Quantum (28 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mae accepted the gun Rian handed her before he moved on to pass one of the Reidar stun weapons to Lucie, standing next to her. They’d just received word from the small bridge of the
Ebony Winter
that they were on final approach to the
Swift Brion
. They were about to take a gamble and tell the IPC flagship that Forster planned to surrender because one of his crew members needed urgent medical attention.

“So are we all clear on what we need to do?” Rian asked, passing a weapon to Zahli.

By the time he’d finished, all of the crew members of the
Imojenna
and
Ebony Winter
had been armed with Chase’s new stockpile of guns.

“I still don’t see why we had to use my ship,” Forster muttered as he holstered and hid an alarming number of weapons on his body.

Rian rested both palms on the guns at his hips. “Because the
Ebony Winter
is higher up the IPC’s wanted list than the
Imojenna
. It’s a bait fake-Zander can’t pass up without drawing suspicion.”

“Couldn’t you have just taken the
Imojenna
and said you were dropping by to visit?”

Mae rolled her eyes as she exchanged exasperated glances with Lucie and Zahli. They’d already had this conversation, but Forster still hadn’t given up his bitching.

“Because the Reidar know I’m after them and fake-Zander might get suspicious.” Rian shoved his cousin in the shoulder. “Now shut the hell up and go send the communication.”

Muttering, Forster left the
Ebony Winter
’s communal room, headed for the bridge.

Rian turned to face them all, clasping his hands in front of him. For a second, Mae had a disorientating flash of déjà vu, remembering Rian standing in much the same way years earlier when they’d both been fighting in the Assimilation Wars. He’d been ranked slightly higher than her, and although they hadn’t served in the same unit, she’d watched him address his men before they’d deployed out of some random waystation they’d both been passing through.

“Most of you have been armed with a Reidar stunner.” Rian nodded at Chase. “We haven’t had time to extensively test the weapon, but it works. However, there is one small drawback. The power pack will only sustain ten shots before it’s drained.”

“Eventually, I may be able to come up with a replacement power cartridge you could reload,” Chase interjected. “Or I might be able to make the power pack last longer, but for now we’re all stuck with this limitation.”

“So make every shot count, got it?”

There was a low murmur of agreement through the gathered crews of the two ships.

Mae’s heart skipped a beat as she did the calculations. With the rounds they had available, they wouldn’t be able to clear half the
Swift Brion
crew. Even if they all used every single shot effectively, that only took care of one hundred people. Which left around two hundred who could be Reidar.

Mostly everyone was looking a mixture of resigned and anxious. Rian and Forster had given their joint crews the choice of not participating in this insane mission, yet not a single person had opted to stay back on Tripoli.

A cold sweat had started forming at the base of her spine, made worse by Rian’s announcement about the Reidar stunner’s limited capacity. The odds just kept stacking against them.

“How do I look?”

Mae turned around at the sound of Zander’s voice, her breath catching in her chest. He walked farther into the room and accepted a Reidar stunner from Rian, then tucked it in an underarm holster.

“Like a damned stiff-spined brass monkey,” Rian replied, handing a second pistol to Zander—this one a nucleon gun, followed by a metium knife.

In full IPC uniform, Zander looked nothing short of formidable. After the past two weeks hiding out as civilians, it was a shock to her system seeing him all clean shaven and tidy in his captain admiral standard.

Her heart thumped a few painful, slow beats, as though the blood in her veins had thickened. Ever since the truth had come out, she hadn’t been able to chase away the deep chill that had settled into her very bones or force Zander from her mind, no matter how she tried to tell herself that it was better this way.

Odds were, some or all of them weren’t going to make it through this mission alive.

But it didn’t matter now that she’d let him turn away, had enforced the distance just as vehemently from her side—her emotions, her very heart were so deeply invested in him that this moment before they launched into battle had brought the very worry and agony she’d been trying to circumvent.

