled her off the stool as he stood up.
He knew he was in trouble, that Lily was trouble. She was becoming an addiction, someone he could never get enough of.
She arched into him as he kissed her neck, her breath hot in his ear, urging him on. His hands slid under her shirt and drifted over the bare skin of her lower back.
An alarm wailed through his cabin, and the lights began flashing red. He let her go abruptly. “Shit!” he yelled.
“What’s happening?” she shouted over the noise.
“Red alert. I have to get to the bridge.” He saw fear in her eyes and, des
pite the din around him, a corresponding ache at the sight of her.
His comm badge trilled at his collar, and his first officer’s voice sounded. “Kostin to captain!”
He slapped at it and strode for the door of his cabin, Lily behind him. “Marska here.”
“Get on the bridge!” Rian could hardly make out the commander’s voice over the alarm’s blare.
“Status?” He rushed into the corridor and saw a few other off-duty officers heading for the lift.
“Unfriendlies.” The officer’s next words were muffled as Rian ran under a screaming speaker for the lift. The lights along the corridor flashed the same ominous red as the ones in his cabin. Lily ran alongside him, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the lift. More red lights, but the alarm was marginally quieter.
“What is it, godsdamnit?”
“Nym!” Kostin repeated.
Damnation. What the hell was a Nym ship doing there? Blood pounded in his ears, and his stomach turned over.
Were they looking for Lily? Had they figured out she was aboard a patrol ship? He gripped her hand tighter, not caring about the other crew around them. They were barking into their own comm sets.
The doors opened at the bridge. His office was off it, down a small corridor. “Go,” he ordered, and pointed to it. She obeyed and took off.
Commander Kostin, on bridge duty for the night, moved over at the command console. The enhanced viewport at the front of the ship showed a distant outline of a sleek rectangular box of a ship gliding straight for them. He didn’t need to check their coordinates to see that.
Rian took the helm. “How far out are they?”
“Eleven minutes, sir,” replied the commander.
“Why wasn’t an alarm raised when they showed up on the long-distance sensors?”
“They didn’t. We didn’t pick up anything until they were fifteen minutes out.”
“Six minutes,” said a voice from behind them.
Rian could see that, and their increase in speed actually scared him.
“Advisory’s already been sent out,” Kostin said. “Bishop’s Pride is twenty-nine minutes out, going at top speed.” Rian knew Captain Jena would be double-timing her ship to make it in time, but he wasn’t going to count on their help.
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