Roark (Women Of Earth Book 1) (22 page)

“The Hahnshin anticipate my every move. Tactics that have worked against the finest fighting forces in the galaxy have failed against the Hahnshin, yet only in Sector Three. We have a traitor in our midst, but I have failed to find him.

He couldn’t tell her that some believed she was the traitor.

“I still don’t know the destination of the missing rations and we’ve moved no further in finding your children. If I concentrate on one problem, six others arrive. Winter is coming and the town is in no way ready. People will die there, too. Twenty-four of your hours a day are not enough. My control is crumbling bit by bit and if I should lose it completely, the repercussions would echo far beyond Sector Three.”

Mira had fallen to her back. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was steady. She looked like she was sleeping, and why not? What woman would want to hear a man’s weaknesses when it was his job to support hers?

Mira’s eyes popped open startling him with their sudden motion and alertness.

“Call Petrark,” she said.

Roark frowned. Was the woman dreaming of another man while he spoke what was in his heart? The man was handsome, he’d give him that, but he was young and inexperienced both in battle and with women, or so Roark had thought.

“What ills have you that Petrark can cure?”

She laughed at him again. “Ouch. I forgot to put stupid jealous guy on my list of your multiple personalities. I don’t need him to cure my ills, you big goof. You need him to cure yours. He was a whatchamacallit, a CST guy. That’s it. I tried to tell you earlier, but I got sidetracked. He said it was imperative he speak with you. His word, imperative. You know how precise he is. He found a problem with your system when he was reinstalling all that stuff in your new office. He said he hesitated to correct it without your permission. It was something about access, Roark.”

He was out of bed and searching under it. “What have you done with my uniform?”

“It’s covered with gunk. You’re not wearing it until it’s cleaned. Fine,” she said when he glared at her, “stink like a shithouse. What do I care?”

She slipped from the bed and took a plastic garbage bag from the basket in the corner of the room. Untying the knot, she produced the uniform.

He pulled it on, ignoring the gunk she refused to have him name.

“You’re messy,” she’d told him as if her reasoning made perfect sense, “but you’re not gunky. You could never throw your gunk around. If you tell me what it really is, then I’m more likely to envision your gunk staining someone else’s uniform. So we’ll leave it as gunk.”

He’d laughed at it, but didn’t understand it.

The tunic settled on his shoulders. “I need to find Petrark.”

“That’s easy. He’s in bed. Honey, it’s two in the morning,” she said as if he needed the reminder.

“This can’t wait. Imperative. His word, remember? Our conversation should be private and what better place than here where others will assume I have better things to occupy my time.” He gave her a devilish grin.

“If you’re caught, you can always hint that you’ve asked him to join us.” She returned his grin and laughed when he growled his opinion on that.

“Go on,” she said, shooing him off. “Petrark’s virtue is safe from me. I like the big, ugly ones.” She started pulling on the clothes she’d left neatly folded and ready for the following day. “I’ll put the cavik on.”

Chapter 24

Someone had found a way into Roark’s command link. They had access to all his discussions with his officers and Prime before orders were conveyed. Petrark had explained it all to them, using drawings when the need arose. Mira suspected that neither Roark nor Harm understood half of what the man said. She didn’t either, but they had the skill not to look like it.

“Who? Who would have the knowledge and access to make this happen?”

“Almost anyone in CST could do it. I could,” Petrark admitted and then raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t, though. I wouldn’t. I mean...”

“We figured that out when you pointed out the problem.”

In spite of the hour, Harm looked as he always did, leather trousers, leather vest with his insignia on the breast and snow white shirt that looked like heavy cotton but never wrinkled. Mira figured the shirt wouldn’t dare. She also wondered if the man slept standing up, fully dressed and ready to roll at a moment’s notice. Roark had stopped by Harm’s quarters first and the Prime was at her door in less than five minutes.

“Get on with it,” he said impatiently.

“Yes, Prime. Most could do it, but most couldn’t do it without leaving a larger footprint. This person was expert. I only spotted it because...”

The young Godan Legion Officer didn’t sleep standing up. His hair was mussed from sleep and clumps of it pointed in various directions. He was dressed in a crumpled tunic and drawstring pants that hung to mid-calf. She changed her opinion of him back to her original. Look out ladies! He was a beautiful creature, and unlike Roark or Harm, his face was still soft and unlined. He was shy, not humorless, and with the right guidance, his attention to detail and precision could be an advantage in bed.

She caught Roark watching her watch Petrark. She sent him an air kiss and received a scowl in return.

“Can we find him?” Roark asked. “I want his ass and I want it yesterday.

“Yes, sir.” Petrark finally let a little of his light shine through. “He’s good, but I’m better. Give me a couple of days and I’ll find him, but if it was me...” His mouth snapped shut. The light went out. The legion Officer colored slightly and lowered his eyes. “Sorry, sir.”

