Endgame (22 page)

Rilas sensed the male at her back. “Why? I am going to him freely.” He gripped her injured wrist, and she gasped.

Then Rilas felt a sting, a sensation of warmth travel up her arm. A cessation of pain. Tried to pull away and found she could not move at all. Looked to the female she had known as ná Bolan Thea, the female she had not known at all, as her knees weakened and her vision tunneled and her whisper roared in her ears. “Freely…I go…freely…”

Jani opened her eyes and checked her bedside clock.
Six hours out
.
Guernsey Station, here we come.
She pushed off her bed cover, shivered as the chill air hit her, and dragged it back on. Waited for the sensation to leave, the light-headedness that came from too little sleep over too long a time. Waited a little longer, and knew she could wait forever for her head to clear and her limbs to feel like parts of her body again and not dead weight. Pushed the cover off again and sat up.

The entry buzzer twittered. She ignored it. It twittered again, a mechanical imitation of a songbird.

“Jan? Are you awake?”

Val?
She shook her head, wondered if she still dreamed. Things had remained cool between them over the first half of the voyage, their sole interaction the odd greeting during inadvertent corridor encounters.

“I'd like to talk to you for a minute.” Val gave up on the buzzer and switched to tapping on the door panel. “Jan?”

What could you possibly have to say to me?
And did she want an answer to that question?
No.
Did she really think she could avoid it for long?
No.

Did she long to hear another voice right now besides the
one in her head?
Oh, hell.
She slapped the door pad on the bedside end table.

The panel swept aside and Val stuck his head in, looking first to his left, then to his right, as though he expected crossways traffic. “We missed you at breakfast.” He stepped inside, a casual vision in blue and brown. “Jeez, this place is small.” He stopped and looked around the one-room cabin, then paced the sitting area, which was separated from the sleeping area by a strip of carpet and wishful thinking. “My bathroom's bigger.”

“I think Anais took charge of the assignments.” Jani stretched her legs and grazed the edge of the carpet with her toes. “I'm probably lucky she didn't stick me in the engine room.”

“Or an airlock.” Val sat in the sole chair, a straight-backed thing with balky ergoworks. “This is bullshit—why didn't you ask for something else?” He grimaced as he tried to work into a comfortable position.

Jani looked around and shrugged. “I've lived in worse.”

“Yes, but that's not your life anymore, is it?” Val drummed his fingers on the chair arm, then looked toward the corner near the bed, and the small desk that held a workstation and stacks of wafer folders. “Working?”

“Researching separatist groups. Going over dossiers.” Jani stood and walked to the closet, dragging the bed cover with her and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Niall got me some information.”

Val eyed her makeshift robe and shook his head. “Don't tell me—you can't adjust the temperature in here, either.”

“OK, I won't tell you.”

“That old bitch.” Val swung a leg over the arm of his chair, shifting it back and forth to avoid kicking a nearby table. “Are they going to let us go wherever we want on that carrier? Like, all the way to the other end?”

Jani dragged out a set of coveralls, then tucked them back inside, opting instead for wrapshirt and trousers in dark blue.
Going to ride on a carrier.
Probably time to stop dressing
like she actually had lived in a ship's engine room for three weeks. “I think we'll be limited to a transient VIP area, which, if distant memory serves, is usually one section of a single deck. Unless we're escorted. They don't want civilians wandering around, getting into trouble.”

Val sighed. “I could use some trouble. Some nice, attractive trouble that didn't run my heart through a grinder.” He laid his head back, watched her dress through half-closed eyes. “You know, one of the best things about owning my own ship is having the freedom to pick my travel companions.” He looked away for a moment. “Barring the odd billet privilege.” He frowned. Sniffed. “I think I'm paying for it now, because so help me Jesus, the absolute last people in the Commonwealth that I would choose to long-haul with are Anais, Yevgeny, and you know who.” He groaned. “
God.
Anais has a cackle that could shatter crystal at fifty meters.”

Jani finished tying the sash of her shirt, then stood on her toes so she could check herself in the half mirror. “I wouldn't know. She never laughs when I'm around.”

