Quantum (14 page)

But no way was he going to let the guy back on his feet. He followed up with a downward punch, putting his whole body weight behind the swing. Mask guy took it with a shake of his head and came straight back up, propelling himself into Zander’s chest with a shoulder check. Zander stumbled over a step as he caught the weight and tried to compensate for it before they both went tumbling down the stairs. Still holding the knife, he tried for a flesh wound, aiming for the guy’s midsection. But mask guy deflected the blow with his elbow and added in a too-quick hit to his wrists that sent the knife clattering.

Mae threw herself back into the fray, grabbing a handful of mask guy’s shirt and yanking him back. While he was distracted, Zander punched him again, aiming for his temple. The hit left his knuckles aching and maybe dazed the guy for a nanosecond. But it didn’t stop him from flipping Mae over his shoulder, putting her flat on her back, and leaving her coughing.

Up to that point, Zander been fighting to simply knock the guy unconscious so he and Mae could be on their way without leaving a dead body behind. But mask guy refused to go down and stay there, and the sight of Mae half curling in on herself, gasping for breath, made fury burn through the last of his civility.

With a rasping curse, he grabbed mask guy by the shoulder and yanked him off balance before he could think about setting into Mae while she was down.

He landed a knee into mask guy’s guts with enough force to send him stumbling into the wall. It should have at least bought him a second of respite, but the guy pushed off and came right back at him. Zander ducked the fist flying at his face but didn’t manage to avoid the follow-up blow that caught him in the jaw. Mask guy rammed him into the railing, the rounded edge digging painfully into his lower back. The attacker pushed harder against Zander’s upper chest and shoulder, overbalancing him, likely with the intent to send him plunging down the stairwell.

In desperation, Zander threw out another hit, but couldn’t get enough power behind the swing, and mask guy deflected it with little difficulty. He hooked a foot into the bottom railing as more of his weight shifted into the nothingness behind him. Even though he was shoving back, muscles burning from the exertion of holding himself on solid ground, he was losing this silent battle of brute strength.

Mask guy gave a sudden jerk, the pressure of his hold loosening. And then Mae was there, grabbing a handful of the mask and yanking the guy’s head back as she shoved the knife in deep under his chin. He made a gurgling yell then let go and crumpled to his knees. She shoved him sideways as he collapsed, probably dead before he hit the landing at her feet.

Zander leaned over, bracing his hands against his knees and gulping air like he’d just come out of zero atmosphere. Mae knelt down and used his knife to slice the mask away from the attacker’s face.

He probably shouldn’t have been surprised to see the blank gaze of the dead alien staring back at them, but he frecking was. Well, maybe not surprised. More like pissed as hell. Where did these jerks get off trying to take him out and hijack his life? The creature almost appeared human but had a flatness over its nose and brows that made it extraterrestrial looking, just like the first dead alien he’d seen on Rian’s ship. That and the slightest shimmer of a scalelike quality beneath its flesh.

“Convinced now?” Mae shot over her shoulder, taking a second to clean the dark blood off the knife before handing it back to him.

“Fine. A shape-shifting alien is playing my meat puppet onboard my ship.” He straightened, trying not to wince at the ache in his back as he took the knife and slipped it away again. “Let’s get onto the
Swift Brion
and take the bastard down. Who knows what the damn thing is doing on my behalf?”

“You really think it’ll be that easy? Like we’ll just dock a shuttle, walk up to the inner command center, and shoot him in the face with a nucleon gun?”

“The IPC need to know about this.” He grabbed in a breath, trying to get his heart rate back near the levels of normal.

“Who knows how many of the
Swift Brion
crew are actually Reidar? We’d never even get near the ship without getting blown out of the ether.” She stood, shuffling back a few steps from the alien, already starting to liquefy as the dead creatures always did. “And we’re not contacting anyone in the IPC. Not yet, anyway.”

“Do you have a better idea? Something that doesn’t involve me spending my life on the run from a bunch of shape-shifting aliens who want to kill me?”