Roark laughed and clapped the officer on the back. “Mira has informed me that in this house I am not king. I am not even the First Commander. I’m wise enough not to contradict her. You should be, too. Say what’s on your mind, son. You’re the lead on this mission.”

Petrark glanced at Mira and gulped. “I can find him, but do you want to catch him? I don’t know what’s going on here, but unless this guy is working on some personal vendetta, why would he be sitting on your transmissions? If it’s not personal, I’d suspect he’s part of a team. I’d want to know who he’s working with and why.”

Roark and his Prime exchanged looks. Unspoken questions and answers passed between them. Harm nodded.

“You always did know how to pick ‘em,” Harm said. “You got anymore cavik, Mira? We’ve got a lot to discuss with the Lege.”

~*~

With the resilience of his youth, David’s recovery was swift. On the second day out of the induced semi-stasis state, he opened his eyes, looked from sister to sister, and spoke.

“Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.” The words were no sooner spoken than his face clouded over. “Oh, shit,” he said and the smile that was forming vanished for good. “I wasn’t dreaming.”

“David,” Wynne admonished from habit, but her look didn’t match her words. David was back and she couldn’t hide her happiness.

Mira’s feelings were mixed. A few days before, she would have given her life to save his. Now that his recovery was assured, she wanted to break his neck.

“Shit doesn’t quite cover it,” she said drily. “Try deep fucking shit, that’s a helluva a lot closer. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you have a clue what you’ve put us through?”

“Hey, I’m the injured guy here, remember?” he complained as ready as she was to fall back into their familiar pattern. He gave Wynne a puppy dog look that had her stroking his head in sympathy.

“Remember? I was there, you little...” Mira clamped her jaws shut at the memory and closed her eyes, hoping he saw her frustration and not the tears forming behind the lids. When one escaped from the corner, she knew she’d lost. “I thought we’d lost you, David.”

That tear and the reminder of his own close call must have touched him, because his tone changed, too. “Yeah, I kind of thought I was a goner, too. Guess we were both wrong. It’s all good, Mira.” He reached for her hand.

“That you’re alive is better than good, but there’s plenty more that isn’t, mister,” she said, reaffirming her stance as family bad guy. But she took his hand and gave it a squeeze to show him her position was only half-hearted. “You have a lot of explaining to do and that had better be all good, too.”

“Okay, okay, but can I explain it after I eat?”

“Yes,” Wynne said.

“No,” Mira said at the same time. She’d like to pretend everything was fine, but she couldn’t. “You need to tell us what you know. Make it short and fast so you don’t starve to death.”

“But I’m hungry,” David muttered. As if to prove his point, his stomach growled.

Wynne, ever the peacemaker, reached for a hand of each of her siblings, forming a circle of the three. “Why don’t I go rustle up some food while you tell Mira what happened.” She shook her head as if exasperated with them both, but she was grinning happily, delighted to hear their familiar bickering. “That way you both win.”

“She’s crazy,” David whispered.

“I know,” Mira whispered back.

“It comes from living with you two,” Wynne called through the closing door.

“You should have told me, David. I could have helped,” Mira told him when their sister was gone.

“You would have gone ballistic and stopped me.”

He was right. She never saw anything when she was with him, but rumor had it that people who messed with Tomaselli paid for it. Big time. She didn’t want David near The Buzz for any reason, and would have had plenty to say about it, but she would have done as he said and gone ballistic if she knew he was trying to work his way into Tomaselli’s circle of thugs.

“Okay, so you didn’t tell me and I didn’t stop you. Now, start at the beginning.”

“Bret asked me if I wanted to hang out with him and some of the other guys. They played cards, but I couldn’t play because I didn’t have money and then Brett asked if I’d like to make a few bucks. All we had to do was pick up a few boxes from a guy across town. Why not, right? So I did and we got paid. It was just some clothes, sneakers and shit. No big deal.”

“No big deal! Those things were most likely stolen, David. And the money? What happened to it?”

“I lost it at cards and...” His fingers picked at the blanket. “Other stuff.”

Mira wasn’t sure she wanted to know what other stuff was, so she didn’t ask. She nodded for him to go on. “I’m listening.”

“I didn’t think I was hurting anybody, Mira. I know what you’re thinking. I should’ve brought that money home.”

She wasn’t thinking about the money at all. She was thinking that David’s biggest fault was not thinking and that had he thought, he wouldn’t have been hanging around with a slug like Bret in the first place.

“But I figured it wasn’t like I was taking anything away from you guys and I was tired of hanging around with little kids.” He paused and added, “And being treated like one.”

“That was my fault,” she conceded reluctantly. “I have a hard time seeing you as anyone other than my baby brother.”

