Trident's Forge (15 page)

Zer theory confirmed, Kexx took several deep breaths, exhaling fully between each, just as ze would before a deep dive, then ze ran back into the shuttle and dragged Benson a little further. It took three trips, but eventually ze managed to pull the human down the steps, hopefully without too much damage.

Mei came flying in from somewhere. “What happen?”

“We couldn't breathe in there.” Kexx tipped zer head back at the shuttle.

Mei leaned down and held an ear over Benson's mouth. “Ze's still not breathing.” Without another word, Mei placed her mouth over Benson's and breathed out until Kexx saw Benson's chest rise.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up.” Ze repeated the process twice more. Without warning, Benson started to convulse. Ze sucked down a long, echoing breath. One of zer hands shot out and grabbed Kexx's lower leg and squeezed painfully, as if to keep from falling off the world.

“What happened?” Benson finally managed to say while holding zer head.

“You passed out in the shuttle,” Kexx said. “I pulled you out, and Mei… did something to your mouth.”

Benson wiped some saliva off zer lips and looked up at Mei. “You should've asked if you wanted a kiss that bad.”

Mei slapped zer on the chest. “You want me to tell Theresa you said that?”

Benson laughed. Mei laughed. Then, they all laughed together, even if Kexx wasn't exactly sure what about.

T
heresa paced
the main hallway of the Beehive like a nervous cat. An
angry
nervous cat. Something had happened at the first contact site. Something bad. Bad enough that her superiors were keeping a lid on the whole affair so tight they wouldn't even tell Shambhala's chief constable. Which was still her, to the best of her knowledge.

Even worse, her husband had been out of contact for hours. And while Mr Benson wasn't always the best about remembering to tell her where he was or when he was getting home, the stretching silence couldn't be attributed to his inconsiderate forgetfulness. The plant connection itself was down. She'd tried to raise him a dozen times over the last two hours, but each attempt was met with the same error message.

With Atwood and the rest of her detail on the expedition, protecting the Beehive had fallen to Theresa and her constables. She'd taken a shift herself almost as soon as the sudden blackout happened, figuring the assistant administrator and his staff would be first in line to learn of the expedition's fate. No matter the news, she needed to be there when it came.

He's a big boy, she told herself. Hell, the idiot managed to survive a stabbing, meteor strike, habitat decompression, and a fucking nuclear bomb going off in the room with him. How wrong can a greeting ceremony go, really? Theresa straightened her shoulders. Besides, it's not like I'm the little doting wife pacing around the house waiting for him.

She looked down at her feet and realized they
were
pacing. Had been for the better part of an hour, in fact. Theresa willed her feet to stop moving and stood at attention by the door to the conference room.

“Idiot,” she mumbled, not entirely sure if she was talking about her husband, or herself.

The door opened and expelled Merick into the hallway. “Ah, Mrs Benson. We're about to finish a debriefing with your husband, then we're taking a short recess before continuing. He's asked to speak with you.”

“You could have told me he was OK!” she blurted.

“You're right. I'm sorry,” Merick put up his hands. “It's been a tense conversation. Things have… not gone to plan.”

“Why can't we connect over the plants?” Theresa asked. “I've been trying for over an hour.”

“There's been some technical snafu in the plant network between here and there, probably in the shuttle's node. We're working on it, but for now we have a connection through the rover in the village. Why don't you head inside, they'll be done in a minute.”

Theresa nodded and sent a quick plant burst to her junior constable in the atrium letting her know she would be taking a short break, then stepped past Merick and into the conference room where a larger-than-lifesize holographic projection of Benson stood in the center of the table.

Captain Mahama's image stood next to him, while the chairs around the table were filled with the usual gallery of politicians, business moguls, and affiliated sycophants. Benson noticed her enter and threw her a quick smirk. If anyone else noticed her enter, they didn't acknowledge it.

“One final point, Mr Benson,” Mahama continued. “The exobiology department has asked me to inquire about the status of the chicken we sent down to you.”

