Consternation gained the upper hand in his emotions as he stared at the tablet.
This used to be so easy, he griped inwardly as he attempted to think of how to phrase what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to scare her away by asking her on a date if she wasn’t interested. And if she wasn’t interested...
Well, he didn’t want to know. He glared at the screen as if he could make it tell him what to write, but that didn’t work either.
When the words still wouldn’t come, he looked at the news again. There’d been another pirate attack and the Navy had received a distress call from Sanmar’s Reach.
His ears pricked up. Sanmar’s Reach... His stomach flip-flopped and he swore he heard the sudden chatter of automatic weapons. Except he didn’t, of course. One of his teammates screamed and Arizona swore. The commander swore, too.
Todd squeezed his eyes closed and reminded himself he was back on Earth and that he’d survived. He forced himself to focus on the sounds around him— his mom preparing a meal in the kitchen, the sound of something really big outside...
Slowly, the shadow echoes of battle faded and he opened his eyes. The reporters were still talking about Sanmar’s Reach but not about the attack on the Navy team. Footage filled the screen and Todd blinked.
His team had made it to the central square, but only he and two others had made it out—and no one had told him which ones. He wished he’d thought to ask, but his mind had been on other things, and he’d then received his orders and had to move.
“And you’re saying they landed right beside the sat link?” the female anchor asked. The way she put it made it sound as though Stephanie’s crew had been completely irresponsible.
“There is some speculation they were afraid of walking into the same kind of ambush the Navy team walked into and weren’t taking any chances.”
Todd snorted. These two were blowing smoke if they thought his Stephanie was afraid of anything. If she’d landed in the middle of town it was because she had a point to make. Like, maybe, trying to kill her friends was a bad thing.
“Easy, Toddster,” he told himself. “You’re not that important.”
The anchor’s next comment brought his attention back to the screen.
“There’s rumor that it was a revenge attack. That she razed the town because someone almost killed her high school sweetheart.”
She what? Todd couldn’t believe his ears.
“There may be something to that,” the male Meligornian presenter agreed. “They say she’d recently been to visit him in the Naval Hospital facility out near Mercury, took a Navy shuttle immediately thereafter, and headed directly to Sanmar’s Reach.”
He leaned forward. Something wasn’t quite right. This didn’t sound like the Stephanie he knew.
Oblivious to his opinion, the reporters continued with footage of the colony playing in the background. He couldn’t see where it had been razed.
The communications dish looked new and appeared to have been built on the burned remains of the old one, but the square looked like it had when he and the team had first walked into town.
Aside from the burn scars and extra bullet holes in many of the walls, he noticed. Several windows were boarded over and some of the walls had been patched with pieces of metal or scraps of wood.
He frowned, reasonably sure his team hadn’t had time to do that much damage before they’d been annihilated.
The footage switched to an aerial view of the settlement and both reporters whistled.
“Wow, the Witch sure knows how to get her own back,” the male reporter said and gave his co-host a wary look. “I hope you never get that mad at me.”
The woman smiled at him. “I sure hope you never do anything to make me that mad.” Her smile faded, and she turned to the camera.
Behind her, the video changed to a view of the colony’s cemetery and a row of newly dug graves. She looked at them and gave her co-host a drop-jawed stare.
“Are you telling me she killed all these people?”
The Meligornian nodded, his expression solemn. “She clearly wanted to send someone a message.”
“And what was that?”
“That the Witch isn’t on anyone’s leash and will crush any who oppose her?” her colleague suggested, and she tutted.
“That’s right because the Navy claim she went to Sanmar’s reach on their orders, don’t they?”
“Yes, Amelia, they do. They tell us the Witch didn’t take any unnecessary lives.”
The female host’s face took on an expression of disbelief, but he continued.
“They maintain she gave the townsfolk a chance to lay down their arms and only attacked after the first shot had been fired at her.”
The footage panned behind them to reveal the damage done not only to the buildings around the square but to those lining a road leading up to where a crater lay behind a low, stone wall.
“Are you sure, Jalel? Honestly, that looks excessive to me. How many lives did she take in that particular tantrum?”
“The Navy says she removed a small nest of traitors from this site and ensured they could not return to retrieve any equipment to become operational again.”
“And how many people died in the blast?” Amelia demanded. She gestured at the screen and the still smoldering pit.
The Meligornian raised his eyebrows. “The Navy says the Witch’s team captured as many of the traitors as they could and that no-one was inside the building when they bombed it.”
She waggled her eyebrows. “And will the Navy allow us to speak to these so-called prisoners?”
“Oh, this is bullshit,” Todd muttered and tapped the tablet. If Stephanie saw this she would be upset, and he wanted to be around to make sure she wasn’t. Maybe he could take her down to the diner or out to a movie so she’d miss it.
He hoped she was training right now and not somewhere with access to the broadcast. Damn civilian newsies.
How’d you like to meet up sometime? he typed and signed it with The Toddssssterrr!
