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Authors: Lisa Paitz Spindler

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BOOK: The Spiral Path
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“Agree with what?” Mitch walked up behind her, his gaze scrutinizing each of their faces.

Lara’s mother gave her a blank stare and held her tongue. Evidently this opportunity for diplomacy belonged all to her.

Lara cleared her throat. “The prime minister and her cabinet want to send in their own search mission, Commodore. We need to know the
Interlace’
s last known coordinates.”

Mitch squared his shoulders. The man clearly had no idea how much he revealed of himself just from the tension in his posture. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that at this time. You know that, Captain.”

Lara nodded. “You’re going to have to tell me at some point. I’m not going to let you take my ship in blind. I know you were hoping the
Interlace
had ended up here somehow, but we haven’t been so lucky. What’s the difference if you tell me the coordinates now?”

Sabine stepped closer. “If you like, we can retire to a more secure venue, Commodore. I understand the need for discretion.” Her mother clasped Lara’s hand but looked at Mitch. “The Chimerans belong to the Creed as much as they do to Terra. We won’t just sit back and wait for you to solve this problem.”

Lara chafed at the idea of belonging to anyone. How could she ever make her mother comprehend that?

“I understand your distress, Madame Osai. We’re doing everything possible to find the
Interlace.
Rafe is a close friend of mine. Believe me when I tell you that I am very personally motivated to find him.”

Fear and frustration twisted inside Lara, making her insides lurch. Mitch knew where her brother had been last and wouldn’t tell anyone. Sooner or later, Mitch would have to tell her what kind of mission the
Interlace
had been conducting. She let go of her mother’s hand. “‘Personally motivated?’ Does your sister still live in New Tokyo, Mitch? What if she disappeared tomorrow? Would you call your desire to find her ‘personally motivated?’”

Mitch’s gaze darted around the room. “Lara, don’t do this. Not here—”

She stepped right up to him, her nose maybe an inch from his chin. “Know this. The
Gryphon
isn’t going anywhere until you give me those coordinates. I’ve had it with this classified-information crap, Mitch.”

She’d already gone too far, but the words just kept spilling out of her. “I can lock your crew out of the
Gryphon’
s systems with one word.
We
can stay here for as long as it takes to get what I need to find Rafael. You’ve got less than a week before your molecules disintegrate.”

Mitch’s shoulders tensed up as the whole room quieted. The walls and her thoughts crowded her. She wasn’t the same hotheaded kid who walked out on Mitch all those years ago, but one more minute in his proximity and she might say something no diplomacy could repair.

Lara turned and snapped open the rest of the buttons on her jacket. A few quick steps brought her to the yacht’s threshold. When her breathing slowed, she found herself on the dock, but the sounds of water lapping against the ship were unable to drown out the ferocity of her words.

Why was she always so volatile around the man? One or two words from Mitch could arouse such venom, and her self-control simply vanished near him.

Lara gulped in the briny air. Climbing vines and plants covered every available vertical space on a Creed pod, and Nessa was no different. Blooming flowers swathed the balustrade, all of them edible. Each detail reminded her that Creed was a beautiful world so different from Terra, where she had spent most of her childhood. Their parents wanted her and Rafael to grow up on Terra without the trappings of royalty and public office they’d have had to navigate on Creed. They visited as frequently as they could, though.

“My sister lives in Francisco now.” Mitch’s baritone easily blotted out the sound of water splashing against the dock.

He’d come after her. Lara sensed his presence behind her, his body blocking the breeze off the water.

“She remarried last year. Some guy who makes art from reclaimed metal. He seems to make a decent living at it, but all of his pieces just look like scrap to me.” Mitch splayed a hand on her back and its warmth beckoned her, but she resisted the urge to rest against him. She feared even to look at him.

Mitch leaned on the railing next to her and gazed out at the dark water. “I was supposed to be on the
Interlace,
but I protested the Chimeran segregation. Rafe wanted me to drop it, but I couldn’t.”

