In Enemy Hands (21 page)

“Slater’s End, sir,” Jonez called out in a strong voice. “Eight days away.”

“How many if we push it to super-normal speed?” His gaze was still locked with Moises’s.

“A little over three days, sir.”

“What do you say, Consul?” Drue quirked an eyebrow, daring her to disagree with him again. “Six days there and back, plus four for some rest and recreation. That still comes in under two weeks.”

“Three days,” she finally ground out, although it was obvious the concession pained her considerably to say. “Three days’ rest and recreation. Not one minute more.”

“You agree then?” Drue asked innocently. “Permission for the extra use of energy to achieve super-normal?”

Srin thought the consul might have actually snarled then and bared her teeth—her face was flushed and her eyes threatened to bulge out of their sockets. But her expression told everyone in the room that she wouldn’t be forgetting this confrontation anytime soon.

“Agreed.”

“I’ll inform the bridge personally,” he told her, then spun on his heel and left.

Savic, after a quick look at the still thunderous Moises, followed the
Differential
’s commanding officer out the door.

Srin heard the deep rumble of his voice dogging Drue’s heels. “That was an excellent sug—”

The rest of his sentence was cut off when the doors closed.

Moises stared down at Moon’s supine form and looked like she wanted to throttle the life out of her. Srin remained still and relaxed, much as one would around a dangerous animal. Seconds later, she stalked out of the infirmary.

Sometimes, Srin thought with relief, there were advantages to being considered no better than a piece of furniture. He stepped up to the bed, lifted Moon’s hand and squeezed it tightly before letting go.

Moon slowly blinked open her eyes. She looked to Srin, but he darted a sneaking glance at Jonez, who had moved to a nearby desk.

She nodded once, and swallowed. “What happened?” she asked weakly.

“What usually happens when people are constantly driven beyond their limits,” Jonez replied from several metres away, treating the question as if it was directed to him. He finished entering some data into the console on his desk, and walked back to her. “But, thanks to Captain Jeen, we finally have some shore leave to look forward to. All of us. And about damned time, too.”

Slater’s End.

Moon read up on the planet as much as she could over the next three days. To everyone on the
Differential
, she played the part of an overworked and overstressed woman. That wasn’t difficult, considering the attitude the militaristic and chauvinistic Republic held towards its female citizens. Her faint voice, a fraction of its usual strength, and fluttering movements caused the crew to look at her with little more than faintly contemptuous dismissal. And she knew it annoyed Moises to no end whenever they saw each other. That amused Moon, although she was careful to keep her head down and her whirring thoughts to herself.

She went through the plan she and Srin had concocted like a catechism.

Phase one, contrive a set of circumstances so she’d collapse. Starving for three days plus natural frantic tension seemed the easiest to engineer, so Moon had done exactly that. Srin said that the next obvious step would be to schedule a short shore leave somewhere and he was right. Tick.

Phase two, plant deep-memory scramble-bombs throughout all her data and its backups. It was a move reminiscent of what Kad had done years before. As far as Moon was concerned, nobody else was going to gain access to her research. Ever.

Phase three involved getting to the planet’s surface together and escaping. It was maddeningly vague, but Srin had been confident something would come up. She admired his optimism, and hoped he was correct. What would happen if they failed didn’t bear thinking about.

By phase four, Moon knew they’d be out of luck. No matter which way she and Srin went through the plan, they would hit the roadblock of his debilitating withdrawal. They had to escape again, but this time Slater’s End itself. It may or may not involve Kad. Or some other cooperative party. Or maybe a theft or hijack.

The more Moon thought on this last part of their plan, the more her head spun. She felt strung out at the end of each day, trying to appear calm while the sentence of Bliss, or execution for treason, hung over their heads.

They continued researching their destination, snatching time during the early morning and late evening hours when they weren’t likely to get many visitors to the lab. She focused on three of the biggest cities as possible landing sites for the ship’s shuttles. And then, because she had the only reliable memory of the two, she concentrated her research efforts on analysing the communications and transport infrastructure around those cities. They needed to get off Slater’s End as soon as they could, but there were few commercial flights offplanet and archived manifests showed that the civilian craft often left half-empty. They couldn’t count on getting lost in a crowd of travellers. But staying on Slater’s End meant going round and round the planet…until they were caught.

When she was too dispirited to continue reading—every escape strategy seemed doomed to failure—Moon designed her scramble-bombs, crafting them with immaculate precision so they wouldn’t be detected by most deep-scan diagnostics. When they were complete, she identified specific installation points throughout her lab and at every console in the cargo bay, glad that there was
something
over which she had a degree of control.