She’d spent countless nights restless and dreaming of him. This morning she’d woken to the clear thought that instead of avoiding him for these past days, she should have done everything in her power to mend the rift so they could have spent every spare second they had taking comfort and enjoyment from each other.

With the launch of their final stand imminent, all she wished for now was to be back in that cave on Tocarra, where they’d lain in each other’s arms and listened to the rain falling.

Mae desperately swallowed down the building tightness in her throat. She’d made all the wrong moves and destroyed any feelings he’d developed for her, and in whatever time she had left in this universe, she had to live with the consequences of her aching heart.

“They took the bait.” Forster returned, silencing what little subdued chatter there’d been in the common room. “We’re being escorted to the level-one hangar deck.”

Zander nodded. “Which is exactly what I would have ordered. It’s the easiest deck to defend if things go south, plus there’s the added bonus of being able to open the hatch above the deck to vent anyone causing trouble.”

“So he could space us as soon as we step foot off the ship? Comforting,” Forster muttered with a scowl.

Rian gestured at his tech analyst. “Hopefully Tannin will have hacked into the
Swift Brion
’s controls by then.”

“I’ve spent half my life hacking IPC computers. It should be easy as a slipstream.” Tannin leaned over to kiss Zahli. “I better get up to the bridge and get ready. You be careful, okay?”

She nodded and returned his kiss. “Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on keeping control of the
Swift Brion
.”

Tannin left the common room, and silence stretched for an interminable moment.

Mae took a breath and forced her racing mind to calm. Despite all the turmoil going on within her over Zander, she needed a clear head for the coming battle. It didn’t help that her conscience kept rearing up to remind her she’d be stepping off this ship to face soldiers who considered themselves the good guys and had no idea they were taking orders from an alien.

Someone brushed close by her shoulder, and she glanced up to see Zander standing next to her.

“Would it be stupid of me to ask if you’re ready for this?” He had his attention on his hands, checking over the nucleon gun Rian had given him.

She worked to hide her surprise and relief that he was talking to her for the first time in days. “I’m as ready as I can be, considering we’re about to go up against our own people. Though I imagine it’s worse for you, since you know so many of them personally.”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “I’m trying not to think about that. I’m just concentrating on getting to my Reidar twin and taking him out as fast as I can. It’s going to be chaos, but we can deal with the rest later.”

She studied his grim expression, taking in the lines of his face, the thick spike of his hair that he’d cut back to military precision for this show, and the exact shade of his warm brown eyes. How could a single person have come to mean more to her than her own life?

More than anything, she wanted to kiss him one last time, feel his body against hers and know for that tiny heartbeat of time, everything was perfect. But after the impersonal distance between them for the past few days, all that would only distract and confuse him right before he went out into the most critical fight of his life.

Instead, she shifted away from temptation and returned to her calm breathing and blank mind.

The sound of the
Ebony Winter
’s engines changed, and Tannin commed Rian to say they were touching down on the
Swift Brion
’s level-one deck.

Rian and Forster walked over to the airlock. As Forster hit the hatchway release, Rian turned to look at them. “Weapons at the ready, people. We’re about to party.”

His old saying, the one he’d always uttered to his men right before going into battle, made something click and settle within her, chasing away the apprehension she’d been fighting.

The rampway lowered, and white light from the hangar deck cut into the opening. Forster went out first, hands in the air. As the rest of his crew followed, Rian glanced at Ella, Callan, and Kira standing off to the side.

“Remember, you hold this position and defend it with your life if need be. If anyone works out Tannin’s hack is coming from here, they’re going to want to take you all down. Tannin and the bridge of this ship are our last line of defense, got it?”

“I know, Cap’tin,” Callan replied in a tight voice. “But I still say I should be going out there with you.”

“You’re the best gun on my crew, Roarke, which is why I need you here.”

Callan didn’t appear the least appeased, but he stepped back as the rest of the
Imojenna
’s crew headed down the rampway.

“Here we go,” Zander murmured.

Mae took half a step ahead of Zander and led him out, a few steps behind Rian.