Lara’s breath hitched and she rested her head on Mitch’s shoulder. Rafael might very well be lost to her forever. Mitch could have been trapped in that netherworld too. She didn’t want to admit that both men mattered so much to her. Somehow they had to get past their old arguments.

Wait. Her mind whirled, piecing together Mitch’s words. “You protested the Chimeran sequestering on the
Interlace?

Mitch nodded. He clasped her hand and his strong fingers massaged the tension out of her palm. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you, but you were right. I’ve been working on relations with Creed for years. I’ve lived here on Creed off and on for a long time but couldn’t continue much longer. So I requested a command and received the
Interlace.
I noticed the way the Terran crew members distrusted the Chimerans. Your warning came true. Then the
Interlace
went missing. I pressed to investigate and here I am.”

Lara thought her mouth might be hanging open. “You see the discrimination now?”

“Do I need to repeat the whole story? You stopped listening at ‘you were right,’ didn’t you?”

“I never expected to hear it from you.”

Mitch chuckled and stared out at the water. “I’ll give you that.”

Lara relaxed against him, let Mitch and the railing hold her up. Just for a few seconds, she promised herself. This was the Mitch before the edict. How long would it last?

“I don’t want to be right about this.”

Mitch turned her chin up and his warm breath caressed her cheek. “The Union isn’t all bad, Lara. We’re not all so afraid.”

The weight of everything pressed in on her—Rafael being missing, Mitch’s time on Creed, and her own fight for Chimeran independence. Lara hungered to melt into Mitch, into the solidness of his chest. She deserved a few moments of respite.

Her voice came out a whisper. “I know.”

If he’d been on the
Interlace,
this chance she had right now would have been lost forever. Lara turned toward him and let her body soften. Some distant, scared voice inside her yelled, but she ignored it. Mitch had defended the Chimerans.

Lara stretched up on her toes and brushed her lips across Mitch’s. For a second he didn’t react. Was this a mistake? Suddenly Mitch’s arms wrapped around her, anchored her to this moment. Her mouth parted and Mitch didn’t hesitate, his tongue meeting her own. His warmth spread through her, settling deep in her belly.

When the people of Creed cast off from the land, they’d gambled that the soon-to-be unspoiled forests would save them from rising poisons in the air. They’d gambled and won. Lara gambled now, hoped this reconnection with Mitch was not a mistake. That he wouldn’t disappoint her again.

In this moment Lara couldn’t really think about losing Mitch again. Didn’t want to think about losing her brother and the man she’d loved for years at the same time. As always she was determined to bend the world to her wishes. Somehow she would find her brother and set the world right again. Mitch stood here right now, real and tangible—an opportunity not to be ignored.

Lara pressed closer to Mitch, yearned to pull him down onto this very dock right now. They’d wasted so much time, so many years of being apart.

Through her closed lids she sensed an intense bright light and her skin tingled at a crackle in the air. A rumbling boom shattered above and they jerked apart. Above, a wormhole vortex bloomed open low in Creed’s atmosphere, its shimmering swirl hypnotic.

Lara clasped Mitch’s hand. “Can Terran ships jump through that low?”

Mitch backed up from the balustrade and pulled her along with him. His grasp still connected them, but his face showed a blank mask. “No.”

Almost a hundred tiny ships swarmed through the maelstrom, buffeted by the Creed cloud cover. Mitch’s shoulders tensed and Lara feared what he was thinking.

He let go of her hand and rushed back up the gangway.

She chased after him. “Mitch, what’s happening? What are those?”

He stopped but didn’t turn around. What did he know that could sever their close connection of moments ago? “The
Interlace’
s escape pods.”

He jogged away from her, back up toward the yacht and the prime minister.

If the crew had made use of the escape pods, then the
Interlace
must have been destroyed. Certainly a portion of the crew must have been injured and some might even have perished.

