Broken Vision (26 page)

Her suspicions grew. She saw he was dressed in similar fashion. Nothing to distinguish the
Mariltar warrior. Nothing to identify him as Governor of the Grogon Belt. Even his sapphire temple
mark was hidden beneath the cap on his head.

What was he up to? This was not the conformist behavior of an heir to the Mariltar nation.
He had stepped back from the sleeping platform and stood, arms folded, legs braced apart, that
arrogant Mariltar expression on his face, fully expectant she would comply. Part of her itched to
test him further, but the excitement welling inside her screamed at her to seize the opportunity to
return to Pallas Four. She reached for the clothing and began to dress, as questions swirled through
her brain.

The questions multiplied at the Pallas Five dock, where Corenna and Drakal greeted them
cheerfully from the navigation module as they stepped aboard an ordinary class three cruiser. He
wasn't sneaking off without his team's knowledge, which she had half expected, but he definitely
wasn't traveling as the governor of the Grogon Belt.

As they took off, he handed her a pillow and a cover, dimmed the lumens in the cabin, and
actually informed her she could go back to sleep, before he removed himself to the third seat in the
navigation module. She wrapped herself up in the cover and spent the entire trip, which passed far
too quickly, scowling at his back and plotting her escape strategy on Pallas Four.

Alerik made it far too easy.

On Pallas Four, he sent her off to Janas Corporation with Corenna and Drakal as escorts,
while he kept an appointment. It was still early in the day's cycle, and she had to wonder who made
appointments at that barely civilized hour. As she walked through the front entrance at Janas, she
tucked the puzzle away to think about later, and hurried to the main console to see who had
checked in already.

There was a respectable list of employees in the building. More importantly, she saw the
two names she wanted, and thanked the gods for a team who were young enough to need little sleep
and who lived to out-compete each other. They would also do anything for Morgon and, by
extension, her.

She turned to her nursemaids and had to fight to hide a grin. They wore identical
expressions of mistrust. They guarded the door as if they expected her to somehow blast her way
through them and vanish. Corenna's hand rode his hip near his laserray. She wondered if he had
orders to stun.

"Come along, boys," she said sweetly. "You're about to discover the fabulous secrets of
Janas Corporation."

If anything, their expressions turned even more wary.

She couldn't resist and she would undoubtedly pay for it later, because Alerik would be
informed and would not be amused. "Just curious. Do you happen to get special merits for this
assignment and a bonus if you still have me at the end of the day?"

Drakal smiled a smile that was pure evil and sent a shiver through her body. "We're well
compensated, lady, and have orders to do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Would not even
think about trying anything, if I were you."

She waved a careless hand. "Oh, I've learned," she said with false brightness. "Your
commander is a like a raging slaghorn to deal with and I've had too many painful lessons
lately."

And let them reflect on that, she thought in silent glee, as she cleared them through
security. In this game, anything was fair to throw off their concentration, and she hadn't told a lie.
She had merely delivered a confusing statement.

They were on her heels as she trotted down the hallway. For a nanonan there, the affable
Drakal had become the hardened Mariltar warrior, highly skilled and trained in multiple disciplines,
and she questioned if her plan was sound enough.

It had to be.

Besides, she was counting heavily on the nature of the young human male.

She led them to the highly secure coding lab. As the heavy door slid open, utter shock
rooted her feet to the floor. The lab looked like a wilding wind had roared through it. Empty bottles
and food containers littered every surface in a place where food had long been banned after
someone had spilled sticky, liquid mascle over a secondary console and fried several cycle's worth
of work.

An article of clothing decorated one of the wide screens. More clothing puddled on the
floor together with three boots, one enormous, the other smaller two a matched pair. The small
room reeked of a sickly combination of sweat and Merlon sweetbine.

In the middle of it all, Makiee, Shal-el and Bortock sat enjoying an early morning picnic,
bare feet propped up on the central console.

"Maegan!" Makiee's feet thudded to the floor. He dropped the layered flatbread he held out
of sight and turned a wide, innocent gaze to her. "We weren't expecting you."

"Obviously," she said dryly. "Hope you can recover that. I would hate for it to go to waste,
especially as it looks like you've been here all night."

