Girl Gone Nova (34 page)

Halliwell stared at the spot where he’d been, his thoughts spinning with that last remark.
I did it for her.
Maybe the bastard had changed.

* * * * *

The lift to his quarters was private, never used by anyone but Hel. He’d shed the trappings of Kalian before leaving the hidden bay where he stored his ship. It should have felt better to be back, to be himself. In the past, there’d been relief, even if part of him missed the freedom that came from being Kalian. But not this time. While still reluctant about pondering it too deeply, he did know he’d left something of himself behind with Delilah. He didn’t want to know what, didn’t want to face the realization that his political maneuvering interested him much less than before he’d left his flagship. She’d altered him in some basic, uncomfortable way. He needed to ponder this, but not now, not when his insides still felt raw and sore.

The lift doors slid back and he stepped out. By the time he realized something was wrong, it was too late. The pain of the energy blast was almost a relief. If he died now, at least there would be no more pain.

Doc woke up hungry. The white ceiling above her didn’t look like heaven, hell or anything in between. It appeared to the infirmary on the
Doolittle.
It seemed she had failed to die. If she had to fail at something, she’d picked the right thing.

No more pain and her head felt clear and
quiet.
She poked around and found
them
still there, but lined up like dogs that had graduated obedience school, instead of slathering hounds from hell. Memories formed in a neat line. Her transition from Hel’s ship to the
Doolittle
was missing from the line up—as was the reason her demons were behaving.

She could theorize with some confidence that Hel kept his promise and returned her home. Who knew the Leader had a white hat in his pretty closet?

No equation, hypothesis, theory, premise, supposition or wild guess filled the blank between dying and being alive. Without sufficient data it was pointless to speculate, so she sat up instead. She felt good and wasn’t plugged into anything. Everything worked but the hospital gown. That would have to go.

A small locker set into the bulkhead held the clothes that Hel had provided. She fingered the material, more memories returning in a neat line, like French schoolgirls in a
Madeline
book. She did a mental shudder. Since when did she use fictional schoolgirl analogies? She gave a small shake. It helped, though she still felt far from what passed for her normal—not that she was complaining. Her normal wasn’t that great.

She exchanged gown for clothes. They fit better this time. How had she put
on
weight? She’d been unconscious for—as she thought the question, the answer scrolled across the inside of her brain like it was a heads up display: 14.4 hours.

That couldn’t be right. A mirror over a sink showed her a face devoid of injury. Not even a scar remained to tell of her time in the eye wall of that storm. No IV bruises on her arm. How could she know how long she’d been out? The question made her mentally wince. Behind the wince was the sense her brain was trying to get her attention. It always had her attention, so why did it think it needed a mental wave now?

Even by her liberal standards, it was strange.

She had questions, but no one in the infirmary could answer them. And she was hungry enough to eat her own arm. In the interests of her appendage’s continued well-being, she needed food, but she’d stand out like a sore thumb in the alien clothes. One thing hadn’t changed while she was out: a dislike of standing out. Luckily, her quarters weren’t far from the infirmary. Outside her room, the hall was empty, though she heard voices in some of the rooms she passed. She took a lift to her level and palmed open her quarters. It was comforting she hadn’t been locked out or moved out. Her weapons, last seen aboard Hel’s ship, were piled neatly on the bed. An indication the transfer of her person had been friendly?

She stripped off the alien garb, grabbed a quick shower, strapped on her weapons and then donned fresh ABUs. Her ID tag was gone, but she didn’t need it to get into the cafeteria. It was a bit disorienting to be back in a tech/metal environment after her adventure in primitive, though she still had to fight the urge to hug anything plumbing related. MREs couldn’t come close to her almost last meal on Kalian’s ship, but they trumped Conan’s sludge by light years. She started eating, expecting her stomach to have problems with resuming normal eating, but her stomach reacted just fine.

It shocked her how fast she went from relaxed to alert when the two MPs stopped in front of her. She didn’t pull a weapon because they were “her” guys, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to pull something.

