Still, as he finally met her eyes, he remembered that she’d lost her father and brother when she was… what? Thirteen years old? Ace told himself that at least she’d had a family to lose. That thought was what finally broke him, and he dropped his head to the table.
“Serina, please forgive me. I’ve been an ass,” he said from his resting position. “I can get through this.”
“I get it. My mother has had to command dozens to their deaths over the years. Some on skirmishes with pirates, others involving rescue missions in places ships should never have been. I can see the toll it’s taken on her every time we’re together. Hell, I might be her one day, and I’ll have the same stuff to deal with. You lost someone from your squadron, and it was for real. That’s tough. How’s Onion?” Serina’s words did help, and Ace straightened up, lifting his head off the table.
“Not good. Not good at all. I think they’re sending him home. He won’t even get into a simulator,” Ace said.
“What’s with the call sign?” she asked.
“Onion? He stinks. Severe body odor. It stuck. He didn’t seem to care.” Ace knew the boy was leaving, and he’d probably never see him again. It was for the best. He didn’t want to be out there with the guy as much as Onion didn’t want to fly again. Bullseye dying had changed the entire boot camp.
“Maybe I can get him moved to a different branch. Think he’d be up for being a desk jockey?” Serina asked, always trying to help.
“He might be. I don’t think he has many options back home.” Ace poked his cold food. “You’re always so nice. It must be hard.”
“Hard to be nice? I don’t think so,” Serina replied.
“No. Hard to be you. Always thinking about other people first. I admire it, I just don’t know if I could be like you.” Ace finally scooped some of the mashed food up, sticking it in his mouth. His appetite had disappeared, but he had to eat. They were still training, and he didn’t need to be weak for the last days of camp.
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Ace.” Serina took a bite of her own food and grimaced. “I’ll never get used to this slop. It gets better, I promise you that.”
“It can’t get any worse,” he said with a snicker. It felt good to laugh. Serina joined him momentarily.
“Can I ask why you don’t want to be called Edgar?” she asked, changing the subject.
Because it’s not my name. I stole an ID from a corpse in an alley while I was begging for credits so I wouldn’t starve to death as snow covered my ratty old blanket. I also took his spot at this boot camp, because as long as I’ve been alive, which is only sixteen years, I’ve dreamt of the stars. Now I’m seeing a different side to the Fleet, but I still want to be part of it. I have no choice. And while I’m thinking about it, I want to say you have the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen. You make my heart flutter when I hear your voice, and my knees weak when you’re close to me. Is that enough of a reason?
“Ace?” she asked, and he took another scoop of food.
“It’s an old man’s name. It’s never felt like mine,” he answered.
She didn’t pry any further. “Fair enough.” Serina looked around and lowered her voice, even though they were the only two at the table. “I heard some news.”
He leaned in, noticing the intense look on her face. “What?”
Serina tapped the table with the butt end of her fork. “Camp’s done in two weeks. From there, the recent grads go to different posts to continue their training. For some reason, everyone who made the cut is heading to the outer system to a secret base.”
“Where did you hear that?” Ace recalled what the two voices had been discussing outside that one night a few weeks ago, and he didn’t like the implications.
“Lieutenant Ford told me.” She stared daggers at Ace. “Do. Not. Tell. Anyone.”
“What’s with you and that guy?” he asked, mildly jealous.
“Who, Darnel? He’s like an uncle to me. He used to work with Mom before deciding to settle down with his family here. It’s good to have someone on the inside,” Serina answered.
Ace relaxed, his momentary envy of the man passing. “What does this mean for us? Why are we different than the countless other recruits?”
“I have no idea, but I intend to find out. Does the date August second mean anything to you?” she asked.
Ace shook his head. “Not that I can think of. Why?”
“No reason. I’ve heard some rumors.”
“What’s the date today? I haven’t kept track.” Truth was, Ace had never really kept up with the date. When you had to worry about finding food and shelter, things like the month or even the year really didn’t matter.
“July third. Less than a month away.”
“What is it? What’s the relevance? Does it have anything to do with us going to this secret base you’re talking about?” Ace asked the string of questions sequentially.
“I don’t know. Lieutenant Ford doesn’t either. He was just filling me in on what he’d heard. I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll be fine,” Serina said, but Ace could tell she was anything but fine. She was worried.
“Whatever happens, we have each other’s backs, right?” he prompted. She was in the know, and he needed someone on his side when camp was done. He was still having a hard time sleeping. Every night, he expected to be woken up, called out, and accused of murdering Edgar Smith and stealing his identity. Ace wouldn’t be able to fight any charges, and he’d end up on some rock, mining away for the Earth Fleet until he died from it.
“Right.” Serina stuck her hand out, and they shook on it. An archaic yet somehow binding contract was formed there and then at the dinner table.
Wren
The rented suite was far beyond what Wren had endured for the past two years. Even Charles seemed in awe of the sweeping room. He claimed to have “slept” in a closet while working the prison, and Wren found herself feeling sorry for the android, even though he claimed it was fine.
