Rebel Alliances (Targon Tales Book 3) Page 6

  “Don’t wait for me.”

  He closed his eyes and the ship shot into the breach barely expanded enough to accommodate its width. Nova dropped onto her heels and squeezed her eyes shut during the breathless, frightening moment when the Terius was all that protected them from the unfathomable nothing spanning countless light years of space. She saw and heard nothing, felt nothing, until gravity intruded once again and she tumbled forward, across the floor of the bridge.

  She rolled, came to her feet and pounced at the helm to slow the ship and arrest its wild tumble through real space. Quickly, she scanned the control boards along the cockpit’s perimeter for alarm indicators and saw none. Engaging her interface again, she cast the ship’s sensors for some idea of where they had ended up.

  “Luce,” she grinned. “You did it. I have no idea where we are, but we’re in one piece.” She turned to him, knowing that a jump like this would have exhausted him beyond measure. He lay with his eyes closed, his body limp. “Come on, you can snooze later. We need to take some inventory here...” She peered at him more closely. “Luce?”

  A horrific feeling of dread crept up along her spine when she touched his shoulder to give him a shake. “Luce. Come on, man. Don’t do this!” She shook him harder. “Captain! Damn you, don’t leave me here!”

  Gradually, she had to admit to herself that he had, indeed, left her. Whatever it was that had overloaded his interface had destroyed his brain also. She sank to her knees beside his chair and pulled the ship’s neural connector away from her own module. She was alone, possibly the only pilot on a ship full of frightened refugees and she had absolutely no idea where she was or how to get back home.

  “Captain,” the com officer said nervously.

  She turned her head without much enthusiasm. “What?”

  “There is another ship. They came through with us before the breach closed again.”

  “Configuration?”

  “Battle cruiser.”

  Nova came to her feet using the armrest of Luce’s chair to heave herself up. “Signal surrender,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  In the years that Tychon had been a part of the Commonwealth of United Planets, first as an Air Command pilot and then as a Vanguard officer, he had never been made to wait by his superior officers. His exemplary record, mission successes, and skills as pilot and navigator had earned him the respect of even the highest command level. He also suspected that his Delphian heritage and his relationship with Nova Whiteside, a colonel’s daughter, added some of the clout he enjoyed.

  Pacing Colonel Everett’s antechamber while the brass lolled about on the other side of the closed door was certainly new. Of course, the new commander of the Vanguard division had little interest in befriending his staff, as had Colonel Tal Carras, now retired and living comfortably on one of the moons of Targon.

  Tychon pushed up the sleeve of his leather coat to check the data device wrapped around his forearm. Still nothing more from Nova. Why had she not sent a message today? He had dispatched three packets during his trip to Targon and received no reply. The messages had been veiled but by now they had enough language between them to let her know that she was in imminent danger. Also disconcerting was that his inquiry to the Azon administrators on Dannakor had gone unanswered as well.

  The last ten hours in-flight from Delphi to their base on Targon had been a torturous exercise to attain and maintain any sort of equanimity and he felt stretched beyond endurance. Her last message to him had been recorded in some lab where she was surrounded by screens and gadgets and covered in patches of tape adhering various sensors. She made one of the technicians demonstrate a scanner that turned her skin entirely transparent, knowing that the sight of that was far more entertaining to her than to him. He smiled at this and let the memory of her antics lull him into the level of khamal he needed.

  His recollection was interrupted when the wall at the end of the waiting room gradually turned transparent and he was able to look into the colonel’s workspace. Everett was seated behind his table and not, as it had been Carras’ habit, in the comfortable lounging area by the windows. Across from him sat a major whom Tychon did not recognize and a Centauri woman in civilian clothes. The colonel raised a hand and gestured for Tychon to enter.

  Frowning, Tychon stepped into the room and neglectfully saluted the colonel. Everett’s elbows were propped on the table and his hands were clasped. Tychon noted that his knuckles where white. He glanced at the other two unsmiling people, beginning to worry all over again.

  “Please sit, Major.” Everett gestured toward an empty chair by his desk and waited until the Delphian had taken him up on his invitation. He made some business of straightening some data tablets in front of him. “These are Majors Cillian and Parsa. Internal investigations.”

  Tychon raised an eyebrow. His face remained immobile.

  “I’m sorry to hear about the attack on Captain Devaughn on Delphi,” Everett said. “I understand he is a friend as well as fellow officer.”

  “He is. Has Captain Whiteside been notified? I have not been able to reach her at all. Nor her medical team.”

  “Major Tychon,” the colonel said, clearly not pleased with the task at hand. “I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

  Tychon inhaled forcefully. The look on the others’ faces told him far more than he needed to hear and he was certain there was more to come. “Go on,” he said tonelessly.

  “Now, we don’t have all the details yet. It’s a three-day journey to Dannakor from here and our investigators are still in transit. So we can’t say for certain exactly what might have—”

  “Colonel, please!” Tychon said sharply. He struggled to maintain his composure, using every bit of his lifelong training to subdue his urge to either leap across the desk to shake the information from the colonel or to run out of the room to avoid it altogether.