On the deck, a tense standoff had begun. A group of twenty or so armed soldiers had their weapons trained on Forster and the crew of the
Ebony Winter
, while other people were fanned out in the background, some of them deck maintenance staff and some of them probably there simply for the spectacle.

Mae took out her Reidar gun and stayed beside Zander, sweeping her weapon as she escorted him to the front of their group.

“Captain Admiral Graydon?” One of the armed soldiers spoke up, his tone conveying a whole lot of confusion.

Mae stopped with Zander in no-man’s-land between the two groups facing off.

“Put your weapons down. That’s an order.” Zander’s announcement echoed through the empty hangar.

Most of the soldiers complied immediately, but a couple hesitated, one in particular whose insignia pronounced him to be a commander captain, and probably the man in charge of the armed forces onboard the
Swift Brion
.

“No offense, sir, but didn’t I just see you on the bridge five minutes ago?” The commander asked, his gun trained on Zander’s chest.

Mae set her sights on him, not that her Reidar stunner would stop him from shooting Zander, unless he was an alien.

“Commander Captain Johnson, this is going to sound a little…” Zander’s lips lifted in a tense smile. “Actually, this is going to sound totally insane, but the Captain Admiral Zander Graydon currently in control of this ship is an impostor.”

A ripple of confused murmurs swelled through the hangar, but Johnson didn’t lower his weapon.

“Lieutenant Torres, call up to the bridge,” Johnson ordered the soldier standing next to him.

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that, Johnson.” Rian slowly pulled out his Reidar stunner, as well as a nucleon gun, and moved forward to stand next to Zander. “We’ve disabled ship-wide communications.”

“What the hell?” Johnson muttered. “Major Captain Sherron?”

Rian inclined his head. “That right, Johnson. I’m sure you’re all aware of my reputation, so when I ask for you all to put your weapons down, you might want to do it, because next time I won’t ask so politely.”

Rian leveled the Reidar stunner at Johnson, who stared back at him with a considering expression. But instead of surrendering, the man’s shoulders tensed.

Mae squeezed off a round a split second after Rian, both of them apparently firing on instinct to protect Zander. The two shots hit Johnson almost on opposite sides of his chest, sending him stumbling a step.

The other soldiers surrounding them brought their weapons up.

“Everyone stand down!” Zander roared over the split second of chaos. He stepped toward the soldiers, holding his hands out. “Stand down before I start handing out courts-martial.”

The commotion calmed as Johnson pushed to his knees and lifted his head.

Someone swore, and soldiers scrambled back, their guns now trained on the Reidar rising to his feet.

The alien reached for the rifle it’d been holding, but Rian fired with the nucleon gun. Half a dozen shots took the Reidar down but didn’t kill it. Zander took a short length of metium-enforced chain from Rian and strode forward, then cautiously knelt down to secure the injured alien. The creature glared at him but didn’t put up a fight, its near black-red blood dribbling onto the floor around it.

“What in the fiery pits of Erebus is that?” Torres, the soldier who’d tried to call up to the bridge, moved beside Zander.

“That is a shape-shifting alien, and the same kind of creature currently pretending to be me. But the why and how is a conversation we’ll have to have another time. Are you with me, Torres?”

Torres nodded and glanced at the other soldiers standing nearby. “We’re all with you, Captain Admiral.”

“Good. Then you won’t take this personally.” Zander brought his Reidar stunner up and shot Torres before the man could even blink.

The pulse of energy passed through Torres with no obvious affect but left him with a confused expression. “Excuse my insubordination, sir, but what the hell?”

Zander was already turning to the soldier standing behind Torres. “I can’t explain right now, but I need you to trust me. And I need to clear the rest of your men.”

Torres nodded, a grim expression settling over his features. He turned to the armed soldiers. “Alpha foxtrot company, front and center.”

Mae kept herself glued to Zander’s side, watching his back for any surprise attack while the soldiers were vetted, and Forster led his men to round up the other
Swift Brion
crew standing around the hangar.