Girl Gone Nova (9 page)

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He finally nodded.

“You, as well.”

Nights had always been a tough gig for Doc. In the twilight world of ship life, she’d hoped to break the link between
them
and the darkness, but maybe it wasn’t the darkness that gave
them
their strength. It had, she’d decided when she got old enough to consider the problem, something to do with the way her mind worked. It was her personal theory of relativity. As she closed on a solution, her thinking patterns kicked into light speed, and time slowed as thinking sped up. This effect increased in that place between sleeping and waking, becoming a trap that allowed
them
to close in on her, perhaps hoping to take her down while she was in the no man’s land between sleeping and waking.

And since she slept in four-hour or less increments, it happened as she was drifting into sleep and as she started to wake. The down side was balanced by high productivity between her short stretches of sleep, but she’d never had quite so much to think about and even worse, so much to
feel
about.

She spent too much of the night pondering chemistry and biology with little to show for it. There was no explanation for why Hel had been the one to unlock her libido. There never would be an explanation. Her brain didn’t like dead ends, but it would have to live with this one. On the upside, the dead end made her brain so frantic it came up with a plan to deal with the general—though she was still uncertain about the outcome. The general was a long shot. That shouldn’t be a problem. She dealt in long shots on a regular basis—but he could be a long shot across her bow.

While she waited for rounds to start—and her visit with the General—she opened the first patient file. She was about halfway through the updated data when her door opened and her speakers started playing the theme for
The Addams Family
. It was her spin on the singing trout on the wall. Contrary to common opinion, she did have a sense of humor. It would have been funny if it had been one of the many people who deserved the tail yank.

It wasn’t.

Even dressed in infirmary issue pajamas and robe, General Halliwell managed to look intimidating. Doc scrambled to shut the music off, trying to get past feeling like she’d been caught with her drawers down.

“Sorry, sir. I was expecting someone else.”

His brows arched. “I’m not going to ask who.”

That was good. She hadn’t planned telling him.

He studied her in unnerving silence for ten seconds that felt like a really long minute.

“I guess the nickname comes from the hair and skin.”

Doc blinked a couple of times. “I thought it was because I’m creepy.”

He almost looked startled. “I guess some people could confuse lethal with creepy.” He frowned. “You’re a very dangerous young woman.”

She took it as a compliment and sat down again.

He eased himself into the only other chair the tiny room boasted. It should have helped equalize their positions but it didn’t. He was a man who knew by instinct how to dominate.

“I’m being released today.” A hint of relief broke through stern.

Doc had never met anyone who
wanted
to stay in a hospital, so this wasn’t a shock.

“I had some sealed orders I was supposed to open when we got to the outpost. I decided to open them now.”

That didn’t surprise her either. Generals weren’t immune from curiosity.

He pulled a folded sheet out of a pocket in his robe and tossed it at her. Doc opened the envelope and unfolded the page, an out-of-character tremor in her hands. What level of impossible would the Major expect this time? She read it through once, then again. She didn’t need to, but it gave her time to think. She needed to think. She was pretty sure the General wouldn’t be impressed with a, “What the—”

This wasn’t just impossible, it was totally whacked.

She studied the General through her lowered lashes. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to deliver bad news. She did it all the time—even when she completed a mission it wasn’t always a good news situation, but she didn’t want him to kill the messenger.

“So, you can do it?” he asked with obvious impatience. “Can you suss out the technology on Kikk?”

She stared at him for ten seconds, counting it out in her mind. It was a power thing, just as his pause had been. “Probably not.”

As in, not just no, but hell no. Though she could admit that the idea of trying intrigued her. Her brain loved puzzles and the Kikk outpost was loaded with them.

His brows jerked together in a fearsome frown. “What?”

Doc expelled a silent sigh. “I’m called in when a situation has been deemed impossible. By definition that means it is
not possible
. I don’t promise what I don’t know I can deliver. Not ever.”

Not to mention there were at least six scientists with a better chance at it than her—not because they were smarter. Her IQ was seriously high, higher even than the Major knew. Higher than she knew. Robert had taught her how to manipulate IQ test results before
they
got him. At the time, she’d thought it was interesting. Now she knew he did it to protect her.

“But you said you’ve never failed.”

She’d been afraid he’d bring that up. “No.”

“Then—”

“That doesn’t increase the odds of success. Each time the impossible gets more impossible. I am going to fail sometime.” She knew this intellectually, but her gut didn’t believe it. She had to believe she could do the impossible to even try. It was an odd contradiction in mental terms, and if she weren’t already a mental freak, it would make her head explode.

“They want you to figure it all out. I just want you to get our people home.”

A puzzle piece clicked into place. “The space-time portal.”

The portal had been accidentally discovered during an assessment of the Kikk Outpost’s technology. At first look, it had appeared to be an intra-galaxy transportation system, connected to a series of strategic outposts all over the galaxy. But further study had revealed it to also be capable of traversing both space
and
time. In hopes of finding safety from what appeared to be certain defeat at the hands of the Dusan two years ago, some noncombatants, guarded by a team of combatants, had opted to evacuate through the portal and hadn’t been seen or heard from in time or space since. One of the scientists who tried to work on it after the fact—one of them with more credentials for the task than her—wrote in his report that it was “an intergalactic bitch of a Rubik’s Cube.” And he was the optimist.

“We don’t leave our people behind.”

Doc had guessed she was being pushed by the rock, but hadn’t realized her situation included the proverbial hard place, too. If the Major was playing games with both of them, had he considered the ramifications of pissing off her ride home?

“But—” She stopped and frowned. She’d read some of the reports when she hacked the computers. “Who briefed you about the portal, sir?”

“Dr. Smith. Tobias Smith. Did you know him?”

