Chapter Sixteen

Outer Reaches. Geonate New Time, Year 2402

Len tried to block the anxious, twisted knot of concern lodged squarely in her chest, but the blazing lights outside the portal represented people. Dying and fighting. Gregory and Piotr were out there. And Ivan. She stopped her hand before it touched the window and shoved it in her pocket to finger the small hank of braided hair there. Embarrassed, though none could see, she yanked her hand away.

The dinging of an alarm tossed her out of her worried trance at the same time her comm came alive with Anna’s voice.

“Len, the small shuttle on approach is a friendly.”

Len motioned for an assistant to silence the alarm before she answered. “What’s going on?” Not exactly professional, but Len’s hold on her usual gruff exterior slipped today. She couldn’t seem to concentrate.

“It’s Ritter’s. When he defected, he timed his craft to follow him once the hostilities began.”

Hostilities. Len’s attention splintered again, her need to see outside too much to resist. Now laser fire from both the Firewalker and the Stealth shot at each other, slicing through the smaller lights winking between the mother ships.

“Len?”

“I’m here.” Len shook herself and put her back to the portal. Nothing. She could do nothing.

“Oversee the small craft’s hookup and then get the disruptor from the containment unit. Bring it to my quarters and I’ll update you in person.”

Something to do. Len straightened her uniform and nodded to the crewwoman on the main controls, a flicker of pity crossing her features as she looked at Len.

Frag that.

Len stormed out, pissed that Ivan had put that look in her assistant’s eyes. Nobody would pity Len. Nobody.

*

After Len brought the disruptor and left to make further arrangements, Anna gave in to the myriads of thoughts thrashing to surface.

How dare he prod at the edges of her mind and order her to ignore her job? He didn’t own her. Nobody owned her. Not even the Nex had owned her. She had a duty to protect the women of the Venture. Just as his imperative to protect had him in danger even now, battling for his life and the future of his race. How could he expect any less from her?

Even if she and Piotr had a future, and it pained Anna to admit they had none, she could not have a family for him. He had the demands of the war and a fiancée she blindly refused to admit to in her foolishness. A fiancée who could give him a family.

She blinked against the sting of threatening tears, not sure if she they came from anger or the hollow punch to her composure. He may never come back. In the face of that, she’d do anything he wanted.

Stop being weak.

Unable to control her own mind when it came to that man, thankful for the busy task, she packed her gear. A strange dichotomy of images flickered around her mind. She blinked against the sting in her eyes. Flashes of her cadet days, learning to fire her laser. The violent take-down of a career smuggler who struggled even as she kept a knee in his back and a firearm at his temple. A small grave on the lush planet Jacaranda. And crowding into the forefront, taunts of a vivid fantasy speared her heart: playing children with Piotr’s dark hair, his easy grin, and his deep laugh. Castigating herself, she fell back on Nex-taught control. She shut it all down.

With clinical precision, she checked the laser charge and holstered her sidearm. She wasn’t sure the weapon would be any good against a shifted mimic, but Ritter assured her the Stealth’s crew would be in human form. Those that remained behind during the battle would be easily conquered. Any weapon effective against humans would be effective against them.

She clucked her tongue. Shaky intelligence, at best.

To cover any eventualities, Anna prepared for the worst of all cases. She taped the confiscated disrupter to her left leg. She couldn’t discount having to deal with a full mimic. Testing her flexibility, she adjusted the weapon to avoid hindering her movements. A quick check for the rest: Six extra laser charges, one garrote twisted around her wrist, one emergency med comp, lock descrambler, PCU, and ten minute oxygen supply cylinder. The last was useless equipment, but standard. It wouldn’t help if she were spaced.

The heavy duty tape was also standard, for Captain Anna Voron, that is. It was amazing how it could be applied to most situations. She used it to apply a small pinpoint laser to her right ankle. Pulling her hair up, she used two sticks to hold it out of her face. Sticks with a deadly point, should they be necessary.

It was as good as she could do without a full recon report. Going in blind was not her preferred modus operandi, but she had to make do with the crude map from Ritter.

Ritter.