“It got away.”

“It got away?” Mahama repeated.

“Yeah, the enemy attacked just as we were about to sacrifice it and it very smartly winged it out of the area.”

“And you don't know the current location of the animal?”

“I've been dealing with other issues, sir.”

“I see.” Mahama inhaled. “The exobiology department would like you to locate the animal as soon as possible and destroy it, to avoid any possible contamination.”

“Contamination?”

“Well, it's an invasive species.”

“Invasive spe–” Benson took a deep breath. “It's one chicken. There are no roosters. Don't tell me I have to explain sexual reproduction to the exobiology department?”

Mahama sighed. “Just keep an eye out for it, will you?”

“I think that chicken has been through enough.”

“Are we still talking about the chicken?”

A round of nervous laughter went through the room. Benson took it in his stride. “Is there anything else, captain?”

Mahama smiled and shook her head.

“Good, then if you all don't mind, please get the hell out and give me a moment alone with my wife.”

The rest of the room turned to the door, noticing Theresa for the first time. Without another word, everyone stood up from their chairs and quietly filed out of the room, several of them nodding to Theresa as they passed. Captain Mahama signed off and her image faded into the air like a clearing fog, leaving only Theresa and her husband in the room.

“Hello, Esa,” Benson said quietly.

Her relief at seeing him intact and safe was tempered by concern at how disheveled and exhausted he looked. His jacket was nowhere to be seen, while his normally pristine shirt was soaked through with sweat and covered in dirt, and, more ominously, blood. How much of it was his, she couldn't tell. She didn't let her competing emotions reach her face. It wasn't her way. Instead, she said simply, “Jesus, honey. You look like shit.”

Benson gave a tired little chuckle. “I feel worse than I look, if you can believe it.”

“But, your face.”

“These are mostly from that fucking chicken. No wonder people used to eat those goddamned things.”

Theresa pointed at his shirt. “Is that your blood?”

“No. Well, not most of it, anyway. Hell, it's not even all human.”

“Ah, good. At least you didn't almost die, then. That's a plus.”

“Oh, I did that,” Benson said almost giddily. “Wasn't breathing for a good minute, but Mei gave me the kiss of life, so I'm all good.”

Theresa cupped her face, feeling a headache coming on.

“Honey?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “You want to rewind and help me unpack that last sentence?”

“Well, it's complicated. Basically, we were getting overrun by this force of hostiles, and we'd already lost our connection with the shuttle. So I convinced some folks to lift a giant rock dome with their bare hands so we could get the rover working again. The Ark took remote control of the shuttle, realized the crew had been lured out and killed by hostiles, who were still inside, so they shut the hatches and blew the fire suppressors, which scavenged all the O
₂
from the passenger compartment and killed the intruders. But when it landed in the village, I didn't know that, so I went inside to clear it and passed the hell out, but the village cop named Kexx, great guy by the way, dragged me outside, where Mei knew enough to do some rescue breathing, which brought me back to life, and now I'm here talking to you. How was your day?”

“I hate you.”

“It's an occupational hazard.”

“You're the recreation director. People are supposed to be happy around you. It's literally your job.”

“Yeah.” Benson paused. “About that…”

Theresa's stomach did a little flip. She knew his expression too well. He was about to say something very stupid that was going to make her upset.

“Just spit it out.”

“The council has temporarily reinstated me as a detective.”

“And?” Theresa said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“And… In the interest of building ties with the Atlantians, I'm going to be sticking around here for a while to help Kexx figure out who attacked us.”

“What, by yourself?”

“Well, not entirely. Mei and her people are staying here too. The villagers have sort of adopted them.”

“This is insane. I'm going to talk to Merick about this.”

“It won't do any good.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it wasn't Merick's idea.”

Theresa's jaw set. She'd been ready to blame Merick, or Mahama, but it wasn't their fault. It was her husband driving the bus.

