Crossways (7 page)

She sighed inwardly. The settlers were innocent victims of Crowder's attempt to grab Olyanda's platinum for the Trust. Maybe the search was futile, but if the ark ship was still out there to be found, she'd give the search her best shot. She owed Ben that much at least. After that, she'd see.

D
RESSED IN ONLY A SKIMPY SINGLET AND shorts, Kitty Keely jogged the whole length of Port 22 for the fifth time, pivoted, and jogged back, ignoring the burn in her thigh muscles and the grab in her chest from the dry space station air. She was still questioning her sanity in joining Benjamin's crew.

What if she'd done the wrong thing?

Ms. Yamada was not, by all accounts, a forgiving person. She didn't even have a way of reporting securely until Ms. Yamada's Telepath, Rufus, contacted her, and as yet he hadn't. She was a respectable Psi-3, but she couldn't transmit across the galaxy.

She needed to get a message to Alphacorp. They didn't even know she was here. Did anyone even care that she was missing? Ms. Yamada no doubt had bigger concerns than one missing pilot.

What had happened to her mom's treatment? It was barely halfway done when she'd left Earth for Olyanda with Ari. Her mom had been cheerful throughout and had nothing but praise for the staff at the Swiss clinic. How cruel if Ms. Yamada withdrew treatment through no fault of Kitty's.

What if Kitty had outlived her usefulness? Had Ms. Yamada cut her adrift? If so, there were worse places to end
up than Crossways, but that didn't solve the problem of her mom.

She briefly wondered whether she should make her way back home from here. Hell, Benjamin had offered to send her back. He seemed like a decent kind of guy. He wasn't working for the Trust anymore, so did that make him potentially useful to Alphacorp on the enemy-of-my-enemy principle? She hoped so.

She needed to get a call through to Ms. Yamada. Not that she had a direct line, of course. She couldn't hope to do more than leave a cryptic message and hope Rufus would contact her.

She increased her speed for the last lap, feet pounding the deck plates.

Gupta was sitting at the top of
Solar Wind
's ramp as she jogged past, smart-dart rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. He took his duties seriously even though the security team here was pretty tight. She didn't break her stride until she got to the guard post by the entrance where she stopped, head bent forward, hands on bare knees to catch her breath. That gave the nearest guard a good view down the front of her singlet.

He was smirking as she stood up and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “What does a girl have to do to get offered a drink of water around here?” she asked. “This place is dryer than Orphena's twelve moons.”

“It's not so bad when you get used to it.” The guard signaled to one of the others, who tossed him a bag of water. He caught it neatly and handed it to Kitty.

She bit off the corner and took a deep drink, then began sipping the rest. “Kitty Keely,” she said.

“Orton, Wes Orton.”

He had even white teeth, dark brown skin and eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

“Where were you before Crossways?” she asked. “You don't look like you grew up here.”

“There are a million people on Crossways ranging in height from here to here.” He indicated low to high with both hands. “And every color from marble white to deepest black. I've even seen a few blue faces. How in the hell could you generalize about what someone born here might look like?”

“Sorry, did I hit a nerve? I guess I expect people who've lived their whole lives on a space station to look a bit . . .” She shrugged. “I was going to say unhealthy, but I guess the hole is deep enough, so I'd better stop digging. You look outdoorsy and I didn't expect that.”

His expression softened a little. There, she'd done it, delivered a subtle compliment, given him an opening. Would he take it?

“I did grow up here, mostly, but I was born on Sylvain. My folks crewed for a tramp freighter. Got killed in a decompression accident. The captain decided I was a bit of ballast he didn't need, so I got left behind on Crossways.”

“Harsh.”

“Not really. It's better than freighter life. Crossways is not all gray-walled corridors, you know. It has its own outdoors, kind of . . . Acres of farmland and a forest segment big enough to have its own weather.”

“Really? I guess I thought it all looked the same.” She waved at the dock and at the broad sweep of the roadway outside. “I'm a bit new to all this, Wes. I could do with a tour guide.”

“That could be arranged.” He grinned. “Where are you from?”

“I'm a genuine Earth girl.” She smiled back.

“Really? I've never been. What's it like?”

“Cold, or at least my part of it is. Shield City's almost on the Arctic Circle in the far north of the United States of Canada. Beautiful summers, fierce winters. My mom still lives there.” Pause for two heartbeats and then let the smile fade. “She'll be real worried about me.” Kitty put on her vulnerable face. She wasn't entirely lying. Shield City had been their home. For all she knew her mom might be back there already, if they'd cut her treatment short.

Orton was interested. She widened her smile. “Say, I don't suppose you've got a secure comm booth anywhere close by, have you? Ben—Commander Benjamin—warned us about not contacting family yet, but Mom worries. It's not like she's going to pass information on to anyone.”

“I can show you where. Better still, I'll walk you down.”

“Thanks.”

She beamed a smile at him that lit up her face. She knew
it did because she'd practiced it in front of a mirror when she'd been trying to get Ari to notice her.

Ben sat in the waiting room at Dockside Medical, determined not to leave without some news of Serafin. Was it a good sign or a bad one that surgery was taking so long?

“You look like hell.” Suzi Ruka, psi-tech agronomist and Serafin's on-and-off lover for many years, came back from a trip to the washroom and flopped down in a chair. “It doesn't take two of us to wait here for news. I'll let you know as soon as the old man is out of surgery. They said it might take hours.”

“He's my friend.”

“I know that. He knows that.”

“I worked with him on my first mission for the Trust,” Ben said. “He was talking about retiring then.”

“He's always talked about retiring. He was only forty when we met and even then . . .” Her voice cracked. “Ah, what the hell, maybe he'll have to retire now.”

