Allie's War Season Four (113 page)

Feeling the evasion there again, I once more had to fight to control my anger.

“...And I don’t like it when my husband withholds information from me,” I said, sharper. “Or when he uses my own damned head of infiltration as his ally to that end. Especially when it clearly has something to do with our primary objective right now.”

Balidor clicked under his breath.

He averted his gaze as he did it, but I saw the caginess return to his eyes and his light, even as he focused past me a third time, probably watching Dalejem, assuming he hadn’t disappared from view entirely by then.

“‘Dor,” I said, my voice more exasperated than angry that time, and maybe even a little hurt. “Are you really not going to tell me? I’ve all but ordered you to...and Revik, too. That fucker, Dalejem, told me more than either of you...and he didn’t tell me much, either. What the hell is this about? Are you really going to buck the chain of command on this?”

“Are you giving me an order, Esteemed Bridge?” Balidor said, looking back at me.

“Would it make any difference?” I said, nearly incredulous as I watched his face.

Balidor hesitated again.

In that pause, I heard the boat returning to the dock. Jorag, who was at the wheel of the thing, waved at me, his teeth flashing out of the dark in a grin once he saw us both standing there. I felt relief on him, too, even from this far away, and realized no one had probably told him why I hadn’t gone back to the ship with Revik.

Exhaling once I’d smiled in return, I looked up at Balidor again.

I fought back and forth as I looked at the Adhipan leader, even as I felt his answer in his silence. Realizing that even the most chain-of-command oriented people I knew––namely Balidor and Revik himself––were really going to cut me out of this, it occurred to me to question for the first time in months, whether I was really in command of this operation or not.

“Alyson...no.”

The words were sharp enough to make me look at him.

When I turned, Balidor had flushed. I saw a kind of horror in his eyes, though.

“...Of
course
you are in command,” he said. His voice was unambiguous. “You must know that. There is no question. None.”

I let out a humorless grunt, folding my arms. I didn’t answer him, though.

“Allie,” he said. Seeing something in my face, he shifted his tone, until I could hear what bordered on submission there. “...Esteemed Bridge. Certain areas of security have always trumped chain of command in cases like this. We did the same for Vash, as head of the Council. It is true of human monarchs...even of the President of your previous country. It has been true for nearly every leader since the beginning of time. It is true for you, as well.”

I gave him a harder look. “You’re seriously going to try and convince me this is a security call of some kind?”

“It
is
a security call,” Balidor said earnestly. “Absolutely.” When I shook my head, clicking again, he touched my arm, his light still submissive. “Allie...Esteemed Bridge. Please. Don’t read more into this than it is. You do not have to worry about the people around you. I promise you that. We are loyal. All of us. More than you can possibly know...”

I nodded, but I’m sure he could feel the noncommittal sentiment behind it.

I didn’t really want a promise of fealty though. Truthfully, that didn’t mean shit to me.

I didn’t even need to be in charge, not in that way.

But being cut out was something else.

I wasn’t about to go on some stint of faction-creation and assessment in our leadership team,
 
to try and determine on my own where the decisions on this stuff were coming from...or even to try and find out what they weren’t telling me...but I admit, the fact that the thought even crossed my mind kind of bothered me.

When I felt another pulse of worry leave Balidor’s light, I faced him directly.

“I thought we were done with this shit, ‘Dori,” I said.

My voice didn’t even sound angry that time, mostly just tired.

“Done with what, Esteemed Bridge?” Balidor said, wary.

I paused briefly, then shrugged, speaking openly.

“With you and Revik and Wreg and Tarsi and whoever else deciding there were some facts I ‘couldn’t handle’ for whatever reason,” I said. “With my own leadership team lying to me, thinking it’s going to keep me and the rest of us any safer. With you seeming to think you can control me, or minimize my impact or whatever as the Bridge...or somehow keep me from
acting
like the Bridge, if I have less information.”

Balidor clicked under his breath, but that time, it didn’t feel aimed at me.

Not exactly, anyway.

“Allie,” he said, sounding frustrated again. “Don’t read too much into this. Please.”

I gave him a harder look. “If one of your Ahdipan people was lying to you, would you reassess the limits of your command, ‘Dori?”

He blinked at me. I saw at once from his face that the idea had never occurred to him.

My anger worsened when a full understanding hit me about why it hadn’t.

Of course it hadn’t. Balidor would never tolerate that from his subordinates.

So why was I?

“Allie,” he said, sighing and clicking. “It’s different. You are not
only
a military commander, Esteemed Bridge. You are forced to act in that capacity now, it is true...but that is not what you are, not truly. You’re a lot more than that––”

“And a lot less than that, apparently,” I muttered.

