Kidnapped (19 page)

He answered softly, with a sinking feeling that if he ever saw her again she'd be changed into someone else, a new willing tool to the Alliance, "I love you too, Sweetheart. Take care of yourself. Don't trust anyone, especially her. I'll be back for you. Stay alive."

Straightening up, he sighed and left, followed by Veronica's soft laughter, and he heard her exclaim, "I like him much better like this. Now, you and I are going to have so much fun while we wait."

*****

As soon as Travis left, Veronica dismissed the guard as well, making an impatient little gesture with her hand, and Patricia thought sarcastically she must have kept at least some of her aura of harmlessness. No one feared being alone with her.

When the door closed behind the guard, the other woman's manners changed a little. She relaxed and raised an eyebrow, "You look like you think I'm going to eat you. I don't know what he told you, and most of it is probably true anyway, but I don't bite. Much."

She seemed amused by her own joke, got out of her chair and gestured to Patricia to follow.

She didn't want to go, but saying a thing like that didn't seem like a grand idea, so she got to her feet and walked after the other woman obediently, wondering why they were going towards an empty wall.

Veronica put a well-manicured finger towards a switch, so well hidden Patricia would never have known it was there, and all of a sudden, the wall in front of them just disappeared, revealing more shining white walls, a white leather sofa, a thick white rug and a futuristic table. "Come, sit down, we have so much to talk about."

Patricia doubted that, and when she sat down, she felt as if she'd disappear in all the white. She was still wearing the uniform she stole earlier, and she got a mental image of it just fusing together with the sofa and her body being swallowed by the room like an object disappearing in snow. If Veronica noticed the little bout of paranoia she didn't show it. She leaned back and asked something Patricia was completely unprepared for.

"How do you do it? I'm sure he has some good qualities in there somewhere, I guess, maybe, but how do you stand that face?"

It was the last thing she'd expected to be required to talk about, and she blinked a couple of times, caught completely off guard. Her mouth answered before her brain started working again, and she wanted to kick herself for being stupid when she accused, "Well, from what I hear, you wanted it that way."

She expected the other woman to get angry, but Veronica just laughed a little. "Touché. But you didn't answer my question. And how did you get him to do this, to become this way? I must know your secrets."

Trying to look like a gossiping friend didn't come easy to the Alliance woman. She was trying, but to Patricia it looked as natural as a cat posing as a dog. The words made her want to groan. Everybody wanted to know the secret, but there wasn't one. She still answered as honestly as she could, "The face scared me at first, then I started to feel sorry for him, and after a while I stopped seeing it. I just love him, there's no why or how to that."

Veronica smirked and dropped the subject, and after a few moments in silence, Patricia asked bluntly, "What do you want from me?"

The Supreme Commander leaned her head a little to the side, as if evaluating her. "Isn't that evident? You are leverage. As long as I have you, I can make him work, and he's not completely useless."

When she reached out to put a hand on Patricia's shoulder, the younger woman found it difficult not to shudder. Veronica seemed scarier when she acted nice, and her words sounded like an elaborate speech.

"You know, the Alliance isn't really the big bad wolf here. It exists to protect the little backwaters planets like, well, like yours. People like William Reynolds are annoying, but completely unimportant in the big picture. Still, he must be caught as an example."

Patricia looked at her hands and said slowly, "I don't believe you."

Veronica laughed softly. "My dear, innocent girl, why would I be lying when telling you the truth is so much more entertaining?"

It almost seemed sincere, but Travis' warnings not to trust anyone were fresh in her mind, and she just shrugged. "If you were good, you wouldn't snatch people away from their homes and brainwash them, would you?"

If anything, Veronica seemed amused. "He told you about that, did he? Well, it's a necessary evil. It's a big and bad world out there, and if people had the choice, they wouldn't exactly be lining up to give their lives to defend it."

In spite of everything, Patricia had the unnerving feeling the other woman was telling the truth, at least sort of. She thought about it, and asked slowly, "So, what's out there that's so bad?"

The other woman smirked. "Would you believe you're the first one to ask me that question? Maybe people on your planet have developed good reasoning skills."

Those words made no sense at all. Patricia stared blankly, and the Supreme Commander shook her head slowly before she continued, "Oh come now, don't tell me you haven't even thought about it? Do you really think humans would evolve on many different worlds all over the galaxy looking just the same?"

Patricia had almost forgotten about Veronica's hand still resting on her shoulder, but now she ran it down her arm, caressing her. "You're so precious. So naïve."

She let the arm go, and lifted a lock of Patricia's hair away.  "The ancients, our ancestors that established the Alliance, planted DNA on worlds all over the galaxy. We've all developed a little differently, and the people on your planet got there fairly recently, but we're basically all the same. If we weren't, that child you're carrying could never have come to be, could it?"

A chill went down Patricia's back; how could she know about that already?

Her face must have given something away, because the Supreme Commander smiled, and her eyes glittered. "I know everything. Well, almost everything, I suppose he did manage to keep you hidden for quite a while, but as I said earlier, Travis isn't completely useless."

Chapter Nineteen

Even if he wasn't sure how it happened, Patricia's surprising appearance had bought Travis new time to think of something, and his mind had been going through and rejecting ideas ever since he left Veronica's office. He would not get any more chances. This was the last one, and he'd have to get everything right.

