Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (25 page)

“That was why she told me to
leave.”

“Yep.”

“What happened? To it?” He was
afraid he knew.

“You’re not going to ask the other
question?” The obvious one, thought Josh, to most guys.

“It would have had to have been
mine. She wasn’t like that.” Wallace was beginning to wish Leif had
succeeded in knocking him senseless. “Frick.” He sat back against
the wall into which he’d recently been thrown.

Josh could only go by what he
knew, which was a lot less than either Leif or Wallace. That said,
he tended to agree. Leif had said she’d admitted that her ‘wild’
days had been brief, embarrassing, and not something ever to be
revisited. Confined to a single ninety-six libbo, by all
accounts.

“Uh, yeah. Look, I’m not trying to
tell you that was what broke the camel’s back. It was….”

“Complicated. Yeah, you keep
saying that. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“I know.” They watched each other
for a few moments.

“Did she lose it, or did
she…?”

“No, she
did
not
do that.
It may have crossed her mind, but as I have it, she’d apparently
made up her mind otherwise. What happened was beyond her
control.”

“Nobody would tell me
anything.”

“She was wounded. Almost bled out.
You can do the rest of the math, I’d imagine.”

“Yeah. Well, you’re right about
the one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“This is frigging complicated.”
Josh shrugged. He turned to rejoin the others, and was gone.
Wallace was left to measure out his wretchedness alone.

۞

Maeve sat on a grassy
patch next to a random stream in the midst of what was designated
as a meditation area. She didn't feel particularly reflective, but
it was better than sitting around staring at walls all day. Most of
her free time had been spent looking for her friends, who had been
nowhere to be found, so she'd given up.

She yawned and fell back
into the pillowy green, thinking for the dozenth time how odd it
was to have grass in the vacuum of space. Exhaustion wracked her
body, she couldn't even think of the last time she'd had an
uninterrupted stretch of sleep. If she closed her eyes for just a
bit, maybe the sensation would let up a little. The ground was so
soft. Maybe it was synthetic dirt. It was too nice to be real. It
wasn’t real.

She sat up. The grass was
something she had created. Her hands erased it as quickly as it had
appeared, leaving behind the scorched sands of the beach she had
landed on. This too was a construct, but it was where she needed to
be. She knew she could not let herself slip into false comfort. It
was interesting that she had sought out the Nimitz as a place of
refuge, though.

The ghost was still there,
barely visible, until she focused on it. Gradually, it became more
tangible. It was neither male nor female, though she knew that was
because she had never cared to speculate.

“
You were not to blame.”
Had that ever been the question, she wondered? Must have been, at
least for a bit.

“
I know. I’ve got plenty
of other issues to lay blame on myself for.”

“
I know.” This wasn’t
quite the discussion she needed. It was only just so productive to
carry on conversations with oneself.

“
I ought to go. There are
things I need to look at.”

“
Do not forget to speak to
those whom you must.”

“
Yes, thanks. Fly away
now….” She saw her own smile in the hazy face, as small wings
unfurled and carried the small figure up beyond the smoke and
ruin.

She looked beyond the
fires. It was time to deprive them of fuel. She walked through the
flames, feeling the intensity of heat and pain, and came out on the
other side. It was still night there, but the stars were out, and
crickets sang. This was the place. It had been too easy to hide
from that night for so long, to keep the memory contained on this
burning atoll.

Her feet moved on their
own, guided by her unspoken directive. There were other ghosts yet
to be faced. These had been real men and women, who had crowded her
dreams on endless nights. She moved through familiar landscape;
wispy and dry prairie grass, ankle high pricklypear, loosestrife,
and pigweed. The moon was full, as ever, as it had been. Gemini and
Cancer were center in the northern horizon. She knew why she had
noticed it then. It was a stupid detail to have clung to. She had
already told Fergus to leave by then. One more regret. There was a
long list.

۞

Julieta had been running for an
hour when she’d seen the lone figure at the far end of the track.
She squinted, seeing a female form with long black hair. Hmm. Not
who she’d been hoping to see, but she slowed and stopped as she
came around the turn anyway.

“You are Julieta?” The other woman
was not human. Her skin was like alabaster, painted all over by
lacey purple veins. “I apologize, my name is Sa’andy Madoc.” She
held out her hand.

“You. You’re the one? I
thought…nobody told me you were here, on the Nimitz.”

“Ah, yes. I asked to keep that
quiet. Selective information sharing, you know. I thought it might
be time for us to talk, however.” She smiled. Julieta felt a pang
of loneliness roll through her midsection. How long had it been
since someone had looked at her like that and meant it?

“Has any information come through?
Mrs. Han started having trouble with her channel.”

“Sorry about that. My fiancé might
be the reason for that. Rather, he’s had to put that into place
after what happened with the doctor.”

“Right. I guess we should have
figured that out. Who’s your fiancé?”

“Station commander.”

“Shit.” Julieta was suddenly
nervous and pissed. She tried to decide what her next move would
be, but Sa’andy held up a hand.

“Don’t worry. He doesn’t know
everything, but he’s getting there. He will be on the right side of
things once he does, though.”

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t have the
luxury of waiting around to find out for sure. We’re going to have
to get the hell out of this place before things get out of
hand.”

“I think it may be too late for
that. We have it from a reliable source that Warden has sent an
operative. Here.”

“Damn it. How long
ago?”

“This individual may have left
Earth approximately when you did.” Sa’andy felt the other woman’s
surge of alarm. It was palpable.

