Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series (34 page)

Chapter 22

Makkon turned off the engines after guiding the ship into the giant cargo elevator that would take them into the bowels of the moon. He had entered through a cave in the side of a glacier, one impossible to see from the air. The ship’s lights played across the striated white, blue, and gray layers of ice that made up the wall behind the elevator.

“Hunt leader Makkon here,” he said, the comm set to the home channel. “I need a ride down.”

“Welcome back, Makkon,” came a woman’s familiar voice. President Shenta. Makkon wouldn’t have expected her to operate the elevator or answer his hail. There must have been a meeting going on in headquarters—probably to discuss the four Fleet ships now entering orbit around the moon. “Do you have Brax and the others with you?”

Makkon grimaced. He dreaded explaining that the others had been locked up and awaited the military’s arrival. Even though he had a hostage, he felt that he had failed. It almost would have been better to have been locked up with the others—or killed in battle—than to be the lone man to return home in their only ship. By taking the craft, he had denied the others a way off the station, should they somehow manage an escape.

“No, ma’am. It’s a long story, but not, I think, a hopeless one.” Makkon risked looking back at Tamryn.

She had been glaring spear-sized icicles at him the entire flight to Glaciem, and he didn’t expect to find a kinder expression on her face now, especially not after he had implied that she might be mauled by people desperate enough to become rapists. His people were desperate for food, not brood stock, but he doubted she would believe anything he said right now. He would bluff any way he could to salvage this mission, but she had no way of knowing it was all a bluff. And he wasn’t sure he should admit to that, in case she had the opportunity to talk to her father again.

Her father. That had been surprising, especially since the article on him had said he was retired. Makkon didn’t know anything about the man, other than that he had not gone weak-kneed at the sight of his daughter with an enemy hand wrapped around her neck. Still, his presence here should mean that Tamryn wouldn’t be dismissed as just another junior officer. He would fight for her life, to have her returned safely. Makkon only hoped that he would
deal
for that too.

Tamryn rubbed her eyes and yawned. She had dozed off toward the end of the flight. Now, she avoided his gaze and looked past him to the wall of ice. Makkon wanted to say something encouraging, tell her not to worry, that she would see her home again, but nothing about her expression said she was open to hearing anything from him.

With a
grind-thunk
that emanated through the walls of the ship, the elevator descended. Makkon turned back to the controls. Outside, the layers of ice were replaced with rock and crystal, the ancient silicate that made up the crust of the moon. After descending hundreds of meters, the elevator landed with a soft thump as the rock wall was replaced by a wide, high tunnel that he could have flown through to an underground hangar. But this was their only ship these days, so there was no need to move it out of the elevator.

“Welcome to Glaciem,” Makkon said, waving at the soft lights lining the stone walls. Half of them were off to conserve energy, and he had to admit his home looked more like some ancient crypt than someplace to take a woman for a visit.

Several figures were already approaching down the corridor, so Makkon pushed himself to his feet. He knelt in front of Tamryn to untie her ankles. He half expected her to kick him—or try. He resisted the urge to reach out a hand to stroke her calf as he loosened the knots. She would not welcome his touch, not now, and perhaps not ever. Still, however she felt, his feelings for her had not changed. Indeed, when he thought of the way she had kept Captain Porter from locking him in that decon shower and microwaving him to death, Makkon wanting nothing more than to pull Tamryn into his arms for a kiss. He wished he could show her how much he cared, how much her loyalty meant to him, and that he understood she’d done as much for him as she could.

“Mind if I ask a favor?” Tamryn asked.

“Anything,” he said, looking into her face.

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before speaking. Maybe she hadn’t expected such a heartfelt response. And maybe he should have tempered that response with wariness. If she asked him to let her go, that was an “anything” that he couldn’t grant.

“I need to pee before being transferred to whatever prison you have in mind for me.”

He wanted to deny that he had some dark jail cell waiting for her, but even if he offered her his own room, wouldn’t she see it as a prison? There was nothing luxurious about Glaciem, especially not these days.

