By Other Means

Copyright © 2014 Evan C. Currie

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text copyright © 2014 Evan Currie

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Well, this is one book that I have to admit has kicked my butt more than once. I think I’ve got it wrapped up well, and hope you enjoy it. By Other Means is basically the setup for the second arc of the series, which I’ve tentatively entitled my ‘Cold War’ Arc. That means less ship to ship slug fests and more behind the lines skullduggery for the characters to deal with.

This is literally what Sorilla is trained for, of course, so I think we’ll have a lot of fun with this arc as we move forward. By Other Means is a little shorter than I usually put out, but not by a whole lot, I swear. This is just because that’s where the story ended, for the most part, and I didn’t think backfilling it would be good for the book.

I won’t keep you reading a foreword any longer, for those of you who haven’t skipped ahead already, so now let’s go on to By Other Means.

Ciao

Evan

Private Quarters, Orbital Command Tether, Hayden’s World

Alexi Petronov rolled over in the low gravity bed, enjoying the luxury that had once been part of his every day at the office but now, thanks to the new gravity drives, was really only to be found on the orbital tethers. He knew it was bad for him, but low gravity was like any other addiction, it was insidious, it dug in deep beneath your defenses, and it would only let go when he was pried from its cold dead hands.

Like some people I know,
He thought, smiling softly at the woman sleeping beside him.

His companion was none other than hero of the Hayden war, Sorilla Aida. The woman beside him barely resemble the hardened soldier he’d met a little over a year earlier. She almost,
almost
mind you, looked soft and peaceful. Given her penchant for an exercise routine that made his own spacer designed one look soft, not even in sleep would she ever look soft, but he imagined sometimes that he could see the woman she might have been peeking out from behind the soldier she’s chosen to be.

He couldn’t quite imagine her as anything else, however, she was one of those people who just found where they were supposed to be.

He slowly got dressed, knowing that she was almost certainly awake and watching him through the implants the military had put into her. You didn’t sneak up on a special forces soldier to begin with, but once the military were finished jacking them up with the latest technology they were like ghosts in the common systems that made up every human environment that existed in the modern world.

“I’m going to check on my Socrates,” He said softly, low enough not to bother her if she was sleeping. “Do you want anything?”

She smiled lazily, stretching and letting the blanket remain were it was as her breasts came into view. “I think you gave me more than enough last night.”

Alexi smirked slightly, amused by her playing more than anything. He’d spent his life on freighters and science ships, and anyone who thought that researchers were less likely to lascivious and raunchy behavior than soldiers or long shore men had never been on a research ship fifty lightyears from Earth. He’d seen it all, and while the young Major… technically Captain, but while she was stationed on black Navy property she was granted a ‘promotion’ to avoid any confusion with the Captain of the facility.

“Food perhaps? He offered lightly, “checking on the Socrates should not take too long.”

“Sure. Steak.” She said, “Tell Reed it’s for me, he’ll get you the real deal.”

Alexi winced, just slightly, but could tell by the mischief in her eyes that she had been watching for it and had gotten exactly what she wanted from the jab.

Alexi again wondered at the differences between them, there were certainly enough of them, yet even the most contentious of them seemed nothing more than a joke to her and then to him as well.

He was a Neo-Vegan, he ate nothing that had been part of a living being. His vegetables were cloned materials as was his meat, though even he admitted that cloning vegetables honestly seemed like a bit of a moot point. He hadn’t become a Neo-Vegan intentionally, it had been more by default. Years in deep space, eating vat grown meat and flash grown vegetables, had been his life. One day he just woke up and realized that he was one of those bizarre people you normally saw preaching love and peace when the media needed to fill their quotient of crazy people.

The Major, well, she was anything but. She not only ate real meat, she was known to track it down while it was still mobile and march it back to her plate at gun point.

Sometimes he wondered why they’d ever gotten together, but then it wasn’t really that confusing when he thought about it.

First there was the attraction.

The Major was not, and probably never would have been, a beauty by most popular standards. She was too muscled, for one. While not muscle bound, there was likely an unhealthily low percentage of body fat on her to be certain. Her face was slightly softer, but she still had a hard edge that might almost be aristocratic if not for the way she held herself.

No soft aristo had ever walked like a deadly predator on the hunt, and even if they had they couldn’t have matched the thoughtless ease by which she did so.

Beautiful, pretty, cute. These were words that simply didn’t apply in any shape or form to Sorilla Aida. She was striking, she was unforgettable, and she was terrifying.
Those
were words that applied just fine to the Major.

“I’ll see if they’ve brought any upstairs,” He said finally as she opened her eyes and looked at him directly.

She had her interface on, but not the night vision, he could tell by the dim green glow that gave her an alien, unearthly look.

“You know that creeps me out,” He told her chidingly. “Why do you have to use those in here?”

