Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series (13 page)

While leaning against Anise’s back, ensuring she could not move, Makkon slung the strap of his newly acquired rifle over his shoulder, then fished something out of his pocket and flicked off a cap. A syringe with a needle. A jet injector would have been more practical and could have held multiple doses, but Tamryn found herself staring at the moistened tip of the needle. Somehow it seemed far more ominous than an injector.

“Faster reflexes too,” Anise said, her words muffled since her face was mashed against the wall. Her glasses had fallen off, hanging on a slender chain around her neck.

“So I’ve seen.” Tamryn pushed herself to her feet. She glanced behind her, wondering if running would cause Makkon to release Anise in order to chase after her. Even if it did, she doubted she could get far. He would have time to run her down, fling her over his shoulder, and return before Anise had taken five steps.

She looked in his eyes, searching for... she wasn’t sure what. His gaze was intense and for her only, but it lacked the warmth that had been on his face briefly back in Comm and Control. He was probably irritated that she’d escaped, and that he’d had to waste time hunting her down again. Well, she was irritated that he’d found her. Didn’t he have any other duties to attend to?

“Inside,” Makkon said.

He was watching her too closely. Running would be pointless. Tamryn could have stabbed herself in the hand for leading him to Anise and then again for putting up such a poor fight, but all she could do now was hope for another opportunity to escape. Next time, she would know to hide her scent. If she could find a suit of combat armor that fit her, that might do it.

Makkon waited for Tamryn to go in first, then forced Anise in after her. He directed them to the table.

“Sit.”

Tamryn was surprised he didn’t try to turn on the lights. Or maybe she wasn’t. Was low-light vision another of his superior senses?

Tamryn eased onto a stool at the table, one close to the door. It didn’t matter. Makkon stood between her and the exit, his brawny arms folded over his chest. Anise sat next to her.

“Tell me about these artifacts,” Makkon said.

Anise wilted slightly under his intense gaze and dropped her attention to her hands, which she folded on the table. Tamryn wanted to tell her not to explain anything, but Anise was the higher-ranking officer; she had to make her own decisions. In the end, it probably did not matter what she chose. If Makkon had drugs, he would get the information he wanted. Even if that was a bluff, and the syringe held nothing but water, he could make them talk eventually, one way or another.

“I’m afraid that would be a traitorous act in the eyes of the Fleet,” Anise said slowly, studying her hands instead of looking him in the eye. “My superiors would not look favorably upon me if I willingly gave up information to terrorists.”

A muscle ticked in Makkon’s jaw. “We’re not terrorists.”

Anise looked him over for the first time, showing more gumption than Tamryn would have expected in her frank head-to-toe examination. With his long black hair, the dragon tattoo, and his bare, muscled arms, he certainly didn’t look like a soldier or some noble warrior.

“No?” Anise asked. “What are you, and what’s your purpose here?”

Makkon walked around Tamryn’s back and stopped behind Anise’s shoulder. “I’m the one asking the questions. Now tell me about the artifacts and what you’re studying here.”

“I told you. I cannot willingly—”

“It need not be
willingly
.”

Before Tamryn registered the movement, he’d pushed down Anise’s collar and stuck the needle into her jugular.

Tamryn cursed aloud, almost more alarmed by the heartless jab than she had been by watching him shoot Captain Ram.

“Not a terrorist?” she asked. “Really?”

His gaze flicked toward her, but his features were masked, and she couldn’t guess at his thoughts. It made her shiver to think that she had been standing in his embrace not an hour earlier, letting him touch her.

Once his drug had been delivered, Makkon removed the needle and pocketed the syringe. Before stepping back, he held up a fresh syringe and looked at Tamryn. She glowered back at him. She didn’t know why he would want to bother with her when he had Anise, but he was deliberately letting her know he had another dose.

Makkon rested a hand on Anise’s shoulder. “Care to tell me about your work, Captain?”

Tamryn hadn’t realized he knew her rank or anything about her. Or maybe he had simply been standing outside the door and listening since Tamryn had arrived. Deeming that all too likely, she wished once again she hadn’t been such a fool. Running straight down here when Anise had thus far evaded the searchers...