“Ronan says this surgical team is the best,” Ben said. “Garrick made a few calls as soon as he heard what happened. Crossways specializes in trauma medicine. I guess they have to. He'll be all right, Suzi. He's tough.”

“So why do you need to hang out here? I'll be okay. Honest. This place is heaven compared to the bleachers in the stadium. Go back to
Solar Wind
and leave me to get some sleep on that nice soft couch.”

“She's right.” Cara hovered in the doorway. “Gen and Max are fine. Syke is waiting for us in the lobby. You can't do anything for Serafin if you stay, so you might as well get some rest and come back in the morning.”

Ben shrugged and stood up. “You're sure you'll be all right, Suzi?”

“Sure I'm sure.”

He pecked her on the cheek. “Yell if you need anything.”

Ronan was waiting for them in the lobby. Captain Syke and four of Garrick's private guard conducted the three of them back to
Solar Wind
. Security had been stepped up considerably, not that Ben minded. He'd rather not have to think about defense right now. Mother Ramona and Suzi
were both right, he was bone-tired and this thing with Cara was preying on his mind.

As they walked side by side he could see her in his peripheral vision. She didn't look any different. What was going on inside?

Solar Wind
stood on the dock, turned around ready for takeoff, ramp up and hatches secured. From here she looked smooth as a pleasure yacht, her wings and fins drawn in tight against her side, armaments safely hidden.

*Knock knock,*
Cara broadcast.

The ramp lowered. Gupta waited at the top, smart-dart rifle resting in the crook of his arm. Ben was grateful for Gupta. Nothing fazed him. He had spent thirty years in the Militaire before retiring from active service to run Trust security on colony planets. And now the fracas on Olyanda had turned him into a wanted man. Luckily he had no family waiting for him back home.

Too many lives disrupted.

Ben owed it to all his psi-techs to see that they were reunited with family, if possible, and resettled, if that's what they wanted. He was still worried about his own family.

Jon Moon, formerly part of Wenna's mapping team, stood behind Gupta as backup, but when he saw Ronan he gave a strangled cry and rushed down the ramp. Ronan, rarely demonstrative in public, hugged Jon fiercely.

Gupta sighed. “Off you go, Moon. There's only Wenna to wait for now and I can handle that alone.”

“Any trouble?” Ben asked as Ronan and Jon hurried off to the cabin they shared.

Gupta shook his head. “Quiet as the grave. No one else had any problems. Looks like you were the only targets—today at least. Kitty looks to have hooked up with one of the gate guards, but she's back safe. Everyone is.”

“Good.”

“You look tired, Boss.”

“Why is everyone telling me that?”

“Because it's true.” Cara nudged him in the direction of the captain's cabin. “Shall I go and bunk down somewhere else?”

It was a simple enough question, but loaded.

Ben shook his head. If he pushed her away now she'd never come back. They'd be over.

She seemed relieved. “Come on, then,” she said.

Was that an invitation?

*Only to sleep.*
She picked up his thought and responded.

Gah! He must be tired if he'd let his shield down.

He followed Cara to the cabin they'd been sharing during the journey—well, not exactly sharing, as she'd managed to take her sleep breaks when he was on duty. This was the first time they'd hit the bed together since . . . when? Since before van Blaiden.

She was bound to be twitchy. More than twitchy. He'd tried to talk to her about it, but she wasn't ready to open up. He'd waited for some signal from her, let her make the first move, but though she'd touched him in public—a hand on his shoulder, a casual brushing together of elbows, the light slide of her fingers across his, briefly igniting fire in his belly—she'd been much more circumspect in private. It would take as long as it took, he understood that. They were working their way through everything that had happened, but she was still fragile—even more fragile after today—but he didn't know how he could help her to get over it, if indeed it was his help she needed.

“I still feel like an intruder in here,” Cara said, dropping down to sit on the wide berth. “Ari obviously had this built for himself. He never liked sleeping alone.”

“It's a bit excessive.” Cara's former lover was always excessive. Ben was glad she'd never shared this particular cabin with van Blaiden. “Just say the word and we can tear it apart and rebuild it. Or we can let Ronan and Jon have the space and move to another cabin, or separate ones if you prefer.”

“Is that what you'd prefer?”

“You know it's not.”

“You're going after Crowder again.” It wasn't a question.

“As soon as we've settled things here. He's the obvious starting point.”

“He tried to kill us all.” Cara shuddered.

“That's why he's the obvious starting point.”

“You think you can dodge the Monitors and get in and out of Chenon without anyone noticing? Even if you can, Crowder must be eyeball deep in his own security by now. He knows you. He'll be expecting you.”

“I'm working on it.”

“You're not planning anything . . . terminal . . . are you?”

Ben opened the door to the fresher and activated the shower.

“Ben? Answer me.”

He ignored Cara's question and jerked his head toward the shower. “Want to share?” He released the touch-and-close fastenings that held the top half of his buddysuit to the bottom, unclipped the shoulder catch and shrugged out of it, feeling the suit's sensors peel back from his skin.

“Do you want me to?” she asked.

He turned to look at her, saw her face suddenly serious, and stopped undressing.

“I appreciate all you've done for me, Ben, but . . .”

Snakes began to turn somersaults in his gut. “But thank you and good-bye. Is that it?”

“I tried to kill you on Olyanda. Twice. I almost got you killed. Your shoulder—”

“Almost as good as new.” He flexed it, hiding the stab of pain from half-healed muscle. He'd looked at it once, using a mirror, soon after the dressing came off: a livid stripe, pink meat against brown skin. After that he'd avoided looking at it again. “Ronan says it won't even need a graft. It'll barely scar.”

“That doesn't make it right.”