“No, she doesn't, does she?” Val gave a mean little grin. “I think we'd fail every group dynamics evaluation on the books. Anais and Yevgeny pretty much talk to one another. You know who spends all his time either working in the Service area or showing off in the gym. John's like you, spending way too much time in his cabin. I always call it his tiger-in-a-cage mood, pacing and pissed as hell. I finally pulled it out of him a couple of days ago. Did you have to be quite so brutal?”

“He'll still have his work. Overall ownership changes, is all. Does that really matter?”

“Yes. A little. Maybe more than a little. He thinks it's payback for not telling you about Tsecha.”

“Maybe he should stop thinking about himself so damned much.”

“Yeah.” Val massaged his temples. “Then there's you and Niall, two people I could long-haul with any time…” He studied the ceiling. “He's drinking. You know that?”

Fuck.
Jani glanced at Val in the mirror.
Of course he can tell. It's his job.
“It's not as bad as it could be.”

“How bad does it have to be?” Val folded his arms and nestled into the chair, as though he intended to nap. “He covers it pretty well, and his staff protects him when he doesn't. But it's going to get worse the closer we get to Shèrá, and on top of that he'll be on a carrier with his precious Roshi, which means he'll be under even more pressure.” Again, the half-closed eyes, the deceptively casual observation. “You're no better off than he is, though in your case the problem isn't liquor. You're not sleeping well, though. Anyone can see that.” He worked into a sitting position. “John was the one who mentioned it to me. He said that when he'd bring it up back in Thalassa, you'd brush him off. He thought maybe Meva was getting under your skin.”

Jani folded her sleep shirt and stuffed it beneath her pillow, then sat down so she could put on her boots. “Did he send you here?”

“Would it matter if he did?” Val hesitated, then shook his head. “Not to worry. Mine is a solo effort.” He sat forward, elbows on knees and hands clasped between, so friendly and expectant. “What you say here, stays here. You know that.”

Do I?
Jani rested a booted foot atop her bed and wiped away smudges with the corner of the sheet. “I'm fine.”

Val watched her. Waited until she met his eye, then waited some more, his brightness fading as the realization settled. That she wouldn't tell him. That if he pushed her, she'd lie.

“Well…” He stood slowly. “It is good to be trusted by those you love.”

“Likewise.” Jani took what grim satisfaction she could in his blush, in the way he suddenly couldn't meet her eye.

“We had our reasons, Jan.” He walked to the door, head down.

“You always did.”

“Yeah, well—” The tweet of the entry buzzer cut Val off, and he struck the door pad with his fist.

Niall pushed past the panel before it opened completely.
“There's been an explosion at Guernsey. One of the Commonwealth docks.” He wore dress blue-greys, the shine of his badges and designators providing sharp contrast to the dullness of his skin and eyes. “It's bad.”

Jani rose slowly, whispered the question she had grown to dread during her time in Rauta Shèràa. “How many?”

“One hundred twenty-six confirmed dead.” Niall turned to leave, then hesitated. “And climbing.”

 

Val left to track down John, who was arranging transport to the station to aid the medical team. The rest of them gathered in Niall's office, a converted conference room restocked with desks and workstations and alive with the bustle of staffers, their commander's desk serving as the hub.

“Service Station liaison believes it was a small pulse bomb.” Niall called up a holo of the dock area schematic, which formed above his desk. “Structural damage was significant in the immediate area.” He stuck a stylus in the middle of the image and inscribed a circle around an area that encompassed a large gangway some distance from the main concourse. “No breach, thank God. The sealer layer did its job.”

“Looks well off the beaten path.” Scriabin walked around the image, taking it in from every angle. “Why so many dead?”

“The starliner
Capria
had just docked. Emergency due to mechanical issues.” Lucien pushed aside a stack of files and sat atop his desk. “Passengers were in the process of disembarking when the bomb exploded.”

Jani lowered into a chair. “The gangway was full…”

“Yeah.” Niall turned off the imager, and the schematic faded. “The station is in full shutdown. Instead of docking there, we will hook up directly with the
Ulanov.
” He nodded toward Scriabin. “Luckily, your pilot has carrier experience. Otherwise we'd have had to ship one over who did.”

