Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series (41 page)

“Liao thinks they brainwashed you,” her father said, rubbing his forehead. “Having been down there to see that hulking man standing next to you, I suspect it’s something else. Either way, he’s right in that you’re not the most reliable source right now.”

“Oh, are we going to jump straight into criticism?” Tamryn asked defensively, mostly because she wanted time to think about what he was saying, about how she wanted to
respond
to what he was saying. “No I’m-glad-you’re-safe hug first?”

Her father snorted, but stood up. “You’re right. I apologize.”

He walked across the room, and Tamryn stood up, accepting the hug and returning it. She had hugged him briefly in the combat shuttle, but he’d been encased in armor at the time, with twenty soldiers watching on. That tended to subdue one’s emotional outbursts.

“Thanks for coming for me,” she said into his shoulder, blinking back tears she hadn’t known would threaten. Reunion or not, this wasn’t the time for them, not when he had accused her of being an unreliable source.

“When that garbled threat made it back to Paradise, and we saw that man with his hand around your throat.” Her father cleared his throat; his voice sounded thick with emotion, and she felt guilty about making them all worry. “We’ve all been worried. Your mother threatened to shoot me in the foot with that Ancient Earth crossbow in the living room if I didn’t quit everything and come out here personally.”

“Mom is a formidable woman for an accountant.”

“For anyone.”

“True.”

“You have a lot of that in you,” he said, patting the back of her head, then letting her go.

“Even when I’m being an unreliable source?” She couldn’t quite keep from sounding hurt.

Her father sighed and returned to the bed. He leaned his elbows on his knees, threaded his fingers together, and studied them before responding. “Liao isn’t certain we can trust your word in regard to the tunnels and whether or not they have value.”

“I saw them for myself. They have random artifacts stuck into the walls of their dwellings, as if they’re old fossils between the layers of rock. They’re so common that the Glacians think nothing of them. I first saw the artifacts in a lavatory.”

“Hm.”

Tamryn found herself gritting her teeth and forced herself to unclench her jaw. “I understand if you don’t agree with me about what should be done in regard to the Glacians, but everything I told you was true.”

“You didn’t talk much about the man.” He regarded her warily.

For a second, she was tempted to feign ignorance and ask
what man
.

“I went back and looked at the feed on my combat armor’s camera,” her father said, studying his hands again. Tamryn swallowed, having a feeling she knew where this was going. “I zoomed in on him. Not much of his face was visible under all of those furs, but a part of that tattoo was.” He lifted his gaze to capture her eyes. His voice hardened when he continued. “He’s the same man who was standing behind you when they sent that message and made you talk, isn’t he?”

“He... wasn’t the one with his hand around my throat if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s
not
what I’m asking.” He leaned back, bracing his hands on his knees. “Tam, if he was a part of that raiding party, if he was a part of
killing
our soldiers, it’s unfathomable that you let him go down there. He should have been
shot
.”

“You would have shot him for trying to help his people, but you were perfectly willing to give that other man a pile of gold and a ride to wherever he wanted? Commodore Arkt was among those who tried to take over the system all those years ago. Makkon wasn’t. He was a hunter back then, nothing more. Until he was forced to try and save his people from starvation.”

She stopped, aware that she was giving her father more reason to believe she had been compromised rather than less. Indeed, he wore a concerned expression rather than an argumentative one.

“Tam, did you do anything—make any choices—that are going to come to light in a negative way once we’ve taken back the station?”

“No,” she said firmly, though it was all she could do not to wince at the memory of that kiss. That was the one thing that people had seen, the one thing that couldn’t be attributed to being drugged.

She searched her father’s face and thought she read disappointment there. A queasiness spread through her gut. Was it possible he already knew about the kiss? Or had heard condemning reports from Porter or someone else on the station? All along, she had been worrying about what that might mean for her career, but the idea of her father finding out and thinking poorly of her... that was even worse.