Mae crossed her arms as she turned to stare up at him, her expression not giving anything away. “No, I don’t. But we both know someone who does.”

“Rian Sherron.”

She nodded. “Rian.”

He glanced over the railing, taking a quick accounting of how many flights of stairs they had left. “We have to get out of this damned hotel. Preferably before any more alien assassins find us. Then we’ll find somewhere to make a comm-link—”

“No.” Mae shook her head sharply. “We have to get offworld undetected. Immediately.”

“And how are we going to do that?” His words were clipped, but hell, it wasn’t every day a man found out he had an alien body double with a hard-on to see him dead.

“We’ll go to the spaceport and find a public viewer. I still have access to my UAFA contacts. I can get us two clean, virtually untraceable identities.”

He eyed Mae closely. There it was, the confirmation he’d been waiting for. The only way she could have access to anything UAFA was if she still held status as an agent. So what the hell was she doing in the IPC, too? Her allegiance aside, unless it was sanctioned higher up the chain, getting untraceable identities wasn’t lawful. “Wow. Is that even legal?”

“No. But it’ll keep you alive. Unfortunately, the second I get those identities, UAFA will have me blacklisted.”

She started to turn away from him, but he grabbed Mae’s arm to pull her up.

“Which will make you a wanted fugitive?” His heart stuttered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, harder than when the Reidar had tried to push him over the railing. “Mae, your life will effectively be over. If they catch you, they’ll send you to Erebus. There has to be some other way—”

For a moment she avoided his gaze, but then she shrugged and looked up at him.

“There’s no other way. Not if we want to completely avoid the Reidar. They’ve infiltrated UAFA anyway. I was never going to go back.”

Still gripping her arm, he pulled her closer. “This isn’t just about your job anymore, and you know it.”

Her expression remained neutral, but he caught a flash of emotion in her eyes. “It won’t matter if the Reidar or IPC authorities catch us in the stairwell before we can escape.”

She pulled at her arm, and he let her go. She cast one last glance at the almost-decomposed alien, then hit the stairs again. For a long second he could only stare after her. The woman had just all but declared she’d give up her life for him.

Would you do the same for her?

A surge of adrenaline that had nothing to do with his fight-or-flight response shot through his body, followed by a wave of super-heated emotion. Despite the fact he didn’t fully trust her, he would take a bullet for her, without hesitation.

He forced his lactic acid–aching legs to get moving again, since Mae had gotten a whole flight below him while the reality of this situation whammied him.

The rest of the way down the stairs and the short trip out of the hotel and across to the spaceport was silent. After their last exchange, he couldn’t think of anything to say to her. Plus, he really needed to focus on getting them both off this planet alive.

Zander followed Mae to a bank of public viewers. He stood back as she surveyed the area and chose a viewer away from the few other people nearby.

This Mae wasn’t a lieutenant marshal in the IPC, nor was she the Mae he’d come to know on the long hike from the shuttle crash site. No, this was a UAFA agent at work. And if it wasn’t for her, he probably would have been killed several times already.

He turned sideways, keeping her in his peripheral vision while he kept an eye out on the spaceport. Not that he had any way of picking out a Reidar in disguise, but standing guard seemed like the thing to do.

A few silent minutes went by, with Mae muttering to herself every now and then, as her fingers moved over the crystal display, accessing data that looked like gibberish to him.

“Zander, come over here for a second.”

He went to stand by her.

“Put your palm here for a scan.” She pointed to a hand-size, blank rectangle in the middle of the screen.

He complied, gaze drifting over the display, noting the UAFA emblem stamped on several different sections of the screen. The viewer beeped, and he removed his hand, while Mae leaned around him to type in some information. She repeated the process with her palm. After that, she cleared the screen.

“Okay, your new identity is Alexander Gray. I tried to keep close enough to your own name so it wasn’t too hard to remember.”

“Oh, yes? And who might Alexander Gray be traveling with?”