“Minister Ulanova and I will need to port over to the station in any case.” Scriabin paced. “We have people there. We
need to ensure that supplies can get in, arrange transport for family members.”

Niall nodded. “We can see to that as soon as station security gives us clearance. For now, we need to—”

The door opened and Anais Ulanova swept in. She wore somber brown and carried a rolled newssheet in one hand. “Horrible. Just horrible.” She ignored Jani, shot a venomous glare at Lucien, then focused her attention on Niall and her nephew. “Could it have anything to do with this?” She unrolled the newssheet and laid it on Niall's desk.

Scriabin strode to his aunt's side. His brow arched as he read. “‘Kilian says Haárin to be questioned in connection with assassination.'”

Jani sat up straighter as all eyes fixed on her. “I never spoke to a reporter. I haven't given an interview in months.” She stood and walked to the desk. Tried to read the article, only for Ulanova to wedge in front of her, blocking her.

The woman stabbed the sheet with a carmine-tipped finger. “It states that you gave a speech to your enclave informing them that ní Tsecha had been assassinated, and that several Haárin were being sought in connection with his death.”

“I would like to read it without benefit of translation.” Jani shouldered her aside, then checked the byline and the banner. “I don't know that reporter, and I've never spoken to anyone from the
Amsun Star
.” She read each sentence once, then again, her heart tripping as the truth dawned. One of her Thalassans had talked.
I didn't tell them not to.
Because she hadn't thought it necessary, because she never spoke to a reporter if she could avoid it.

Scriabin's voice emerged tight, mounting anger laced with disbelief. “You informed your entire enclave that Haárin would be questioned in connection with Tsecha's assassination, and it never occurred to you that one of them might talk to a reporter?”

No.
Jani looked across the desk at Niall, who blew out a long breath, then shook his head. “They had a right to know
what happened. A right to know the truth. I was leaving them behind to face who knew what? Sanctions? Attacks? I had to tell them why. I couldn't let them find out from someone else.”

“Goddamn it.”
Scriabin's face flared. “Relations with the worldskein are all but severed. Our border colonies are in danger, and some of us are risking our lives—”

“And I had an enclave to keep a lid on.”
Jani felt the anger rise, swamping out the fatigue and uncertainty. “Haárin hybrids getting into fistfights with humanish hybrids because a humanish killed Tsecha. Haárin and humanish who were friends ten minutes before.”

“Strictly speaking…”
Niall waited until he had everyone's attention. “The article isn't incorrect,” he continued at lower volume. “We are talking to Haárin about Tsecha's assassination. Nowhere in that article does it state that we think an Haárin killed him.”

“Don't be disingenuous, Colonel.” Ulanova jerked her head toward Jani. “Thanks to her lack of judgment, we have this wrenching disaster to contend with.”

“What has this article to do with the bombing?” Jani caught the glitter in Ulanova's eyes, saw the thin-lipped smile form. “You're saying they're related?”

“Of course they're related. You say that Haárin played a part in Tsecha's assassination—”

“That's not what I said.”

“—and humanish are killed in revenge.” Ulanova breathed hard, cheeks flushing. “Anyone with any intelligence can see that this is the case.”

“You're saying the Guernsey Haárin are responsible?” Lucien avoided looking at his former patroness, concentrating instead on the state of his cuticles. “And they've been so peaceful to this point.”

“This stupidity would drive anyone over the edge, no matter how peaceful they'd been to this point.” Ulanova reclaimed the newssheet and rolled it into a tight tube. “First, Zhenya and I will go to the station. Observe the damage. See
to our annexes.” She turned to Jani, finally looking her in the face. It was all there, reflected in the woman's shining black eyes. The history between them, the hatred and the humiliation and the loss. “Then I will go to Hiroshi Mako and request that you be sent back to where you came from.” She turned on her heel and walked out, head high, triumph radiating like an aura.

Scriabin waited until the door closed. “I'll do what I can.” His crisp tone indicated that it wouldn't be much. “We'll talk more after we return from the station.” He followed after his aunt, his posture bowed and his step slower, the brawler who had taken a hit from an unexpected quarter and couldn't shake it off.