  “There was an attack. The medical center was taken over by rebels. The facility suffered many casualties but there were survivors.”

  “And Nova was not among them?”

  “We don’t believe that she is among the casualties, either,” the colonel said quickly. “But some of the circumstances surrounding the attack are quite extraordinary.”

  “She is not dead?” Tychon dared to ask.

  “We don’t believe so. She has disappeared. She escaped on a cruiser but that ship is not on its way back here.”

  “I appreciate your optimism.”

  “I will let Major Cillian take things from here,” Everett said, gesturing at the plainclothes officer.

  She sat up straighter in her chair. Despite her lack of uniform, she looked every bit the officer and not one that took protocol lightly. Tychon felt an instant need for caution when her violet eyes turned to him. He wished that he had worn a uniform. Unarmed, with his long hair hanging loose over his back, wearing scuffed leather jacket and faded trousers, he probably looked like some civilian visitor lost in the administrative levels of the base.

  “Major Tychon,” she began with a glance at a thin tablet in her hands. “This conversation is being recorded. When was the last time you had contact with Captain Whiteside?”

  “Last night, Delphi,” he said. “That would be about twenty hours ago, Targon.”

  She nodded. “What was the nature of your exchange?”

  He glanced at Everett. “It was a personal conversation.”

  She looked at the major seated beside her as if to silently comment on the difficulty of this subject.

  “Major,” Colonel Everett said. “I must ask for your complete cooperation.”

  Tychon frowned. “She is my wife. Three days’ travel away. What do you think we were discussing one packet at a time through two far-flung jumpsites? And surely you have access to them, in any case.”

  Cillian looked at her notes. “You are not actually married according to Delphian customs, Major?”

  “No. We are not. That doesn’t—”

  “Pleas
e describe the content of the packets you exchanged with the captain.”

  Tychon took a moment to gather himself. “As I recall,” he said evenly, “she told me about her accommodations at the facility, that she was bored there but that she had befriended some of the staff, and that she was looking forward to coming home.”

  “And what did you return?”

  “I sent her information about our daughter.”

  “That would be Cyann?”

  “Yes,” Tychon said, burying his growing anger behind a mask of indifference.

  “And what did Captain Whiteside reply?”

  “That she missed us. Then she recorded some words for me to play for Cyann.”

  “She said nothing more about her activities on Dannakor?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Tychon’s lip twitched in a snarl. “My memory is not in any way impaired, Major. The project is classified and Nova would no more record details of it than any of us would.”

  “No, of course not,” she said.

  “I really must insist that you fill me in on what happened, Colonel,” Tychon said to Everett. “Clearly something terrible has taken place out there.”

  “Please bear with us, Major,” the Centauri investigator said. “When did Captain Whiteside first apply for the new Azon Neural Interface?”

  “I’m not sure. Last year, Targon, some time. Almost as soon as we were told about it.”

  “You were also considered for the implant?”

  “Yes. I declined.”

  “Captain Whiteside did not.”

  “Evidently.”

  “What contacts have either of you had with identified rebel factions of late?”

  “Major?” Tychon said, startled.

  “Just answer the question. Have you had any dealings with rebels outside combat conditions in the past year or so?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Known sympathizers? Informants?”

  “None that I’m aware of. We’ve been on separate assignments for the most part, because of Cyann. When possible we prefer that one of us remains with her.”

  “So you don’t actually know with whom your wife corresponds or interacts with?”

  “She has no need to explain herself to me,” Tychon replied. He decided that he really, truly did not like this woman. “I’m sure she’ll let me know if anything interesting happens.”

  “Are you?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She threw another knowing glance at her silent companion. “What follows is classified, Major,” she said to Tychon. She turned to direct a pointer toward a screen on the colonel’s office wall.

  A jumble of edited-together imagery moved across the screen. A battle of sorts, people in uniform, in lab suits and in civilian clothes rushing about, shouts, shots and screams. Clearly, a complete mayhem without leadership or discernible outcome.

  “We have been able to piece out a few items of interest in all of this, but our technicians are still working on the overall picture,” Major Parsa finally spoke.

  They watched a segment showing Nova with a white-haired woman in the facility’s courtyard amid the confusion of the battle. There was something urgent about their exchange and then they saw her shield the smaller woman from a weapon discharge.

  “Do you know that Bellac female?”

  “No.”

  “Her name is Acie Daruen. You arrested her on Phi Six only weeks ago.”

  “I don’t recognize her. There were several Bellac in that group.”

  “It appears that Captain Whiteside recognizes her quite well.”

  “Are you faulting Nova for trying to save someone’s life, rebel or not?”

  “You aren’t aware of any relationship between Captain Whiteside and the rebel?”

  “No. Why is she on Dannakor if we arrested her?”

  “That, indeed, is another mystery for us,” Everett said. “She was released on Zera before her cohort even arrived here on Targon. It isn’t clear why or on whose orders.”