If nothing else, that would make her smile. He pressed send and returned to the broadcast. The reporters had moved on from suggesting Steph and her team had gone in and killed everything in their path—which would have been difficult, what with the families that tried to creep past in the background with their kids in tow.
The camera panned to the charred area under the new sat dish.
“It took a month for the Navy to notice the colony had gone silent.” The female anchor’s voice stopped barely short of accusatory. “When they finally came out to investigate, they discovered this.”
The footage moved to a picture of the twisted wreckage of the broken sat dish. Apparently, the Navy was supposed to be sending a ship to help them repair the damage done.
“Some of these poor folk are even under the impression that the Navy will pay compensation for the damage done by the Witch and her team.” How the woman could sound so full of pity was beyond Todd.
The Navy didn’t have to repair or replace the equipment damaged in the raid against insurgents. In fact, the town was lucky punitive action wasn’t taken against the colony, both for harboring traitors in the first place and for setting up so far away from the authorized settlement area.
As far as he was concerned, they were all responsible and damned lucky the Navy hadn’t forcibly relocated them. Why they seemed to receive preferential treatment, he didn’t know, but he didn’t like the way the reporters talked about Steph, either.
“Well, someone needs to,” Jalel added in self-righteous tones. He gestured toward the scene which flowed from the burning crater to the freshly dug graves and the devastation that now housed the temporary sat dish. “This is certainly not the fate we’d wish for any of our colonies.”
“Indeed.” Amelia clearly did not approve of what had happened to the settlement. “These people went to Sanmar’s Reach to find a new start and they deserved to be treated better.”
More footage rolled. The
people looked tired and dirty, a woman wept as she stared at the dish, and a child held his mother’s hand and tossed flowers into the crater.
“You’d think she’d at least have magicked up some extra stores before she left,” the male reporter added. “These people were close to starving when the Navy arrived.”
Todd’s jaw dropped at the sheer unfairness of the remark. What were they trying to do? Take the only hero the Federation really had and turn her into a villain? Where was the sense in that?
Maybe it sells more stories, he thought when the report on Sanmar’s Reach ended and a new one began. This one turned out to be about Stephanie, too.
The first image was that of a floating hulk of an enormous battleship.
“Dreth pirates took on a little more than they could chew when they attacked an Earth freighter out on the Rim. They must have thought three ships against one was fair odds, but they didn’t count on a surprise visit from the Witch.”
The camera panned in closer to focus on the gaping holes in the pirate’s hull it before pulled back to display the news anchors seated in front of the screen. Both turned away from the footage of the wreckage and looked clearly impressed.
“Their loss, I think,” the Meligornian commented and looked at Amelia. “Do they say how the Witch found out?”
His female counterpart pursed her lips. “No, they do not.” She was clearly vexed, as though the Navy had held out on them by not filling in the details. “It’s something we hope they come clean on in the very near future.”
And if that wasn’t a hint for the Navy’s PR team to come up with a response, Todd didn’t know what was. He gave a short laugh.
“Good luck with that, guys,” he told the anchors and focused on the rest of the report.
“They boarded via one of the shuttle bays toward the front,” the woman said and pointed to where the hangar should have been. “From there, they worked their way back and destroyed the other bays as they went.”
The camera panned along the length of the ship to show the devastation. It took a moment before Todd realized this report would be as biased as the last.
A pot clanged in the kitchen, and his mother’s footsteps followed. The back door opened and closed again, and he assumed she’d emptied the kitchen trash. He wished she’d let him help but she’d been so upset that he’d been wounded that she hadn’t let him lift a finger the entire week he’d been home.
He sighed and went back to the report. While he wished she didn’t have a point, she did. He still wasn’t a hundred percent.
“Once they’d eliminated the crew in the hangar areas, the Witch led her team on a rampage through the ship and killed everyone in her path. Those who surrendered...” Jalel shrugged. “Well, we have to assume they were killed along with everyone else, despite Navy claims of more prisoners.”
Amelia’s mouth twisted in disapproval. “Apparently, there will be no interviews with the Dreth pirate survivors until representatives from all Federation races have been able to interview them.”
“All Federation races, Amelia?” her male colleague asked in disbelief.
She nodded, her eyes wide. “All, Jalel.”
He rolled his eyes. “And when was the last time that happened?”
“I don’t think it’s ever happened,” she replied and continued. “They say the Witch and her team went from one end of the vessel to the other until they reached the control room and vented the ship.”
“They what?”
“You heard me. They vented the ship.”
“Well, I guess that’s one way to be sure,” the female anchor said. She shook her head sadly. “Those pirates didn’t stand a chance.”
Todd shook his head. “Something doesn’t add up.”
Someone sighed behind him. “It wasn’t that one-sided,” Stephanie told him, her voice soft. “We almost died.”
Todd swiveled in his seat and ignored the twinge of half-remembered pain. The doctors said it was only to be expected and would go away in time. He wasn’t used to seeing Stephanie in black—or with silver hair.