“Practice.” She answered, not for the first time. “The same reason we both exercise every day when we get up. Instinct makes it easier, keeps us sharp.”

He sighed, “You’ve not been on a mission since…”

Sorilla’s eyes returned to their customary chocolate brown and she looked away, making him kick himself even though it was both true and something she needed to talk about.

After her last mission, when she got back to the world and learned the fate… or, rather,
not
learned the fate of Task Force Valkyrie, Sorilla had shut down for a time. She’d earned her last fast track promotion then, having accomplished the mission assigned her, but so far hadn’t shown any inclination to return to the field.

He knew that Psyche were considering discharging her from the Special Forces, possibly from the military. An eightball release wouldn’t do her any good, however, and he wasn’t the only friend she had who knew it.

Not that he blamed her, not really. The loss of Task Force Valkyre had been a communal shock to the psyche of ever serving spacer in the Solarian Corps. The civilians didn’t really get it, but that was because they hadn’t been told the truth. Most people thought that the Task Force had gone out in a massive battle against the enemy, destroying both forces. Alexi was one of very few people outside the upper echelon of the Solarian military and joint nation administrations who knew that simply wasn’t true.

There was no evidence of a battle. No debris, no wreckage, not even any beacons aside from the last message sent by Valkyre. That might have been explained by the enemy Gravity Valve technology, except that there were no wrecks of the
alien
ships either. And Alexi knew well that had they survived they would not have stopped their advance on Hayden and, beyond, to Earth. That they hadn’t, combined with the enigmatic message from Valkyrie, was evidence enough that somehow the Admiral had accomplished her final mission.

How she’d pulled that off was now possibly the greatest ghost story of all time, and unless something drastically changed, he had no doubt that Admiral Brooke and her people would be legends long after every other living person of the day were wiped from memory.

If nothing else,
He thought with a certain vicious satisfaction,
I bet the Alliance speaks her name to scare children and rookie spacers alike for the next few centuries.

He walked over to the viewing port, a large arching window that looked out over the curve of Hayden’s World and at the alien starship that floating beyond. Tensions with the alien Alliance were still strong, but Hayden was still the contact point for them and the Solarian administration. Most Haydenites weren’t exactly pleased with having an alien ship over their heads, like some floating sword of damoclese, but at least it wasn’t one of the Ghoulie ships.

Not that anyone would let one of those bastards in range of a planet, not after seeing what they could do to one.

Alexi returned his focus to the woman in his head, the woman who was still watching him with glowing eyes. He could only guess what she was seeing, her implant suite was still one of the most advanced in current use, to his knowledge at least. With access to military, police, and civilian databases she could pick up body language queues that were just short of true telepathy.

It made people shy away from her and, he suspected, she both knew and intentionally used it to give people a push.

“You know me better than most, love,” She told him, a crooked smile on her lips. “If someone can’t handle what I can do, what I
am
, then I don’t need them around.”

Alex snorted, shaking his head, “Perhaps. However, I suspect that you do it simple because you don’t want anyone close right now. Otherwise, why have you not gone home to see your family?”

“My Dad knows.” She said simply, “He understands. I don’t need to be trying to explain it to anyone else. Besides, I haven’t scared you away, have I?”

“No, but you only have me part time. I still have my Socrates to tend to,” Alexi answered, “Sometimes I think that I am merely a… bad habit you picked up.”

Her expression… well, softened was the wrong word, but became less hard he supposed.

“Alexi…”

He held up a hand forestalling whatever she was about to say, “It is fine, you are not a woman like any other I have met. That is a good thing, Sorilla. Do not doubt that.”

He finished getting dressed as she watched, pausing when he was done, “The Socrates warps space for Earth tonight. There is room for a passenger.”

He tilted his head, not expecting a response and not getting one, then shrugged, “Let it be a surprise, then.”

Sorilla watched him go, then fell back onto the low gravity bed to stare at the ceiling.

*****

The small ship slowed at a nearly unreal speed, it’s warping of space and time making a fool of relativity as it came to a stop relative to the orbital tether station over Hayden. Docking took a few minutes, and so by the time the first man crossed the threshold of the ship and stepped onto the station, a small gathering was waiting for him.

“Ambassador, it’s an honor to have you back on my station,” The Commander, Gil Hayden said with a warm smile.

The Ambassador returned the smile, and they exchanged pleasantries as they walked deeper into the station. Neither noticed that a small group remained behind, waiting for a second man to appear from the ship.

“Admiral,” He was greeted softly.

“Not here, let’s go to a secure room.”

Nods were exchanged all around and the second group too made its way deeper into the station, taking a different path and heading right to the core of the counterweight station itself. They passed three security checks, each more intrusive than the last, and finally came to a stop in a dingy room deep in the bowels of the station.