‘Required threshold reached.’
She exhaled. “Go.”
She’d minimized it in her justifications, but the distance traveled was orders of magnitude farther than anything she’d done up to now.
Even so, the gap in time between normal space and normal space could be measured in a blink. She did perceive it, though, possibly because she was confident enough in surviving the trip to begin paying attention to the trip itself.
It was a question for later, but she had to wonder what filled the gap.
The view outside darkened as the Caeles Prism shut down.
‘Location is 36.4 AU from Palaemon, local ecliptic coordinates l 22° 58’ 14”, b 13° 41’ 06”.’
“Excellent, Valkyrie. Great job.”
Kennedy frowned. “That was it? But nothing happened.”
“Told you. Sorry it wasn’t more dramatic….” She trailed off as a pulse from Mia came in.
Alex, you need to know something. Malcolm found out what happened with Jude Winslow. What Caleb did. I don’t know how. I…forgot to ask. I should have told you last night, but I my mind was focused elsewhere. Malcolm’s still on Palaemon today, and I’m worried about what he might do. If you don’t mind, will you tell Caleb for me? I’m not…I can’t talk to him about it yet.
“Shit.”
“What is it?”
She raised a palm to stave Kennedy off.
I’ll handle it. Are you okay?
I will be. Thank you.
Recent bonding over wormholes notwithstanding, she wasn’t close enough to Mia to push, and by all indications the woman could take care of herself. So she let it drop and immediately pulsed Caleb.
Hey, where are you?
I’m fine.
I didn’t ask how you were—I asked where you were. I heard from Mia, and—
It’s all fine. Handled.
We’re on our way.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Ebanatyi pidaraz!”
“What happened?”
“Malcolm found out what happened to that scum Jude Winslow.”
“Found out…what? Winslow’s dead, and I’m pretty sure everyone knows it.”
Alex pinched the bridge of her nose. Too many people knew the truth, and the list was getting longer, but it was what it was. “This is a genuine, deep-dark secret—or it was—but Winslow didn’t commit suicide. Caleb used a Reverb to force Winslow’s eVi to self-destruct.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Yeah.” Kennedy grimaced. “My family’s known the Winslows for a long time. They would’ve found a way for him to weasel out of the worst of the charges at a minimum, if not get him off entirely. Unlike us Rossis, they use their power for evil.”
“Exactly. But now Malcolm knows, and you can imagine how well he must have reacted. Based on Caleb’s response to my pulse just now, I’m worried that Malcolm’s already caught up to him. Hopefully Caleb left him in one piece, but I have no reason to believe they’re done dueling over a slight difference in moral philosophy. So, obviously, test concluded, and we need to get on the ground.”
Kennedy’s expression brightened. “Hey, I’ll get Noah to find Caleb. He can…well, not try to stand in-between them. But who knows. Maybe he can convince them to get a beer together instead of beating the shit out of each other.”
“Thank you, Ken. Valkyrie, use Caleb’s locator to pinpoint his location and send it to Noah, please.” She didn’t spy on Caleb when they were apart; she trusted him implicitly. The locator was for emergencies. But if someone didn’t intervene, this stood to quickly become an emergency.
‘Done.’
“Thank you. Set a course for Epsilon.”
PALAEMON
ANARCH POST EPSILON
Caleb wasn’t at the precise-to-the-walkway-tile coordinates Valkyrie had sent by the time he got there—not a surprise given it was a walkway—but Noah spotted him not far off, crossing one of the pavilions in the fading evening light.
He jogged up to his friend, taking care to announce his presence while he was still a few meters away. Caleb wasn’t the kind of guy you sneaked up on. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
Caleb eyed him critically, wearing a countenance Noah had seen before—rarely, but he’d seen it. Dark, brooding, spoiling for a fight. “Alex send you?”
Noah shrugged, spreading his arms out wide. “Jenner found you, I’m guessing?”
“Yep.”
“He alive?”
“Not a scratch on him.”