“Maybe...” Tamryn groped for a way to explain in a way that would make sense to the military mind. “So, I ended up fighting off pirates with the Glacians, and Makkon—that man you saw—may have decided he liked the way I shoot. I thought I might be able to use that to improve my situation—all of our situations—but that was all there was to it.” Until they had been locked in a refrigerator together... and until she had spent the night with him. With a flash of fear, she wondered for the first time if there had been a camera inside of that vault, the way there had been in the vault across the hall. In the dark, it wouldn’t have picked up any visuals of their activities, but she distinctly recalled that there had been
sounds
. Could she play all of that off as trying to “improve” her situation? Even if her superiors believed that—and she shuddered to think of such a feed being played for her father—would it make them think better of her? Or worse? Soldiers weren’t supposed to act like prostitutes to battle the enemy.

Her father was gazing at her, that worried expression still tugging his lips downward.

“It’s possible I came to... not hate him as much as I should,” Tamryn said, “but I never stopped doing my duty, trying to escape and trying to defeat him and the others. I swear that to you.”

Her father’s comm beeped before she could find out if he believed her or not.

He touched the pin. “Yes?”

“Message from the moon, sir,” a young voice said. “The Glacians have sent videos of some walls with symbols on them.”

Makkon. A surge of warmth flowed through Tamryn’s veins. He had to have been the one to send it. Was there any chance she could go to the bridge with her father? If not to talk to Makkon, at least to see him?

“I’ll come take a look.” Her father frowned at her, and she wiped her hopeful expression off her face, afraid he saw her thoughts all too clearly. “Get some rest, Tam. You’re not confined to quarters, but I suggest you stay here and reflect on the last few days. I’ll hope that with some time and separation, you’ll come to stop... not hating the enemy as much as you should.”

Her father walked out, and her shoulders slumped. No, she wouldn’t be allowed to see Makkon. Not now, and maybe not ever, unless something came of the message to her grandfather. She would have to wait at least two days before she could expect a response. That sounded like an eternity.

Chapter 29

“President Shenta?” Makkon asked, peeking into the operations/computer room that had become the Glacians’ headquarters. A bulky comm unit took up one corner, maps of the surface and blueprints of Frost Station Alpha occupied the walls, and a big stone table sat in the center, with several people around it. The president, technical advisers, and the woman who taught his nieces and nephews. With Arkt dead, a new military adviser hadn’t been added yet. Makkon wasn’t even sure who could qualify to replace him. Maybe Brax, if he was still alive.

Everyone looked toward him, their expressions expectant. This was the first time anyone over the age of fourteen had made eye contact with him since Shenta had spoken to him upon his return. He had considered himself in exile as he puttered around, recording those language examples. He suspected this summons had to do with that. In the middle of the night, he had sneaked into this room and sent the videos up to the Fleet ships. At the time, there hadn’t been a response, and he hadn’t dared stay in here waiting for one, not when he hadn’t had permission to communicate on his people’s behalf.

“Sit down, Makkon,” President Shenta said. “Or perhaps I should say pack.”

“Ma’am?”

“Your presence, along with mine, has been requested on the Galactic Conglomeration Fleet ship, the
Marathon
.” She arched her eyebrows. “For negotiations.”

The video. This had to have something to do with that. But why would they have requested him specifically? He hadn’t given his name when he had transmitted the recording. He hadn’t wanted those military officers up there to know someone who didn’t have permission to talk to them was sending messages. Had Tamryn said something? Was she even in the position to say something? She would have even less sway with her people than he had with his, unless her family connections had meant something to the military. Even then, it was hard to imagine her being granted the power to have anything to do with negotiations.

“You sure they don’t just want to shoot me?” Makkon asked.

“No, I’m not sure of that at all. It’s been two days, and we haven’t heard anything regarding our people on the station. I have no idea if they’re still alive or not.”

“At least we haven’t been bombed,” one of the advisers said.

The president stood. “Go, Makkon. Pack. We’re meeting them upside in twenty minutes. A shuttle will take us to the ship.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Shenta?” the teacher asked. “Perhaps someone else should negotiate on your behalf. So we’re not putting a hostage in their hands.”

“I’m not much of a hostage anymore. I’m president over less than five hundred people.”

“At least take more men, more bodyguards.”