“Maya Peterson.” Mae slipped her arm into the crook of his elbow and tugged him away from the viewers.

“Alexander and Maya? You don’t think that’s too close to our actual names?”

A couple of IPC officers were heading their way, so Zander turned them to face a screen displaying public shuttle departure times.

“I’m going on the assumption that they don’t know you’ve got me with you. Since you didn’t mention me when you were talking to the comm officer, they’ll probably be searching for a male of your age traveling alone. That’s if they even think you’re smart enough to go under a different name.”

He glanced down at her with a frown. “Not smart enough?”

“I don’t mean it like that.” Her words and expression were laced with exasperation. “I just mean that you’re old-school military. It’s all you’ve done for how many years now? You might not necessarily think outside the lines in a situation like this.”

Hell, she was probably right. Which was exactly why he likely would have been dead by now without her. His rank and the structure of the IPC had always protected him—he hadn’t had to think any other way. Now the very same organization had become a dangerous enemy.
At least until I can get to that scum bastard alien impersonating me and blow the damn thing’s brains out.

He focused on the departure screen in front of him. “Fine, so let’s decide where we’re dragging our sorry asses to next.”

“We need a planet with minimal IPC or UAFA presence, especially if we want to contact Rian. Aside from the Reidar being after him, he still has that little issue of intergalactic terrorism hanging over his head.”

He scanned their list of options. “Well, that’s going to be hard to find in this sector of the galaxy.”

They weren’t that far from the IPC central planet of Yarina. This quadrant of space was crawling with IPC and UAFA in all their various forms.

“How about
Isis Delta
?” Mae pointed out the destination, listed halfway down the screen.

“That’s not a planet. It’s a space station between mining moons.” A dirty, noisy, half-assed jumble of a space station, at that. He’d visited once, for an opening ceremony of a new IPC and privately owned joint mining venture, and been glad at the prospect of not ever needing to return there again in his life.

She turned to look up at him. “Exactly. And there are hardly any IPC or UAFA there because it’s a mash of commercial and corporate sectors.”

She was likely right. Staying alive obviously had to be the most important card on the table. But surely there was some other option…one with a breathable atmosphere? He ran down the possibilities and couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t require multiple transfers between shuttle flights. They could catch a direct, overnight express shuttle to
Isis Delta
. And if he was looking for himself, that space station was definitely the last place he’d consider.

“It’s ideal, especially since the flight leaves in twenty minutes.” Mae tugged him again, pulling him away from the display screen. No one ever tugged or pushed or pulled him anywhere, and stupid as it was right at this second, he kind of liked it. Liked her taking control and directing him. A change of pace, since he was usually the one giving orders and doing the shoving, figuratively speaking.

Okay, so it didn’t take much for his brain to launch him into some ideas about her ordering him around under other, more naked scenarios.
Damn. Not the time to be thinking with your libido, Graydon.
Yes, his feelings and the complication of Mae herself needed to be sorted out, but he certainly didn’t have the luxury of doing that right now.

They bought tickets under their new identities.

“Hang on. How are we paying for this?” he asked as the screen confirmed their booking on the flight to
Isis Delta
.

“Years ago, I set up a bank account that’s totally separate from my everyday accounts. No electronic trail connects them. I suppose you could call it an emergency fund. When I changed my identity, I changed the name on the account, too.”

Jezus.
He’d never once considered he might need emergency access to his money, which was presumably now in the control of a frecking alien.

Having a UAFA agent—or, technically by now an
ex
–UAFA agent—around came in handy. He could spend the rest of his days trying to return the favor Mae had given him by burning her own bridges, but it would never be enough.

Chapter Thirteen

Nadira

Almost two damned rotations. Long enough to make his feet itchy.

