Contact (27 page)

“I did not know the ship’s maintenance files were part of the program.”

Ben looked as if he were going to faint. Jordan worked at keeping her panic from appearing in her face. So far, all Dillon had gotten her were the maps, which had served her well tonight. But the goal was to find out their current location in space with respect to Earth, so they could find their way back home, if they had to. If survivors remained.
Don’t lose heart, not yet. Keep quiet and hear out what she has to say
.

Trist appeared mildly surprised when Jordan didn’t offer a defense. She glanced around to see if anyone was listening in. Then she checked her wrist computer and belt comm, as if to make sure they were turned off, and her voice dipped to a private tone. “
I
created your education database. I know how you found your access and what you look at, because you used
my
files and codes.”

Once more Trist glanced at the bar’s entrance, as if she expected someone to arrive at any minute. Jordan prayed it wasn’t the ship’s security team, and that spying wasn’t punishable by death.

“Relax.” Trist spread her hands on the table. She wore tiny silver bands on all her fingers. “I have known what you see and do for a long time. I not worry. You stumble onto those records while using the education program, yes? You did not do on purpose.”

Jordan took the hint. “That’s right.”

Trist shook a finger at them. “Bad refugees,” she scolded with a hint of dark humor. “Always causing trouble. I will have to keep watch for now on. As if I do not have enough to do. In fact I have so much to do”—her sly red eyes shifted from Ben to Jordan and back again—“I will not notice if your snooping continues.”

“You’re not going to stop us?” Jordan couldn’t help asking. “Why? Why help us?”

“Not help. A favor.” Her smile epitomized the word
inscrutable
. “I do you a favor, then someday you do one for me, yes?”

“What can we possibly give you? Or do for you? We have nothing.”

Trist’s red eyes glinted. “You have more than you know, Jordan.”

Jordan sagged in her chair, her thoughts spinning. What had just transpired here? Trist told them that she’d look the other way with regard to their hacking, and Jordan had agreed to the terms—a favor for a favor; a future one, but what? She was just beginning to wonder if she’d sold her soul to the devil when the devil himself stormed into The Black Hole.

Kào was out of uniform. Long-sleeved, his dark blue shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and reached to his waist. If he raised his arms over his head, she suspected he’d expose his navel and some nice abs. The pants fit snug, making it easier to imagine the long, lean legs underneath.

It took him a moment to search the crowd, but when his eyes met Jordan’s, he pushed his way through. When he saw that she shared a table with Trist, astonishment and disapproval hardened his cold features.

“Security,” he said into his comm as he walked up to their table. “Call off the search. Targets found.” Then he
lowered his comm and narrowed his eyes at Trist. “You called me on my private channel.”

“Yes. Otherwise the entire security squad would have stormed over here,” the linguist explained glibly. “I suspected you wanted to find them first.”

“I did. But I didn’t expect to do it here.”

Jordan couldn’t tell if he was angry or hurt. Or both. “You look . . . different,” she said.
Different? Lame, really lame, Jordan
. Blame it on sleep deprivation and her lack of fluency in Key.

He smoothed one wide hand over what Jordan decided looked like dark blue hi-tech, up-scale sweats. “It is not my usual attire,” he admitted in a curt tone. He glared at Ben, who looked as if he wanted to sink into the floor, and then at Jordan. “Perhaps we should start with the simplest question first. What are you doing here?”

“Easy question? I have easy answer,” she retorted in his language, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was waiting for
you
.”

“You were waiting for me?” Kào wouldn’t have conjured this scene in a thousand standard years: Trist sharing a table with Jordan and her second-in-command . . . in The Black Hole.

“Yes,” Jordan replied in accented Key. “Trist tell us you come here.”

“Trist,” he growled warningly. A waitress glided up to the table to take his order.

“Sit down, Kào,” Trist said.

Everyone stared at him expectantly. He exhaled and sat down. “Water,” he said. The waitress shrugged disapprovingly and walked off.

He folded his arms across his chest. He noticed that Jordan hadn’t fished out her translator. It meant that Trist must have been speaking in English. He envied the linguist her skill, for he found the translators bothersome but necessary.

Jordan cleared her throat. “I need to talk to you, Kào.”

