Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One (65 page)

“So what are we going to do once we get to Romane? I mean if we’re truly being hunted, I damn sure want to find out why.”

She felt his hands rest on her shoulders from behind. He began kneading the muscles up to the curve of her neck. “At this point we have to assume we
are
being hunted. I can’t get a handle on why, though. A number of people are aware of the alien threat now and—”

She frowned and twisted around, ignoring the dull twinge in her side. “You think this is about the aliens and not the war? Why—”

In an instant his expression morphed from thoughtfulness and affection to…horror? Cold hardness and perhaps even fury.

He backed away from the couch in an explosion of movement. “What in the bloody
hell
is—
Jesus
!”

“What’s wrong?”

His hand ran violently down his face. “Turn on the news feed….”

“
What
is—” Her message indicator began flashing angrily, along with an unfamiliar yellow alert. She waved the news feed on as she opened it.

Earth Alliance Military Police Order:

You are requested to report to Military Headquarters in San Francisco for questioning regard—

On the embedded screen, front and center, floated an image of Caleb.

“Caleb Andreas Marano, an agent with the Senecan Federation Division of Intelligence, has been named as the prime suspect in the horrific bombing of EASC Headquarters in Vancouver, Earth yesterday. He should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, so approach with caution.”

Her eyes started to dart to him, but froze mid-motion when the image on the screen transitioned—to one of
her
.

“Mr. Marano was last seen in the company of Alexis Mallory Solovy. Ms. Solovy is the estranged daughter of EASC Director of Operations Admiral Miriam Solovy and the deceased Brigadier David Solovy, a well-known hero of the 1
^st
Crux War. Ms. Solovy is being sought for questioning, but is not currently considered a suspect in the bombing itself.”

“’Estranged’? Thanks, Mom….”

Her eVi continued to blink and beep as an avalanche of messages rolled in; she silenced the entire interface to concentrate on him.

He paced in even greater agitation than the previous night, his eyes dark and ominous. She found herself reminded of her very first impression of him:
dangerous
.

“Caleb, what the hell is happening here?”

His jaw had clenched into a razor-sharp edge. “Apparently since they failed to kill me, they decided to frame me for mass murder instead.”

He sank against the wall and brought his hands up to seize his jaw in a death grip. “Goddammit! This is fucked up beyond all reason.”

“I’m sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have forced you to go to Earth.” She stood to go over to him.

His hands fell away from his jaw. “No.” He met her halfway and grasped both sides of her face. “It was worth it, no matter
what
happens. And you didn’t force me—I chose to go.”

A smile pulled at her lips, but refused to materialize. “Is it possible EASC is blaming you solely because they have evidence you were there? To put a face on the enemy?”

“Maybe….” He resumed pacing, though it had gained a more methodical, deliberate quality. “The thing is, the information I saw—before I was locked out of Division’s network, as it appears I now
am
—indicated we had no idea who ordered the bombing. I’m not at all convinced Seneca is responsible.”

“Who else would do it? Terrorists, taking advantage of the war as an opportunity to sow chaos?”

“Conceivably. Still, that scenario doesn’t jibe with the hit on us or Volosk.”

“You think they’re related to the bombing?”

He came to an abrupt stop. “They are now.”

With a deep breath he visibly
willed
himself in control. More of the barely restrained rage seeped away. “Okay. We already suspected someone or a group was manipulating events to trigger the war. The bombing could easily be part of it. Any reluctance on the part of the Alliance will evaporate if they believe Seneca attacked their military leadership. And killing me would obviously prevent me from proving I didn’t do it. In which case I’m only a pawn, a convenient patsy.”

“Why kill me though?”

“Same reason.” He gave her a smile, yet his expression was
so
troubled. “You
know
I didn’t do it.” The smile faded into concentration. “But why kill Volosk? It’s impossible his murder is unrelated.”

She found she had joined him in pacing, worrying at her lower lip while they crisscrossed the cabin.
There was something ticking at the back of her mind….

She grabbed his shoulder as they passed one another, her eyes lighting up. “You know what you and I, Volosk and EASC Headquarters have in common? The Metis report—” and darkening again “—but others have it, too. Dr. LaRose, for one.”

“Well, what’s his status?”

She queried the exanet and scanned the results. “No mention of an attack…hold on.” The scan had also picked up an unread message in her eVi…so she was a little behind in reading her messages. She
had
been shot.

“I have a request from him for another hard copy of the data. It seems one of his researchers took the disk home—and never returned.”

“To work?”

“To anywhere.”

A frown grew across his face, tugging his mouth downward. “Okay, that’s…suspicious.”

The frown deepened into a full grimace. “But still, you were right before—a lot of people have seen the information. Director Delavasi, analysts and scientists on both sides, the rest of the EASC Board, probably our Director of Defense and Field Marshal. The secret’s out. And they didn’t try to kill LaRose—the report is simply missing.”

He shook his head. “I’m not convinced it isn’t about the war. If there is a conspiracy, the conspirators would absolutely want to eliminate us before we exposed it. And Volosk had the assassination autopsy reports…is that what got him killed?” He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Is he dead because I pulled him into this mess?”