Rian paced in front of the crystal display screen in his office, watching the streams of data cross the viewer. He’d assumed the
Imojenna
’s computers would be able to decipher the information they’d gotten from the Reidar lab quickly once he input the basics of the alien language. It wasn’t the first time they’d snatched information from beneath the bastards’ noses. But of course, because his bad luck always took whatever opportunity it could to bitch him out, the process hadn’t been at all straightforward.

Tannin had worked at it on and off but hadn’t been able to give him a concrete time frame when the damned file would be readable.

Rian sucked in a long breath, and the scent of sweet moon jasmine hit the back of his throat. Tension rippled through his muscles, and he clenched his fists.

“Nyah requested I bring this to you, though I don’t see how coffee is going to help your already agitated state.” Ella appeared beside him holding a mug, steam curling off the top of the dark liquid.

He took the cup from her and sniffed. Typical. No extra flavoring.
Needs some brandy.
He crossed his office and palmed open his liquor compartment, where his very last unopened bottle of Violaine took pride of place, front and center.

The violet color of the hard liquor caught the light, twinkling like a precious jewel. He couldn’t bring himself to open it, not since he didn’t know when he’d be able to get his hands on a new supply. Moving it aside, he reached for the half-empty bottle of brandy and added a dash to the coffee.

Ella still stood there, staring at him as he turned back to the viewer, an almost expectant expression on her usually serene features.

“Did you need something else?” He took a gulp of the stinging-hot beverage and added another splash of brandy.

“I was just wondering how this is going.” She waved a hand in the direction of the viewer, where lines of indecipherable text continuously scrolled.

“We’re still dirtbound, and I want to be gone like yesterday. Does that give you any hints?”

His personal comm chimed, saving him from deflecting any more of her conversation. Lianna was calling down from the bridge. Good. Maybe Graydon had decided to answer his message at last. That’d be one less damn thing he’d need to worry about today.

“What have you got for me, McKenzie?”

“Captain, there’s someone here to see you, sent from High President Hendricks.”

Rian closed his eyes and took another mouthful of brandy-laced coffee.
Frecking hell.
Now what?

“All right, I’ll take care of it.” He disconnected the comm and took one more gulp of coffee then set the cup down on his desk.

“Do you wish me to accompany you?” Ella asked as he started toward the hatchway.

He paused by the door. “Now why would I need you to do that?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Much of my training on Aryn was based on politics and how to deal diplomatically with world leaders, government representatives, and the like.”

Instinct shot an automatic no up his throat, but he swallowed over the word before it lashed out. Yeah, he was used to doing things by himself, but hadn’t he justified keeping the priestess onboard his ship by deciding to utilize her talents when need be?

“Fine, you can come down with me. But keep quiet unless it looks like things are going bad, okay?”

She nodded and clasped her hands together, moving forward to pace beside him as he went down the short corridor to the stairs.

In the cargo hold, Ella stayed by the bottom of the steps while he hit the ramp-release controls. The wide hatchway grated noisily as usual while it slowly lowered to the ground. A few moments later, a tall woman came striding up into the ship. She wore a feminine business-pantsuit kind of getup, her blond hair wound into some fancy concoction.

“Captain Sherron?” She strode toward him, a friendly smile on her face, and held out her hand.

Rian hooked his thumbs in his weapons belt and simply stared at her as she stopped in front of him. “Can I help you with something, miss?”

She dropped her hand, clearing her throat as her smile faltered.

“I’m Alyssa Faulkner, interversal liaison for High President Hendricks. I would have come to meet you sooner, but the president was under the impression you weren’t staying very long.”

Not-so-subtle information gathering.
Hell, he didn’t have time or patience for this crap.

“We didn’t plan on staying long, but some issues have cropped up with the onboard computer system. I’ve got my tech people working on it, so as soon as it’s fixed, we’ll be off the ground and out of your hair. Now if you’ll excuse me, I should go oversee the progress.”

He turned away from her, but before he could take more than a step, she stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

Resisting the urge to flinch out from beneath her touch, he sent her a pointed look—one that usually made people put a good amount of distance between them.

