Chapter 16
Marissa Oliver didn’t know what it was about redheads. Was it the pale, pale skin? The flaming, tangled, exotic hair? The delightful smattering of freckles?
Or was it just Emily?
Emily Frazier moaned as Marissa flicked her tongue over one pale, pink nipple. Marissa loved the way that Emily moaned. She loved the way her nipples crinkled. She loved the dreamy, half-lidded smile that crossed her face and the way the breath caught in her throat when she was about to come. Emily grabbed the back of Marissa’s head and pushed down hard and Marissa opened her mouth wide, sucking in as much of Emily’s breast as she could, and let her fingers trail across Emily’s wide open thighs. Emily raised her hips, opening herself up further. She thrust herself hard against Marissa’s fingers, gave a little cry and slumped back down to the bed.
God, this girl is a treasure, Marissa thought.
Emily smiled up at her, raised her arms above her head and stretched. She grinned at Marissa. “Now it’s my turn,” she said.
Marissa sighed. “Oh, yeah…”
Afterward, they lay in bed entwined together, Marissa’s arms across Emily’s chest, Emily stroking Marissa’s hair.
“That thing the other day, with Forrester and Richard Norlin,” Emily said. “I hope that wasn’t my fault.”
Marissa raised her head and peered up at Emily’s face. “Why would it be your fault?”
Emily grinned down at her. “Didn’t you know? Forrester is my ex.”
“Really?” Emily wrinkled her nose. “Hard to see the two of you together.”
“He’s not bad looking and he’s not stupid.” Emily frowned and seemed to think about it. “Though he is sort of stupid.” She shrugged. “He seemed nice.”
“How long did that last?”
“How long did he seem nice? Or how long were we together?”
“Both.”
Marissa could feel Emily shrug. “I realized pretty quickly that Forrester has this raging sense of entitlement. He’s about as self-centered an individual as I’ve ever met. He kept that hidden, at first.”
“I have so much less respect for you than I did ten minutes ago,” Marissa said.
Emily made a rude noise. “Also, he’s petty and vindictive.”
Marissa sighed and snuggled closer. “He’s a junior officer with no real authority. I’m not in his chain of command and if he gets out of line, there are plenty of people on board this ship who would be happy to slap him down.”
Emily shrugged. “I think that’s quite enough about Lieutenant JG Horatio Forrester. He’s not worth talking about.” She grinned. “But I do need to do something to regain your respect, so why don’t you turn this way…and then turn over.”
She smirked, moved two fingers back and forth and Marissa gasped. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “That should do it.”
“I thought it would.”
Ten drones drifted on the wind toward a screened spaceport located twenty kilometers outside the city, restricted for military use. Airpods and ground vehicles came and went. When their passengers left the vehicles, the drones were able to insert even smaller drones than themselves onto these passengers’ clothing, unnoticed. Inside the base, the microdrones drifted toward their assigned targets and observed. After another three days, the microdrones left the same way they had entered. They disgorged their accumulated information to the larger drones, who uploaded it to Gehenna.
The rest of the drones followed their programming to likely looking targets and followed the same routine. They inserted microdrones wherever possible.
Gehenna stayed silent on the edges of the system, waiting, gathering information, and finally, the drones found a clue to what they were seeking.
Michael stared at his screen. “I was not expecting that.”
“Where to first?” Captain Thorenson asked.
“First, we’re going to set Captain Orsini and his crew down on Akadius and thank them for their assistance,” Michael said. “After that, Dancy.”
“Did you know that Jeffrey used to have sex with Brianna LeClair?” Gloriosa asked.
Frankie’s cup paused halfway to her mouth. Then she shrugged, took a sip and carefully set the cup back down on the table. “No,” she said. “Why would I?” The comings and goings, not to mention the sex life, of Ensign Brianna LeClair were not things that Frankie had ever spent more than ten microseconds considering. “It might explain her pissy attitude, though.”