“What work would that be?” Anise asked slowly. Her eyelids flickered, and one corner of her mouth twitched several times. She seemed to be trying to resist the effects of the drug, but after a moment, her face settled into a placid easy-going expression.

“What are you studying here?” Makkon asked.

“The alien language, of course,” Anise said happily, turning on her stool. She seemed surprised to find someone behind her, and her eyes widened as she took in Makkon’s stern visage.

Tamryn hoped seeing him would remind her that an enemy was questioning her, that sharing information with him wouldn’t be a good idea. Maybe her natural fear of the intruders would cancel out whatever amenability the drug had induced in her.

Anise lifted a hand toward Makkon’s chest. He tensed, watching her through slitted eyes, but he did not move back or stop her.

“Well, you’re a handsome specimen, aren’t you?” Anise asked.

Ugh, so much for fear. Anise didn’t appear alarmed at all. Indeed, she smiled up at Makkon, as if she couldn’t wait to please him.

How could Tamryn put a stop to this? Under the table, she slid her hand toward her pocket. Makkon had taken her rifle, but she still had the folding knife. But with his reflexes, it would be pointless to try using it on him unless something extremely distracting had his attention.

Meanwhile, Anise was perusing Makkon with open interest, as if she were out at a bar and shopping for a prospect to take home. Knowing Anise, it was probably scientific interest rather than sexual interest, but an unwelcome bit of possessiveness rose up in Tamryn, especially when Anise started running her hand over his chest, then squeezed his arm.

“How many generations removed are you from the original modified humans? You’re still stronger and faster than normal humans—I could tell that from the videos I saw. Quite alarming what you were doing to my colleagues.” Anise’s mouth turned downward for a moment, but her expression brightened again almost immediately. “But it’s so fascinating that you’re here. Everybody thought—well, the history books tell us—that all life was destroyed on Glaciem a century and a half ago. How did your ancestors survive? All of the animals died off; when our people started researching down there, all they found were a few scraps of DNA. Were you in some of the tunnels down there? They must have been very deep.”

Tamryn watched Makkon’s face, curious about his background, even if she was contemplating ways to stick a knife into the man. Would he answer Anise’s burbling? Was Anise right about her assumptions? She seemed certain, but Makkon didn’t give anything away.

He removed her roaming hands and took half a step back.

“Tell me about the alien language,” Makkon said. “What is it? Why is it important?”

“It’s a special engineering language,” Anise said brightly. “We’ve only just discovered it. The ancient aliens had three languages that archaeologists have known about for centuries. When the FTL engine was discovered, our researchers assumed the schematics and information recovered would be in one of the known languages, but they were wrong. The schematics were annotated in an all-
new
language. New to most of the system, at least. But one archaeologist had seen it before, and he came forward with information, with pictures of the ruins under the ice of Glaciem, ruins that were dug down to and investigated almost two hundred years ago. Before the moon was rendered uninhabitable.”

“You mean before it was nuked nearly into oblivion,” Makkon said through gritted teeth.

“Yes,” Anise said cheerfully.

“Explain this engine. FTL? Faster than light? Humans haven’t figured that out on their own yet?”

Yet? Tamryn frowned, again confused as to the way he phrased some things, as if he was an utter outsider who knew very little about the workings of the rest of the system.

“Alas, we have not. So many hypotheses over the years, but the energy requirements. Tremendous! And the prototypes. So many fatal accidents—so many lives lost. You’d have to talk to an engineer for more details, but you asked about the engine.” She smiled playfully and made a swatting motion. Makkon was too far away from her to be swatted, and she almost fell from her stool. He caught her and righted her again. She gazed up at him adoringly.

Tamryn curled her lip. She wasn’t sure what was more alarming, that the drug had turned Anise into a flirt, or that this was the way Anise flirted.

“Yes,” Makkon said. “Go on.”