“A reasonable request.” Makkon pulled out the fob to her flex cuffs. He pressed the button to release her wrists and dipped it back into his pocket.

He didn’t miss that her keen eyes tracked where they went, especially the one that controlled the collar. He smiled, certain she would keep trying to escape. He would not expect anything less.

As he rose to his feet, intending to lead her to the lavatory, he couldn’t resist reaching out to touch his hand to the side of her head. He longed to stroke her hair, but he knew the gesture would not be appreciated. And he was right.

“Thinking about female fertility, are you?” she asked, her eyes hard.

“No.” Reluctantly, he lowered his hand. “Just you.”

She rose to her feet, bracing herself on the wall, her legs probably numb after being tied to the chair for so long. He wished she would have braced herself on
him
. But she only pushed past him and strode to the back of the cargo area, hunting for the lavatory.

He directed her to it and opened the hatch while waiting for her to finish. A cool blast of air brushed his cheeks as the ramp descended, the icy touch and recycled air of the tunnels familiar. It felt as if he had been gone much longer than he had.

Tamryn took a while, and he wondered if she might be scheming up some means of escaping, though he couldn’t imagine what she would do in there. As he stood by the hatch, debating whether to wait for her or go out and meet the president and their military leaders, she finally came out. She wore the same determined expression as she always did, but a hint of moisture filmed her eyes, and he could smell the saltiness of her tears as she drew closer.

Makkon’s heart sank. He hadn’t seen her cry yet, not as a soldier being chased and shot at, nor as a prisoner with little hope of escape. Did she think her time here would be so awful? Maybe she thought he had been lying to her all along and that she truly had to fear rape and brutality here.

He opened his mouth, though he didn’t know what he could say to assure her that she wouldn’t face anything like that. Before anything came out, someone called to him from the bottom of the ship’s ramp.

“Makkon?” The president stood down there, her gray hair pulled back in a bun, a fur shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She looked from him to Tamryn, a confused furrow to her brow. The other men and women who represented the modest Glacian government stood around her, including Commodore Arkt, the highest-ranking military leader who had survived the war and had been chosen for the limited cryogenics chambers.

“Yes, ma’am.” Makkon walked down the ramp, waving for Tamryn to follow.

She stared at the collection of people, people who would mean nothing to her. A few carried what would seem antique rifles to her, most of them firing bullets instead of lasers, but Makkon didn’t think any of them looked overly militant or brutal, not like the young warriors who had been sent along on the infiltration team.

“What happened?” the president asked.

“More than we anticipated. We had most of the station subdued, but a pirate attack allowed things to get out of hand. And then there was a biological emergency, some alien organism capable of killing anything it comes in contact with. With all of this going on, the scientist civilians had time to figure out a way to escape and knock most of us out with gas through the vents. We were captured, and I was the only one who got away. I would have tried to rescue the others, but the Fleet ships showed up before I had a chance.” Makkon waved upward. “Clearly, the fact that they brought ten warships proves that they have no intention of working with us. If they brought terraforming equipment as part of a backup plan, I’m not aware of it. I didn’t see any freighters among their ships.”

“No,” Commodore Arkt said coolly. “We scanned the ships in our sensor range, and they’re all warships, as you said. You escaped without the others, Makkon?” His voice was full of condemnation, and his gaze flicked toward Tamryn again. He had to be wondering why he had brought some woman along.

“I wanted to make sure we at least got the food that we took from the station.” He pointed toward the cargo bay, where the crates had been loaded. “It ought to help some. And also—”

“Help? A little food? We need the means to make our own food, or all is lost.”

“I know, but we’re not finished yet. I brought Lieutenant Pavlenko here as a hostage. She comes from a wealthy family, who should be willing to negotiate with us to get her back. Even if the military isn’t willing to provide terraforming equipment, it’s possible her family will.” Makkon tried not to imagine Tamryn’s eyes boring into the back of his head.

“Kidnapping and extortion?” the president asked with a frown.

