The Lazarus Particle (31 page)

“C’mon, let’s go find out what we’ve been missing.”

Torrey was the first to spot them emerging from the tall grass. The two of them were walking closely, their hands draped around each other’s waists. “Well, well,” he said, obviously a bit buzzed. “Look who we have here.”

“Baby brother! Where have you been? Come get drunk with us.”

Grinning, Torrey arched a brow suggestively. “I think I’ve got an idea where they’ve been. Or at least what they were up to, wherever they were.”

Alexia squinted through her buzz, her eyes scanning them both before making sense of their body language. Her lips spread into a wide, inebriated grin. “Baby brother got laid? Get the fuck out of here!”

At that, the two of them just smiled. They weren’t confirming, but they were hardly denying, either.

“Good for you, son,” Commander Harm said. He paused for a moment, puffing on a large cigar. “Not much point coming back from the dead if you don’t intend to live it up.”

“Help yourselves to the rest of the food,” Fenton said. “We’re stuffed.”

“Oh, and we saved a bottle for you,” Roon added.

The others lazed around the fire while Dell roasted kabobs of seasoned beef and lamb with fresh peppers, pearl onions, plum tomatoes, and zucchini—all acquired as a result of that fateful trip to Kalifka Bazaar—for he and Ohana. They ate them ravenously, having worked up quite an appetite at the cove. Afterward they licked the fatty grease from their fingers and shared the bottle of hooch the others had saved for them until they were every bit as stuffed and tipsy as their companions.

“Damn, that was good,” Ohana said, sighing contentedly. “Where’d you learn to roast a kabob like that, flyboy?”

“That man right there,” Dell said, singling out Commander Harm with one of his skewers. “Taught me everything I know.”

“Best student I ever had,” Commander Harm answered. “Like a sponge, that one.”

“Well, cheers to you both. I could get used to this.”

“Well, you shouldn’t, to be perfectly frank,” Commander Harm put in. “Victory rations come few and far between. Hence the name.”

“That’s not what I mean. The food was great, yeah.” She grew silent for several seconds, staring into the crackling fire before elaborating. “It’s just the corporate culture I come from, I guess. Command staff would never rub elbows with a couple of lowly flight officers like Dell and I. Just like Fenton’s discovery would never have earned him an officer’s commission, or even the slightest bump in pay.”

“Preach!”

“But you guys, you seem like the real deal. It’s kind of awesome. Inspiring, even.”

“Anytime you want to sign up, there’s a place for you on Gold Wing,” Commander Harm offered. The tip of his cigar flared bright in the waning hours like a fiery period on the end of his statement. “Guaranteed.”

“Gold Wing leads the way!” Dell and Alexia bellowed in unison.

“You mean that, Commander?”

“Absolutely. The way you ran that Tyroshi blockade was one hell of a piece of fancy flying. Or, if you’d like, we’ll provide the means to pursue your fate elsewhere.”

“Meaning?”

“Safe transport to your next waypoint. Some funds to tide you over. Least we can do for bringing Dell back to us. That was a gutsy move. Exactly the kind we value in Gold Wing, I might add.”

“Huh. Okay. I’ll let you know once I’ve given it some thought.”

“Take your time. We’ve got a week before we redeploy.”

“So, Fenton,” Dell wondered a while later after their little party had retired to a steep dune, the fire at their backs as they listened to the indigo-shaded waters lick at the shore.

“What’s on your mind, blood brother?”

“What do you call this place?’

Fenton made a face, scratching his head. “Huh. You know, I never really thought it through that far. After everything that’s happened over the last six months or so, I kind of still can’t believe I’m actually here right now.” He laughed, shrugging unaccountably. “Absentminded scientist, I guess.”

“I vote Fentonia!” Roon volunteered, giggling tipsily.

Groaning at the very sound of it, Fenton shook his head as vigorously as a dog shaking off water. “No, no, no. Veto.”

“Aw, but I like it.”

“How about Fenton One?” Ohana offered.

Dell knit his brows together thoughtfully. “How about…
Eden Prime
?”

“Eden Prime,” Fenton said, testing the feel of the words in his mouth. “I think I like it.”

Roon nodded enthusiastically. “Me, too.”