"Had a coding problem." Bortock, unfazed at being caught in several violations, took
another bite of slak fruit. "Just got it solved. We were celebrating before crashing. Have some?" He
waved a bottle of red ale at her.

Makiee made a strangled sound. A startled expression crossed the Merlon's face and the
bottle disappeared.

Shal-el, who appeared to have been dozing, suddenly woke up, caught sight of the group at
the door and slapped Bortock's shoulder, almost knocking him off his chair. "Look who's here," he
slurred. "Our Mariltar friends. Now we can really par..." His eyes rolled back in his head and he
slumped in his chair.

Maegan felt like rolling her own eyes. She folded her arms instead. "Nimon here?"

"Down the hall." Makiee's gaze darted away.

The fastidious Soron, while a loyal team player, wouldn't have tolerated a less than pristine
working environment. Makiee undoubtedly had shuttled back and forth between two rooms for
most of the night.

"If you're finished here," Maegan said, "I need you and Nimon for just a little while.
Perhaps Bortock and Shal-el can take charge of clean up before they go home?"

"Consider it done," Bortock shouted. He nudged Shal-el's shoulder with his bare foot.
"You're in charge."

Shal-el responded with a drawn-out groan and the red ale bottle reappeared in Bortock's
hand. Maegan had a feeling the regular lab crew, due at any time, was going to be in for a nasty
surprise.

She nodded at Makiee, who had one boot on. "Meet me in the test lab as soon as you
can."

"The test lab?" His head whipped up from his surreptitious search for, presumably, the
other boot. He glanced at the two men at the door, then back at her, a question on his face. They
never allowed outsiders into the test lab. Never.

She was about to break a cardinal rule, but it was the only thing she could think of.

She ignored his silent query. "I want to look over the nav package again," she said with
complete truth. "Bring Nimon. Tell her I'd consider it a favor."

If Makiee was even more confused, he managed to hide it to his credit. He simply nodded
and resumed his search. The young Bogasill was learning.

She led Corenna and Drakal out of the lab and down the still deserted hall to a double set
of doors at the very end.

"Whatever you're up to, Maegan," Drakal said over her shoulder, "it won't work. Not this
time."

"Don't you feel even a little bit guilty about involving poor Makiee in your plots?" Corenna
added.

"Makiee was only surprised because we never let anyone not from Janas into the test lab.
It's a highly restricted area."

"Aah! And we're being honored because...?"

"I want to look at our nav package and I know better than to ask you to stay outside. You
probably have this really odd notion we have secret tunnels leading out of every room in this
place."

Drakal snorted and muttered something.

Maegan grinned to herself. "This is a true privilege, gentlemen." She paused at the doors
and ran her hand over the scanner. "The disadvantage is we will wipe your brains when we're done
in here." She turned and bared her teeth. "Still want to come in?"

Two pairs of dark eyes gazed steadily back at her. Starpits! They weren't the least
intimidated. That would be too much to expect from Alerik Mariltar's team.

She shrugged. "Welcome to the Cavern of Mind-Bending Mysteries." Bortock and Shal-el
had come up with the name after spending an unauthorized night in the room not long after it had
been reconfigured as a test lab. They'd been discovered flat on their backs babbling happily at the
holographic shapes dancing above them.

At first glance, the lab was like any other room. Work consoles circled the perimeter. What
wouldn't be immediately obvious to a casual visitor were the disks of various sizes set into both
floor and ceiling toward the room's center. Drakal and Corenna weren't casual visitors. From her
periphery vision, she saw them both study the floor. It was almost comical the way they glanced up
at the ceiling simultaneously, then back at her. Drakal moved closer until she could feel his body
heat.

All their vigilance wouldn't help them in the end. Time to implement the plan. Her escort
at her back, she strolled the perimeter to a console halfway around the room and powered it up.

She logged into the program she wanted and was choosing her display options when
Makiee and Nimon arrived.