Was Rafael among them?

Chapter Seven

Interlace
Chief Petty Officer Sean Timms swiped the air at a figment only he could see. “Your brother got us out, ma’am. Without him, all of us Terrans would still be stuck with the Revenant.”

Lara glanced up at Mitch across Timms’s hospital bed. “Commander Soto negotiated your escape?”

Timms nodded while his eyes darted around the room. His Union blacks had been replaced with an exam gown that billowed every time his body shifted out of phase, which was every few minutes. For hours after their arrival, most of the
Interlace
Terrans appeared incoherent and in pain. For some their phase had stabilized, but others continued to shift.

“Oh yes, he talked to them.” Timms scrunched up his face. “At least I think he did. I can only remember bits and pieces. At first they held the senior staff on the bridge.” He let his head fall back on the pillow. “They kept—they kept asking questions.”

Lara narrowed her gaze on Timms. How much could he be trusted? “What sort of questions?”

“About how we got there.” The chief pulled at his hair. “And sometimes pain. There was this white energy that they shot into our bodies, in our mouths and ears. It was suffocating. They kept asking questions we didn’t understand.” He sighed. “You say we were in the wormhole?”

Mitch cleared his throat. “For sixteen days, yes.”

“Sixteen days?” Timms’s eyebrows shot up. “How is that possible?”

Lara moved away and paced. She scrunched up her eyes to block out images of Rafael being tortured so. “We were hoping that’s what you could tell us, Chief Timms.”

Timms shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Mitch shifted in his seat next to the bed. “Can you describe the ‘Revenant,’ Chief?”

Timms frowned. “There was more than one. Sometimes they seemed solid, but often they were—were—I can’t think of the word.” He cupped his hands over his ears. “Shifting phase. That’s it. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The whispers never stopped. They seemed to control the exotic matter.”

“But you saw Commander Soto alive?”

“I’m not sure you’d call that existence
living,
sir, but yes, Commander Soto was there. He stayed behind. He could talk to them. All the Chimerans could, but they seemed to like him the best. Especially one. What was her name?”

Lara turned back toward the bed. “Her?”

The chief bit on a nail. “Yes, female. I think her name was Cal—Cal-something. Calendra.”

Lara whispered the name to herself. A Creed name? One from a childhood fairy tale and a particular favorite of Rafael’s.

Timms shifted to nearly transparent for a few seconds and then solidified. He shivered, pulled the covers up to his chin and murmured to himself.

When the man recovered a bit, Mitch shook his hand. “Thank you, Chief. Please get some rest now. We may return later with more questions.”

“Anything.” Timms glanced at Lara. “Anything for the commander’s sister. He talked about you, ma’am. Said you could help.”

Lara started to reply, but Mitch motioned her into the hallway.

He waited for two doctors to pass them by and whispered low. “What do you think Timms meant by the ‘Revenant’?”

“I’ve heard the term before, but in a children’s story. Calendra is an old Creed name. Can we trust anything he or the other Terrans say? They were stuck between phases for over two weeks. We have no idea what kind of toll that takes on their bodies or their minds. Clearly Timms is only partially coherent.”

She had to hope that a rescue wasn’t already too late. She clenched a fist, wishing she could share her twin’s pain.

Mitch caressed her arm. “It would be just like Rafe to secure their release ahead of his own. I hate to think what he sacrificed to make that happen.”

Lara nodded but couldn’t meet his gaze. “I need to know those coordinates, Mitch.”

Rafael might be in pain right now. Was Timms telling the truth about seeing ghostly beings made of light or had his mind been damaged in the wormhole? No one knew the effects of long-term wormhole exposure.

“We have to be careful. I don’t want a repeat of what happened on our trip here. I can’t go off searching for the
Interlace
with half the crew incapacitated.”

“Who knows what kind of torture Rafael could be living through right now? My brother is living in agony for the lives of the Terrans here in this hospital. Does the Union value Chimerans so little that they’d leave them to suffer?”