Ritter had to be the cause for many of Piotr’s objections to such a critical mission. They needed to understand their exposure to the serum. They needed to free the prisoners. Perhaps Piotr didn’t trust Anna’s abilities. In the face of that possibility, Anna preferred to believe it jealousy, but the doubts twisted inside her. Even after that time three years ago, her mission leadership had never been questioned by the Nex. Why did Piotr doubt her?

Anna couldn’t believe she’d thought of that infuriating man again. Something she seemed to do every other minute. Their angry parting caused her considerable grief. What if she never saw him again?

Leaving her cabin, she didn’t give in to the urge to take a last look. She refused to believe she wouldn’t be back. She refused to look at the bed she’d shared with Piotr. The piece of furniture bolted to the bulkhead loomed large, the only item of substance in the room.

She’d be back.

The small team met inside the cargo bay on the engineering level.

“Len, why are you suited-up?”

“I’m going to pull in Ritter’s pod so you can board, and then I’ll space the bay.”

She should have known that. Nodding, she waved Hailey and Ritter ahead of her to leave the bay and wait in engineering. The three didn’t speak while Hailey paced. At each turn, she stopped to look outside a portal. Anna dared not watch the ongoing battle, nor think of him out there, now. Unable to bear her own thoughts any longer, she broke the silence.

“Ritter, Hailey, let’s walk through this one last time.”

“We will board my sail craft, avoid the laser fire of the battle outside, dock with the Stealth, board her, and incapacitate any mongrels in our way,” Ritter intoned with no inflection.

“Right.” Anna had gone over the plans ten-fold, but Ritter’s recitation bordered on callous. The man didn’t appear to care he may not come back alive.

“Just keep my comm officer safe.” She put her arms behind her back and stood at parade rest to give the air of confidence that had flagged while watching Hailey pace. “Hailey, do you have everything you need? If you can’t break in and get the files in five minutes, we will leave empty-handed. I don’t want to risk our lives to come home without the prize but I’ll not risk you.”

“I’ll get it captain. I can’t afford not to.” Hailey smiled briefly, a small hint of the carefree woman from before this mess. She had gotten rid of the pink hair, to blend better with the mimics. Not that they’d pass close inspection, but the hair would stand out from across an entire grav-ball stadium.

Len’s voice over the shiplink brought Hailey’s body rigid. Competent as Hailey was, she’d never been a Nex, but Anna trusted her to keep it together.

“Captain, the pod is aboard. The bay has only begun to re-establish atmospheric settings, but levels will sustain the short run to the pod.”

“Let’s go.” Anna looked back at her selected team and nodded toward the portal.

Len opened the slider, the frigid air spilling into engineering, and motioned them forward, keeping her enviro suit closed.

Ritter sprinted to the pod, placed his hand on the security pad at the portal, and climbed aboard after it slid open. Hailey followed a step behind. Shrugging off the cold air, as well as her foreboding, Anna gave a thumbs-up to Len, who couldn’t hide her concerned expression even through the helmet.

The door slid closed behind Anna, and she took a deep breath, shivering in the chill of the bay. The small pod was full. At least the tight fit allowed the temperature to rise quickly.

They’d boarded at a run so she only had a fleeting impression of the pod’s outside. The craft had a remarkable resemblance to the fireflies she’d played with as a child. The grounds of the Academy had been full of them. The hull of the craft was oblong, the pilot’s dome lit in the darkness of the bay, and small wings folded along the back at rest. The wings could expand and rotate to collect energy from the nearest star. It was small and compact. Not much to keep them safe from a stray laser beam.

Inside, the front cockpit held bucket seats for a pilot, co-pilot, and systems operator. The slightly larger body of the craft had room for four passengers, a small convenience chamber, and storage closet.

Ritter took the controls, Anna buckled into the co-pilot seat, and Hailey ran her hands over the small, compact comp unit. The manual controls were nowhere to be found. Hailey picked up the backup headset and slipped it on. She spoke over her shoulder to Ritter, who’d buckled in and had already lifted the locking clamps to nudge the pod’s nose to the outer bay doors.

“Ritter, does this thing have manual input? I’ll have an easier time getting into the system. It could take me hours to crack voice control.”

“Open the panel to your right. You’ll find a PCU jack to plug right into the system.”

