by Joshua James
Eli didn’t hesitate. He rushed the table at the same instant that Jood and Waylon moved in from the other side. Eli tackled the woman and pinned her under his weight. He jammed his elbow into her sternum to hold her down. Jood leaned over with the injector, trying to get near her neck, but she thrashed too hard.
Waylon snarled under his breath. “Screw it! Nothing’s worth this.”
He spun aside and picked up a heavy iron frying pan fallen from the counter. He hefted it over the stranger, but at that second, something hit Eli. It didn’t strike him from the outside. It smashed into his mind from inside. He reeled, but he didn’t lose his grip on the quivering body in his hands.
He floundered to clear his thoughts, but try as he might, a torrent of jumbled images and emotions cascaded through his being. He was on Earth. He was on the lawn in front of a yellow house. A brown dog leaped up and licked his face. A woman laughed on the porch. Even in the midst of that memory, Eli knew he’d never seen that house or that dog or that woman before. These memories were coming from the stranger. They had to be.
The next instant, the picture changed. She was in a massive battle against aliens. They were Tappnians. Their insect bodies swarmed over skyscrapers and poured through city streets. They devoured hundreds of humans in their path. They consumed vehicles and gunships and battlecruisers.
Eli gasped when he recognized an onion dome in the background. They were in Russia. He was witnessing the Battle of St. Petersburg, but he was never there. It was her. She was there. She was in the Battle of St. Petersburg.
Before he could blink, the image changed again, and she smiled up at him as calmly and pristinely as if she was standing right in front of him. She held out her hand to him. In the vision, he raised his hand to meet hers.
The instant their fingers touched, a powerful impact hit the Boomerang. Eli felt it through his feet and through the table. His vision cleared, and he was back in the galley.
Voices shrieked from all sides. “We lost power!”
“What the hell happened?” Tim yelled.
“Electromagnetic pulse,” Jood called back. “An EMP of some form hit the ship.”
“How?” Waylon thundered. “We’re in the middle of space!”
“It was her.” Eli reared back. His mind cleared, and he could see everything now. The stranger lay still and unmoving on the table. Whatever had happened, it had knocked her out along with the ship. “It was her.”
The engine noise that should have enlivened the Boomerang no longer disturbed the terrible silence. Instead, Eli distinctly made out a distant hum more deadly than any explosion. It vibrated the hull.
Everyone stood still and listened. All at once, River leaped into action. “We’re in freefall! We have to stabilize her.”
Jood bumped into Eli on their way out of the galley. “We have to restart the system.”
They raced to the cockpit. Stars wheeled out of control beyond the window. Some unknown world swung into view. Eli supported himself against the bulkhead to hold himself upright. “Where are we? Where’s the gravity coming from?”
“We’re over a planet,” River said.
“What planet?” Eli said. “We weren’t anywhere near a planet.”
“I don’t know!” River shouted back. “All I know is it’s there and we’re getting sucked into it.”
“Our momentum must have propelled us into the planet’s orbit,” Jood said.
River groped her way to the engineering console. “The routing system is offline, but it looks intact.”
“Can you reactivate it?” Eli moved toward the command console, but he stopped as Jood moved in from the other side. He let the Xynnar take over to do whatever he could. If anyone could restart the ship before they all crashed and burned, Jood could do it.
River grunted under her breath. “Damn!”
Eli didn’t ask what the problem was. The Boomerang swung in a wild arc, and he caught a brief glimpse of the outer rim of some gas giant. The planet zoomed closer every time the Boomerang tilted in that direction.
A blink flashed across the pilot’s station and died in a second. Jood sat stiff in the command chair. He didn’t appear to be moving at all, but Eli knew better. The next time the console erupted to life, Jood’s fingers flew over the panel faster than Eli could follow.
“The main boost relay is back online!” River cried.
“Bring the core into alignment,” Jood ordered.
“It won’t align!” River shrieked.
“Forget it,” Jood replied. “Switch to the auxiliary distribution pathway. It will be quicker.”