“No,” Theresa said simply. “You're loading up on the shuttle and coming home.”

“I can't do that, Esa.”

“You're a detective, that makes me your boss, so you're bloody well going to do it,” she said, her face flushing with anger.

“I'm not a part of the Shambhala force, so I'm not in your chain of command. I'm more like a private dick.”

“That's half right,” she snapped back.

“Sweetie, I know you're mad–”

“Noticed, did you?”

“–but we lost some good people today, on both sides. We have to find out who attacked us or else this whole thing blows up. I can help them do that. You know I can.”

“I think it's someone else's turn to save the world.”

“Oh, I agree, but I'm already here. Just a rotten run of luck. First, our recon drone was attacked by some birds, then we get attacked just as we're falling into a gap in our satellite coverage.” Benson shook his head. “What are the odds?”

The set of his features told the story. What he didn't say, what he was actively trying
not
to say over an unsecured connection, sent an electric shock jumping down her spine from one vertebra to the next. Benson didn't believe in coincidences, and neither did she. Whoever attacked the expedition had help. Either from the Ark, or from somewhere within Shambhala.

A look of understanding passed between them. He knew his message had been received. Theresa shook her head, trying to seem jovial. “Why do these things only happen to you, baby?”

“No idea.” He glanced out of frame. “They're loading up the wounded onto the shuttle. I gotta help.”

“Go,” Theresa said. “I'll hold down the fort.”

“Love you, wife.”

“I love you too, Zero Hero. Good hunting.”

“Watch your six.”

The connection cut and Benson's image evaporated. Theresa, conscious of the people in the hallway, took a moment to collect herself. She imagined a small jewelry box, into which she carefully folded her fear and her rage, and closed the lid tight. Her face passive, betraying nothing, she opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

“We're all finished,” she heard herself say. “Thanks for giving us the time.”

“Not at all,” Merick replied. “But we really must get back to work.”

“Of course,” Theresa said, even managing a weak smile. As the delegates filtered back in, she quietly filtered out. she said to her constable.

Theresa said, then cut the link. She stepped briskly past the Beehive's outer doors into the late afternoon sunlight. Some evenings, she'd take in the sky, losing herself in the patterns of clouds and palette of colors until the sun finally set. But tonight, her mood was already dark.

A million feelings fought for supremacy in Theresa's gut. Relief that Bryan was alive. Anger that he was stupid and arrogant enough to stay behind. Guilt that she hadn't been there to help him. And jealousy that Mei had locked lips with her husband, even as she knew how foolish and selfish the emotion was.

It hadn't been easy the last few years, trying to step out from behind her husband's shadow. It grated on her nerves whenever people called him “chief” while she was in earshot. Not because he hadn't earned it, but so had she, goddammit, and she hadn't been fast-tracked for the job for being popular. Bryan, infuriatingly, never seemed to notice, or downplayed the problem. He'd grown into a more humble and private man than he'd been at the height of his Zero career. The adulation, no,
canonization
he'd experienced since thwarting the Kimura attack made him uncomfortable. And since he didn't want the attention and recognition, he couldn't understand why maybe she did.

He could be the most blind, clueless, insensitive…

And she loved him for it. Bryan started every relationship, every conversation, assuming the best about a person. He made them prove him wrong before he'd give up on that idealized version of them he held in his head. Despite everything, in spite of personally witnessing the deaths of twenty thousand people, the idiot somehow remained an optimist.

And Theresa had that beautiful idiot all to herself.

Theresa walked down the boulevard towards their home with purpose, her anger growing with each step. Someone had tried to kill Bryan, again. The last time that had happened, she'd been sidelined, out of the fight. Powerless. She cracked her neck. Not today. Bryan had given her a clue. Someone in Shambhala or on the Ark was in on the attack.

Part of the plan or not, someone had tried to kill her husband. No matter the reason, Theresa was going to open her little jewelry box and see to it that they fucking paid in full.