The Phoenix Project (53 page)

    
“You can’t go.”

    
“I’m going to miss you, Elliot,” she said
and placed a hand on his cheek. “In two days we’ll be at war. You need to be
prepared and I have my orders as well. We won’t see each other again.”

    
Before either of them realized it, they
were in the strongest embrace of their lives. Nadine and Elliot both wept as
they kissed for the last time.

    
With the knowledge of her oath to the Coalition,
Nadine tore herself from his embrace and turned for the door. She walked out at
a quick march and exited with her escort joining her at the threshold. She
didn’t see Elliot drop helplessly onto the couch behind her before the door
closed.

    
“Elik!” a scientist exclaimed from a corner
of the situation room.

    
“Yes?” Elik replied.

    
He strode towards the station. The light of
the screen Tamien scrutinized lent definition to the patches of black on an
otherwise brown face.

    
“Look,” Tamien said, indicating different
points on the three—dimensional map. “Do you see it?”

    
Elik watched while the icons indicating
different classes of Nevargh warship shifted and moved to different positions.
New ones appeared on the map as more Nevargh warships exited FTL space.

    
“I think so. If I’m correct, they’re moving
into the D—Type formation.”

    
“This must mean they’re preparing to
attack.”

    
“Not yet,” Elik stated. “Look at the gaps
in their formation. They’re still short by about a hundred ships.”

    
“How much time do we have?”

    
“I would guess no more than a week,” Elik
said. “We need our Alliance
allies to send reinforcements, and much sooner than expected.”

    
“No!” Lathiel exclaimed, “You’ll fry the Graviton
Assembly! I know, I know. Try it again.”

    
“Lathiel,” a man said from the entrance to
engineering, “there’s a call coming in for you.”

    
“Can you manage for a minute by yourself?”
Lathiel asked Ranik.

    
“I’ll try,” Ranik replied through sharp
teeth. Lathiel nodded and left the room dominated by a duo of massive glowing
columns several stories tall. The engines were powerful, but they paled in
comparison to the might of a single fold drive. To accomplish what they needed
required tying the superluminal drives together so they would act as one
engine. He left the haze of activity and found the engineer’s office just off
of the engine room. He sat at a long, narrow black desk and looked up to the
communications screen mounted on the wall. To his surprise, it was not Elliot
or Joshua on the screen, but Elik.

    
“This is a bad time, Elik.”

    
“The Nevargh are getting ready to attack
Cartise.”

    
Lathiel’s face fell. “When?”

    
“We can’t be sure. It may be a week or only
days. They are now short by just over a hundred ships before their formation is
complete.”

    
“We will be ready to launch in forty
hours.”

    
“And how long will it be until you and your
allies arrive?” Elik asked.

    
“With the conversion of their current
engines to temporary fold drives, we’ll be there in the standard amount of
time: about eighty—five hours.”

    
“That may be too long. Is their any way you
can get here sooner?”

    
“I can run the drives past their normal
operating capacity for the trip there, but believe me, we’re racing to meet the
activation deadline as it is,” Lathiel replied.

    
“How far can you push their drives?”

    
“I’m already reducing the operational
lifetimes of these engines from one hundred years to perhaps twenty.”

    
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent.”

    
“I might be able to get them to one hundred
and twenty percent of normal operating capacity under the new configuration,”
Lathiel said.

    
“Good.”

    
“That will only get us there fifteen hours
sooner,” Lathiel said.

    
“Every hour, God above, every minute
counts,” Elik said.

    
“Come in,” Madison said in response to the door tone.
She was surprised to see Elliot standing at the entrance to her quarters aboard
the
Endeavour
, looking for all the world like he had just come from a
funeral.

    
“I thought we were supposed to receive a
warning whenever an Admiral was going to visit,” Joshua said.

    
“I ordered them not to,” Elliot said.

    
“Never mind that, Josh. What’s wrong, Eli?”
Madison asked.
She got up from the couch where she had been watching the INN.
The news had been reporting plunging numbers on the stock market as rumors of
growing hostilities between the Coalition and Alliance came to light. The INN
had only spurred the restless masses on by reporting on every rumor they came
across.

    
“She left me,” Elliot said sullenly. “She’s
gone back to the Coalition.”

    
“Who,” Joshua asked, “the bitch?”

    
“Josh,” Madison said, “go drink something.”

    
“But I just,” he began.

    
“Just quit while you’re ahead and go hang
out with your buddies in the officer’s mess,” Madison finished.

    
“Alright,” Joshua said and allowed her to
escort him to the door. He turned around in the hallway and faced her. “You
usually are pretty good at warning me when I’m about to put my foot in my mouth.”