The Boomerang teetered one more time. The cockpit window stabilized, staring straight down into the gassy atmosphere. The milky yellow surface whizzed toward Eli at a frightening speed. “Uh, Jood...”
Jood ignored him. He bolted out of the command chair and lunged for the pilot’s station. Without a word, he shoved Quinn away and dropped into her seat. She yelled out, “Hey!” but Jood paid no attention.
He seized the controls and called out, “Now, River! Fire it now.”
“I’m trying!” River screamed. “It won’t... There it goes.”
Both engines gave a tortured shriek, and the Boomerang hurtled forward so fast the G force smashed Eli back into the bulkhead. River slammed into the engineering chair and Quinn fell flat on her ass. Through it all, Jood sat rigid, wrestling the ship into a dive. The Boomerang plunged straight down for the surface.
Bile rose in Eli’s throat. The Xynnar never blinked. He never budged in his seat, except when his arms danced over the controls. The Boomerang whistled out of the sky, pointing her nose at the surface catapulting into view. It filled the whole window. It blocked out the stars. At that moment, the ship veered and zoomed parallel to the surface. It left a vapor trail burning in its wake, and rocketed upward into the clear black night.
Fourteen
The crew of the Boomerang stood in a loose circle around the cockpit—all except Jood, who remained seated in the pilot’s chair.
“Get rid of her,” Waylon grumbled. “Eject her into deep space before she kills us all.”
“I won’t allow that,” Tim interjected. “No one is going to kill her while I’m around.”
“Then we’ll eject you into deep space along with her.” Waylon glanced at Eli. “We’ve put up with way too much from him as it is.”
“We won’t survive another hit like that,” River pointed out. “One more outburst like that and we’re all dead.”
“We don’t know anything about her,” Quinn chimed in. “We have no idea why she was left on that moon.”
“What difference does it make why she was left?” River asked. “She’s trouble, either way.”
“Maybe she was left for nearly destroying whatever vessel brought her here,” Waylon suggested. “Did you ever think of that? Hell, she could have left a string of destroyed ships from here to the Seclusion Range.”
Eli turned to Jood. “How far are we from Epsilon Outpost now?”
“Five parsecs,” he said calmly. “We were shifted from our previous course.”
“Hot damn,” Waylon whistled. They were closer than when they’d started all this.
“She must have thrown us here. The planet we almost slammed into was Sonian-18.” Jood checked the console. “The electromagnetic event wiped the log. It is difficult to tell exactly how or when she did it.”
Eli tried to focus his thoughts. Regulus was out. It looked like Quinn was getting her wish after all. It really was pointless to go anywhere but Epsilon now. “That settles it, then. Finish the repairs and lay in a course for the Outpost. We’ll drop off the passenger when we collect payment,” he said.
Eli turned to Tim. “Keep her sedated until we get there. Can you handle that?”
Tim crossed his arms and gave Eli a withering stare. As he turned to leave the cockpit, Quinn got up to join him.
Eli watched the two of them go, then excused himself and stepped out onto the
gangway after them. “Maybe I should drop you two off at the Outpost. You can book passage back to Earth from there.”
Quinn and Tim shared a glance. There was plenty in that glance. From Eli’s vantage point, it seemed like Tim agreed with Eli. Maybe they’d already talked about it. Tim had made it abundantly clear that he thought it was pointless for Quinn to be out here. She was the hardheaded one.
Tim murmured something and Quinn gave a curt reply, then he gave Eli a sour look as he continued down the gangway toward the galley.
“I don’t get it, Dad,” Quinn said when he was out of earshot. “Why are you holding such a grudge against Earth? It’s been so long.”
“You’re forgetting,” Eli interrupted. “The Judge Advocate banished me from Earth. I’d get arrested the instant I landed there.”
“You could get that reversed. You know you could.”
Not after I kill your boyfriend, Eli thought. But he kept that snarky response to himself.