Noah nodded thoughtfully. “Want to go get a drink?”
For a moment Caleb acted as if he was going to refuse…then his shoulders sagged with a sigh. “I really do.”
The little pub at the post was eccentric in its oddness. In many respects it resembled any neighborhood joint in a nice, trendy area of any downtown area on any human world. There were tables large and small, and the lighting was tuned to the perfect level where you could see but not too much. The hue was off, though—washed-out, as if half the color spectrum had been removed from it. The bar stretching the width of the opposite wall from the entrance wasn’t a bar so much as a wavy ribbon of metal that dipped and rose…he tilted his head…on command, apparently.
Then there were the aliens, of course. Four…five different species Noah spotted on a casual survey, not counting the Anadens, which he didn’t.
He got that they weren’t human, not exactly. But they looked human. Like warenuts gone badly, badly off the rails, but basically human. He wasn’t inclined to get worked up over the question of whether they were or weren’t or how much they were or weren’t.
They found two stool-like seats free on one end of the not-a-bar, and Caleb began punching in an order on a virtual menu displayed on the surface. “Had any of their drinks yet?”
Noah shook his head.
“I’ve got the order, then. I’ll save you some unpleasant trial and error, and you can thank me later.”
“Eh, I’ll go out on a limb and thank you now.”
To the extent there was a bartender, it appeared to be the squishy multi-colored blob—Efkam, he thought he’d heard was the name of the species—sliding around in front of a wall of what Noah assumed was drink-making equipment.
The blob didn’t bring their drinks, however. How would it? Instead a floating bot whizzed them over.
He evaluated the tall glass, filled three-quarters full by a brown liquid, with less trepidation than he probably should.
“It tastes like porter, but in alcohol content it’s more akin to cask whiskey. Proceed accordingly.”
Noah contemplated the contents one more time, then turned the glass up.
“So we were standing there surrounded by half a dozen goons, and I swear not a one of them had seen a shower in a week. And I’m all, ‘we’re fucked sideways and we’re gonna die in filth,’ but out of nowhere—”
“Aye!”
Noah looked behind him to find two aliens standing there glaring at him and Caleb. One was a Barisan—he’d met a few of those. The other one looked like a mad scientist had crossed a lobster and a gorilla, and chitinous skin covered the entirety of its hulking body.
Noah smiled blithely. “Did you need something?”
“You’re two of these Humans, right?”
Caleb swiveled around to face them, current drink in hand. “We are.”
“It’s bad enough when you swoop in here with your fancy ships and rogue SAIs and you take over our home. Now you’re taking over our bar, too? You haven’t earned the right to drink in here with us.”
Noah frowned. Was the translator working correctly? He glanced sideways at Caleb. “Did this alien just insult us? ’Cause I can’t tell.”
“I’m not certain either, but I’m definitely getting a vibe here. I don’t think it likes us very much.”
Noah shifted back to the alien who’d spoken. “Why don’t you like us? We come in peace and shit.”
“Sure. You
show up all high-and-mighty, proclaiming you’re going to save us all from our pitiful existence. Odds are, you’ll replace the Directorate with your own rulers, and we’ll still get the shaft. You don’t belong here, and we don’t want your help.”
Caleb took a long sip of his drink and set it down, then relaxed to lounge casually against the not-a-bar, elbows propped behind him. “Maybe, but it seems to me you’ve got jack to show for millennia of ‘rebelling.’ It seems to me you need us to do your work for you.”
The quiet but more dangerous-looking alien barked some curse the translator didn’t understand and charged toward them.
Caleb was still chilling, so Noah shrugged, stepped off the stool and threw a left hook into the alien’s jaw. Times like this, his prosthetic arm kicked so damn much ass.
The alien stumbled for a few steps, but caught his footing, hunched over and barreled forward for another try. Noah ducked and lurched to the side, leaving the alien to crash into the thick ribbon of metal.
Caleb grabbed the alien by his clothes, slammed it into the metal a second time, and tossed it into the crowd. Then he was moving.