“Very apropos,” Soroya agreed.

So went the general consensus down the line.

“Well, then,” Fenton declared to a small forest of raised bottles, “ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the management, welcome to Eden Prime!”

31 • POLITICS

It was an enlightening exchange, to say the least.

Not so much that his stolen yacht had been used to deliver the high-yield nuclear device that destroyed the Tyroshi fleet in question. He had already worked out that sequence of events as a matter of course. It was the only loose thread connecting the two events, after all. The fact that at least one of his fugitives was somehow connected to the Coalition of Free Planetary Republics and the Free Planetary Irregulars, though—now
that
qualified as enlightening.

Naturally, his first thought was toward Fenton Wilkes. Certainly after six months on the run it was possible he had cultivated some affiliation with the coalition and their military wing. But plausible? Hardly. If that was the case, why had he not sought asylum and petitioned for citizenship? Instead, he had been captured alone, lightyears from anything resembling coalition space. It simply didn’t add up.

He felt reasonably assured in ruling out Ensign Cassel. She was taken under duress and nothing in her jacket suggested any coalition ties. By all indications she was a corporate patriot through and through.

Roon McNamara was more of a question mark. While her jacket gave no indication of coalition ties, there was a history of activism in her family. Moreover, the very nature of her position invited suspicion. She was on the payroll specifically to argue against Morgenthau-Hale’s best interests, most recently the speedy prosecution and interrogation of corporate fugitive number one. Perhaps if he had met the woman personally in the brief time she was aboard his station he might have a better read on her. That had been Garrity’s duty, however, and any insight his former XO had gleaned from her was lost, along with the man himself, during the Tyroshi bombardment.

By process of elimination, that left only one reasonable candidate: Xenecia of Shih’ra. The conclusion was self-evident yet still vaguely puzzling. Xenecia was a challenging individual to truly know, but he felt he had a reasonable grasp on her motives and methods. She was fiercely independent for a start. In many ways she was a wild animal, easily provoked and all the more deadly for it. He had learned that lesson the hard way. She was no more trusting than a wild animal, either. Again, lesson learned. But that only begged the question, why was she aiding the person she had worked so hard to capture? The obvious answer—spite at being cheated of her bounty and life bonus by hopelessly naive bean-counting bureaucrats—didn’t quite seem to wash. No, the truly obvious answer was as simple as any other fare she had accepted on behalf of Morgenthau-Hale: money.

That could only mean one of them had paid her, or at the very least promised to pay her. Obviously not Fenton; his accounts had been frozen for months. That left Miss McNamara. It took little more than a few keystrokes to bring up the screen monitoring her accounts; she was a person of interest, after all. Eighty-two thousand, six hundred and eighteen credits. No activity. He put a priority flag on it, ensuring he would be notified immediately if and when that changed.

A chime alerted him to the presence of a visitor outside. “Come ahead,” he called.

Captain Hondo strode into his former quarters with the air of a man conflicted. “Commander. A word?”

“As many as you deem appropriate, Captain Hondo.”

“Sir, it’s just that, this whole business about allying with the Tyroshi…”

“Yes?”

“Word is the crews are having some difficulty accepting it. Understandably, I think. Those scaly bastards blew the fuck out of our station. Our
home
, sir. My people had friends and family aboard that station just like anyone else. So did Itzin’s and Stannick’s.”

Commander Orth nodded. “I agree entirely. It’s far from ideal and completely unorthodox. But they have vital intelligence they are only willing to share incrementally, so unfortunately we have to play their game if we have any hope of uncovering the chain of events that led to the destruction, as you so aptly put it, of our collective home.” He allowed a beat to pass, holding Hondo’s gaze unflaggingly before adding, “Do we not owe that to all our lost?”

Hondo nodded slowly. “I suppose we do, sir. How are you going to sell Commander Trufant on this, though?”

“I plan to tell him exactly what he’ll want to hear.”

Within thirty seconds of reentering the system, they received an incoming transmission from Commander Trufant.

“So good of you to rejoin us, Commander Orth.” The haughtiness of his inflection was as affected as ever. It was even more visible on his face as it lit up the projection hub.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Commander Trufant. There were a few loose ends that needed tying up.”