  “We would like you to hear a recording made on Phi Six on the day of her arrest,” Cillian said. “This outgoing message was retrieved from the ship Captain Whiteside used.”

  Tychon listened with growing alarm to the packet Nova had sent to a man named Vincent, clearly concerned about the Bellac rebel’s welfare.

  “You can see that this message, along with the fact that Acie Daruen is now at large again, is of the gravest concern to us.”

  “I can,” Tychon said without inflection.

  “Continue, Parsa,” the Centauri said.

  The visual presentation from the clinic on Dannakor played on. Tychon barely bit back a startled exclamation when he saw Nova fire on two men in Air Command uniforms. Then, inexplicably, some video of her destroying lab equipment.

  “That is the main data unit for the ANI,” Major Parsa said, pausing the recording. “Containing all information about the recent interface tests done on Dannakor. That neural scanner, or what’s left of it, was the only one of its kind, build specifically for this project.”

  Tychon shook his head in disbelief.

  “What comes next is simply astonishing.” Parsa continued the display. Now Nova was talking to a Caspian standing amid the ruins of the lab equipment. After some exchange, they both left via a rear door.

  “Why is there no sound?” Tychon said.

  “This is just surveillance video. The project is classified. There are no audio recordings other than those specific to the project. That Caspian is of interest to us.”

  “Why?”

  “Rebel named Sao Lok. We’ve identified him by his facial markings. Arawaj faction, as far as we know. Expert programmer in just about any Union code ever conceived.”

  Tychon suppressed a groan. Nova hadn’t seemed particularly concerned with the man’s presence in the lab. If anything, her hand on his arm had looked really rather friendly.

  They tortured him with further footage. This time, it showed Nova bent over a uniformed woman on the ground. The camera was at some distance but they clearly saw her shoot the officer at close range. Then they watched her rush some people into an air lock, two of them in lab suits.

  At last, the video stopped. Tychon continued to stare at the blank screen as if he expected something to appear that would explain all of this.

  “Among the dead that we know of so far are Shantir Tuain, Doctors Moore and T’lor, and one of the test subjects, a Lieutenant Quinn. Many of the others have not yet been identified. One group of survivors is currently en route to Targon aboard a cargo vessel and two cruisers. Captain Whiteside and the other two test subjects are not aboard.”

  “Looked to me that she escaped on a cruiser,” Tychon said.

  “Indeed. According to logs, she and two other planes made it to an orbiting freighter. It subsequently disappeared.”

  Tychon looked up. “Disappeared how?”

  “Keyholed.”

  “A keyhole? Why would they have a spanner out on Dannakor?”

  “We imagine one went out there with the rebels for the purpose of escaping through it. Of course we have no way of knowing where they ended up.”

  Tychon rose from his chair and paced to the window. He stared out onto Targon’s barren landscape, watching a green sunset that looked as morose and tired as he felt.

  “Major Tychon,” Colonel Everett began. “In light of the evidence—”

  Tychon turned abruptly. “Evidence?”

  Everett blinked. “Surely, you must agree that what you’ve seen here is a pretty damning statement concerning Captain Whiteside’s recent activities.”

  When Tychon strode to the colonel’s desk the officer actually shrank back, perhaps fearing an imminent assault by the irate Delphian. “You have shown me bits of pieced-together video of what looks to be an extremely disorganized attack by rebels, which is fairly well what all of their raids look like. Perhaps we could spend more o
n security personnel at these facilities than we do on sub-standard video equipment.”

  “Major Tychon,” the Centauri said. “We understand that you may find it hard to accept—”

  He turned his cold blue eyes to the woman. “Captain Whiteside is MIA, Major. That is the only thing I find hard to accept. The rest is utter nonsense. Before you accuse her of whatever you think went on up there, perhaps you need to take a look at her Air Command service. She is an exemplary officer who’s more than once put her life on the line for this Commonwealth.”

  “Sit down, Major,” Everett said. “Please.”

  Tychon shook his head in frustration but dropped back into his chair. “Of what, exactly, are you accusing her?”

  “It appears that her aim was to provide the rebel enemy with information pertaining to, if not an actual working model of, the Azon Neural Interface. She is currently at large with some of the developers, her own device as well as the one she pried from the other test subject, and possibly with a copy of the design files of the project.”

  Tychon tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “This is getting more ridiculous by the moment. I know she wanted the interface so that she could make Level Three spanner. She didn’t say so but I know. It’s been on her mind for years but she doesn’t have the aptitude for it. Few of your people do. And now that goal is finally reached you accuse her of treason? Of being a damn rebel?”

  “You have to admit that what we’ve seen here has put her into a very bad light.”

  “What about the attack on Captain Devaughn on Delphi? Clearly, they were looking for Nova. Why would they, if she was in league with them?”

  “I think you are grasping at straws, Major,” Cillian said. “New rebel factions spring up as fast as we can take them out. Few of them even know what the others are doing. It’s not unlikely that more than one of their groups is trying to get the ANI design before we can put it in place. They fight each other as much as they rebel against the Union.”