“It’s not so different from our original plan.” Makkon tried not to feel as if they were all judging him. “And I recovered this.” He held up the black recorder the pirates had been using to steal Captain Porter’s notes. He had checked it on the flight here and knew they had recovered a lot of data. Since he had no engineering or linguistics background, he did not know what much of it meant, but he hoped it would prove useful to his people. “Here, Nartz. This may interest you.” He tossed the device to the president’s science and engineering adviser.

Nartz, a lanky man with brown skin and braids of graying black hair, caught it with one hand. “What is it?”

“Information on faster-than-light engines. If we can’t get help with terraforming, maybe we can figure out how to leave this system and find a new place to start over. An easier place.” One without Tamryn? Makkon forced the thought to the back of his mind. He didn’t see any way that his life could include Tamryn, even if he stayed in this system. A depressing thought, but he didn’t know how to fix it.

“Interesting,” Nartz said, “but we won’t have the resources to do anything with the information. We wouldn’t have been able to get into space if that hadn’t crashed on our doorstep last year.” He waved at the mining craft.

“I’m sure you can do something with it. You and Dornic—” Makkon bit off what he’d meant to say. Dornic was Nartz’s nephew, and Makkon had no idea if he was even alive still.

“You’re a hunter, Makkon,” Nartz said with a scowl. “You shouldn’t have tried to be anything else.” He frowned down at the black device. “We’re not going to be able to do anything with this.”

“We could barter for resources, along with terraforming equipment.”

“With what?” Commodore Arkt asked. “One girl?”

Hardly a girl, Makkon wanted to say, but if he started defending her, they would question his motives in bringing her down here. Glaciem wasn’t tied in to the system-wide network, and nobody here knew what a finance lord was and exactly how much wealth one might have.

“I have a feeling,” President Shenta said slowly, “that we should ready ourselves for an attack, or at least an infiltration. If the girl is important, they’ll want her back. We would have been better off using her as part of a deal back on their station, with all of the other civilians and their research. Bringing her down here...” She sighed. “Makkon, you led them to our doorstep. Before, they didn’t know we existed. Now they’ll know right where to send their weapons.”

“They’re not going to attack with her here,” Makkon said sturdily. He hoped he didn’t sound like he was trying to convince himself. He wished his leaders would at least seem open to his ideas and that they wouldn’t be quite so abrasive. Normally, it wouldn’t bother him, but he was aware of Tamryn looking on. He wanted to appear to be a respected warrior in front of her, not some idiot being chastised by his people. “Her father is an admiral on one of the ships up there.”

“All the more reason they’ll be planning ways to get her back, probably by eradicating us permanently this time.”

“Then we’ll fight them.”

“With what weapons?” Arkt demanded. “We gave everything we had to your attempt. We have nothing left. Nothing.”

He and the president walked away, the others following them. Makkon tried to believe his plan could still work, but he couldn’t help but feel they were right, that he had done nothing but make mistake after mistake on this mission, and that he had doomed his people.

Chapter 23

Tamryn followed Makkon through the big corridor, not because he had tied her up or was forcing her anywhere, but because she had nowhere else to go. After his people—his leaders—had berated him and stalked away, he had stared after them for a moment, looking like a lost puppy, then started walking.

Maybe she should have been pleased that his plan had been rejected, that his people had been disappointed in him, but instead, she felt the urge to console him. She hadn’t been such a perfect cadet that she’d never received a dressing down, and she knew how rotten it made a person feel. This had to be a thousand times worse for him.

The sound of laughter drifted toward them from a side corridor, the noise odd in what felt like a subterranean military complex, a very cold one. Three children ranging in ages from perhaps eight to fourteen raced into view. They wore threadbare clothes, despite the cold, and looked like they could use a good meal. A lot of good meals. The oldest, who was in the lead, almost bumped into them.

“Uncle Makk,” the youngest blurted, a girl with pigtails. “We heard you brought food. Is it true? Are there any sweets?”

“I didn’t check the sugar content of the boxes, Elesa,” Makkon said, smiling, though the gesture did not reach his eyes. “If you go unload the cargo, you’ll be the first to find out.”