“Why can’t you just put the past behind you and try?” she continued. “There are a lot of good people on Earth...like me. You don’t have to stay out here being...” She waved up and down in front of him. “Being this.”
Eli cocked his head to study her. How many times in the last twenty-five years had he asked himself that question? “Earth went one direction, and I went the other. This is who I am. You just don’t want to see it.”
Quinn sighed. They walked in silence for a moment. “Maybe you’re right.”
Eli studied Quinn’s face. “There’s something new. What am I right about, exactly?”
Quinn smiled. “About me and Tim going back to the Squadrons. The Squadrons make sense to us. We’re both comfortable in that world. We were never going to be comfortable here. We belong on Earth.” She seemed to make up her mind. “When we get to the Epsilon Outpost, we’ll disembark and make our way back home.”
After all his fuming against her and telling her to leave, this caught him off-guard. He didn’t know what to say. She turned her blue eyes up to him and smiled. She squeezed his arm. “I love you, Dad.”
As they parted ways, Eli knew something had changed. Something fundamental. Something that left a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
She’d given up on him.
Eli stood alone for several seconds, listening to her footsteps as she walked away.
Finally, he turned and made his way back into the cockpit. He relieved Waylon and spent a good hour with Jood and River working through the repairs which weren’t as bad as he’d feared. When Waylon returned, they were underway again.
Eli found himself heading down to the galley to check on their castaway.
Quinn stood near the table where the stranger sat up, fully alert. She nodded at Eli when he walked in. “That’s my dad,” she told the stranger. “He pretends to be a grizzly old bear, but he’s really a softy underneath all that bluster.”
“He is not a softy underneath it all,” Tim countered. “It’s the other way around. He pretends to be a Boy Scout done wrong by the Squadrons, but he’s really a—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping her sedated,” Eli said. “Was that too much to ask?”
“The Squadrons?” the stranger breathed up at Eli, and her eyes widened. “You were in the Squadrons?”
“That was a long time ago,” Eli said.
“Have you ever heard of the Devilfish disaster?” Tim asked. “That was him.”
A curious silence descended over the galley. The stranger’s clear, amber-brown eyes gleamed up at Eli with unearthly brilliance. She didn’t blink once. Her voice murmured low and strained. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Well, he isn’t in the Squadrons now,” Tim went on. “The fact that he’s taking us to a place like Epsilon Outpost tells you what he’s all about. But you won’t be stuck there. We’re getting off at the Outpost, too, and we’re actual Squadron officers. We’re going back to Earth. We’ll take you with us. You have nothing to worry about.”
The stranger snapped out of her unwavering stare at Eli. “You guys are in the Squadrons, too?”
“I’m a pilot,” Quinn said. “And Tim’s a doctor as you already know. We’ll make sure you get back to Earth all right.”
Another tense silence followed. The stranger slowly shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” Tim asked. “Don’t you want to go back to Earth?”
The woman perched on the edge of the table. She glanced at their faces before she came back to drilling Eli with that eerie stare. He got the distinct impression she was trying to tell him something with her eyes. “Have you ever heard of Camp Utopia?”
Tim furrowed his brow. “That’s a Special Forces training installation—at least, it used to be. The Mysterium destroyed it when they attacked Earth five years ago. They wiped out thousands of special operatives, and the camp was never rebuilt. Why?”
The woman crossed her arms. “Because that’s the reason I’m not going back to Earth.”
Fifteen
Quinn blinked. “I don’t understand.”
The woman hopped off the table. “Your dad isn’t the only one who doesn’t think the Squadrons is such a great organization. I was in the Squadrons for fifteen years. I think I know what it’s all about, and I’m not going back.”
“What happened?” Tim asked. “What went wrong?”
She ignored him and headed across the galley and started messing with some clothes hanging against the lockers.
Quinn regarded her from behind. “Were you at Camp Utopia? Is that it? Did you get injured or...traumatized?”