Someone grabbed Noah’s shoulder and spun him around to deliver an uppercut to his chin using a chitinous, claw-shaped hand that hurt like a motherfucker, booze-dulled senses or no. His head snapped back and he was stumbling backwards. He met resistance in the form of one of the patrons, waved a vague apology and hurriedly stepped away.
The patron turned around to see what had jostled him just as his attacker swung again. And the brawl was on.
The alien who had first insulted them spotted him among a suddenly active crowd and shoved his way through, inadvertently encouraging the spreading violence. Noah cracked his neck and braced himself.
When the alien swung he dropped to a crouch and gut-punched the alien—and was promptly shoved to the floor from behind. His nose met the floor with a brutal crunch, but he rolled to the side in time to avoid a stomp to his head.
Now shit was serious.
He hauled himself up and turned to deal with the would-be stomper, but someone else had already grappled the offender.
Given a second of space, Noah tried to breathe in. This resulted in pain and blood but no air, because his nose was broken. Not the first time.
He wiped blood off his mouth and breathed in through it instead while he scanned the chaos, softened by a trace of blurriness, for Caleb. Finally he spotted him near the far left corner.
A hulking alien had pinned his friend’s arms at his back. An Anaden moved in to pummel what should have been an easy target, but when the Anaden came in range Caleb swung both legs up, using the leverage of his captor to power his kicks. They landed one-two beneath the chin of the Anaden, who fell backward to the floor and didn’t get up.
Caleb’s legs swung down to kick at his captors knees in time with his head snapping back to slam into the toothy face of the alien. The alien’s grip loosened.
Crap, he should be helping. But as Noah wound his way over as hurriedly as possible, it occurred to him that Caleb could clear the whole room with a single surge of diati. Either Caleb was too drunk to remember he commanded that particular ability, or he recognized it wouldn’t be sporting. Not proper form in a proper barfight.
Noah rushed, or possibly careened, in from the side to deliver a punch to the massive alien’s neck. Caleb wiggled free of its grasp, and they plunged into the furor now consuming the bar.
No one else in the place even knew why they were fighting; they never did.
He ducked beneath a punch not meant for him as they skidded around an epic beat-down of a…Barisan. Because there was fur.
Let’s get out of here.
Yep.
They ducked and weaved around the melee to sneak out the door. Night had fallen in full, but diffuse light streams highlighted the walkways and buildings.
They stumbled through the plaza, around a corner and down one of the walkways. Noah started chuckling, then choked on blood leaking from his broken nose. He inhaled through his mouth and canted his head back…but now he couldn’t see where he was walking. He dropped his chin down a bit. “What the hell was that all about—”
Caleb grabbed him by the shoulder and spun around as five aliens lumbered out of the bar. Noah identified one as the big companion of their initial attacker, and they all appeared to be on the hunt for targets.
“Shit.” He and Caleb peered behind them, then at each other. Noah jerked his head down and to the left, and Caleb nodded. They both knelt and slipped over the side of the walkway into the murky, dark water.
Holy fuck! The tips of his fingers fumbled for the edge of the walkway to keep him from completely submerging, but the water splashed up onto his face anyway…at least it washed away some of the blood.
The ice-cold water felt like getting zapped with electricity directly onto every nerve of his body. He gasped in air, surprised his lungs still functioned, what with the shocks. Water lapped into his mouth, sending a dagger of pain through his tongue. Had he bit it during the fight?
Caleb surfaced beside him, only to his chin, and his eyes instantly went to the plaza to track their pursuers.
The mob was headed in their direction. One stalked a few meters down the walkway they’d been on seconds earlier, peering around in search of a fight to pick. Finding none, it retreated and rejoined its comrades as they headed deeper into the complex of buildings.
Caleb held up a finger, a signal to wait another minute.
Holy hell, he was freezing. His teeth chattered violently, and he almost bit his tongue again.