The Faulkner woman snatched her hand away, and while she didn’t move back, her posture stiffened. “Oh, no. I didn’t come to find out when you were leaving. The president sent me to ask if there’s anything I can do for you while you’re here. Supplies at discount prices, recommendations of where to visit in Liese, significant sites that may be of interest—”

“We’re not here to tour the sights. As soon as our computers are fixed, we’ll be getting offworld—”

“Captain Sherron is very thankful for the consideration you have shown him.” Ella appeared at his side, all but elbowing him out of the way.

Hadn’t he just gotten through telling her to keep quiet?

Faulkner’s expression showed relief as she focused on Ella. The interversal liaison pulled a data-card out of her pocket and handed it to her.

“If you think of anything you might need, or run into any trouble, this is where to contact me.”

Ella politely gestured for Faulkner to walk with her. The two women descended the ramp way, and Ella paused at the bottom.

“Thank you for your visit. We will keep your kind offer in mind. Give the high president good greetings on our behalf.”

Faulkner nodded and shot Rian a quick, uncertain look, then dashed toward an autocar parked just beyond the spaceport’s gatehouse.

Ella came back up the ramp and held the card out to him, but instead of taking it, he crossed his arms and stared down at her.

“Did I ask for your assistance?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. She leaned forward and slipped the data-card into his shirt pocket. Her light touched zapped through him like static electricity. The instinct to flinch speared through his chest like razors, but dumb stubbornness won out and he stayed right where he was.

“No, but clearly you were upsetting the poor woman, who only came here to carry out her job. A little understanding would go a long way.” She stepped back and folded her hands in front of her.

The razor-like sensation in his chest changed to the compressing sensation of frustration. Every time he turned around, Ella, or Zahli, hell, even Nyah, their ex-housesitter, was disapproving his behavior.

When were they going to get that this was
him
, and he didn’t plan on making any apologies for it? They wanted someone to blame? Then they could go find the Reidar who tortured the patience and decency right out of him.

“I don’t have the time or inclination to freck around with some president’s liaison. I just want to get this information deciphered and get out of the world.”

Ella inclined her head. “As you wish. If she comes by again, I’ll have Lianna comm me.”

The priestess spun very precisely on her heel, spine regally straight as she headed for the stairs.

“Now wait just a goddamn second. I never said—”

“You should get back to your office before that coffee goes cold,” Ella threw over her shoulder then disappeared into the upper levels of the ship.

Rian dragged a hand through his hair and stomped toward the steps, hating that almost every time he had the simplest conversation with the woman, his equilibrium got knocked off kilter…and more often than not, another tiny atom of coldness inside him became warmer.

In his office, Tannin squinted at the viewer screen.

“I think this will be finished in another few hours,” the tech analyst announced without looking away from the crystal display.

Well, thank frecking christ. Some good news at last. Now all he needed was to hear from Graydon to find out what had happened to Mae, and things could get back to normal. Or what passed for normal around here, anyway.

“Good. Keep me in the loop.” He grabbed his coffee, added a final splash of brandy, and then made his way up to the bridge.

As he walked through the hatchway, Lianna said, “If you ask me whether or not I’ve heard from Lieutenant Marshal Petros or Captain Admiral Graydon, I’m going to booby-trap your control console to zap you next time you sit down.”

“Fine, I won’t ask you.” He set the cup down on his console and dropped into the captain’s chair. “Instead I’ll order you to comm-link me to the
Swift Brion
. I think it’s long past time I had a chat with Captain Admiral Zander Graydon.”

She brought up the communication systems across the viewport. Rian leaned back in his chair, enjoying his coffee and the few moments of silence while Lianna worked.

“The
Swift Brion
is still too far out of range to make a direct comm-link, unless you want to pay the fee for the signal to go through a transit gate—”

“Do it.”

She spun in her chair to face him. “But that will cost—”

“I know exactly how much it will cost, but I want confirmation of whether Mae made it to the
Swift Brion
, and to talk to Zander face-to-face. I want to know what’s happening onboard that ship.”