“You just don’t get it, do you? You think the Squadrons is so great. Bully for you, but I know better. I was at Camp Utopia and the Battle of St. Petersburg and a couple dozen other hotspots. I’ve seen it all. Hell, I’ve probably seen more combat than everyone on this ship put together, and no one is going to tell me what a great organization the Squadrons is. That’s bullshit.” She went to another locker and yanked out a med kit. Eli couldn’t see what she was doing. “Where’s that SubQ you had earlier?”
No one budged. They didn’t seem to blink, staring at her. Quinn spoke in a tiny voice. “Are you mad because they brought you out here? Is that how you wound up on that moon—with the Squadrons?”
The woman wheeled around baring her teeth. “Do you know Admiral James Quincy Wescott? If you’re in the Squadrons, you must know him.”
Tim glanced toward Eli and scowled. “He’s the admiral in charge of Strategic Oversight Command. He was the Judge Advocate who ruled against Eli in the Devilfish disaster.”
“Strategic Oversight!” The woman snorted. “That’s a little piece of propaganda that says he can do whatever he wants. He was in charge of Camp Utopia when the Mysterium invaded. He deliberately dismantled the camp’s security system to leave it vulnerable to attack. He wanted the Mysterium to destroy the camp so he could test out experimental tactical enhancements he was rolling out on the operatives.”
Tim’s jaw dropped. “That’s impossible. He wouldn’t do that.”
The woman bent over the med kit. “You can look it up. It’s all in the records.” She waved behind her without looking at them. “Look up my records. My name is Yasha Aliyevah. You’ll find out I was at Camp Utopia during the attack.”
Tim and Quinn glanced at each other again. Other than that, neither of them moved.
“While you’re at it, look up the transport manifest of the Squadron R-class cruiser Manatee. It left Rio de Janeiro on the fifteenth of March last year, carrying five crew and eight passengers. One of them was Admiral Wescott.”
Tim shuddered and ran his hand across his eyes. “I don’t want to hear this.”
He wheeled to walk away, but Yasha strode after him. She got right up close behind him and barked into his ear. “Of course you want to hear this, Doctor. You want to know how I got on that moon and why I don’t want to go back to Earth? Now you’re gonna find out. There were eight passengers on that transport: Admiral
Wescott, two staff sergeants, and five unranked Squadron officers. Why do you think they weren’t ranked? Turns out they were the five operatives who survived the attack on Camp Utopia. They were the only five who lived to tell what Admiral Wescott was really doing at the camp when the Mysterium attacked.” She counted off on her fingers. “There was Nick Farruko, Amir Sulemani, Regan Everette, Ross Pickeringham, and me. Admiral Wescott transported all five of us out here on a classified mission for the Strategic Oversight branch of Squadrons Command. He’s the one who brought me here.”
Tim muttered something under his breath and charged out of the galley, or tried to. Eli blocked his path.
“Those killbots,” Eli said.
Tim was thrown off balance. “What about them?”
Yasha looked confused as well. “What killbots?”
“The ones that were sitting there waiting for us when we picked you up.” Eli didn’t take his eyes off Tim. “I thought they were like the ones that the Squadrons use. Obviously, I haven’t seen the real thing in decades. Neither has Waylon. But you have.”
Tim suddenly looked pale. “So?”
“So were they like Squadron killbots,” Eli said quietly. “Or were they Squadron killbots?”
Tim’s nostrils flared and he shoved his way past Eli and out of the galley.
“I think that answers my question.”
Yasha looked angry. “Those sons of bitches.”
She pivoted to glare at Quinn like she expected her to react like Tim, but she only blinked at Yasha with that big-eyed, innocent wonder. “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you going to go after him? Aren’t you going to tell me it’s impossible for a decorated admiral to do something like that? Aren’t you going to tell me the Squadrons are too honorable and virtuous to treat their people like that?”
Yasha stood a good foot taller than Quinn. Her flinty expression and chiseled frame didn’t look right next to Quinn’s petite form. She pinched her lips together. “Well? Aren’t you going to look up the records to see if I’m telling the truth?”