“Even better,” The excitement in Hailey’s voice prompted Anna to turn to see her. “Captain, if I can break in before we dock, and the docking stations have access to the main comps, I won’t need to leave the pod at all. One less distraction for you.”

“Ritter?”

“Yes, there are linkups at the docks. I don’t know enough about the comp access to say if it would work from there, or if we should stick to plan and get her into the labs.”

Hailey continued her case. “If we can hook up to the Stealth, then I will have as much luck in the pod as in the lab. There are no guarantees I can break the lab systems in five minutes, but I’m already in the pod systems. I’ll have more time to gain full access if I stay put.”

The Venture’s bay doors opened, and Ritter flew the craft into silent, dark space. He banked hard left, away from the skirmish between the troops of the Firewalker and Stealth. Anna recognized the apt comparison of the pod to a firefly as soon as she could see the two sides battling each other. Their bodies dipped and winked against the blackness, almost as if fairies danced and played. It would have been beautiful if it didn’t signify such mortal danger. This was not playful dancing. It was the defense of an entire species.

As planned, they skirted around the battles and stayed on the outside of the conflict. But they had to draw closer to reach their objective. The closer they got, the more Anna couldn’t keep herself from scanning for Piotr. Even with no other interference, she’d have difficulty spotting him over the distance between the pod and the combatants. She didn’t recognize him in the maelstrom.

A nearby battle between a phoenix and a smaller mimic crept closer to them. Straining to see the markings, she held her breath as the two crashed into one another. Wings flared out. Beaks slashed. The tail of the phoenix slashed. The mimic lunged.

The mimic rolled. A disruptor bar, held in its talons, sliced through the phoenix.

Light flared. She covered her eyes. Then it grew dark. Tears stinging, she let her hand drop and covered her heart as she stared out into the now-dark where a phoenix had been. Now that warrior was gone.

In the last seconds, she’d realized she didn’t recognize the phoenix but the pain of loss still made her throat hurt. All those lights winking and dispersing out there—the show was lethally beautiful. But it all meant war. Death. Destruction.

Silent for the tense minutes of maneuvering around the maze of fighters, they began to approach the Stealth. They had managed to avoid the fighting, ignored by both sides.

“Ritter, how long until we dock?” Anna broke the heavy silence.

“Two minutes, no more.”

“Hailey, have you broken through the security systems of the pod?”

“Yes, Captain. I’ve even volleyed a few signals back and forth with the Stealth and have established a loophole in security. It’s almost too simple, but maybe I’m being paranoid.”

“No. If you think something’s up, then we need to take it seriously.” Anna did take it quite seriously, but how could change she their plans? Was it a trap? Did they know their plans? Had she read Ritter completely wrong? Or was it a failsafe in their system?

“It could be a failsafe.” Hailey said. Anna wondered if she’d just spoken her thoughts aloud.

“A tripwire in the security protocols you can handle. It’s a trap we have to watch for.” Anna had to decide, fast. Ritter had moved them into position to dock. Really, there was no decision. In either case, Hailey would be safer on the pod, and less underfoot, if truth be told.

“Captain, because of your, ah, relationship with a phoenix, you have a low-level scent that will not attract attention. But your officer has the distinct smell of a potential mate in season. An unfortunate bit of timing, but she is ovulating.”

Hailey’s skin glowed bright like a red dwarf star.

“Perhaps you should have mentioned this before we left.”

“The scent didn’t overwhelm me until we’d been in the shuttle for a few minutes.” Ritter sounded strained, and his fists clenched knuckle white on his knees.

With a clunk, the docking clamps engaged and the lights and systems blinked as they went offline, only to blink back on within seconds when connected to the Stealth.

As Anna and Ritter disengaged their harnesses, she decided. “Hailey, stay here and get into those lab records. If we’re not back in five minutes, use the autopilot and get out. That’s a direct order. No matter what. Five minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m already inside the Stealth security systems and starting the trace for what we need.”

“We won’t have long.” Ritter’s palm hovered over the door plate. “Stay right with me, and remember, I’m the one with rank, here.”

They moved into the hanger as soon as the atmospheric meter turned green. The ship obviously worked with a skeleton crew as only one man monitored the bay from a workstation. He was hard at work guarding the back of his eyelids.