“While I would love nothing more than to trade riddles with you, Knolan, I feel it incumbent to inform you that I have your Lieutenant Commander Bynes aboard. She’s currently receiving treatment in our medical bay.”

“Ngaya Bynes is alive?”

Apparently her shuttle had limped into the designated emergency evac point moments after Orth ordered the perimeter defense fleet to jump away. Besides having suffered severe burns to her left leg and side, the shuttle’s life support systems were badly damaged during the evacuation. Had Trufant’s fleet not been in-system, they almost certainly would have perished. For that, he owed Trufant his thanks. Moreover, he saw a way in which her abrupt and dramatic return might bolster his pitch to Trufant.

Within half an hour he was at her bedside, along with Commander Trufant and Captain Hondo.

“After you ordered me to declare the evacuation,” she began from her bed in
Leviathan’s
medical bay, her voice raw and scratchy, “we abandoned the command deck.” Most of her left arm and leg were swaddled in dense layers of virgin white gauze and bandages. She had been stripped of her uniform, scorched as it was, and given a genderless, overly starched gown in its place. The machine next to her bed pumped a steady stream of oxygen through the clear nasal cannula affixed to her nose. “On the way to the shuttle, something exploded in one of the corridors. Caught me, picked me up, threw me right into the bulkhead. Knocked me into a daze. I remember someone—no, two people grabbing me. Orson and Warfield, I think. They must have carried me the rest of the way.” Her eyes widened. “Are they…?”

“Everyone aboard your shuttle is doing fine,” Commander Trufant answered. “Most have already been treated and released.”

She nodded, breathing a tight sigh of relief. “Good, good. Anyway, when I came to, I was here.”

Orth squeezed her hand, genuinely moved by her presence. And he thought
his
escape had been a close call. “You handled yourself remarkably, Ngaya.”

“Except for the part where I got toasted like a marshmallow.” She smiled weakly but made a game effort to squeeze back nonetheless.

“Many of our people are alive because of your actions. You were able to compartmentalize your fear and act coolly and levelly in the face of tremendous danger. Considering all that happened on your first day on the job, I’d say you were damn impressive.”

“Thank you, sir. And make sure you thank Orson and Warfield for me. The more I think about it, I’m pretty sure they refused to leave me even after I told them to.”

“I’ll see to it myself. Now, get some rest, Lieutenant Commander. That’s an order.”

“Aye aye, sir.” She thumbed the morpho button at her side, sighing contentedly as liquid relief spread rapidly through her veins. After about thirty seconds her eyelids fluttered and she drifted into a heavy, drug-induced sleep.

“Tough as nails, that one,” Hondo said after she’d checked out of the conversation. “I like her.”

“She’ll have her own command one day, no doubt about it,” Orth agreed.

“Ahem.” Commander Trufant cleared his throat in an effort to reclaim control of the conversation’s trajectory. “You mentioned something about tying up loose ends, Commander?”

“I did.”

“That might be a conversation better had in private,” Captain Hondo suggested quietly. “These are some very loose ends we’re talking about here.”

“Very well.”

Trufant’s quarters were as much library as living space. Leather-bound volumes practically overflowed from his desk and the various shelves arranged around the generously sized room. A bronze bust Orth knew to be a representation of Trufant’s father—the late Admiral Armand Trufant II—loomed large as usual from the far corner. A macabre tribute, Orth had always thought. Even eyeless as the representation was, he couldn’t help but feel its gaze weighing upon him. Though perhaps that was its intended purpose.

“So,” Trufant said as he settled behind his desk, making a steeple of his fingers. “Loose ends. Tie them up for me.”

Orth wasted no time, coming to the heart of the matter immediately. “We have recently been in contact with the fleet that destroyed my station.”

“Now is not the time for jokes, Knolan. Surely you must know that.”

“It’s true, sir,” Captain Hondo said.

“We reached an accord.”

“An accord?” Trufant gaped.

“As I said.”

“And under whose imprimatur did you broker this accord? I don’t recall any mention of an accord in my orders.”

“Sir,” Hondo started, “it’s complicated—”

“I don’t believe I was speaking to you, Captain,” Trufant said sharply.

“You’ll not speak to this man like that in my presence. I will not allow it.”

“You won’t
allow
it?”