A frown drawing her features down, Lianna turned her attention back to her console. “Comm-link connection going through now.”

An IPC officer appeared on the screen, comm officer insignia on his uniform. “You have hailed IPC flagship
Swift Brion
.”

“This is Captain Rian Sherron. I need to speak with Lieutenant Marshal Mae Petros.” It was a gamble revealing his identity, considering his recently bestowed status as an intergalactic terrorist, but he was banking on his reputation in the IPC still holding weight no matter what charges UAFA leveled against him.

The comm officer straightened in his seat. “Major Captain Sherron, sir. Just give me one moment, sir.”

Rian clenched his jaw over a sigh. No matter how many times he told these people he wasn’t a major captain any longer, they still insisted on using his old IPC rank.

“I’m sorry, sir. Lieutenant Marshal Petros isn’t onboard. She spent one rotation with us and was then reassigned.”

Reassigned?
He clenched his hands into the armrests of the chair.
Reassigned, or killed?

“Can you tell me where she’s taken her new posting?”

The comm officer shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have that information readily available.”

“Fine, put me through to the captain admiral instead.” He’d get some answers one way or another. Damned if this didn’t go some ways to proving his worst fear—Zander Graydon was no longer human. There was no reasonable explanation for Mae disappearing after one rotation, unless the Reidar playing Graydon had somehow found out her true reasons for being onboard the
Swift Brion
.

“Of course, sir. If you’ll just wait one moment?” The screen blinked and showed two rotating symbols—one the official IPC military crest and the other the unique insignia of the
Swift Brion
. The two characters spun through half a dozen circles before the screen blinked again and showed the captain admiral sitting in his office.

“Sherron, didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again in such a short space of time.” Graydon sent him a relaxed grin, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. A chill took hold of Rian’s spine and shook hard. Zander’s gaze had always held a hint of irreverent charm and humor, no matter how dark things got. But the eyes in that familiar face were stone-cold dead and devoid of emotion.

“I was actually calling up to chat with Lieutenant Marshal Petros, but it seems she’s been reassigned.”

Graydon shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “Sorry I didn’t meet her myself. She requested a reassignment and left after one rotation.”

“So I hear,” he muttered, crossing his arms.
Yep, hearing a load of shite.
“Can you tell me where she’s been deployed?”

Graydon shrugged one shoulder. “Not off the top of my head. I could probably find out, but it’d take a few days.”

“No need. I’ll find out on my own. You know I’ve still got plenty of connections.” He sent Graydon a grin that bordered on threatening.

The admiral sat forward in his seat again. “Well, if that’s all you need, I’ve got a ton of desk work to get through. We’ll catch up again next time we happen to be in the same region of space.”

“Sure, I’ll look you up. We can hit some bars and cheat some dirt-lickers out of their hard-earned currency, just like the good old days.”

“You might be able to get away with still doing that, my friend, but a captain admiral cheating at cards? That might be a bit hard to explain.”

Got you, slimy bastard.
No matter his rank, Zander had never missed an opportunity to get out of uniform, hit some lowlife bar, and swindle a few of the well-deserving scumbag locals, even though it’d been years since they’d done it.

“Okay. Respectable drinks only, on your tab, Captain Admiral.” Rian added a barely acceptable salute after his words.

This time the smile Graydon sent him appeared clearly strained. “Good travels, Major Captain. We’ll talk again soon.”

Rian nodded, jaw clenched too tight to form any words, and disconnected the comm-link. Zander had pretty much never called him by rank, even when he’d still served in the IPC.

Frecking scum bastard alien.
Fury and grief raked through the middle of his chest, that black hole inside him growing and swallowing up more of his soul. Two more lost to the Reidar. Okay, so he didn’t have proof that both Zander and Mae were dead, but considering the thing he’d just spoken to definitely hadn’t been Zander Graydon, his friends’ fates seemed pretty damned obvious.