Seconds ticked by, and no one else showed up to search for them. Finally Caleb planted his palms on the walkway and hefted himself up. Noah more crawled than hefted, and they both collapsed onto their backs on the walkway.
Caleb laughed, winded and hoarse. “That was fun….”
Noah took precautions this time, rolling onto his stomach and propping up on his forearms before laughing as well. “Good times.” He squinted down the walkway, toward the bar. “They got cops here?”
“A few. They’ll show up eventually. We should go…somewhere else.” Caleb pushed up to rest on his hands—then started laughing again and fell back. “Did you see the look on the Dankath’s face?”
“What’s a Dankath?”
“The big one with the shell and claws.”
“Oh, that was priceless when it accidentally hit the Novoloume. Then some Naraida leapt out of nowhere onto its shoulders and started jabbing fingers at its eyes.”
“I thought the….” Caleb leaned up on one elbow and peered into the distance, across the maze of walkways and platforms. “Someone’s coming.”
“I can’t get back in the water, man. I know it was my idea and all, but damn it was cold.” He squinted at the approaching figures. “Aww, it’s fine. That’s our ladies, come to rescue their damsels in distress.”
“Fantastic….” Caleb collapsed to the walkway so hard the back of his head thudded against the tile. “Ow.”
The approaching figures hastened their pace until one of them pulled ahead in a rapid jog—the taller, thinner one. Alex. ’Cause his lady had proper curves.
Alex skidded to a stop beside Caleb. He gazed up at her wearing a smirk. “Hey, baby.”
Kennedy arrived next to drop to her knees beside him wearing a look of horror. “Noah, you’re bleeding!”
“I definitely am. But it’s cool. It was worth it.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Exceedingly so. Or I was, before the…” he gestured behind him “…water. It’ll sober you up right quick.”
“Apparently not.” Her face screwed up at him, but he couldn’t tell if it was in concern, amusement or anger. In his peripheral vision Caleb and Alex were murmuring softly to each other, their heads so close their foreheads nearly touched. Why was he the one getting in trouble?
Kennedy blew out a breath. “They’re going to get hypothermia if they stay out here much longer.”
Alex pushed up to standing. “Okay, guys. To the Siyane with you.”
He and Kennedy had a suite—or a room with a shower and a couch—in the complex. Somewhere. After considering the hazy buildings in the distance, he acquiesced. He even let Kennedy help him up—not that he couldn’t stand on his own. “Point the way.”
Kennedy shook her head with a groan and began dragging him down the walkway.
Once they got moving good, she leaned in close to whisper, “You were supposed to take care of him.”
He gave her a bloody, crooked grin. “I did.”
38
SIYANE
PALAEMON
ANARCH POST EPSILON
* * *
ALEX RESTED HER HEAD ON HER PALM to watch Caleb sleep. She so rarely got a chance to do so, since he almost always woke before her.
Any bruises or cuts he’d suffered the night before were gone, vanished in the wake of the diati’s healing imperative. His hair had dried messy and wild, though, and she had to actively resist reaching over to play with a sloppy curl.
He’d been in no condition to talk about whatever had happened last night, but she assumed the absence of any panicked messages from Mia, irate messages from Malcolm, concerned messages from her mother or stern messages from Administrator Latro meant no permanent damage had been done and life continued on.
One eyelid opened a crack, and a sliver of crimson iris peered out at her. For the briefest second it appeared alien. Foreign. She banished the notion and smiled. “Good morning, priyazn.”
“Is it? Morning and/or good?” He winced sheepishly as he reached for her, and she scooted closer and slipped into his arms. “Anyone waiting outside the ship to arrest me?”
“Because of the bar fight, or Malcolm?”
He opened the other eye, carefully. “Either?”
There aren’t, are there, Valkyrie?
I’m pleased to report an empty platform.
Thanks.
“No. I think you’re in the clear. I’m sure it wasn’t their first bar fight.” She ran the pad of her thumb along his cheek. “Whatever he said to you, he’s wrong.”
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 64