Starlaw (12 page)

“And
you
?” he somberly asked as he gazed down at her.

“No excuse,” Laurel firmly responded while lifting her chin and staring back. She'd be damned if she'd throw in the
sir
. His deep green gaze narrowed, somewhat dangerously, and he stepped to within a breath's distance. The invasion of personal space was so blatant, she almost stepped back to keep her breasts from being right up against his midsection.

Gemma gently elbowed Laurel in the ribs.

“
Sir
,” Laurel grudgingly added in deference to Gemma's physical prompt.

For a moment—it was only the briefest second in time—she thought he suppressed a smile. But she must have imagined it since he was all business as he turned to T'mon again.

“I'm sorry about the disturbance, Council Officer. I can assure you it won't happen again and my crew will be suitably punished,” Darius informed the fuming man.

“Well, that's … that's
acceptable
, Commander. I'll leave you to deal with your people then.” T'mon turned away and Darius motioned for Barst, Gemma, and Laurel to follow him.

The four of them strolled silently toward the ship. No one spoke until they were safely aboard and the gangway was closed behind them.

“I was on my way to find you when the local alarm went off. What happened?” Darius asked.

A moment of silence followed.

“Someone had better speak … now!”

“A few Oboreans were looking for women to buy,” Barst succinctly explained.

Darius nodded toward Gemma and Laurel. “I take it these two were considered for sale?”

“Yes, sir.”

Darius clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head. “You'd think they'd realize they're the only race still using women as a marketable commodity.” He gazed into the distance for a moment before putting his gaze back on Barst. “Just for my own edification … what did they offer?”

“Sir?”

“How much would they have paid?” Darius said, enunciating each word carefully.

“We … never got that far, sir. I-I just swung,” Barst told him in a confused tone.

Darius lifted one hand and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Gemma might have brought sixteen-hundred credits. Especially with her knowledge of medicine. But
you
…
” he said as he looked Laurel up and down. “The Oboreans would have been asking for a refund when they learned about your temper.”

Laurel gasped and glared up at him.

“He's joking,” Gemma said in a placating fashion as she put one arm around Laurel's shoulders.

Gemma and Barst began to chuckle.

“I'm glad everyone thinks this is so fucking funny!” Laurel blurted. “Somebody might have gotten killed.”

Darius opened his mouth but Laurel cut him off. Her inner regulator was gone; she wasn't reeling things in any longer. Not when
Commander
Son-of-a-bitch
had control over everything she did and where she went. Even the food she ate was at his or his organization's discretion. She'd been in space for about fifteen days, by her reckoning. It hadn't taken much to push her buttons after being confined and forgotten in the sick bay by all but Gemma. As far as she was concerned, Darius Starlaw was no better than the greenery that'd just tried to buy her. She was little more than a slave, to live or move by his will.

“This is how it is …
spaceman
… I'll say thank you to Gemma for saving my life. After I woke up in that coffin, she reminded me that you'd locked up that thing that shot me, so I'll thank you as well. But that's the extent of what I owe.”

Gemma leaned close to Laurel but Darius raised one hand to stop the med-tech's whispered advice. His eyes narrowed again. “Don't, Gem … let the little nova speak,” he angrily ordered.

Laurel took a deep breath and glanced at the two subordinates in the group. Their looks of mutual shock didn't deter. She was sick and damned tired of what she'd endured and the possible, likely probable, death of her friends. And without so much as a clear picture of exactly what'd happened.

“What you think of as amusing in that bar doesn't remotely make me smile, mister. I'm not anyone's joke! And as far as what my history is with you, I've got one version of the story but I don't
really
know what happened to my friends or my partner. I have only your account to go by. And even assuming Gemma and Barst wanted to tell me the truth, it's clear they do or say exactly what you allow them to. If you say jump … they ask how high.”

She moved even closer, stood on her toes, and thrust her face very, very close to his. From her current position, she could feel his breath and see the fierce anger in his deep green eyes.

“I suppose you think you're God's gift to interstellar law enforcement, but I've got a P.S. for you. You and no one from your world had any right landing on my planet and interfering with what my friends and I were ordered to do. You might have saved my life, but it occurs to me that if you really do have a lot more technology on this ship, you could have caught up with your man outside our planet's atmosphere, where nobody on the surface could've been hurt, and
before
the fucker even landed! So it's all on you, home boy. If my friends really are dead and their families are grieving, it's because you weren't as good as you damn well think you are!”

Darius's jaw clenched.

“And don't lie to me one more time and tell me you're gonna get me home. Because I know that's not happening!” she added as a final shot.

“
Laurel
!” Gemma whispered again as mortified shock colored her voice.

Barst also murmured her name and put one hand on Laurel's shoulder to gently pull her away from his commanding officer. Even though she stepped back when the prompt was given, she never broke the enraged gaze she bestowed on the man responsible for the worst mess of her life and the horrific events leading up to now.

Darius slowly nodded and spoke in a very soft, infuriated tone that made even his crewmen back away. “Your friends
are
dead. Their families are grieving and that's regrettable. And you're right, Earther. I agreed to
ask
to bring you back to your world but it won't happen. It was my hope that you might acclimate but I can see that's not possible. You haven't the ability to grasp who and what we are and what we do. Lastly … as to catching Goll before he landed, I wish that would have been possible but it wasn't. He was already on your world when we tracked his vessel there. We destroyed it so he couldn't get away. And that was meant to trap him exactly where he was and to keep your authorities from discovering his ship and the technology therein.”

“So … you didn't really give a damn about the consequences of an Earth confrontation,” she accused.

“I'd have tracked Goll anywhere in the universe no matter where he went. I'd have sold my soul to get my hands on that butchering savage, and collateral damage be damned!”