Doc shook her head. The Major liked her to stay clear of the geek squad. They might notice she was one of them.

“He told me there was a way back.”

Doc frowned. He’d been the on-scene expert. It was more than possible Smith knew something, or had discovered something
she
didn’t know. None of which explained why the Major was letting this man think she could do what Smith claimed was possible, despite the fact that a lot of more qualified geeks hadn’t managed to figure it out.

“That’s the only reason I let him and his team go through.”

“I’ll need access to his notes.” The request was a formality. Whether she was given access or not, she intended to see them. Interesting she hadn’t found them before now. She put the lid on another frown—it seemed to upset the General—but the feeling that prompted the need to frown didn’t fade.

Just because it felt wrong, didn’t mean it was wrong, she reminded herself. Dr. Smith was a brilliant scientist. He’d been an important component in the success of the intergalactic space program. He’d been on the outpost and had a chance to study the portal. The Major liked to keep her skill-set broad and her brain agreed. It was why they got along as well as they did, if you could call what they did getting along. By having a working knowledge of a wide variety of scientific disciplines, she was able to see past mental boundaries sometimes created by specialization. It was kind of like being a scientific general practitioner. But she could also get quickly up to speed, when specialization was needed.

And she was always up to speed when the situation involved ass-kicking.

That didn’t seem to apply here. Usually, once in the situation, Doc could figure out the Major’s real objective, the asses that needed kicking. She hadn’t yet, and it made her twitchy. He’d buried his goal deep this time, about as deep as the General was going to bury her if he found out the Major had another agenda—if he had another agenda.

At least now she understood why the General was hanging onto the outpost so fiercely.
We don’t leave our people behind.
She hoped he meant it—and that she was one of “his people.” A pity clinging to the outpost was working against him. She’d given him the bad news. Time to deliver the worse news.

“If we weren’t on the brink of war with the Gadi, it would lessen the impossibility factor some.” Doc chose her words with care. She didn’t want to lie to this man.

Her words got his attention.

“What? What are you talking about?”

Doc kept her gaze steady and cool. Her calm was absolute—on the outside. Bluffing was SOP for Doc. She’d been doing it as long as she could remember.

“I didn’t think you knew.” She waited a few beats and then added, “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

His face darkened. “I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing—”

“I’m not the one playing games. I leave that for the real diplomats.”

That stopped him. She could see the momentary anger gave way to thinking.

“Tell me what you think you know.”

He was a tough old man, she’d give him that. She’d also give him this truth unvarnished. She just hoped he believed her before it was too late. She thought about the look on Hel’s face.

If it wasn’t already too late.

There was an upside to too late. If they got kicked out, maybe he’d never find out the Major had been planning to use her to screw him over.

* * * * *

It all made sense, but that didn’t mean Halliwell accepted it. He stared at the empty wall of shelves. The small office was almost as unsettling as its occupant. The only personal item was a game console and monitor, her other visible equipment, an expedition-issue laptop. No pictures, no books that he could see. His gaze made its way back to the messenger. Throughout her recital, through each bombshell delivered with pinpoint precision, she’d looked and acted as if she was discussing what he should order for lunch, not implying he had traitors onboard
his
ship.

“He fed you this to get me to let him onto the outpost.” No one on this ship could have withheld information critical to the survival of the mission, to the survival of this ship, to their own survival. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.

“The Gadi Leader is not my source.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She didn’t flinch. Just a flick of her lashes and a hint of color in her cheeks, but it brought back a memory of a meeting with another young woman who’d had the same carefully blank eyes and too many secrets. The doctor was so damn young. How had he missed that?

He rubbed his face.

“What’s your evidence?” It wasn’t an apology. Those were against his religion.

Her face didn’t change, but he felt an easing of her wariness, a cautious acceptance of his non-apology.

“I’m afraid I eavesdropped on our patients in the infirmary. No surprise it wasn’t flattering, despite the free medical care.”

“They talked in front of you? Not possible.”

“In Gadi.” She pulled a small device out of her pocket. “I kept a voice activated recorder on me and then downloaded it to my computer. I was able to find some patterns in the words, but the real breakthrough came through the boys.”

“The boys?”

“The Leader’s sons. They played video games with me yesterday afternoon. I taught them some Earth slang and they taught me some Gadi.”

Halliwell almost smiled at the thought of Giddioni’s boys learning ghetto slang, but he was too worried. “If he talks to them—”

“He will, but I suspect he’ll be pleased we’re finally figuring it out. The reception was probably an attempt to bridge the gap. The bombing an attempt to blow up that bridge before we could cross it.”

If she was trying to remind him she’d saved his life that day, it worked. He had the autopsy report on the two men she’d terminated. Two head shots. He’d like to know how she’d managed it in uncertain lighting and her melon still ringing from the blast. And how she’d arrived at the reception armed to kill. That she was the Major’s creature was a huge strike against her. They might be on the same side, but that bastard always had a hidden agenda. She could have two sets of “sealed” orders, and the fact he wanted to trust her just made his gut twitch harder.

“Did anyone tell you that the position of Leader is elected?”

He stiffened. “No. I did wonder why we never seemed to know anything about them, but I thought the Gadi were—”

He stopped. She knew what he thought. If she was right, he’d trusted the wrong people. He’d been a fool. Which didn’t mean he could trust her or Giddioni. Just thinking about the Leader made him want to hit something. Too bad everything around him was metal. He wanted to break something, but not his hand.

“The Leader didn’t do much to help the situation, sir.”

Could she read minds? He gave her an annoyed look and found something like sympathy in her eyes. It was such an ordinary look, it surprised him again. How did she do that? No wonder they called her Chameleon. Which begged the question: What was real? Was any of it real? And just because Giddioni wanted to talk didn’t mean he wasn’t covering his own ass.