When he chased after the Redeemer it was with heart and soul, but for a completely different reason than the Supreme Commander had in mind, and he wondered why she hadn't been more cautious with giving him this freedom. He supposed she was too sure of herself. Even after everything that had happened, the very idea of him actively taking sides against her was probably too farfetched to seem realistic. He wasn't supposed to be able to do things like this, but the changes he'd undergone went much deeper than his superior could fathom.

*****

William sat on the bridge of the Redeemer, bent over a number of maps of Alliance installations, when Garth came running in. The large man had been getting out of shape lately and was panting, and had to stop to catch his breath before he could talk. "Someone... Someone's following us."

Raising his eyebrows, the rebel leader replied casually, "Well, put it on screen." There were people following them all the time, and the crew should have gotten used to it by now.

Isabela went over the communications console, flipping a couple of switches until the big viewer in the middle of the room came alive. She frowned a little, "Isn't that Travis's ship?"

Garth nodded, almost breathing normally again, and exclaimed, "Why can't that cursed man just die?"

Those words made his Captain stare at him and admonish, "Now Garth, what way is that to talk about the nice Commander who let you hurt him? We should find out what he wants."

Just as he said that, a light started to blink in front of Isabela, almost as if it was timed, and she commented, "He's sending us coordinates. Seems like he wants to meet."

William got up to look, frowned, and said thoughtfully, "Would someone please go get Aaren."

*****

It was nearly impossible for Travis to be inconspicuous. Anyone who saw his face would know who he was and remember it, and even though he had put on a hooded coat, he stayed in the shadows as he snuck into the dusky bar where he hoped to meet up with the rebels. William and Aaren sat waiting for him in a booth, and when he joined them, Aaren exclaimed bluntly, "I heard you were executed."

William sent his second-in-command a sideways glance, asking, "Really? And when were you going to tell me about this?"

Aaren shrugged, "Well, he's here, isn't he?" while trying to look as if his negligence was beside the point.

Travis shook his head a little, trying not to let his impatience show, and William asked pleasantly, "So, what can we do for you today Commander? I trust you need help with
something
since you're here?"

Trying to smile didn't do Travis much good, it came out as a grimace, but his voice was still calm when he answered, "Veronica has my girl. I want her back, and I want you to help me."

Patricia had told him about Aaren's friendship, but he still wasn't prepared when the other man hit his shoulder and exclaimed, "You really didn't see that coming? What did
you
think would happen? I realize you're socially incompetent, and I can't understand how she puts up with you, but I didn't think you were stupid, too."

William looked surprised, but Travis didn't feel offended; Aaren had a point and he had been an idiot not to act sooner. The rebel leader pointed out, with dark sarcasm, "Well, she'd still be safe on our ship if someone hadn't teleported her away, wouldn't she."

Aaren leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and grumbled something unintelligible as Travis started to outline the plan he'd been working on during his time alone in space. When he was done, the greying computer specialist stared at him and asked quietly, "Just so I get this right, you want to use us as a decoy, and you want me to manipulate Central's computer to advise Veronica what we want her to hear."

Travis nodded, and Aaren stated in a final tone of voice, "Can't be done."

Lifting an eyebrow, Travis asked coolly, "It can't be done, or you can't do it?" which made Aaren start counting the things making it impossible off on his fingers. Travis interrupted him with an impatient, "Well, can you come up with something better?" and William eventually waved to both of them to be quiet, asking bluntly. "What's in it for us?"

William wanted to help Patricia. He liked the young woman, but there were too many unknown variables in this to make him feel comfortable with the plan, and he wouldn't put the crew at unnecessary risk regardless of his own emotions. He didn't think Travis was luring them into a trap, it didn't feel like it, but it seemed much too dangerous for everyone involved. There were way too many things that could go wrong.

Shrugging, his old enemy answered, "Well, except for the pleasure of helping Patricia and yours truly, if all goes well you'll have Veronica stranded on a planet where you can do whatever you want to her. Imagine the disorder in the Alliance if the Supreme Commander disappears, or dies, when there's no clear successor."

William leaned back and sighed. He supposed these were as good reasons as any that made them take risks. Beside him, Aaren was looking at his hands, muttering, "I don't know how I can possibly make this happen."

Looking up, he added, "I'm not afraid to try. I'm afraid to fail."

*****

Far away in space, the gigantic station known as Central spun slowly around its own axis. The days went by one by one, turning into weeks, and Patricia was pretty much left alone. Veronica called on her from time to time, usually just to tease her, but that novelty seemed to pass quickly, and Patricia started to think the Supreme Commander might forget about her. Surely, someone commanding all those forces and having her finger in virtually everything would have better, or at least other, things to do.

She was securely locked up with a guard outside the door, but it wasn't being confined to the little room that made her miserable; she was getting used to that treatment by now, and this room was much better than some of the others where she had been. She was homesick and lonely, and feared for herself, Travis, and the baby, and it didn't get better by being terribly morning sick every day. She was sure the Alliance would take the child away from her as soon as it was born, and she knew she had to find a way to get out of this mess soon.

At first, she'd been afraid Veronica would make her see an Alliance physician, but after a while, she grew more afraid of it
not
happening. She worried about getting all the nutrition the baby needed, and was almost superstitiously afraid it might not be growing the way it was supposed to. Maybe they would take it just out of spite,  or maybe they would take it to condition it to become a new great commander. Either way, she couldn't allow it to happen. At least they were all still alive. She kept telling herself that, clinging to any hope she could find.