David didn’t disagree. “Yeah, and it pissed me off.” He shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to show you I wasn’t a kid anymore or maybe I just wanted to show me.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, he started talking about other ways we could make money, big money. He said Tony was looking for guys he could trust. He took me to see Tony and Tony started talking about fighting for the cause, about driving the Hahnshin and the Godan out, about making things better for the people.

“I knew it was bullshit,” he said before she could comment. “Guys like Tony don’t care about stuff like the people, but when I tried to tell that to Bret, he got really mad and started to talk about what happens to guys who betray the cause. So I backed off and said I only wanted to make sure that Tony was for real and not handing us bullshit. And yeah,” he admitted, “I liked hanging out at The Buzz.”

Mira wasn’t sure that was the entire truth, but she let it slide. She thought it was more likely that David had been a willing believer until the night the silver eagles fought off the crows. She squeezed the hand that had somehow found its way into hers.

“I get it, David. I really do. I think that’s how I ended up with Anthony, too. He lures you in with the shiny stuff and then you realize that gold covered bullshit is still bullshit.”

He’d begun the story, albeit hesitantly, in his typical not-my-fault fashion, sometimes stopping to blink away the brain fog Ahnyis had warned them might follow the semi-stasis. As his story went on, however, the fog began to lift and it was no longer about poor David, but about what he’d learned.

It wasn’t long before David heard mention of the kids who’d disappeared and knew that Tony was a part of it. He had to save them.

Again, Mira suspected the truth was a little different than the telling. David wanted to be a hero more than he wanted to save the children. He wanted to be seen as a man.

“Bret laughed about the stupid Godan and how they thought they were using Tony, but he was using them. The money he made from them was going to the cause. He thought it was funny how the Godan were paying for the revolution against them. Bret believed it, Mira.”

“Do you know where the kids are?”

“No, the tower thing happened before I could find out. I didn’t know what they were planning to do until it was too late. You have to believe me. I didn’t know and tried to stop it when I did. The only reason I said I’d go on that run was to give me an excuse to hang out at The Buzz after closing. That’s when you hear the most, when nobody but Tony’s crew can hang out.”

For several days they’d been switching out crates at the tower sites. They’d done it before; replace boxes of goods with boxes of junk so no one would notice the theft for days or sometimes weeks. To a city kid like David, fertilizer was useless junk. It wasn’t until that final load that Bret told him the plan.

“I tried to stop him. I did, Mira. He said they were spy towers and the people who were there were no better than enemy spies.” David started to cry. “There were people in those towers that I knew. He said the money was worth it. He shrugged and called them collateral damage like they were broken windows or something. They were people!”

Mira held him in her arms while he sobbed out the rest. He and Bret fought. David lost. The shard of glass in his side wasn’t from the blast, but from Bret. David only survived because Bret was running late and didn’t stop to make sure he’d finished the job. When the tower fell, David was covered in rubble. Bret probably thought he was dead.

“You have to believe me,” he moaned into her shoulder. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

“I believe you, David. You did what you could.”

All they had to do was get Roark to believe it, too.

“The helmetheads weren’t real, either,” he sniffed, wiping his eyes. The more he spoke, the bleaker he looked.

She knew that, but she let him go on uninterrupted.

“They take the kids out when the crows come in from the north. Tony uses one of those radio things they all have on their shoulders. Sometimes he speaks in English, but the good stuff is in Godan. He speaks it almost as good as you, Mira. I learned a little when you were practicing, enough to catch some of the words, but not enough to put them together. That’s why I took the translator. His door is warped and doesn’t always close all the way, and I thought...”

He looked around his windowless room as if seeing it for the first time and it probably was. He’d been unconscious from his surgery when they brought him here and been kept in semi-stasis for several days. This was the first morning he’d been fully conscious.

The tiny room was a basement utility closet they’d quickly converted to a hospital room to keep him safe, while spreading the word that his recovery looked unlikely. It was spotlessly clean, but the walls and ceiling were stained with years of vacancy.

“It doesn’t matter what I thought. I screwed that up, too. How many are left?” His head fell back on the pillow and he stared blankly at the stained ceiling. “And why didn’t you let me die with them?”

Had he been dreaming while unconscious? Did he think those dreams were real? How much of what he told her had been a dream, too?

“Davey, what are you talking about? Everything is all right.”

Anger mixed with his misery. “Stop it. I’m not a kid. Stop telling me everything is all right when we both know we wouldn’t be in a bunker if it was.”

Under other circumstances, she might have laughed at his misconception, but talk of bunkers and dying added up to something way too frightening for humor. “This isn’t a bunker. It’s a cleaning supply closet and I swear to you, everything will be all right. Davey, it’s not too late. Tell me what you know.”