“I can’t believe the sloppy security of this ship during a war. People are battling for their lives just outside, but nobody guards the nest?”

“It may not make sense to you, but as I explained, the shielding of the ships prevents phoenix and mimics from boarding the enemy craft.”

“Still, it’s sloppy.”

They slipped out of the large empty hangar and into the corridor. Ritter slipped an arm around her.

“What the hell?” she hissed under her breath. When she stiffened, Ritter tugged her closer.

“The only reason someone like me would be with a female rather than leading the battle is for sex. We should give that impression.”

“I know that. We discussed that in planning.” Anna couldn’t help the flinch away. “You should let me go so I can focus on the mission. I don’t like to be touched.”

Silent, Ritter dropped his hold, put a small amount of space between them, and guided them down the empty levels.

Piotr would probably be spitting mad if he’d seen Ritter touch her.

Pfft. He’d be furious she’d boarded this ship, but she’d face that fury as long as he came back.

She nearly swatted herself in the forehead to get the man out of there. Once again, she’d concentrated on Piotr rather than her duty, and she had no idea how they’d gotten to the door in front of them. Ritter pushed in, leaving Anna to follow.

The Hatchery.

The small room should have looked professional and clean. Instead, it was dingy with furniture stained with who-knows-what and smelling of unwashed bodies. The reception desk was simple, with a comp unit and stacks of cups with lids.

“Damn hatchling.” Ritter mumbled. He quickly turned from the reception desk to hover over Anna. “We should leave before she sees me. That’s the one I pumped for information.”

Anna grabbed his arm. “Wait, this might be better. You could distract her while I search for the location of the samples. And see if there are any other prisoners while I’m at it.”

His eyes flashed with pain before he gave a curt nod, his features carefully schooled, and eyes blank. “Fine, but whatever you hear or see never leaves this room. I don’t ever want to think about touching a hatch again after we’re out of here.”

“Understood. Can you get her to abandon her post and go back to your quarters? Then you can subdue her, get your mother, and get aboard. Five minutes and counting.”

Ritter turned to the desk, and Anna could see his shoulders tense, his posture ramrod straight.

“Hello, again.” Ritter’s voice was husky, sexy. If Anna weren’t already confused over Piotr, his rich voice would have made her melt. Instead, she admired the man’s talent for seduction and pitied any woman at the receiving end of his efforts.

The woman at the desk looked up startled, but smiled with a cold leer as she ogled Ritter. “Oh. Hello, treat.”

Ritter was right. There was no warmth in the woman, but in little time with a touch here, a fondling there, he had her panting and following him out the door with no care to cover her duties. The mimic hadn’t even looked at Anna.

Anna didn’t dare open any of the doors. She really didn’t want to surprise a donor leaving his deposit. The only thing to do was to access as much as she could from here and get back to the ship. They had to hope that between the data Anna could gather, and what Hailey could break into, that they’d find a key to the virus.

Extracting the connector from her PCU, she plugged it into the comp. Wireless communication was out, since she couldn’t break those security codes in such a short time. She had created the routine she needed, and even though she was unfamiliar with mimic technology, she intended to copy the data for decryption and translation later. Since she was alone, she tapped the PCU to accept voice commands.

“Ghost image. Time estimate?”

“Two minutes.” The metallic, cold voice answered in her ear bud. Anna had opted not to change to a more human-like voice response for her PCU, a voice that could soothe her nerves right now. Tense, her fingers still steady though they threatened to shake, she removed the PCU and put it down to begin a search for samples. She spotted vials lined on the wall in a glass room to the right.

This is going too well.

The portal swished open.

Of course it couldn’t be easy. She closed her eyes briefly on the thought.

Five mimics walked in. Not as tall as the phoenix. But the differences didn’t stop there, not if the murderous looks on their faces were any indication.

Hailey had better get enough data and follow her orders to leave while they could. She put up her hands in surrender just as a fist smashed into her face.

Knocked back, her hand landed on her PCU. She slumped in the chair she landed in, barely managing to shove her comp into her pocket before the world began to shrink to a pinpoint of light and her thoughts drifted. The hands holding her weren’t gentle. Weren’t Piotr’s.