His friend stood directly inside the door to the lounge, her blue eyes fixed on his face. Behind her, doing his best to look casual and failing miserably, was the shortest guy from her team. Todd stood and maneuvered around the room to reach her.
She looked good in black. It definitely wasn’t a color of mourning when she wore it, even if there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. Now that he studied her more closely, he could see the patch situated over her heart and on her shoulders.
The purple and gold stitching and the cream-and-bronze talons of something that resembled an eagle were the only traces of brightness on the entire outfit. Her teammate’s black uniform was adorned with a similar set of patches, and Todd almost envied him.
Stephanie had colors and the Toddster wasn’t in them. There was something indefinably wrong with that. The man behind her backed up a little as he approached.
If he didn’t know any better, he’d have said he was trying to do his job while giving them a little personal space. He didn’t envy him the task. As he drew closer, Todd noticed the shadows under his friend’s eyes.
She still looked like the same old Steph but the shadows, like the sadness, were new. It was almost as if she’d grown older but somehow stayed the same age. He’d seen the same thing in himself when he looked in the mirror every morning since leaving the hospital.
Todd smiled. He had a fair idea where it came from—at least for himself. It was from almost dying, from losing his teammates on a world a long way from home, and from thinking he would never be able to say goodbye.
He frowned when he realized he didn’t know where Stephanie’s look came from and wished he did. Before he could follow that thought, she raised her tablet and wiggled it.
“My friend pinged me?”
Her statement stopped him cold. Pinged her? Well, two could play at that game. He stopped and made a show of looking at his watch. She arched her eyebrows and he couldn’t hold back a smirk as he studied the watch carefully.
“Oh! You wanted time with the Toddster.” He said it like he should have realized what she’d come for. “’Cause there’s no way you got my message and made it here that quickly.”
She laughed and slid the tablet back into its holder. “My parents’ place isn’t that far away.”
Todd blushed when he realized she hadn’t come only to see him and had probably been virtually next door without him even knowing because of course she’d want to see her parents first.
“Oh... I...um...” he sputtered and went redder than he already was. “I...”
He gaped helplessly and she stepped forward, wound her arms around him, and pulled him close.
“I was there, but I was already coming over to see you, you big goof!” She unwound her arms but slid her hand down to take him by the forearm. “C’mon. I’ve already talked to your parents. I’m taking you out.”
Todd caught sight of the short man’s mouth moving, and realized he was talking into the unobtrusive mic at his throat. “Package acquired. Operation Hot Time in the City is a go. I repeat. Hot Time in the City is all systems go.”
The man glanced at him and winked as Stephanie dragged him past, and his lips curled into a smirk. “I hope you’ve had your Wheaties, Todd.”
He felt his face flame anew. It didn’t help that his mum leaned on the kitchen counter, looked inordinately pleased with herself, and smiled at him while Stephanie dragged him out.
She winked when they reached the back door, her lips moving in a single, silent word. Surprise!
Chapter Four
In the office at Harborview Tech, Chancellor Neil Cotes leaned forward and cleared his throat. He was aware that the members of the school board all glanced toward him as he looked at the screen.
As the president of the board, he was in charge, but Sandra Gierman was his head of recruiting and chief parental liaison and she’d made it very clear she had questions. He sigh
ed. Anthony Reed was the accountant and marketing manager and hard to please, and Dean Fischer oversaw curriculum and liaised with Federation Authorities.
They were a difficult group to impress, and he hoped One R&D had come prepared. He was also very aware of Ms Smith seated at one side of the table.
“We—” He caught the expression on the Dean’s face and amended what he was about to say. “That is, I wondered exactly where the student records came from.”
As always, their business partner’s screen was blank and Neil Cotes wished, for once, that it wasn’t. He could glean more from someone’s face and what they didn’t say than from any words they might speak.
It was a skill that had saved him on countless occasions before, and he wished he could use it now. Burt was silent as if considering how much he could tell them, and Neil missed having a visual.
Of course, he had Ms E, but she revealed as much as any statue carved from stone, and he was almost certain she was as busy reading him and his subordinates as he was trying to read her. He simply waited.
When a glance at Ms E showed she had no inclination to answer, he rephrased the question. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s difficult for us to verify them without knowing the source.”
It was the same argument the head of recruiting had used, and she looked at him sharply. He didn’t respond to her and hoped Burt didn’t have the same skills he did. After all, he was the chancellor. It was his job to take the heat for his people.
“I...see,” Burt said and sounded as if he finally understood, and Neil Cotes held his breath. “The records are a conglomeration of our own testing and existing official records. We had to go to some lengths and expense to gain permission to access them, but they are the most complete picture we can compile.” He paused as though considering his next words. “It is a picture we can clarify as their training progresses, but it is more than enough for us to begin tailoring their individual programs.”
“I... It’s simply that it would be good to be able to check,” Neil persisted and added hastily, “for our own records, you understand?”
Witch Of The Federation III (Federal Histories Book 3) Page 4