She had her own bedroom now, and she almost laughed when she saw that the android charging station actually was inside the closet of the suite’s living space. Charles didn’t seem to understand why that made her laugh, and she giggled even more, until she was falling on the couch in tears.
“Humans are strange,” he said, and Wren found she couldn’t disagree.
“What do we do now?” she asked once she’d settled back to normal.
Charles stood beside her, eyes glowing orange. “I do not know. My only compulsion was to get you off the mining prison. Now that we’ve accomplished that, I thought you could devise a plan.”
“A plan? Tell you what. I’m going to order room service, have a real hot bath in this old tub, and think on it. Can you do me a favor while I’m incapacitated?” Wren asked.
“Anything,” he instantly replied.
“Dig up whatever you can on Councilman Jarden Fairbanks. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing, but everything that happened to me was his fault. Good or bad, I need to know where he is, and what he’s done in the past.” Wren had researched him before accepting the position on the secret genetic project, but everything she’d found was surface stuff. Charles might be able to learn more than she could.
“Consider it done.”
She left him to it, his eyes already dimming as he turned his attention to the Interface. Wren took the opportunity to go to the hotel-supplied console and ordered pad Thai. It was one of the few dishes from the old world she could still get way out at Titan, and she looked forward to food with some spices after two years of bland prison slop.
She headed into the bathroom, slipping her clothing off as she ran steaming hot water into the large basin. With steam showers being so prevalent, a tub was a true luxury. She hadn’t known anyone back home in New Dallas to have one, at least not in her circle of friends, and some of them had been quite affluent.
She set her tablet beside her on the floor and stepped in, the hot water instantly shooting warm
th from her legs upwards. After a minute of acclimating, she slunk down into it, letting her head sink below the surface. She was in heaven.
Wren knew the exact last time she’d had a bath like this, and tried to forget. She and Tim had gone away to the coast for the weekend, staying in a lavish hotel, and he’d asked if she’d like to share a bath with him. They’d hardly left the room for the three nights they stayed there.
Wren leaned against the back of the tub and let out a sigh. Tim. She’d been fighting the urge to look him up on the Interface, to see what he was doing, but she didn’t think she could any longer. She needed to know. After drying her hands off, she grabbed the tablet and searched for his name. Dozens of results showed on the projection, and she scrolled through them.
Interview with Dr. Timothy Kline. Fiancé to Dr. Sando, the world’s largest bio-threat in a century.
Wren cringed but couldn’t stop herself from watching the feed.
Tim appeared, his hands pressed deep into his jacket pockets as he was interviewed. He looked fresh, unaffected by her recent incarceration.
“Dr. Kline. What can you tell us about Wren Sando?” the off-camera interviewer asked.
“She’s brilliant. One of the best in her field.” Tim looked at the camera, and Wren felt like he was staring right at her. “But something in her must have snapped. I can’t believe she’d go to these lengths.”
Wren’s heart froze in her warm chest. He thought she’d actually done it?
“And just what lengths did she go to?” This from the female interviewer again.
“She created a biological weapon meant to destroy humanity. We’ve seen the results of similar tests on Ganymede, where the colonists were all killed. I always knew she didn’t love the Fleet, but imagine my surprise when I learned the woman that I was engaged to was a criminal mastermind.” Tim’s hand went to his face, just like it always did when he was faking being upset. She hated the man with a passion. They’d broken up a month before she’d been arrested.
He’d claimed she spent too much time at work; she had it on good authority he’d been sleeping with not one but two women in her absence. This was his revenge, dragging her name in the mud.
Wren shut it off, but against her better judgment, she searched her own name. Now thousands of results appeared. She hadn’t known how big a story it had been.
The woman who sought to destroy the world
Wren Sando: The Biopic
Dr. Sando arrested in largest threat to humanity yet
She tossed the tablet aside and ran her wet hands over her face. Wren knew she’d been testing some strange things in that lab, but none of it was human DNA, of that she was one hundred percent positive. Could she go to Earth, find her research, and clear her name? She sat up and saw herself in a mirror across the room.
One thing was sure: her face was recognizable. Only now, she’d lost over twenty pounds; her cheeks were more prominent, her face paler. Her hair was longer, in puffy tight curls, but still much the same as it had been in all the images on the Interface.
Wren got out of the bath on an impulse and dug through the sparsely-filled vanity drawers. Inside, she found a pair of gold-toned scissors. With a deep breath, she grabbed a handful of curls and cut an inch from her scalp. Dark hair fell to the ground, some sitting on her shoulder. She kept cutting.
Ten minutes later, she walked into the main room, where dinner sat by the door. Charles was standing still, facing her.
His eyes began to shine brighter as he came to. “Wren, you look… different.”
Wren laughed at his comment. “You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself, Charles.”
“Did you cut your hair for the same reason I now wear this clothing?” he asked, and she nodded.
“What did you find out about Fairbanks?” she asked, cutting through the pointless conversation. She was anxious to know where he was. Wren didn’t think her salvation would come on Earth. She needed the man who’d put her to the task to clear her name once and for all. It was the only way.