At the sound of his name on her lips, his chest felt strangely tight. The unaccountably intimate tone of her voice made him think of moonlight and kisses. “It wasn’t necessary to go to these lengths to do it,” he snapped. “It could have waited until the morning.”

She appeared stung by his terse manner. He shouldn’t take out on her what he’d learned from his father, but he wasn’t the even-tempered, logical man he once was, it seemed. She fumbled for her translator and dug it out. “Sorry, but what I have to say I can’t yet in Key.” She took a deep breath. “When I first came on this ship, you offered me the chance to watch a recording of my planet’s destruction. I didn’t want to then. I don’t want to now. But I have to. Tonight.” Her voice shook, and her partner stared at his hands.

Kào couldn’t fathom why they’d want to view the holo-recording when their discomfort at the idea was so obvious.

Trist watched the unfolding scene, her red-eyed gaze speculative.

Jordan focused on Kào. “You told us that the entire population of Earth was wiped out. Gone. But what if there was an error in your assumption? What if your readings of that comet were faulty? What if it didn’t happen at all? All we have to go on is what the commodore told us.”

“Do you think he lied to you?”

“I don’t know. Would he?”

Kào read the translation. It was not an error; her insinuation was just as appalling the second time around. “You’re new to the Alliance, new to its heroes. You don’t understand who Moray is.” It was difficult to imagine anyone not knowing. But her world had been an isolated one, well outside the confines of civilized space, an unusual circumstance in its own right. “This ship, the
Savior
, is named for him and his heroic efforts. The commodore is a great humanitarian.
It’s an insult to imply otherwise.”

Ben shifted in his seat, his jaw muscles flexing. Jordan, wan and silent, observed him uneasily.

“You see, the commodore is a man of integrity. Of honor and courage.” He did not pull his gaze from Jordan’s. “He is also my father.”

She made a sound of surprise. Or was it dismay? “He’s your
father
? The commodore?”

“Yes. But his deeds transcend any relationship we might share. The evacuation of the Ceris Six space colony, for instance. It happened years ago, but it remains the event most associated with the Moray name. As fate would have it, he was nearby on patrol when the Ceris distress call went out. Of the thirty thousand inhabitants, more than half were lost in a massive explosion. But he coordinated the rescue of the rest, on his ship, and on others. He was credited with saving twelve thousand lives. Twelve
thousand
! I believe that powers beyond our comprehension see his strength and generosity and place him where he’s needed. Like it was with your Earth, Jordan.”

“There’s no denying that he’s a hero, Kào.” Her expression made it clear that she was still recovering from the bombshell of Moray being his father. But her words proved her desire to find out what had happened to her world. “Still, if there’s a chance Earth wasn’t completely destroyed, we want to go back to rescue survivors. I have to see it, the recording. I have to know.”

She sought the eyes of her second-in-command. “Ben and I, we both do—so it’s not just one person’s word, one person’s opinion, on what happened to Earth.”

She’d gotten her hopes up for nothing. The recording would simply cause her pain. But he couldn’t deny her the request. Viewing the holo was her right. He rose, suddenly weary. “Are you coming along?” he asked Trist.

The linguist appeared surprised that he hadn’t excluded
her. But she’d kept Jordan and the purser out of trouble. Inviting her to join them was the least he could do. Only he never imagined she’d accept.

“I will come,” she said in her husky voice.

Filled with misgivings, Kào led the group from the bar.

“This is the viewing room,” Kào said as they followed him into a plush, dark, chamber. “Lights.” Lighting embedded in the walls came on slowly, a rich, soothing glow.

“The system is set up much the same as the holo-arena,” he explained. Jordan’s gaze flicked to his, a blush tinting her cheeks. He felt the answering heat in his loins. He’d been thinking of her incessantly. Her eyes told him she’d done the same. But they couldn’t have more things conspiring to keep them apart.

“Let’s get it over with,” Jordan said and joined Ben on the couch.

“Lights off,” he commanded. “Show holo nine-alpha, four-two-one. Earth.”

The walls fell away. They floated in simulated space, stars all around them. In the dim light, Kào could see Jordan reach for something to hold. It was Ben’s hand she found. It should have been his.