“Doctor Clementyne? General Halliwell would like to see you in his ready room, ma’am,” one of them said, his tone cop-neutral. Both had hands close to their weapons, as if they weren’t sure she’d go quietly.

Had her abrupt departure from the infirmary been perceived as dangerous? And if it had, why? Last she remembered, she and the General were on their way, well, she wasn’t sure what to call it. A state of mutual neutral, maybe? Two MPs were both over—and under—kill. No way could those two bring her in if she didn’t want to be brought, but she’d have gone without the escort.

“Can I bring my brownie?”

That got a slight reaction from the two men. Very slight. And the lights overhead flickered once. Doc looked up, then got up, her brownie in hand.

“How long has that been happening?”

“I wouldn’t know, ma’am.” One of them gestured toward the doorway. “The General is waiting.”

* * * * *

It was a surprise to awaken in his quarters aboard his flagship. It wasn’t a surprise to find he’d been detained. A security cuff secured his arm to his bed. Hel turned his head, unsurprised to find his cousin, Glarmere standing by the bed.

“This is an interesting move, even for you, cousin,” Hel said. Was the man acting on his own or with support of the Council? Based on the fact that Hel was alive and still in his quarters, probably on his own for now.

“I need your access codes.”

Hel arched his brows. That would never happen.

“I’ll kill you if you don’t give them to me.”

He’d kill Hel once he got them. Hel stared at him. Glarmere looked edgy. How long had he been waiting for Hel’s return? And how had he gotten into his quarters? Hel didn’t ask. Questions exposed weakness. Glarmere had already exposed his flank, revealed he was acting alone at the moment. If he had enough support in the Council, he’d already be in control of the fleet.

“Everyone dies.”

“There are worse things than dying.”

Hel doubted his cousin had the stomach to act for himself. He shrugged.

Glarmere’s face twitched. He hadn’t expected this. The man had known him since they were both small and still he didn’t know Hel at all. Time was limited. Once the ship reached the outpost, the Leader would have to emerge from these quarters. Even if Glarmere succeeded in taking control, he wouldn’t have a smooth transition. The people on this ship were Hel’s. If ships were now en route to support Glarmere, they were still at least a day out or more. Hel had checked his ships positions before coming aboard. None had moved. Glarmere wouldn’t have risked ship movements while Hel was unsecured. And Hel had made sure the most unreliable ships were two to three days out—unless he’d miscalculated some loyalties? That was possible.

He’d miscalculated the security of his quarters. Again.

Almost, Hel wished he’d stayed on the
Doolittle.
Was he losing his taste for political maneuvering? None of it seemed as critical as it had a few days ago. This wasn’t about life and death, well, it was about his death, but the stakes weren’t galaxy-wide high. This was a power play, pure and simple. Was this what had added to his dissatisfaction? For many long years, they’d battled to survive, battled to find a way to defeat the Dusan. They’d succeeded and this was the result?

It was beneath them, a disservice to the people who’d given their lives to preserve their freedom. It should have made them better, not the same or worse.

He realized something else as he stared into his cousin’s less-than-scary face: Glarmere could do nothing worse, could not cause him more pain than he felt right now, knowing Delilah was forever out of his reach. He’d avoided facing this, but with death hanging over his head, he owed it to her and to himself to face this one truth. Somehow, during their interactions, she had secured his heart in a way no other woman had, and that included his bond mate. He’d cared for her. He longed for Delilah. He always would.

Death would be a mercy.

* * * * *

The MPs flanked her on the journey through the ship. It told her the General considered her a risk, but didn’t tell her why. The light malfunction came with them. This made people look up as they passed. She liked that. The MPs attracted too much attention. She munched her brownie and mulled, but the only thing she could think of was that maybe the General thought she had Stockholm syndrome. She hoped she was wrong. Surely he didn’t think she’d bond with bad guys in four days?

One of the MPs palmed open the door to the General’s ready room, and then they followed her in. Unless they needed to know who she was, which they didn’t, this was starting to feel like an arrest.

The General looked up, his face impassive, even by his standards.

“Doctor.”