Gloriosa seemed curiously animated this afternoon. She had a smile on her face. She almost bounced in her seat.
Rosanna, looking at her, said, “How about you? Sex with Jeffrey?”
“Yes! Finally!”
Frankie and Rosanna glanced at each other. Frankie smiled. Rosanna nodded. “At long last,” Rosanna murmured.
“So, how was it?” Frankie asked.
Gloriosa snickered, then frowned, then her face screwed up in thought. “Okay, I guess.”
“You guess?” Rosanna said.
“I like his enthusiasm but other than that, he barely knows what he’s doing.”
Rosanna blinked. “Oh?”
Frankie looked at Gloriosa, bemused.
Gloriosa, still pondering, silently sipped her drink.
“I might regret asking this,” Rosanna said, “but what exactly doesn’t he know?”
Gloriosa stared at her, dumbfounded. “He’s good on position number three and not bad at seventeen, but that’s pretty much it. He doesn’t know the waterfall or the snowdrop or even the magic mountain.” Gloriosa shook her head. “He needs a lot of work.”
“Oh,” Rosanna said again.
Frankie’s lips quirked upward. She looked at Rosanna. “Is Curly any good at number seventeen?”
Rosanna narrowed her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “He most certainly is.”
Gloriosa, looking moodily away, said, “Everybody is good at number seventeen. It doesn’t get more basic than seventeen. Hard on the knees, though.”
“I knew that,” Frankie said.
Gloriosa looked at her. “I bet Michael can turn himself into a pretzel.”
“Yes,” Frankie said. “He can. Michael is good that way. He’s very pretzel-like.”
Gloriosa puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Jeffrey needs a lot of work,” she repeated.
“I’m sure he does,” Frankie said, “and you’re just the one to teach him, and he’ll be a better man for it, in the end.”
Gloriosa giggled. “Was that a joke?”
Frankie frowned down into her cup. “Maybe,” she said.
They met on the balcony, looking down at the sea, with plates of fried squid, red boiled crawfish, yellow rice, hot sauce, slices of lime and a pitcher of beer sitting on the scarred wooden table.
“I’ve read your report,” Arcturus said.
Michael nodded. Anson spooned some crawfish and rice onto his plate. Captain Thorenson, who had never had the privilege of being here before, stared all around, curious. At first glance, the place resembled any other outdoor café, with awnings covering a well-stocked bar, a tiled floor and tables overlooking the harbor. On second glance, all the customers and servers looked alike: hard-eyed, well-built men and women. There weren’t any children and the conversation, what there was of it, went on behind privacy screens. And most of them kept an eye on Arcturus and his little party.
The food, however, was excellent.
Arcturus winked at her.
Twyla Thorenson was a senior officer. It had been many years since she had felt so out of her depth but since meeting Arcturus and then Michael Glover (Ptolemy, she reminded herself, Governor-General and Imperial Viceroy) she had almost grown resigned to not quite knowing what was going on. The only consolation was that nobody else knew, either, though she suspected that Arcturus and Michael Glover knew a bit more than the rest.
Arcturus shook his head. “Not a lot in it,” he said.
“No,” Michael said.
Arcturus grinned. “Your thoughts?
”
“A fleet of new ships but only three large ones. We were accosted as soon as we entered the system. They didn’t hail us. They didn’t request our surrender. They simply attacked.”
“Not surprising,” Arcturus said, “considering your declaration of war.”
Michael grimaced. “I wanted to engender a response. It was a bit more forceful than I was counting on. I misjudged their capabilities.”
Arcturus rolled his eyes. “Yes, you did, and you were lucky to escape. Since your discovery of the installation on Chronos, the Empire can now construct pocket universes and dimensional gates, but a gate large enough for Gehenna to pass through…” Arcturus shook his head. “Lucky,” he said again. “It’s not like you to make such a mistake.”
Michael nodded, glum. “I had allowed myself to grow complacent. Since my…return, I’ve seen no ships that could challenge Gehenna.”