“If Makkon can’t keep me alive, I doubt anyone can.”

The statement surprised Makkon, especially since nobody had been pleased with him since he originally returned without the rest of the team. From the wryness of the president’s expression, she hadn’t meant the words to be kind, more a statement of fact. Well, he would accept that. It was more praise than he’d had in a while.

He did not have much to pack, so he was ready before the president, clad in his furs and wearing the same weapons he had taken to hunt down Arkt. He passed the mining ship on the way to the elevator and saw that men and women were in the process of loading it for an evacuation. Whatever the GalCon military had said about negotiations, his people were preparing for the worst. He couldn’t blame them.

“Let’s go,” the president said as soon as she joined him. She wore heavy furs and a mask, only a couple of inches of her fighting ferret tattoo visible.

“Yes, ma’am.” Makkon activated the elevator, and they rose in silence, the hundreds of meters of rock and then ice skimming past.

When they walked out into the daylight, Makkon expected to have to walk to the ravine again, to the same pickup point Arkt had arranged, but the sleek cylindrical shuttle waited on the ice in front of the cavern entrance. He tried not to find that ominous. After all, he had known their enemies could find them now, thanks to Arkt.

“I would kill that man if you hadn’t already,” the president murmured, her voice almost lost on the wind. Apparently, she found the presence of the combat shuttle alarming too.

Two soldiers in armor waited outside the shuttle hatch. Even though Makkon knew it was unlikely Tamryn would have been sent down here, he couldn’t help but glance at their faceplates, and then at the faces of the other people inside, a pilot and four more armed soldiers. None of them belonged to her.

Everyone loaded, and the shuttle took off without much conversation. These were only the delivery soldiers, not the people with whom they would negotiate.

They broke atmosphere quickly, the shuttle much more powerful than the decrepit mining ship. Soon, the winged form of the
Marathon
came into view, armament on display from all angles on the ship’s sleek hull. Makkon should have found the idea of all those weapons poised over his moon alarming, but most of his thoughts were about Tamryn and whether he would have an opportunity to see her. He fully admitted what he had only suspected earlier in the week, that he was in love. The last couple of days without her had been empty and forlorn.

“Keep your mind on the mission,” the president said after the shuttle landed in a docking bay and they were walking out.

“I intend to, ma’am.” He had no idea how much she had guessed about his prisoner, but he chose not to argue since doing so would only reveal more.

A couple of soldiers who had apparently been assigned to be their escorts stepped forward.

“You can leave your furs and your weapons here.” One pointed to a desk just outside the shuttle bay airlock.

Makkon hesitated. The furs he would have no trouble leaving behind, as the temperature in the ship felt stiflingly hot after the moon, but his weapons? He would have a much harder time protecting the president if he was unarmed.

She removed her gear without comment, including a pistol she’d had tucked into her waistband behind her back. She nodded at Makkon. He supposed she was right, that there was little point in objecting. On the military ship, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, they were practically powerless, whether they were armed or not.

After Makkon undressed down to his shirt and trousers, sans weapons, the soldiers escorted them into the corridors of the
Marathon
. They passed uniformed men and women who regarded their tattooed guests curiously, though none of them stopped to speak. The soldiers led Makkon and the president up two separate lifts, then onto a level that had to be near the top of the ship. If they weren’t going to the bridge itself, then perhaps they would be delivered to a nearby briefing room.

When they reached a doorway, the soldiers stopped and gestured for them to go in, not offering to accompany them. Makkon reminded himself that this was most likely a meeting place, not an execution chamber. Still, he made sure to enter first, ahead of the president.

Six well-armed soldiers waited inside, standing against walls that surrounded a large, oval table capable of seating fifteen or twenty people. Four gray-haired men and women in black Fleet uniforms sat at the chairs, while a fifth officer stood near the door. Makkon recognized his keen gray-green eyes. Admiral Pavlenko. Makkon had no idea what ranks the pins and medals the rest of the people wore meant, but from their age and the sheer amount of silver and gold on the uniforms, he assumed they were the highest-ranking officers on the ship, if not in the entire fleet that had entered Glacian space.