“He’s dead because they’re bad guys. And while they haven’t tried to kill LaRose, what if they killed his researcher?”

He nodded. “Right, the report. I wonder—”

She was pacing rapidly now, any ache from her wounds forgotten and fire now animating her eyes. “Not the
report
. The hard copy of the raw data. Others saw the report, but I only made four copies of the raw data: for us, EASC, LaRose and Volosk.”

Her gaze shot up to meet his. “We missed something.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something else in the data I captured. Something important.”

He stared at her, slowly letting out a weighty breath. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“That the aliens are already among us, or at least have agents working on their behalf? Yes, I do.”

“Just making sure.”

“Do you disagree?”

He shrugged gamely. “No…I don’t believe I do. Because you know what? Last night wasn’t the first time on this mission someone’s tried to kill me. With everything that’s happened I had almost forgotten about it, but three merc ships attacked me on the way
to
Metis. That’s why I opened fire on you in the first place—I thought you were one of them.”

She groaned. “And
that’s
what the job was about….”

“What job?”

“Right before I left for Metis, I was offered an absurd amount of money to go to work for the government overseeing the Alliance’s deep space exploration program. The Minister for Extra-Solar Development practically fell on his knees begging me to accept the post, and accept it immediately. I don’t see how anyone knew where I was headed, but it has to be related. Dammit, I
knew
something was up with that.” With a sigh she flopped down on the couch and opened an aural.

He resumed a more leisurely pacing, and after a moment gave a wry laugh. “Are we
actually
saying there is both a conspiracy to foment war
and
a conspiracy to conceal the nature of the aliens? Stretches the limits of credulity a little far.”

His eyes rolled at the ceiling. “Unless it’s all one conspiracy—they instigate a war to soften us up ahead of the invasion and ensure we’re so busy killing each other we’ll be unable to mount an effective response. Nope,
that’s
crazy. Right?”

She glanced up distractedly. “Hell if I know. You’re the spy.” She had begun scrolling through the data files, looking for the answer. The
reason
.

And with a blink it leapt out at her. In retrospect, it was blindingly obvious and she was a
svoloch
for missing it. “I found it.”

“Seriously?”

“Perhaps not all of it, but I found one rather important detail we missed. It’s the TLF wave. I pegged the terahertz as communications in part due to the way it permeated, spreading out across the area as if to blanket the ships. The TLF though….”

She met his gaze. “It’s coming
from
the portal. More specifically, from the
inside
of the portal. See, here? The furthest the wave can be traced back to is the center of the portal, at which point it’s mid-waveform.”

“
Damn
. But is it enough to kill over?”

“For one thing, I’m not sure it’s necessarily a high threshold—see Exhibit A, the fleet of superdreadnoughts. For another, if it draws attention to the portal itself—and to whatever is on the other side of it—then to them it very well could be. Remember, nothing in the
universe
emits waves at so low a frequency. So the question becomes, what does?”

She fixated on the aural as her fingertips drummed a staccato étude on her thigh. “There’s one way to find out.”

“You want to go back to Metis? It’ll be risky.”

“Not
that
risky. I’ll need a new dampener field module though. Ken can probably bring one to Romane and—”

“Ken? Another ‘good friend’ of yours?”

She returned his smirk in full. “Ken is a
she
and yes, albeit not in the way you’re implying.”

He chuckled, but she saw the strain still pulling at the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth. “Okay. This is a good plan. I’m in.”

Her voice dropped to a tentative whisper. “I’m glad…but I’m not certain you grasp the full extent of the ‘plan.’”

An eyebrow rose. “And it would be?”

“We’ll see what we find when we get to Metis, but…I expect to find answers we will need to go through the portal.”

“
Through
the portal. Alex, I may be crazy, but you are
insane
.”

She grinned hopefully. “Is that a problem?”

He closed the distance between them and draped his arms over her shoulders. “No. In fact, it might be one reason I—” an odd light flickered across his eyes “—think you’re kind of amazing.”

A tingle of dizzying pleasure raced down her spine to her toes. She kissed him softly. Languidly. For a moment the fact people were trying to kill them and they were now wanted fugitives didn’t matter so much.

She sank deeper into his arms, letting him envelop her. “Maybe the key to clearing your name is on the other side of the portal.”

He nodded against her lips. “Maybe the key to defeating those aliens is on the other side of the portal.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Richard. Mom.

You need to understand Caleb did not do this. Irrespective of any moral, philosophical or political considerations, he was with me every second he wasn’t under military guard. It is a physical impossibility for him to have played any role whatsoever.

Something else is going on here. Something far more sinister than a mere civil war or even a mere alien invasion. I plan to find out what it is.

In the meantime, Richard, it would be awesome if you could clear his name (and mine). Someone deliberately framed him. If I know you, it should really rankle you. It also means this war truly IS a lie.

Mom, do try to prevent the aliens from destroying Earth, and as many other worlds as is feasible, until we can return with answers.

— Alex