The Empress Capsule (Audacity Saga Book 1), page 32
“His weapons skills. Right. I’ve also got a blackhole with a beach view I could see you if you’re interested, Simmons.”
His eyes twinkled. “Thanks, but I’ve already got a beach view. Obviously Dremer would like to reverse engineer him, too. But she pointed out he’s been instrumental in defending your ship twice and on several missions.”
“Everyone seems pretty aligned on this. Why don’t you all just recruit him yourselves?”
Simmons smirked. “I suggested that, but I believe they thought you’d be the most persuasive in his eyes.”
She blushed harder. “Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?”
He frowned at her more seriously. “You know, you deserve to live your life too, Ellen. You go around helping people and taking nothing for yourself, you’ll burn yourself out. It’s not sustainable.”
“It’s fraternization. It’s dangerous. It’s—”
“This isn’t the military,” Simmons snapped, for once sounding almost angry. Ellen’s eyes widened. “You can run it like that if it suits you, but most military positions run through rotations for a reason. People need family. People need home. I thought you were planning to spend the rest of your life on the Audacity.”
The way he put that brought unexpected wetness to her eyes. She blinked it away viciously. The Audacity was her home, her ship. The first real place she’d ever felt she belonged. “I was, sir. I mean, I am.”
“So you’re gonna spend the next ninety-plus years alone? Please. Listen, he seems a good addition to the team. This isn’t the Union SF anymore, and you don’t have to act like it is. I mean, I might have preferred him to be female, but then maybe that wouldn’t have tickled your pickle.”
She couldn’t hold back a snort. “Not everyone can be as perfect as Dr. Taylor, sir.”
“So have I convinced you not to resign? And to recruit this…” He glanced down. “Kael Sidassian?”
“Have your people checked him out, sir?”
“Uh-uh,” he said, waggling a finger. “I asked first.”
“You have convinced me not to resign.”
“I checked him out. He comes from a tough situation, but everything you’d recorded in his file checks out as true. Didn’t find any land mines in his past. In fact, he seems to have told you pretty much everything. Bared his soul to you, if you will.” He grinned.
She only winced in reply.
“Relax. There was one thing, which is that he was accused of murdering someone on his home planet. Looks like how he was forced into the Theroki.”
Her eyes widened. “Sir, that’s—”
“Before you get too caught up about it, the local coroner protested the charge as there was literally no evidence. But on Faros planets, the local magistrates have pretty much complete power. He’s about as likely to have actually murdered the girl as not, but my nose says not. And my nose can smell faked information from a mile away.”
“Girl?” Ellen’s heart leapt into her throat. “That sounds… bad, Doug.”
He grinned, though. “Look at you! Keep that up, Ellen. Much better than sir. Listen, take a look at this picture and what you know about Kael Sidassian and tell me if the idea that he killed her doesn’t make much sense.” He flipped up an image of a woman, a girl really, of fifteen with long black hair, delicate features. She was pretty, if dressed in rags—and had a full, pregnant belly.
“Jesus. How… old was he?” she said softly.
“Another good point. Seventeen, I think? He had also filed for a marriage license.”
His words drifted back to her. They killed her. The gangs didn’t agree. “Oh, Lord. He did tell me about this, didn’t he? When he told me about trying to get away from the gangs and—”
“Yes,” Simmons said. “I also checked back to Xi’s recordings of that conversation. She feels confident he was telling the truth.”
“You… watched that?” She winced.
“I had Xi pull up just his necessary phrases. Wasn’t trying to invade your privacy, but knowing his background while he’s on the ship is part of security.”
She didn’t entirely believe he hadn’t listened to the whole thing. Knowing if your commander was compromised by a rage-charged, telekinetic maniac, as Simmons had once called Kael, was also part of security. She took a deep breath. “You’re serious? You think we should recruit him.”
“Yes. Dead serious.”
“We will make an enemy of the Theroki for harboring a rogue,” she pointed out cautiously, hoping it had already occurred to him.
An amused, almost excited smile crossed Simmons’s face. “You get him to agree, and I’ll take care of that.”
She hesitated. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so standoffish with Simmons. Perhaps she should try… chatting more. It felt odd with a superior, especially from the shadowy Foundation, but hadn’t he been suggesting she be more sociable all along? “You’ll take care of it…? Or your people… Doug?”