Arcturus looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Captain Thorenson,” he said, “your thoughts?”
Twyla Thorenson took a deep breath. “Not many, I’m afraid. Akadius, and the rest of the Corporate States, are in business to make a profit, but Akadius has no scruples of any sort. They trade with numerous races, empires, federations and organizations, including us. We don’t know how far their reach extends nor what their resources might be. Ships have been hijacked and local governments infiltrated or bribed. We know this. The Akadius Corporation is a convenient villain, but we have no evidence at all that they’re the ones behind our troubles.”
Arcturus nodded. “An excellent summation.” He took a long swallow of his beer and smiled down at the water, where the orange sun was descending toward the horizon. “I come here often,” Arcturus said. “Michael and Henrik know this. It’s a privilege to be here. It always reminds me of my responsibility, of the responsibility of us all, to ensure that all of this”—he waved a hand at the vista down below—“will endure.” He sat back in his seat, took another sip of his beer. Then he looked at Anson. “Colonel, any brilliant insights?”
Anson sighed. “Nothing that hasn’t already been said.”
“There are too many uncertainties, here,” Arcturus said. “High Command can’t make policy on perhaps.”
Anson shrugged. He dipped a crawfish tail into some hot sauce and ate it. “I enjoy this place more every time I come.”
Arcturus grimaced. “And so, your grand clue…what was his name again?”
“Andrew Sloane,” Michael said.
Chapter 17
The drone had given them clear pictures of both the ship and each member of the crew as they arrived and boarded. The ship was interesting. Longer and sleeker than the typical Akadius ship, it resembled nothing that Michael had seen before. Nevertheless, the numerous missile ports in her sides clearly declared the ship’s military potential.
The crew were the usual assortment of spacers, mostly human, with a few human-like aliens mixed in. All except one, a very large man with no obvious modifications, who walked with a soft tread and a perpetual smile on his face. He looked up before boarding the ship, possibly toward the drone. His smile grew wide He winked, and the hatch closed shut behind him.
The crew all had bios publicly available. The web listed his name as Avery Samson, aged thirty-four, a Captain in the merchant division of the Akadius Corporation.
“Yes,” Arcturus said, “Andrew Sloane. An alien being wearing the genetically modified body of a human, lately a member of your crew. A being whose origins are improbable and whose motivations are unknown, if not incomprehensible, and who is now commanding a merchant ship heading from the Akadius Corporation to God knows where.
“Does that about sum it up?”
“Pretty much,” Michael said.
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“Tell me,” Michael said, “the London, and the schematics that we gave you for Gehenna. What is happening with them?”
Arcturus smiled. “The London was torn apart down to the last atom and then re-assembled. The first new ships have already entered service. The fleets are being entirely re-built.”
Michael nodded. It was what he had expected. “Where are they being re-built?”
Arcturus looked at him. “I’ll give you a list,” he said.
“Excellent,” Michael said.
The former Sellisia-3, long since renamed Ptolemy, after its legendary savior, was a beautiful blue world circling comfortably in the habitable zone of its sun. Michael stared down at it through a monitor screen in his private lounge. Frankie, looking at him, thought she had never seen that expression on his face. She had seen him elated and thoughtful and resolute and amused. She had never seen him looking bereft.
“Would you like to go down, there?” she said.
He drew a deep breath and gave her a wry grin. “No, definitely not.”
“Are you sure? You were a hero. You saved the world. If they knew who you were, they would throw a party that would last for a month.”
Perhaps not the smartest thing she could have said. The sad expression drifted back over his face.
“Shortly after became the Governor-General,” Michael said, “I met a young woman named Lydia Rodriguez. She was a physician, drafted into service. I had broken my arm in a training accident and I had reason to consult one of her colleagues.” Michael sighed. “We married eight months later. We had a son.”
Frankie felt her heart give a sudden lurch. “What happened to them?” she asked.