“You know that’s not true, especially of me. Don’t start jumping to conclusions.”

Lara pointed a finger at him. “Then why are the coordinates classified? Why hasn’t the Union sent out a fleet of ships hunting down the
Interlace?
Why haven’t you released the logs to me?”

Mitch rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve told you everything I can right now.”

“Bullshit, Mitch. You said you understood how the Chimerans have been treated differently and I believed you. I should know better.”

She stepped away, but Mitch grabbed her arm before she could walk very far.

“I do understand.” His dark eyes narrowed and he glanced down the hall. “This way.” He pulled Lara into an empty exam room. Supply carts were stacked against one wall and heavy drapes pulled over large windows. A sliver of golden sunlight speared through the gap between the curtains.

Finally. Lara crossed her arms. “Tell me.”

Mitch sat on the edge of an empty bed. “I can’t tell you everything.”

Lara turned to leave.

“Lara, wait. C’mon, you’re not part of the Union anymore. You’ve made that clear. Do you want me to betray the Union? I really can’t tell you everything, but there are a few details I can share. I’m trying here. Are you?”

Lara turned, let her arms fall wide and leaned against the closet. “You’re not giving me much to work with.”

He sighed. “The
Interlace
was on an experimental mission. We’re not ready to fill the Creed in on the nature of their expedition.”

“You have to now. This is no longer a search mission, but a rescue. If the rest of the
Interlace
crew is being held against their will by this ‘Revenant,’ we can’t go after them alone. It’s suicide.”

Mitch slid off the bed and wandered to the window. His back to her, he opened the drapes, and warm orange light glowed around his tall form. Her ire melted on an exhale, and melancholy wrapped itself around her heart. Deep down, Lara needed Mitch to trust her even if that meant betraying the Union, but he would lose her respect with that disloyalty. The Union still meant more to him than she did. That hurt, even if her expectation was unfair.

Taut shoulders revealed a body filled with tension. Unlike all those years ago, the man was now caught between two worlds. Mitch still needed to preserve order, any kind of order. In his book, order equaled peace. Eleven years ago, he would not have even tried to find some common ground, but now he reached out to her as far as he could.

She owed him the same in return. Years ago, for a little while at least, they’d been happy, living in their little apartment by the canal. If the Chimeran decree had never happened, they might have stayed together.

Lara crossed to Mitch, wrapped her arms around his chest and rested her cheek on his back. Listened to his heartbeat. Mitch settled a hand over hers and interlaced their fingers. On a sigh he turned in her embrace and pulled her close.

“I want to tell you everything,” Mitch whispered in her ear, and a dam broke, flooding her insides with yearning. He kissed his way from her brow to her lips. “I wish I could.”

His touch became more insistent as Lara wound her hands under his jacket. They moved as one across the room. The edge of the bed brushed against her thighs just before they fell onto it. Mitch tugged open the collar of her jacket, hesitated for a moment when he noticed she still possessed the triple-star tattoo there. He caught her gaze and his lips quirked in a small smile before he kissed the mark. One hand slid down her thigh and pulled her leg over his hip.

Did Mitch still have the same symbol on his neck? The three of them had gotten those tattoos at the end of a long celebration after passing their midshipman examines. Ale may have dampened the needle pricks, but not their bond. No matter where they went after the Academy, they’d wanted to stay connected. She’d never had the guts to have hers removed.

Lara kneaded the warm, smooth skin of his back and wanted to believe him.

Her commlink pinged on the
Gryphon’
s executive channel. Mitch dropped his forehead to her shoulder and sighed. It pinged once more before Lara caught her breath and tabbed it on.

“What is it, Rossa?”

“Sorry to bother you, Captain, but the countess and the defense minister have been asking after both you and the commodore. They’re requesting a meeting as soon as possible.”