“You are
irreplaceable,
Alyson,” he said, hammering the words. “I am not.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “Bullshit, ‘Dori. You’re completely irreplaceable. You’re the best infiltrator we have. The best one
anyone
has, most likely...”

He shook his head, once.

“I am absolutely replaceable, Alyson,” he said, his voice uncompromising. “The Adhipan is structured so that
all
of us are replaceable. As a result, the chain of command means something entirely different in my case than it does in yours. With the Adhipan, there is a clear succession order...which functions precisely to
ensure
that I am replaceable. Moreover, if I go, I
will
be replaced. If you go...”

He held up a hand, making an expansive gesture towards the open water.

“...You will not be replaced, Esteemed Bridge. Nor will your husband, the Sword. It is not the same. You cannot pretend it is the same. Moreover, we have been telling you that from day one. You still do not seem to understand the difference. That, or...” His voice grew a touch harder. “...Or you simply do not want to.”

I nodded, again noncommittal. “Okay.”

“Allie...” he began, frustrated.

“We’ll talk about it later, ‘Dori,” I said, touching his arm briefly. “Really. This isn’t the time. Or the place.”

I didn’t look at him that time, just released his arm and walked directly to the end of the pier, where Jorag was already pulling the small motorboat against the wooden dock with his hands. Seeing me approach, he grinned at me from the dark, looking over my legs in the short dress as I approached him across the platform.

I didn’t walk away from Balidor as a screw you or anything. I just didn’t see the point of arguing with him, at least not then. So, yeah, I did the seer thing and walked away.

With seers, generally that was less of an aggressive move and more often meant that the person was just done talking, at least for the time being.

The thing is, though, he was wrong.

Balidor thought the problem was that I didn’t understand how they saw me. But I did understand. I understood just fine. I just didn’t happen to like it very much.

Increasingly, I also didn’t agree with it.

I just hadn’t decided exactly what I intended to do about that fact.

I WATCHED THE seer approach me through the dark, the wind whipping my untied hair around my face and shoulders. I felt her before I saw her, but I still fought with what I was going to do when she actually reached me.

Sighing even as I thought about it, I kicked my feet over the air past the railing. I already had a pretty good idea of why she was coming, even before I saw what she held in her hand. Smiling at me faintly in the dark, she stretched that same hand out to me with a bow.

“Comm for you, Esteemed Sister,” she said, her voice just audible above the wind.

Nodding, I smiled back at her, taking the headset from her with a “thank you” in seer sign language. I fitted it into my ear even as she turned around to walk away.

Leaning my forearms back on the railing, I activated the headset once it was in place.

He didn’t wait for me to speak.

“Where are you?” he said.

I heard the emotion in his voice and hesitated. Letting my eyes focus out over the dark water and the white curl of wake, I shrugged, leaning my chin on the cold metal.

“I’m out on the deck.”

Silence.

When I didn’t go on, he lowered his voice.

“You’re on the deck? In that dress?”

I smiled a little, clicking under my breath in spite of myself. Looking down at my boot-clad legs, I kicked my feet out over the water again, shrugging. “I have a jacket. I borrowed one of the Navy ones from a tower guard. You know, the down ones. It’s like wearing a sleeping bag.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, his voice a touch colder.

I’d known that, even without being able to feel his light, but I felt my jaw harden a little anyway. Even so, I couldn’t really think of what to say.

“Are you avoiding me?” he said. “Seriously?”

Exhaling in some frustration that time, I shook my head, but not really in a no. “I thought I should chill out a little,” I said after a pause. “Honestly, I figured you’d prefer that. I’m not
avoiding
you. There’s a difference.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, his voice holding more heat that time. “I would have gone in to see Lily for the two hours, if I’d known you weren’t coming down...you could have told me you weren’t coming.”

“I didn’t know. Honest. It was sort of a last-minute decision...”

I trailed, not sure what else to say.

He didn’t answer.

I couldn’t see him; he hadn’t switched on the avatar, much less the more-sophisticated VR program, probably because both ate up unnecessary bandwidth. I also couldn’t feel him, because he was in the tank, so I was completely cut off from his light. Vikram and his team of hacker-comp-geeks figured out how to link the comm through numerous reroutes into the tank via some magical interface Dante apparently pulled out of her ass, or I wouldn’t be able to talk to him at all while he was in there. Even so, I could tell I’d hurt his feelings.

I sighed again.

I knew he was stuck in there now, too, and that to some degree I was taking advantage of that fact. Two hours, minimum, like he said. Another security measure, and another way in which he had to live by the clock, just to keep Shadow from aiming a few satellite-guided missiles in our general direction.

I checked the timepiece via the headset’s VR and saw it had only been about forty minutes since he’d gotten back here, maybe fifty, depending on when he took off in the boat. He couldn’t go anywhere for at least another hour.