Excelsior (33 page)

Turning to Korbin, Max said, “You’d better give me the drives. I’ll hang onto them for now.”

He saw her eyes narrow suspiciously behind her helmet. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you need an excuse for why you didn’t answer the Captain’s call. We’ll say you were unconscious. No one’s going to doubt that you could have bumped your head, but while they’re examining you, they might discover the drives in your pocket. No one will bother examining me. I’m not hurt.”

“Fine.” Korbin unzipped her pocket and passed him all four of the thumb-sized drives. “Now what?”

Max’s comm began beeping with a call from Lieutenant Stone. He ignored it. He’d say he was too busy fleeing from the blaze. “Now, we go announce our return from the dead and tell everyone the bad news about the mission data.”

“What if they find something in the wreckage?”

“They won’t. Trust me.” Not if Maximilian Carter has anything to do with it, he thought.

 

Chapter 30

Present Day, May 18th, 2791

(Earth’s Frame of Reference)

Catalina paused in mid-sweep of the grand ballroom-sized foyer of the Waltons’ home to wipe the sweat from her brow. The Waltons’ sweeper bot sat neglected to one side of the room beneath an antique chair. The bot had broken down twice this week, and this time the failure was permanent until spare parts could be found.

Unfortunately for Caty, whose job it now was to sweep every nook and cranny of the twenty-seven thousand square foot home, manufacturing sweeper bot parts was a low priority. Every spare scrap of metal was spoken for with government contracts, and every 3D printer and automated factory in the Western hemisphere had been commandeered (somewhat illegally) to produce components for new starships. War had never been a bigger business, and the Alliance’s cherished free market was starting to look dangerously like a command economy.

Catalina stretched her aching arms, and her comm band trilled with an incoming call, giving her a welcome excuse not to go back to sweeping just yet. The caller ID said the call was from Lieutenant Muros from NAS Lemcroft. Caty’s jaw went slack and her eyes drifted out of focus. The last time she’d heard from Muros was when she’d found out that Alexander’s ship had gone down with all hands on board.

“Hello?” Caty said. Her hands felt cold, her entire body stiff.

“Caty, are you sitting down?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you a moment.”

Caty eyed the antique chair in the corner of the room. What if it broke? She imagined sweeping floors for the next twenty years, and decided not to risk it. “I’m sitting,” she lied. “What is it?” Her heart played a staccato in her chest.

“I made a mistake, Caty. There were two ships called the Lincoln—a destroyer class, and a battleship class. The battleship was the one that we lost, but the destroyer is still listed as active. I looked a little deeper, and your husband’s name shows up on the roster of the destroyer, but not the battleship. He could still be alive.”

Catalina shook her head, hot tears sizzling down her cheeks.

“Caty?”

“How could you make a mistake like that!” she burst out.

“I…”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I’m very sorry. I really—”

She ended the comm call there and stood glaring at her comm band. Stupid woman. Some distant recess of her mind whispered to her that maybe the lieutenant wasn’t the only one she was mad at, but she wasn’t ready to listen yet.

Six hours later she was walking back from the bus with David, listening to the sound their feet made in the hard-packed mud. After the night they’d spent together a week ago, Caty had explained that she still needed time to get over Alexander. David had accepted that, but not happily. Now that she knew Alexander might still be alive, she would need more time than ever. Closure had come and gone, leaving a trail of guilt and a gaping hole in her chest.

Caty’s comm band rang. It was probably Mrs. Walton. The band went on ringing, and David glanced at her, his bushy eyebrows lifting. Feeling suddenly annoyed at him, she answered the comm just to avoid a conversation about why she wasn’t answering it. This time she didn’t even bother to read the caller ID before answering. “Hello?”

“Caty, don’t hang up.”

Muros. The name burned like acid in her brain. “Why not?”

“You don’t have to forgive me.”

“I know.”

“Well, there’s a message here on file from Alex, addressed to you. The date stamp is from over a year ago. Do you want me to send it to you?”

Caty gaped at her comm, unable to believe what she was hearing. A message.

“Caty?”

“Was that message before or after the fighting concluded in orbit?”

“Ummm… after.”

“So he is alive.” Caty ignored the cold look of betrayal on David’s face, pretending not to notice.

“That’s looking more likely, yes.”

“Send it. Thank you, Muros. This doesn’t make up for anything…”

“No, I know.”

“But thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The comm call ended from the other end and Caty was left sharing an awkward silence with David as they walked the last block to their home.

“He is alive.”

No Spanish this time. Caty couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. “Yes.”

“When did you find out?” he asked, turning to look at her. His eyes were like stones.

“Today.”

He nodded, looking away again. “Then you were not lying about needing time.”

“No. I wasn’t. I felt like I cheated on him with you. Now that he might be alive, I feel more like that than ever. Being with you was a mistake, David. I’m sorry.”

David stopped suddenly and grabbed her roughly by the arm. His eyes were wide and flashing, his breathing fast and shallow. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, and for the first time it really hit her that he always smelled like alcohol. “Te equivocaste?” He all but spat the words at her.

“David. I’m a married woman.”