    
“It’s already halfway in there,” Madison said, before she
closed the door on his grinning face. She turned away from the door to see
Elliot standing in a daze. “What happened?”

    
Elliot said nothing and remained standing
in place. Madison
approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He responded by slowly
bringing her into an embrace. Madison
placed a hand on the back of his head to cradle it at her shoulder.

    
“It’s alright,” Madison said and released a long sigh, “It’s
alright.”

    
Having finally been able to find some
comfort after a long day of preparations, Elliot slowly let her go.

    
“She still has her loyalty.”

    
“So do you,” Madison said.

    
“She’s already chosen her sides as far as I
was concerned. Why would she have helped us at the Waypoint Station if she’s
still a loyal Coalition soldier?”

    
“You know that, but maybe she doesn’t.”

    
“You think so?”

    
“I saw how she looked at you. The last person
who looked at you that way was Lily.”

    
“You wouldn’t believe just how much I know
that now.”

    
“What do you mean?”

    
“I think you need to sit down to hear
this,” Elliot said.

    
“Oh God,” Madison said and sat down on the couch. “What
is it?”

    
“You’ve heard of Defensives?”

    
“Who hasn’t? Those are the Cooperative
people with psi—powers. I always found them a little creepy.”

    
“They’d never force their abilities on
anyone.”

    
“You’re speaking as though you know this as
fact,” she said with a peculiar smile.

    
“I do,” he said and sat down beside her.
“I’m one of those creepy psi—people.”

    
“I was hoping to goad you into finally
admitting it.”

    
“What?”

    
“Josh and I have suspected for some time,
Eli. We’ve known you way too long not to have guessed by now,” Madison said.

    
“You’re not angry?”

    
“Why would I be angry? We knew that
Defensives aren’t supposed to serve in the military and what it would mean if
anyone found out about your situation.”

    
“When did you first suspect?”

    
“Back when you and Lily were together. She
knew, didn’t she?” Madison
asked.

    
“Yes, but how would you know that?”

    
“Because there were certain questions that
she would answer without telling us the full truth. After a few years, Josh and
I put the pieces together. Don’t worry; I really doubt that anyone else figured
it out. We only know because of how close we’ve been to you.”

    
“And all this time you never told me that
you two already knew about this?” Elliot asked.

    
“I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”

    
“Well, that’s one load off my shoulders.”

    
“What about Nadine? Why did you say I
wouldn’t believe how much you know now?”

    
“She’s an Aggressive,” Elliot said.

    
“Now that’s something that I didn’t know!”

    
“You need to realize that no one else can be
told that.”

    
“It won’t go beyond this room, but you have
to know that Josh will find out. I can’t keep anything from him; he always
seems to know when I’m lying.”

    
“I didn’t expect you to. I know the two of
you can keep this a secret.”

    
“So why does that matter anyway?” she asked.

    
“I didn’t know that it would until last
night. We discovered that an Aggressive and a Defensive can share thoughts and
experiences without words.”

    
“How is it that the two of you know that
now?” Madison
asked. When she saw his face flush she chided herself for not guessing. “Never
mind. Please, go on.”

    
“It was during that time that I began to
sense her more than I ever had anyone else before,” Elliot said and looked down
at the couch for a moment. “I still can.”

    
“You can feel what she’s feeling right
now?”

    
“Yes, that’s why I couldn’t believe she’d
leave. It was if she didn’t know her own feelings.”

    
“What is she feeling right now?”

    
Elliot looked into empty space for a moment.
“She’s confused about something, but I’m not sure what.”

    
“Really?”

    
“Yes, really.”

    
“So what’s the problem?”

    
“I can’t turn it off now. It’s like
something that’s there now and can’t be broken.”

    
“I don’t understand why this is a problem,”
Madison said.

    
“You can’t see why this is a problem? I’ll
probably be able to feel what she feels for the rest of my life and you don’t
see why this is a problem?”

    
“Eli, if I could have something like with
Josh, I’d be so happy.”

    
“We may never see each other again. She’s
pretty certain we never will at all.”

    
“Never say never,” Madison said with a warm smile. “With a
connection like that I wouldn’t be surprised if you see her again.”

    
“How can you be sure of that?”

    
“No one can be sure of anything Honey, but
I know that you’re worth the effort and she would be a fool to let you go.”

    
“I hope you’re right,” Elliot confided, “I
really do.”

    
“Don’t worry. Do you have some time, or do
you need to get back to Phoenix?”

    
“Everything I can do is done. The Base is
ready for battle and the particle warhead is up and working. There’s nothing
else to do but wait,” Elliot said.

    
“I was hoping it would never be up and
working, but there’s no point in wishing. We don’t have much else to do but
wait as well. Come on, let’s go and join Josh for a drink.”