“Last year, in another part of the system, another remote planet out here on the rim, a group of treasure hunters discovered an ancient alien ship-building facility, one nearly empty but fully intact, unlike with all of the ruins sites in the system, which are most assuredly
ruins
. The facility held something that had been sought after for centuries but which we never knew if we’d find. Two faster-than-light engines.”

Makkon’s face was as hard to read as a slate wall, but Tamryn felt herself intrigued by and drawn into the possibilities, despite their situation. She had come down to Anise’s lab numerous times, but had never asked what she was working on, having been told as soon as she arrived that Captain Porter’s work was top secret.

A faster-than-light engine. Humans had been trying to build an FTL drive since before this system had even been colonized. People had long pointed out how much easier it would be to explore the rest of the galaxy—and return to Old Earth to see if its people had survived—if a ship with such power could be built.

“The engines soon disappeared,” Anise went on. “One into a private collection, and I believe Fleet has the other, though I’ve only seen schematics. If one could call them schematics. We’re mostly mystified on the engines’ workings. But in studying them, I noticed independently of the archaeologist I mentioned that I’d seen some of the parts used in the engine before, in photographs from an old alien ruin site here. After bringing my findings to headquarters, I was allowed to lead a team of archaeologists back here, to Glaciem. We hunted down the original ruin site again, in a tunnel deep under the icy surface, and we brought artifacts and examples of their
fourth
language up here to study. This special engineering language must be deciphered if we’re to one day understand how the engines work and also how to copy them to build our own craft. Linguistics is my background, and I studied the three known alien languages in my undergraduate work, so I’ve had the honor of being the primary researcher.”

“Why stay here?” Tamryn wondered, almost forgetting Makkon as the story unfolded. “Why didn’t your team take the artifacts and language samples back to the core worlds, to one of the universities, where pirates and other threats—” she glanced at Makkon, “—wouldn’t be a problem?”

Anise chuckled and smiled fondly at Makkon. “Oh, there would be threats aplenty at a major university, the constant threat of thieves and spies, and the inquiries from the press would be tedious, if not dangerous. But as to why here, we’re still pulling up artifacts, for one thing. We’ve got three archaeologists down on the moon, hunting for more. Enough time has passed since the bombing that it’s safe to stay on Glaciem for short periods of time, if one can survive the weather.”

“Glad to hear it,” Makkon said dryly.

“Also, Fleet originally thought that it could keep this a secret, that nobody flew out this way, so nobody would see the activity and wonder. Of course, it did not take long for someone to blab, and for pirates to start visiting us.” She looked at Makkon. “You were unprecedented.”

He didn’t respond. What did he think of this talk of engines? Did he care? Was he intrigued? Tamryn had no idea what his people wanted here, but whatever it was, might this be a better prize? At the least, he would have something more than personnel to barter with when the government showed up.

Tamryn rubbed her face, hoping they hadn’t just given him critical information, but afraid they had. Also, thanks to Anise’s drug-induced burbling, Tamryn had put enough pieces together to make some guesses as to Makkon’s heritage and his origins. The last time descendants of that wave of genetically altered humans from the ninth century had roamed the system, they had taken over a fleet of ships, several space stations, and three planets. They had been well on the way to ruling half of the system before they had been stopped. But supposedly, all of those people were long dead. So where had Makkon’s team come from?

“Where are these FTL engines now?” Makkon asked, stepping closer to Anise again.

“I told you; I don’t know.” She leaned toward him, threatening to topple off the stool again. “But I
do
have copies of schematics in the vault, as well as some pieces of hulls from one of their ships. The metal alloy is original and fascinating. And I’m making great progress on the language.” She hopped off her stool and planted her hands on his chest, beaming a smile into his face. “It’s very possible that the secret to building a faster-than-light engine is right here on this station!”

“Well, that explains the pirate activity,” Tamryn muttered, trying not to look at the way Anise was now leaning against Makkon’s chest, as if they were fast friends—or maybe more. It was stupid that it bothered her, and she fully acknowledged that, but it
did
bother her.

Just because it was annoying to see one of her people cozying up to the enemy and divulging all of their secrets, she told herself.

“Open the vault,” Makkon said. “Let’s see.”