I’m finally atoning for my sins, Kad.

In the three days it took the
Differential
to reach Slater’s End, Moon had reconciled herself to a future radically different than the one she had originally envisaged. At the end of each day, she yearned for Srin’s touch. But they reluctantly agreed that there was too much at stake for them to get distracted now.

Moon said a mental good-bye to the glory she thought would be the pinnacle of her career, and to friends and a life that had proved to be so much less. She reconciled herself to an unsteady and possibly terrifying series of events. She forced herself to breathe deeply and steadily whenever she thought of it.

Phase two was her responsibility—Moon was the only one who could prepare data, because she set up the system that way. Phase three involved them both. But they knew she would be alone—more than alone—by phase four, in many ways the most danger-fraught part of their escape. And if Moon couldn’t make it succeed, couldn’t get through everything the Republic was undoubtedly going to throw her way, then they were both going to be very, very dead.

But that was phase four and, for the moment, she was still back at the relatively safe phase two mark, casually moving from console to console, calling out figures in a croaked voice for Srin to ostensibly double-check while she covertly installed her software bombs. Calmly, they bided their time and counted the hours until planetfall.

A few hours away from their arrival at Slater’s End, Moon was contacted by one of the administrative officers to confirm her inclusion in the first shore leave group.

Subject to a few conditions. This, too, was something she and Srin could not predict—exactly what rules Drue would set up for them. To their relief, it was nothing too draconian.

Moon turned up at the purser’s office to hear the constraints in person.

“You are not permitted to remain on the planet overnight,” he told her. “You are to report to the drop-off point and be shuttled back to the ship by midnight, local time. And you are to remain within sight of a member of the Space Fleet at all times.”

Moon nodded briskly, and only let her breath out slowly when she was safely out of earshot.

Back in Srin’s cabin, he nodded when she relayed the conversation. He’d been contacted over the intercom only minutes before and told the same thing. They stared at each other.

“This is it,” she said, and hated how shaky her voice sounded.

“We’ll be fine,” he told her. “We’ll make it.”

She felt wooden and stiff when he pulled her into his arms.

“A kiss for good luck,” he whispered next to her jaw, then his lips captured hers.

She melted in his arms. How she missed the moments of intimacy with him, she thought as she wrapped her arms around his neck, running the fingers of her right hand through his silky brown hair. His kiss was tender, desperate and full of promise. His tongue teased hers gently, strong yet with a hint of humour. There was no other way Moon could describe it. His sense of fun was evident in the way he played with her, running his tongue along her teeth, daring her to catch him. His ardour was evident in the way he held her close, tight and hard up against him. His consideration tempered his embrace, resolute but not suffocating. Everything that he was—his intelligence, his tenderness, his vulnerability—was there in his kiss, and she wanted to cry from the sheer honesty of it.

He felt the small shudder that arrowed through her and reluctantly pulled back, looking with concern into her eyes.

Moon’s nose felt ticklish and stuffy from the tears she was holding back.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a frown.

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just—I just hope this works out for us.”

“Of course it will.” He angled his head and grinned. “Have I ever lied to you?”

Moon didn’t know whether he had truly forgotten his deception regarding the calculations, or whether he was teasing her. She forced a choked laugh from her throat.

“You’re incorrigible,” she scolded, reluctantly easing herself out of his arms.

He let her go. “I’ll see you in the launch bay.”

She nodded quickly, not trusting herself to say another word, and walked away.

In a twist of fate, it was Drue who almost stopped the escape before it could properly begin. Moon hadn’t bargained on him appearing personally to oversee the first shuttle down to Slater’s End and cringed when she caught sight of him, but there was nothing she could do.

She steadied her faltering step and, hitching a thick strap farther up her shoulder, shoved the rest of the small satchel she was carrying behind her back so it looked more inconspicuous. With only one door open on one side of the bulky-looking craft, she knew Drue would see her, especially as he was standing so close to Srin, who looked as unconcerned as ever.

“I don’t know that I like this,” he said, looking from one to the other. “Even with the conditions I specified, it would be a breach of security to let both of you go down to the planet together.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? Moon almost hit her head in frustration. They should have split up, slowly fading into two shore leave crews and meeting up at some rendezvous point only when they reached the planet surface. But it was too late to implement that plan now. Maybe one of them could go down first and the other try to get on a second shuttle? Or maybe if she didn’t return to the landing point, they might send Srin down to help look for her? No, that was even less likely.

What answer could she give Drue that would satisfy him?

Rosca Moises sidled up at that moment, like a hawk centering on prey. It was disconcerting the way the woman always seemed to be around. “Is there a problem, Captain?” she asked smoothly.