A vibration made her head spin and the room tumble. The shudder became a thumping, like a drum, over and over.

Anna!

The pain in Piotr’s cry ricocheted inside her skull. It was too much. She surrendered to the darkness.

*

Ritter left the Captain to her job. He had to trust her ability to take care of herself. After enduring the pawing from the stinking hatch through an entire level, he crowded against her, backing her into a high-level clearance room that should see little use during the waging skirmish. Ritter knocked the hatch out cold and left her on the floor.

In the quiet halls he could hear his every movement. His boots echoed down the corridor and his breath was ragged. Nervous and not liking the feeling one bit, he reached his quarters and paused to shore his defenses. He plunged into the suite while he had the courage.

Dark, the main room swallowed him in shadows despite the ship’s clock being mid-day. His sensitive sight discovered her, sitting in the chair, staring at the wall. The room was small. To the right was the eating area with a food generator and sanitation sink. To the left was the sitting room. Two small doors led to bunks for them. They used the communal lavatories.

He knelt at her feet. “Mother.”

She looked at him, a vague look in her eyes. “I’m going home now?”

His heart ran cold. How could she know? He clasped her bony fingers and guided her to her feet. Her white robes moved softly around her at the movement, her sparse frame engulfed in the material that outlined the emaciated state of her entire being.

“I wish to join my love again.” She looked confused, cocked her head, and stared at Ritter. “Where is he? He should be here to join me in our new life.”

Her ghostly smile wavered.

“Do not worry mother, we will find him.”

It was a familiar reassurance, but today it seemed a more insidious lie.

Koschei robbed these people of their eternal love, their other half. The madman crippled their minds and took away their ability for rebirth. And he used Ritter to do it. The man was a monster. Ritter would not mourn the loss of his creator.

He led his mother to the shuttle bay. Ritter frequently strolled the deck with the wispy woman at his side, so the few they passed ignored him, not understanding the logic in spending time with a fragile woman on the verge of death. None cared that she’d borne him. They’d come from an incubation chamber, not the messiness of the womb.

When they reached the pod, the lone guard still slept at the controls in the quiet bay. Ritter boarded and lead his pliable mother into one of the passenger seats, enclosing her in the safety of the harness.

“She’s beautiful.” Hailey looked at Ritter’s mother with pity but no condescension. Ritter could barely handle the honest emotion and couldn’t reply.

His mother was beautiful, no question. Her complexion was still dark, despite the years on board the Stealth, and her hair shone healthily as it fell in a long plait past her waist. Ritter performed that maintenance for her and felt their connection when he washed and brushed her hair. But her brown eyes were vacant. She was no longer capable of a real life, of real emotion.

“Did you get the data on the virus?” He turned to Hailey and shook away his concern for his mother.

Hailey nodded once, sharp, and updated him. “I got what I could without breaching the lab security, which was quite impressive. I’m sure all we really got was some background information. Not a lot that could help us, I don’t think. We’ll have to wait to see what the Captain found.”

Ritter sat in the pilot’s chair. “Buckle up. We’re getting out of here as soon as that portal closes behind her, in one minute.”

“Good plan.”

He checked all systems, put them on standby, and glanced at the mission clock. Thirty seconds. The captain cut it close.

In the back of his mind, he listened to the chatter over the shiplink, which had been flipped on since docking. The battle waged, and Ritter instinctively honed in on a few of his fellow hybrids directing the troop movement. He plotted their course to avoid trouble spots. In the middle of the chatter, ship security announced, “Lock-down all exits. We have captured a human spy. Search for accomplices. I repeat, the ship is on lockdown.”

They’d outstayed their welcome. The captain had said to evacuate if one of them were trapped. As a commander, he understood the order. With one glance at the guard through the pilot dome, Ritter verified the man still slept and hadn’t heeded the order.

Ritter nudged the pod out of the landing over Hailey’s screams. “Where are you going? We can’t leave her here.”

Screams of a different sort knifed inside his mind. The usually invisible shields pulsed with fluctuating colors like a prism swinging in a window, casting reflections in a dizzying dance. An angry phoenix threw himself against the blockade that kept his kind from entering the Stealth.

The agony of Piotr’s cries tore through Ritter as he guided the pod back toward the Venture.