“Councilman Jarden Fairbanks has a long history. Did you know he is one hundred and ten years old?” Charles asked with interest.
“He is? I would have guessed sixty.” Wren knew all about life-extending surgeries and drugs. They were nothing new, but even after being around for two hundred years, the side effects often outweighed the extra years. They didn’t affect everyone the same way, though, and many could live to one hundred and fifty on the extenders. Others died within a year of using them.
“He’s also quite wealthy. Perhaps in the top five percent in the system.”
This piqued Wren’s interest. Why would a member of the Fleet Council be so rich? “What else? I need to know where he is now.”
Charles looked up at her. “That will be a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because no one has seen him in two years.”
Wren paced the room. Two years. That was the same length of time as her arrest. Was it all connected? “He has to have a trail somewhere. Is he still on the Council?”
“It appears so. On the official attendance of the Board meetings, he shows as absent,” Charles said.
“What about votes? He’s important. Is anyone there as his proxy?” She was grasping at straws.
“No one is listed.”
“You must have found more,” Wren pleaded.
“I have his home address on Europa. That took some digging. Also, something odd came across as I was searching.” Charles walked toward her.
“What is it?”
“A message on the Interface from a Captain Young to someone on Earth. It flickered in my search for anything about Fairbanks, then disappeared in a millisecond.”
Wren was holding her breath. “What did it say?”
Charles spoke in another’s voice. “Fairbanks screwed me over. I’m coming home.”
“That’s it?” Wren asked. “How will that help?”
“I know where it originated from.”
18
Jarden
The door slid open and Captain Young strode in, an angry scowl on his face. “You’re a real son of a bitch, Fairbanks.”
Jarden lifted his hands. The man wasn’t as much of a pushover as he’d originally thought. “Calm down, Young. This isn’t how professionals speak to one another.”
“You use me for two years, then cast me aside once the ship’s ready? And what, you think a million credits will keep me quiet about what we did out here?”
A million credits was a lot of money for a Fleet captain. Ten years of wages. If Young was smart, he would have shut up, said thank you, and been on his first caravan home. Instead, he’d tried to send an illegal message out. Jarden still didn’t know how he’d managed to hack into the Interface like that, but he didn’t care. He’d stopped it before it reached its destination.
“You’re a skilled captain, but I need more where we’re going,” Jarden said, his mind now made up about what to do with the man.
Young suddenly looked older than his thirty-eight years. Jarden saw the grays peeking through his dark hair, the slight sag of his cheeks. “You need more. And just where are you going?”
Jarden looked around the storage room on Eureka. There was nothing but crates of goods and soft glowing lights mounted inside the ceiling. He tapped a button inside his pocket and the door locked, sealing them both in. Young would be none the wiser. He had no reason not to spill the beans now.
“We’re traveling to a faraway world. A Rift will open in deep space in three weeks, and we’ll be there to jump through with our newly tested drive. The invaders – who will be there, mark my word – won’t even see us. They’ll be too distracted with the war they’re bringing to our solar system.” It felt so good to say it out loud. He’d been holding it in for far too long. Jarden smiled, a contrast to the look of terror now on Young’s face.
“What the hell are you talking about, old man? Have you gone crazy?” Young started for
the door but found it didn’t open.
“No, I’m anything but crazy.” Jarden pulled the gun from behind his back, aiming it directly at Young.
Realization struck the other man in a flash. Instead of begging for his life, like Jarden had been expecting, Young raced forward, trying to catch the older man off-guard. Jarden fired three quick shots, each striking home. The beams were silent, and Young went down in a heap at Jarden’s feet. Jarden pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed the single drop of blood that had splashed his forehead.
Jarden shook his head, putting the gun away. “It didn’t have to be this way. I gave you an out.” Regret coursed through his old frame, but he shook it off. He had no time for regrets. If he added all of his up, he wouldn’t be able to move, let alone continue with his mission.
With a strength that belied his age, Jarden hefted the larger Captain Young into a bulky crate, along with the blood-stained kerchief. He sealed the lid, locking it so no one could get inside.
He checked the ground to make sure there was no sign of blood, and was happy to see the wounds had cauterized before Young had hit the floor.
Jarden stood there staring at the crate for a minute before heading for the door and unlocking it. Down the corridor, he found a junior Fleet crew member hauling excess materials away on a hovertrolley.
“There’s a crate in storage 3B that needs to be disposed of. Please take care of it now,” Jarden told the worker, who saluted him and headed down the hall.
He pushed the image of the dying man from his mind and headed for the bridge. There wasn’t much time, and they still had work to do.
Jish
Jish walked through the open space of the center station. The room had sweeping panoramic windows, allowing her to see the entire amassed Fleet. Thirty carriers, a total of four thousand fighters, and fifty drop ships, though she didn’t expect to need them during the first onslaught. She hoped the invaders would only probe again this time and return through the Rift. That would give them another thirty years. They desperately needed the time. She didn’t think the Earth Fleet was ready, and she didn’t have any information about the race. The one lone soldier that had been left behind when the Rift closed thirty years ago hadn’t been of any use.
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