In contrast to Makiee's spiked hair and general scruffiness, Nimon's sleek beauty glowed in
the low lumens. Her dark hair fell loose to her hips. Her choice of clothing was interesting for a
work all-nighter--tight leggings, flirty little waist wrap that barely covered her bottom and a
shimmering sleeveless vest designed to make one look twice for the delights promised by its
seeming transparency.

Drakal and Corenna were more than looking twice. They were frozen in place to one side
of her as Nimon glided in a direct route toward them through the disk field.

One look at Makiee's disgruntled face told Maegan that Nimon probably hadn't dressed
that way for work. It was more likely she had made him wait while she changed, once she found
out who Maegan had with her. The plan was off to a fabulous beginning.

Greetings exchanged, Maegan activated her program. Out on the disk field, a holographic
replica of the Crestar System sprang to life. The hiss of amazement from one of the Mariltar
warriors was gratifying. Holograph technology wasn't new, but this was the new generation, far
above and beyond anything else in existence.

"Alerik," Maegan explained to Nimon and Makiee, "is on Pallas Four for a meeting, so I
thought I would use the time to get some work done and check an anomaly I saw in the program the
last time we tested it. Since it might take a while, and Corenna and Drakal are in here anyway,
could you show them the disk field?"

"But of course," the Soron purred. "It would be a pleasure."

"Why are they so privileged?" Makiee grumbled. "No one outside of the company has seen
this yet." He stumbled as Nimon bumped him with her shoulder to get by. "Mag-sha!" He swung a
hand up, then thought better of retaliation as Nimon impaled him with a glittering gaze.

"Don't worry," Maegan said cheerfully, "I told them we'd wipe their brains before they left
here, and they still came in."

"What exactly are we going to be doing?" Corenna asked, his attention still glued to
Nimon. She had stretched her body to open a cabinet and every slender line and gentle curve was
on full display. She held the pose for longer than was absolutely necessary to retrieve the eyebands
used in the disk field.

"Taking a tour of the Crestar System," Maegan explained patiently. "You'll be out there."
She nodded to the disk field. "And I'll be right here. And the doors locked the moment the program
activated, in case you're wondering. No one comes in or goes out."

"I don't trust her," Drakal said to his teammate. "Do you trust her? Think we should stay
right here."

"Where's your courage, gentlemen?" Nimon cooed. She brushed between them and
selected Drakal as her first target. Almost as tall as he was, she had no difficulty securing the
eyeband around his head. "You don't want to miss out on this experience."

"Whoa!"

Drakal was hooked and Nimon was on board with the plan. Neither his eyeband nor the
one Nimon was now securing to Corenna's head had been activated. While Maegan had remote
control of the bands and could switch them on and off as desired, it was better that Nimon had
figured out what she was up to and would be more prepared for what would happen in the disk
field.

Makiee, on the other hand, was scowling at her. With the two Mariltar warriors fully
focused on the wonders of the disk field even before they had stepped onto it, Makiee moved closer
to her and murmured in her ear, "You're going to go too far one day, Maegan."

"This is for Morgon," she muttered back. "And when did you get to be so
law-abiding?"

"Because you keep involving me in your freaky schemes, and that mate of yours is one
scary friemon."

"Nah. Should have seen him yesterday in a pink breech clout."

Makiee's eyes bugged. Muttering under his breath, he snatched up an eyeband and
followed Nimon and the two men onto the disk field.

With her nursemaids fully occupied, the first thing Maegan did was search for Morgon's
vessel. If it wasn't at the smart dock, or anywhere else on Pallas Four, then the plan was useless.
Morgon didn't make it easy. She patiently worked her way through all his safeguards and found the
vessel where she hoped it would be--at the smart dock.

Then she went to work on the nav program. She had a three-dimensional screen view of
the entire Crestar System similar to what was displayed in the disk field, but only needed a portion
of it. She sliced out the piece she needed and focused on plotting her route.

Out on the disk field, Corenna and Drakal were beginning to stagger from the effects of the
holographic field. Makiee and Nimon, their own eyebands activated to counter the effects, each
held the arm of one warrior. Drakal went down first. Corenna followed him not long after. They lay
on their backs on the floor, hands reaching randomly for shapes that didn't exist in solid form.
They'd be there until the program was deactivated.