“Someone could be here, on the
station…right now?” Julieta felt the exhilaration of logging seven
miles fade away, leaving a sick pit in her gut. “How much do we
assume they know?”

“The doctor sent a detailed
message about everyone who was on that container. We can only hope
that they don’t know about you and Wallace.”

“Like that’s any comfort? Jeez. Do
we know anything about this ‘operative’?”

“The only thing I could pick up
was that a cruise ship stopped here, and a day or two later, found
a dead woman on board. She’d been killed in a way that suggests it
was done by someone who’s done it before.”

“Oh my god….” Julieta sounded
aghast. Sa’andy opened her mouth to elaborate, thinking Julieta was
reacting to the news. Then she frowned, seeing Julieta looking off
into the distance over her shoulder. Sa’andy turned. Four security
personnel were walking up to them.

“Sorry, Dr. Madoc. Colonel wants
you and the young lady here to come with us back to Ops.” A gunnery
sergeant was the lead; unmoved by their questions, he and the
others led the two women on their way.

۞

It was a long walk back to the
operations forward deck. For everyone. Tark directed the others
into a conference room, while he and Dmitry closeted themselves in
his office.

“This is a charlie foxtrot of the
highest order.” Tark hardly knew where to start in the process of
unscrewing the situation.

“Ya think? What else did the
general tell you, by the way? I know you’re holding
out.”

“She’s still
operating under the theory that this container story is a blind for
something else. Those guys weren’t wrong about some shadow group
maneuvering, though. The kinds of strings that would have to get
pulled to
erase
an identity…wipe out a DNA record, I mean, that’s crazy on
its own.”

“Mithraic Alliance, though? Have
you ever heard of it?”

“No. Not that my lack of knowledge
indicates anything. General also says that this Kun fellow is
clean, but here’s the kicker. Mrs. Han is his sister.”

“Interesting. I suppose that
explains a little, and creates about a million more questions. How
the hell are we going to handle this? I know we said we’d shelter
these people, but we’ve got a whole flipping station packed to the
gills to think about.” Dmitry was pacing back and forth. He
couldn’t help it. Too much adrenaline left unspent.

“I know.
And
you
know that
over half of this place is filled with men and women who took an
oath to defend….”

“Yeah, against all enemies,
foreign and domestic.”

“It’s the domestic part that’s
giving me agita right now.” Tark rubbed his sternum. “Or it might
be that I haven’t eaten since early this morning.” There was a
sharp rap at the door, followed by the customary request to enter.
It sounded like the gunny Tark had sent to track down Sa’andy. He
unlocked the door. Gunny Thabano was standing practically inside
the doorframe. Dmitry choked back a chuckle; the guy must have had
his nose to the door.

“I hope you had
success, Thabano.” Tark shot a stern look over his shoulder to
Dmitry, and mouthed to him;
stop
laughing
!

“Yes, sir, we did. We located Dr.
Madoc, and the other female.”

“Quick work. Well
done.”

“It was no difficulty, sir. They
were together at the running track.” Together? Tark was beginning
to be unsurprised by anything, and was glad they were both in one
piece. His fiancée, on the other hand, was still apparently
declining to divulge everything. It was time to lay everything on
the table. If he was going to help, he needed to know
everything.

“Very well. I need you to send a
detail to Mrs. Han’s theater, the guys there will need a relief.
Hand deliver this to her as well.” He gave Thabano a tablet. The
other man looked at the device dubiously. “Humor me. I’m going to
be hard on the side of caution for a while.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Dismissed.” Tark returned the
gunny’s salute. Thabano exited, barking out orders to his
subordinates, and left with the kind of intense purpose that Tark
loved to witness. “I guess we’d better get this dog and pony show
organized.”

“What about Maeve?”

“I’ll leave that up to you.” The
two men, longtime friends, stood face to face. Dmitry searched for
something reasonable to say; Tark held up a hand. “Look, I don’t
know what your long-term plans are with her….”

“Whoa, slow down.”

“Let me finish. I’m only trying to
say that, whatever you decide to do, whatever she decides to
do…she’s had a good effect on you. And possibly vice versa.” Tark
decided not to mention that he thought his friend might possibly be
in love. That sort of philosophizing usually only sent Dmitry into
panic mode. Better to let him figure it out for himself.

Dmitry was trying to avoid the
question of anything serious in his mind. The sensation of being
gut punched on first seeing Maeve lying in a bloody mess had not
gone away. He’d simply allowed undiluted rage to cover up the
emotional reaction. The rest was left to sit and repeatedly remind
him that he wanted to go and be with her. Possibly it would be
easier to ignore this insistent voice if Tark had not just
suggested the same thing.

“Let’s get it over with.” He
followed Tark out the door.

They crossed the vast space of the
operations deck. Dozens of men and women attended to the myriad of
data, algorithms, communications traffic, and countless other
details pursuant to the smooth functioning of the Nimitz. Not one
of them had stopped to cast curious glances at the strange parade
of unfamiliar faces earlier, nor did they interrupt their work
now.

Tark breathed deeply, wondering
how long this illusion could hold up. He and Dmitry walked into the
conference room. In contrast to the tranquility without, everyone
in the room was worked up. The noise level rose and fell,
particularly when they noticed that the station’s commander had
rejoined them. Leif sat on the far side of the room. Wallace was
nearest the door. Probably best if those two kept their
distance.

“Alright. We need to get
everything out in the open.” He leaned on the large persimmon wood
table running the length of the space. “I want to help. I can’t do
that if I’m operating in the dark.”