The growling vehemence in his voice was so palpable that even the air grew hot with raw energy. For a few moments, no one said anything. No one moved.

It was Laurel's turn to slowly shake her head in utter disbelief. “You're no peacekeeper. You're no better than Goll.” The fury in his gaze almost made her back up. Instead, she swallowed hard, lifted her chin higher and nodded in understanding. “If this is the future … Earth's a better place without it.”

He took one step toward her but Barst held out a hand to separate him from Laurel. “Sir,” Barst softly advised, “perhaps we should reconsider saying anything else for the time being, and go our separate ways. Gemma and I will escort Laurel back to the med bay.”

Darius turned quickly and strode away, the sound of his boot steps marking his enraged departure.

• • •

Darius stood in his quarters looking out the massive view port. It was situated on one entire side of the bulkhead in his quarters. Enhanced visions of stars, nebulae, and planets lent an ethereal air to the space as it was meant to. As with all command-rank quarters, his were more spacious and much more luxuriously appointed. Right now, he didn't care if he was in the hull of a garbage scow, such was his mood. As he stood there, he really wasn't seeing anything outside the ship. His mind was on what the Earther had said and his response to it.

His hatch buzzer sounded but it came as no surprise. He turned away from the view port, lifted one hand to a control panel in the bulkhead, and opened the entrance to his quarters. Barst stood in the outer passageway but paused before actually entering a supervisor's living space. Darius slowly considered the glowering countenance on his friend and second-in-command. Barst simply stood in silence waiting to be asked within the space.

“Enter,” Darius said as he turned back toward the view port. He heard the hatch close behind Barst but waited for the sordid conversation to follow. He declined any comment until Barst said something.

“Permission to speak freely,” Barst requested.

Darius simply lifted his right hand in acceptance, but he didn't face his friend for the time being.

“We need to talk,” Barst said as he moved to Darius's right and positioned himself in such a way that his presence couldn't be ignored.

Darius faced the other man squarely, clasped his hands behind his back, and lifted his chin. “Yes?” he asked, in a noncommittal fashion.

“No disrespect, sir, but … what was that all about?”

“Elucidate.”

Barst took a deep breath and puffed out his massive chest. “Darius … what's wrong with you? I haven't seen you lose your temper like that in a very long time. Certainly never as an officer in a command position.”

Barst only used his first name when something was both serious and personal. Given his words, the latter of the two situations now existed. This was personal.

For that reason, he let the familiarity concerning his given name pass. Instead of facing his crewman, however, he turned back to the huge view port again before speaking. “I take it our …
guest
… isn't happy with my response to her situation?”

“What was that crap about collateral damage? I know damned well you didn't mean it. At least, I
think
I do.”

“That was an …
unfortunate
… choice of words,” he relented. “But she needs to realize her place aboard this vessel.”

“Her
place
?” Barst sighed deeply and shook his head as he did so. “She's not a member of our crew. There are no real boundaries where she's concerned.”

Feeling anger rise again, Darius finally faced his friend to continue the conversation on a less formal basis. “She must accept the situation. I can't change it, and neither can you!”

“Darius, she's in the middle of a circumstance that's as alien to her as any world we've ever visited. She's also lost everything and everyone she's ever loved.” He paused for a long moment then spoke in softer tone. “I think you, of all people, would understand—”

“Don't! Don't go there!” Darius angrily interrupted as he stuck one index finger beneath Barst's nose, then sighed in frustration and turned away.

“I took the liberty of explaining that your anger made you misspeak.”

Darius rounded on his friend and glared at him. This time, he had no intention of tempering his words. “You overstep yourself,
mister
!”

“Don't worry, Commander,” Barst placated as he reverted to more formal airs, “neither Gemma nor I referenced anything concerning Goll's past. We simply tried to explain that our intentions are to see justice done, that there are stringent, standing orders about restricted planets like Earth. She, in turn, asked a great many questions about why she couldn't go back—”

“All of which have been already answered.”

“Sir, Gemma hadn't yet told her about the malfunction with the decontamination unit. But that issue is now out in the open.”

Darius opened his mouth to upbraid his subordinate, but Barst put one hand up to stop him.

“Yes, I know you'd ordered her not to say anything,” Barst continued. “Everyone knows about that damned order to leave the explanation to you. And once it was revealed, it caused quite a scene, but at least Laurel is now fully aware of the extent of her surgery, and that putting her back on Earth would make her a physical oddity. Her life would never be her own. And since we don't know what caused her breathing difficulties to begin with, Gemma cannot reverse the changes she made. It's just too risky. Again, Laurel has been advised of
everything
you told us not to talk about. But it was necessary so she'd understand. Then we tactfully reminded her of that which she already knows. That even if by some miracle she goes back … she'd never be able to explain what happened to any authority's satisfaction, and that she's most surely presumed dead along with her comrades. She wasn't aware that, while she's been aboard just fifteen days, more than five months have passed back on Earth given the current speed of this ship. She also wasn't aware that you'd incinerated the bodies of the victims so as not to leave any evidence of contact with advanced life forms. All her people will know is that an area of the woods was burned, but not how.” Barst took a deep breath before finishing his lengthy soliloquy. “Now … you may deal with me as you wish but it's still done. In cases like this, the truth is always best. She knew we were lying. She's not without a certain amount of astuteness.”

Darius closed his eyes, wearily dragged his hands through his hair, and faced Barst squarely again. “Exactly
how
did she respond?”

“As I alluded, she was angry.”

“Of course! That's why the bloody damned woman wasn't told right off, and why we were waiting to approach the subject until she'd acclimated. Did she understand
that
?”