Mitch sat up and ran his hands through his hair. On a deep breath he seemed to mentally gather himself. He turned to her, a look of resignation on his face. “Tell them we’ll be at the yacht in twenty minutes.”

He’d been about three minutes from getting Lara out of her clothes. Out of that damned leather jacket. Nearly telling her everything.

Lara studied the holotablet, ignoring him. Mitch yearned to tell her the whole truth and bit his lip to keep the words from tumbling out. The door shifted and the prime minister entered with a few cabinet members following. Lara had been right. Mitch was going to have to tell them everything and find a way to live with himself afterward.

With pleasantries out of the way, Sabine wasted no time in getting to her point. “We’re sending out search parties, Commodore Yoshida. Without your assistance, the search for our Chimeran children may take some time, but we can sit still no longer.”

Mitch considered all the frustrated faces in front of him, which included Kade and a handful of Osai’s cabinet. “Relations between our worlds have been amiable for almost forty years, Minister, but we do not share all our activities with each other.”

Sabine took a seat next to her daughter. “Continuing to withhold the last known location of the
Interlace
will strain Creed’s friendship with Terra, Commodore. This should be no surprise to you.”

Lara set the holotablet aside. “Perhaps we can find some sort of middle ground?”

Sabine regarded her daughter. “What are you suggesting, Captain?”

Mitch clenched his jaw to keep his mouth from falling open. Lara Soto was willing to compromise. Despite all the chaos surrounding their situation, he’d maintained peace and order by keeping his own counsel. Lara lived by her own rules, however, and right now Mitch wasn’t sure what those rules were. Had he ever known?

Lara looked him in the eye. “What if you appointed an intermediary? Someone both of you trusted, plus one other Creed.”

“You, I assume?” Mitch moved to the window, his surprise barely in check. “Who else?”

Lara nodded. “Myself and the prime minister. No other Creed need know the location. They trust me to act in their best interests. A few Creed ships could accompany the
Gryphon—
under your command—on a rescue mission.”

He stared out the window. “The Union doesn’t want to be responsible for the welfare of Creed lives, Captain. Neither do I. Why are you comfortable with this arrangement? I didn’t think you cared any more for Creed than you do for Terra.”

“As I pointed out earlier to you, Commodore, this is no longer simply a search mission. The Chimerans on board the
Interlace
are being held prisoner by a group called the Revenant. This is now a rescue mission. Even I’m not arrogant enough to think the
Gryphon
alone can take on what must be a fleet of Revenant ships hiding out in a wormhole somewhere.”

Mitch clasped his hands behind his back. “We don’t have time to retrofit Creed ships the way we altered the
Gryphon.
Since this incident, the wormholes have been unstable. It’s too dangerous.”

Sabine glanced at Kade. “You underestimate how quickly we can recondition our ships, Commodore.”

“You know I’m right, Mitch.”

He shrugged. “If you’re wrong, this could cost me my career.”

“It’s worth the gamble to save forty-one lives, yes? To save Rafael’s life?”

She might as well have punched him in the gut. He was responsible for the whole situation. They’d both wanted to restart those long-ago experiments, but Mitch set Rafe on the path that led the
Interlace
disappearing. A maelstrom spun around him, whirls of confusion beyond his control. As had always been true, Lara Soto was an agent of chaos.

Now his carefully laid plan had fallen apart because Lara had seen her brother in the wormhole. What if it hadn’t been a hallucination and Rafe had managed to contact her? Right now he could be suffering. Mitch had to give them something.

Just not everything.

“I want your promise this information won’t go any further than the two of you.”

Lara smiled. She’d expected him to capitulate. “You have it. I want the
Interlace
comm logs too.”

Mitch nodded. Sabine motioned the cabinet members out of the room with a twist of her wrist. This was his best shot at getting Rafe and the rest of the
Interlace
crew back, so he had to take the risk.

He would die trying to fulfill his promise to get them free.

BOOK: The Spiral Path
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