Not a lot of information to pull out of the single word, but his body language indicated unease and distrust. How had she managed to piss him off while she was unconscious? She came to attention and saluted.

He studied for almost a minute. “How do you feel?”

She had a not normal impulse to say, “With my hands, sir, just like everyone else.” She managed to quell it. Didn’t want to get shot over a bad joke.

“I feel fine, sir.” What did he want her to say? Usually improvisation wasn’t a problem, but even improv actors got a jumping off point.

“You left the infirmary.”

That was his problem? “I was hungry.”

“You could have asked for food to be brought to you.”

“I’m sorry?” She made it a question because she couldn’t ask the ones she wanted to ask with the MPs playing audience to their very boring word play. “I feel great and I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

“So you checked yourself out? Without telling anyone?”

“I didn’t see anyone to tell.” Someone had to break the verbal stalemate before they bored each other to death. “Have I done something wrong, sir?”

Annoying people wasn’t unusual, not knowing why was.

He hesitated, his gaze still boring into her. “What do you remember?”

She didn’t look at the two MPs but she felt their presence. “Not much.” Her programming to hide was stronger than her current need to know.

“Sit.”

One of the MPs pulled out a chair the furthest from the General. Suspicion and wariness were buried deep in his steely gaze. She wanted to reassure him, but she didn’t know how. She could tell him she was better than fine, but she didn’t know why she was better than fine or how the cacophony inside her head had been tamed. Somebody had done something. That was obvious, but who and what? Could she be a risk and not know it?

He sat down and the silence drew out. While she met his gaze with outward calm, she poked around inside her head, looking for clues. It wasn’t as easy as it should be. Even tidy, there was a lot to examine in there. Her brain before almost dying had been like a meteor shower. Now it resembled a huge multi-lane highway. Ideas were lined up, proceeding through her thought processes in neat lines, but there were a lot of lanes. They all thought they were of critical importance, so finding the one that mattered at the moment wasn’t easy.

“Do you feel in control, Doctor?”

More than she ever had her whole life. “Yes, sir.”

Another long pause, then he nodded to the two MPs. “You’re excused.”

When the door slid closed behind him, he lifted a stun weapon onto the table, his hand resting on the handle. Black ops fought to come online. Doc did tense, but she kept her hands in view. She could react before him if necessary. She just didn’t know why she’d need to.

“Did I miss something while I was…away?”

“Before you lost consciousness aboard Kalian’s ship, you mentioned Miri’s lab. Do you remember that?”

She shook her head. The last thing she remembered was Hel urging her to live. The lights in the room flickered once and then again. They both looked up. Then the General looked at Doc.

“Did you do that?”

“How—”
Miri’s lab. Nanites.
“You used nanites to heal me.”

As soon as she said the words, her brain connected the right information stream and brought it to the front of the line. That’s what was different. The nanites were helping her control the flow of information and the way her brain dealt with its lust for connections and information. She was better than fine, though telling him how much they’d changed her wasn’t a good plan when he looked ready to shoot her.

He nodded, his hand twitching on the handle.

“You’re afraid I’m going to go bad SF movie whacky and take over the ship?”

His lips twitched then, but firmed. “I just need to know you’re fully in control of yourself.” His gaze narrowed, turned searching. “You are different.”

“Maybe I’m just relieved to not be dead, sir.” He was right, though. She felt different, had been changed before the nanites came on board. What they’d done to her, well, she was sorting through that now. She was surprised he’d picked up on her differences. He was a General, but he was also a guy.

His gaze plowed into hers, seeking for the indefinable something that even Doc would have had a hard time explaining. She felt the difference to her toe nails—but she felt
like
herself. Truth was, she felt like she was who she’d been meant to be. There was still a lot to process, but one thing was clear, almost dying
had
changed her almost as much as the infusion of nanites. She’d been pretty cavalier with her life up to now. It gave her an edge going into an operation and that edge felt gone. She wanted to live, which was odd, since she hadn’t known she wanted to die. The Major wasn’t going to be happy about that, but like her, he was going to have to deal.