Earth showed up in the center of the forward viewing screen. “Look,” he heard Jordan murmur. Taking out his translator, Kào read her words. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice was hushed, poised on the edge of pain.

“It looks whiter than I expected,” Ben commented.

“Cloud cover. I thought it’d be bluer, too, though.”

“We’re not used to seeing it from space.”

“True.”

They spoke to cover their apprehension, Kào knew. As they remarked nervously upon their home-world’s appearance, he paced behind the couch for the very same reason. It was worse for him, for he knew what was coming. He’d
seen the textual description if not the event itself. He knew she’d be watching the nearly simultaneous destruction of billions of people, one of them her child.

But if this was what it took to put her past permanently behind her, so she could move on, then watch it she must. Jordan’s steadiness had been an anchor for him, allowing him to dwell less on the dark memories and more on the here and now. Tonight it was his turn to be there for her.

Kào stole a glance at the time counter on the bottom left area of the forward screen. Any moment now. He tightened his abdomen.
Three, two, one
. . . .

A white-hot streak plunged into Earth’s atmosphere. There was nothing at first, then a blinding flash from the surface, near the equator. A massive shock wave rolled outward, across the equator, to the poles, bringing unimaginable destruction.

“Oh, my God.” Jordan muffled a cry. Kào fought the almost overwhelming call to go to her. But she had made it clear she wanted her distance from him. He respected her enough to give it to her.

Ripples of devastation spread outward from that first, enormous impact, one that would have challenged the planet’s survival on its own. But the attack from the cosmos wasn’t over. If there was ever a doubt in Jordan’s mind that those on the
Savior
had deceived her, or that survivors had been left behind mistakenly, what followed would end those false hopes as brutally as the comet had ended life on her planet.

There was another bright streak, and then another. The comet had broken up, and now the fiery tail of debris came in fast and hard. Fragments of rock and ice glanced off the atmosphere, blood-red slashes.

Lashes.

Lashes from a whip. Jaw tight, stomach knotted, Kào paced faster, his hands fisted behind his back. He felt the
paralyzing sting of every one of those impacts, as he’d felt them once across his back, chained naked on a cold, filth-stained floor, kneeling in his own waste.

He glanced up, his breaths ragged. Jordan sat as still as a statue, watching the aftereffects of the collisions. The planet’s cloud cover glowed incandescent orange-red now, reflecting the massive firestorm far below on the surface.

Running, terrified, the ground burning the soles of his shoes; he couldn’t find his mother, his father, couldn’t see, blinded by light that was as hot as fire and seared his eyes, his skin
—

A guttural sob yanked Kào from the flashback. Not Jordan’s, but Ben’s.

In the darkness, the man stumbled from the couch. “Sink . . . where’s a sink?”

Trist pushed Ben to the sterilizer basin. He bent over, retching.

Kào strode to the front of the couch where Jordan sat, wan and still. “Well?” he demanded gruffly. “Have you seen enough?”

Her voice was quiet. Controlled. “Yes.”

He exhaled. Thank the Seeders. He wanted no more of this. “Lights. Computer—holo off.”

The walls went dark and the room’s lights came up slowly, like dawn over a battlefield. Ben hunched over the basin, the back of his hand pressed to his open mouth. Trist stood to his left, contemplating him. Was that concern in her cold eyes? Were Talagars capable of compassion? A shocking notion, to say the least, and one he’d have to consider further. But not now.

Jordan sat as still as a corpse. Kào leaned over her, hands on his knees. “Are you still in doubt?” he asked gently. The rings under her eyes were so pronounced that she looked bruised. “Would you like to see further proof? I can show the recording again.” He had to ask the question—if he
didn’t eradicate her skepticism, it would continue to sour their relationship like a festering sore.

“No.” Her voice was rough. “Thank you.” Her hands clutched the couch at either side of her hips. She was calm. Too calm. Her eyes were reddened, but he saw no tears.

He went to the food-and-drink dispenser, crouched on his knees to access a special decanter deep within the bowels of the storage chamber. Ah, there was still some Rig’s Burner left in the decanter. The clear blue liquid was vile, bitter, and powerfully alcoholic. The only times he ever bothered with the stuff was to dampen the nightmares that plagued him in the early weeks aboard the ship.