“You’re with me now! He left you here! Yo te cuido, yo te acompaño!”

She shook her head. “I’ve never led you on, David.”

“No, solo te acostaste conmigo como una cualquiera!”

Caty blinked. Was he really calling her a whore? How dare he! She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “You knew my situation from the start. I never led you on. You took advantage of my grief when I thought Alexander was dead. If anything this is your fault.”

David’s jaw clenched, and all of the light left his eyes.

Slap!

Her cheek exploded with fire, and David shook a finger in her face. “El culpable eres tu!”

He stalked away, leaving her stunned and trembling with a mixture of fear and rage. She stood there frozen, watching until David walked around the block and out of sight. He’d hit her… she couldn’t believe it—the man who’d been her guardian for more than a year had just assaulted her.

It was just a slap. He’s been drinking. His feelings are hurt.

No. She shook her head. She wasn’t going to make excuses for him. Wrong was wrong. The adrenaline left and the pain in her cheek intensified. She felt light-headed and nauseous. She sat in the grass beside the footpath with her head between her knees.

After a while, she recovered enough to wonder about the message that had caused the fight. She checked her inbox on her comm band and found a message from Muros with Alex’s message attached in a video format. She opened the file for playback and immediately saw Alexander’s face projected in the air above her wrist. Her heart leapt into her throat, creating a painful lump to compete with the fire burning in her cheek.

He smiled briefly. She smiled back, imagining he was really there to see it. She reached out with one hand to touch him, but it passed straight through the hologram and out the other side, causing a fuzz of static to wash through his features.

“Catalina, by now you know more about what’s happened than I do. I hope to God you’re somewhere safe. As for me, I’m okay. The Lincoln is well on her way to her destination, but there’s a lot they didn’t tell us about this mission. I don’t think I can say much without this message getting edited all to hell before it reaches you, but due to reasons I can’t discuss, I’m not going to be able to keep contact with you. I’ll still record messages every day that I can, but you probably won’t get them for a long time. It’s going to be years before we see each other, Caty—at best. I’ll wait for you, just as I promised, but if you can’t…”

She saw him swallow visibly, and her entire body went cold once more.

“Above all, I want you to be happy. Whatever that means, I won’t hold it against you, okay? Keep yourself safe. I love you, Caty. Te amo.”

Somehow, he’d known. He’d known she would cheat, and that made her infidelity twice as bad. Was it some intrinsic part of her? A flaw too deeply-woven for her to deny?

Alex’s message ended there, and he faded out of sight, leaving her feeling more miserable and alone than she ever had in her life. He’d just given her permission to be with David, but she didn’t want to be with him.

I just want you, Alex! Caty fell forward with her face in her hands and sobbed. I just want you.

*

June 3rd, 2790

(Wonderland’s Frame of Reference)

Alexander stood at the bottom of Shuttle One’s ramp, surveying the damage to the hab complex by the light of day. There was nothing left but a mountain of char-blackened canvas clinging to equally blackened framing poles. It was like the carcass of some giant alien monster. The real alien monster lay somewhere in the center of those ruins.

A stiff breeze blew, stirring big papery flakes of canvas to life and driving them like snow. Overhead, through the swirling ashes, the sky was a pale ice blue. It was a chilly morning for Wonderland, at just under twenty degrees—not that Alexander could feel the weather through his suit.

“There’s nothing left…” Korbin said beside him, sounding forlorn.

Alexander turned to her with a sigh. “How’s your ankle?” he asked, nodding to the bulge in her pressure suit where the cast was hiding. Doctor Crespin had managed to fashion crutches for her out of spare framing poles.

“Better.”

“You’re lucky Max pulled you out. Whatever he was hiding, I guess we can rule out collusion with the enemy. If he was with the reds, why would he save you?”

“He wouldn’t.”

“So Williams must have been the one who sabotaged our engines. What I don’t get though is why he didn’t just confess to it. He already confessed to planting a bomb.”

Korbin shrugged. “Why would he admit to it? It’s one thing admitting to sabotage that could cause serious damage to a fleet ship, another thing entirely admitting to sabotage that could damage the ship and harm its crew. He’s already in enough trouble without adding to the charges against him.”

“True.” Alexander nodded and looked away, back to the ruined hab complex. “Well, there haven’t been any other acts of sabotage since we caught Williams, so I guess that must be it. Fleet investigators will have to handle the case when we get back. Speaking of which, we need to pack it in. I’m going to go contact Davorian and have him set up a flight plan for us to rendezvous with the Lincoln. Meanwhile, I need you to supervise the crew while they collect their samples. Just make sure they don’t wander too far. At this point safety is our main concern. Even without further research we’re all witness to the fact that Wonderland is habitable.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them, sir.”

“Good. And Korbin?”

She turned to him, her eyebrows raised in question behind her helmet’s faceplate.

“Cheer up. We’re going home. You’re going to see your kids again very soon.”

Korbin flashed half a smile. “And you your wife, sir.”

He half-smiled back and nodded.

Neither one of them voiced their fears about what they would find on Earth when they returned, but Alexander still clung to stubborn hope. Caty was alive. She had to be.