“They died.” Michael grimaced and shook his head. “An airpod crash, or so we assumed at first. It turned out upon further examination of the wreckage that some members of the local criminal establishment resented my presence.”
“And what happened to them?”
He grinned. Though on second thought, it looked more like a snarl than a grin.
“They died,” he said.
Cleo was the second of four small moons orbiting Sellisia-6, a gas-giant 1.2 billion kilometers from Ptolemy. Cleo was a rocky, dead little world, tidally locked to its primary, constantly bathed in solar radiation and cosmic rays.
Michael, dressed in protective armor, flexed his knees and jumped, floating upward ten meters before drifting back down to the surface. He pointed. “That way,” he said.
Marissa Oliver, Curly Brice, Jeffrey Billings and three lifting bots accompanied him. They glided across the surface of the little moon’s dark side, their way lit by a large glowing sphere floating twenty meters above their heads.
“Pretty low-tech way to find something,” Jeffrey Billings said.
“It was meant to be,” Michael said.
Their destination had never been written down on any map or book or ledger. It had never been entered into any electronic database. Knowledge of its existence resided in one place only: Michael Glover’s memory.
He squinted, oriented himself against a fang of black rock, turned sixty degrees and walked between two piles of scree. “There,” he said.
Facing them was a dark hole in a rocky cliff. They let the bots go first, just in case, but two thousand years hadn’t changed a thing. It was just as Michael remembered, a round tunnel, three meters high and seventy meters long, ending in a carved out cubical chamber that extended nearly fifty meters into the ground. In the center lay a black cube perhaps ten meters on a side. All of them stared at it.
“So, what is this thing, again?” Marissa said.
“A little something I left behind, just in case,” Michael said, “and if I told you what it was, I would have to kill you. All you have to know is that we might need it.” He grinned. “Whatever it is.”
The bots moved in and attached AG modules to all four sides of the cube. Michael turned a knob on a small hand-held device and the cube rose. He pointed the hand-held up at the ceiling, pressed a series of buttons, waited five seconds and pressed the buttons again. The ceiling slid to the side, revealing stars glinting against the blackness of space.
“Let’s get out of here,”
Michael said.
Ship building is a complicated enterprise, requiring large numbers of personnel and thousands of metric tons of equipment and raw material. The workers require housing, roads, entertainment, schools for their children, all the infrastructure of a complex society.
Before returning to Dancy, they had surreptitiously examined every known ship-building facility in the Corporate States. None of these contained foundries, docks or hangars large enough to build or repair the ships that had attacked them.
The Empire’s main shipbuilding facilities were located on Vinson-3, Kowloon-2 and Kyrion, the largest moon of Huntington-4. These were all stable, prosperous, high-tech worlds with large, cosmopolitan populations. All were located toward the center of the Empire, not too far from the home world, Earth.
The Navy could have co-opted or built its own shipyards. The First Empire had done so. The Second Empire preferred to contract with private firms, all of which had dedicated facilities for military vessels and similar, separate facilities for private ships of all types, from merchantmen to yachts to the largest space-going liners.
“Have you ever been here before?” Frankie asked.
“Vinson? No.”
The planet looked much like Ptolemy or Reliance or any other Earth like planet: blue seas, brown and green continents, ice caps and white, swirling clouds. It was three days from Dancy. The shipyard was owned by Hartford-Stevens Shipbuilding, a firm that had been building ships since before the founding of the Second Empire.
Gehenna remained in orbit, hidden (Michael hoped) behind its screens. Shiloh, Richmond and Gettysburg had already landed. Shiloh and Richmond were supposedly due for inspection. Gettysburg had an engine knock that her own crew was unable to fix.
They stayed for four days. Hundreds of ships came and went. Dozens more were under construction or being serviced. Romulus, using military over-rides, combed through the databases.
The three ships’ crews wandered the city outside of the base, releasing surveillance drones and gathering information. After four days, all three ships were ready to return to space. They had discovered nothing suspicious.
The Well of Time Page 14