“Routine security, Consul,” he replied brusquely, not even looking down at her. “None of your concern.”

“
Everything
on this ship is my concern, Captain,” she cut in. “As I asked before, what appears to be the problem?”

“Dr. Thadin and Mr. Flerovs both want to go down to the planet together. Allowing them both off the ship at the same time, however, is a security breach, especially in view of the strategic importance of this mission. As you tell me repeatedly.”

Moon held her breath. There must have been other disagreements between the captain and consul that she hadn’t been privy to. And they must have been deeply insulting to Drue, especially as she knew how hard he worked to keep his emotions and personal opinions private. She wondered how a feud between two of the Republic’s representatives would translate to whether she and Srin were allowed off the ship.

“How many soldiers will there be on the planet, Captain?” she asked, curling her hand and subjecting her fingernails to a cursory look.

“Thirty at any one time.”

“And will they be close to a commercial spaceport?”

“Slater’s End only has one inter-system spaceport and it’s located on the other side of the planet.”

“And how long will the doctor and her
friend
be down on the planet?”

“They’ll have a two-man escort at all times and I’ve directed them to return to the ship by midnight at the end of each day,” he replied stiffly.

“In that case, do you really have such little faith in your men, Captain?”

He frowned, a pull down of his brows that would have intimidated any other person. But Consul Moises wasn’t just any other person. She smiled pleasantly at him. “This jaunt was your idea in the first place, wasn’t it? Why not let the two lovebirds have some time together before I put them back to work again.” She shrugged. “With all the restrictions and a constant military escort, what could they possibly get up to, Captain?”

Moon was pulled in two directions. Their escape depended on getting on that shuttle as soon as possible. So she was intensely interested in the dialogue being played out in front of her. At the same time, she was tracking a countdown in her head, trying to ignore the sweat trickling down the back of her neck. If this didn’t work, if somebody entered the lab and noticed the console activity—

Drue jerked his head. “Check them both. If they’re clear, let them get on board.” Then, more softly to the woman beside him as he stepped up close to her, “Consul, if you contradict my orders in front of my men one more time, I promise I’ll send you back to Headquarters in a cargo crate.”

“You forget yourself, Captain Jeen.” Her voice was frigid as she looked up at him. To her credit, she didn’t take a step backwards, regardless of how menacing Drue looked, with his severe expression and held-in emotion.

“No, Consul Moises. In fact, I think I’m beginning to
remember
myself again.” And he stalked away.

The search was thorough, but Moon knew they would find nothing. She regretted that she couldn’t bring her larger bag along. She had grown quite fond of that soft, shapeless piece of luggage over the past year. But just the size of such a bag, on what was ostensibly a day trip to a planet she had never visited before, would have given too much away. She let herself be patted down by the junior officer in charge of the roster, scanned from hair to ankle, her small satchel containing mostly a cache of money examined. She again held her breath, hoping Savic wouldn’t suddenly appear. Before long, it was all returned to her and she was waved aboard the craft.

It took only another ten minutes for the rest of the group to shuffle in, strap themselves in and get ready for launch, but it felt like a century. Srin was a bit slow boarding, and ended up in the seat directly behind her. At any moment, she expected someone to burst through the door, or shout for the departure to be aborted. Even when a sharp shudder told her they were on their way, she refused to relax. The order to return to the
Differential
could come at any time. Moon didn’t even begin to relax until she felt the shuttle’s legs touch the paved surface of the spaceport. Even then she forced herself to remain calm until the craft’s metal door finally slid open.

Although it was early evening on the ship, it was mid-afternoon in the city where they landed. And cold. The crew of the
Differential
had negotiated use of a small private field off a used quarry for their landing point, close to the third largest city on the planet. Drue obviously felt that a smaller population centre offered enough opportunities for his relaxing soldiers, while minimising chances of mishap for his two most precious charges.

As she exited the shuttle, Moon inhaled the sharp tang of burning petrochemicals, confirming that this was not one of the most advanced systems in the Republic. That was unfortunate in a way, but it would have to do.

Across the stony field, a couple of small transports were waiting for them and, through the vehicles’ transparent side-panels, Moon saw the wary looks the local drivers slanted at them. She could understand their apprehension and their questions. Why was the Republic
here?
What have we done wrong? Not that she had any thoughts of reassuring the planet’s inhabitants about their presence. She wanted them all as keyed up and wary as possible. So she pinned a haughty expression on her face, and gave them the kind of withering look she had often seen on Moises’s face. Then she completely ignored them.