“I don’t have any ‘people,’ Ellen. I do have a staff of very talented programs I’ve written. We make an excellent team. One of them even makes me coffee.” As if to illustrate, he took a sip from a mug that looked to have a nebula printed across it.
“Do your programs chat with you, sir?”
“Not very well, no. They’re practically as business-minded as you. I have to rely on Dremer most of the time.”
“And you two have so much in common.” She couldn’t imagine a twenty-seven-year-old billionaire had much to chat about with a sixty-year-old surgeon.
“Not exactly.” He grinned. “But I’m a determined chatter.”
“I will try to hold up my end of the bargain better then.”
“See to it that you do, Commander,” he said, laughter in his eyes.
Kael woke up in sick bay, surrounded by Jenny, Levereaux, and Dremer, who’d all been leaning over him, waiting for him to wake up. “How the hell did I get here?” he croaked, his voice rough.
“We dragged you back,” Jenny said, grinning. “You’re lucky our armor triples our strength.”
He snorted. “Where… Are we on the Audacity?”
Dremer nodded. “In sick bay.”
He looked further around the room. “Where’s the commander?”
Dremer glanced at Jenny, smiling. “In her office, I believe.”
The comm clicked on. “Kael, if you’re feeling up to it, can I speak with you in my cabin, please?”
Dremer grinned. “Speak of the devil, there she is.”
Hmm. He wanted to feel excited about that, but her tone was stiffly formal. She was probably going to tell him just exactly which rock they’d be kicking him off on and when. “I’ll be right there, ma’am. Assuming I can walk.”
With Jenny’s and Levereaux’s help, he made it to his feet and was remarkably steady, considering the bandages and glue covering his wrists and ankles. And neck too. He shook his head at the memory, then paused.
“Where…” he started slowly. Huh. He felt no oath program running. “Where’s the capsule?”
“It’s in my lab,” said Levereaux. “It needed a bigger containment unit, so we had to oblige.”
He blinked. “I don’t feel… anything.”
Dremer raised her chin with a smug little smile. “While you were out, I may have… tried to make your life a little easier, Mr. Sidassian.”
He raised his eyebrows.
But Dremer shooed him toward the door. “Best not keep the commander waiting.”
When he arrived, she wasn’t alone. Was that the cause for her formal tone? On a vid screen, a young man with blond spiked hair and thin wire glasses waited. He had a deadly serious look on his face, which was undercut by a ridiculous navy-blue shirt patterned with orange and yellow sunsets and surfing cats. Kael wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing the thing.
“Yes, Commander?” He glanced from her to the man and back again.
“Sidassian, this is Doug Simmons. Simmons, you’ve already heard about our Theroki friend here.”
“I think I lost the ki when we left Desori. If we left Desori?”
“Yes, we’re in transit away from there now.”
“I’ll probably be considered rogue if I don’t go back soon. If I’m not already.”
“Are you interested in going back?” Simmons asked flatly.
Kael hesitated. Why was he asking? “Not particularly, sir.”
“How attached are you to your last name?” Simmons cocked his head sideways.
“Excuse me, sir?” he said.
“Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Would you like me to leave, sir?” Ellen offered.
Sir? She just called Simmons “sir.” That was hard to believe because the young man didn’t look like he had a military bone in his body, but he was apparently above her in her chain of command. Kael hadn’t been certain she had a chain of command above her. Who was this kid in their hierarchy? One of their “private donors”?
“No way. Clearly I’m not any more talented at accurate communication than you are.”
“Why, thank you, sir,” she said, a wry smile twisting one corner of her mouth.
Simmons sighed, looking even younger for a moment. “Why don’t you just tell him? I suck at this.”
“Because it’s not mine to tell, Patron,” she said gently.
Patron? Kael froze. He’d only heard of one organization that called anyone within it Patrons. A chill went through him, the pieces flying together at breakneck speed.
“You work for the Foundation?” he said to Ellen alone. “Your private donors—this is them? I mean, him?”
“See, look how well you did that,” said Simmons. “Much more understandable than my ramblings.”
“Thank you, sir.” She met Kael’s gaze, eyes denying nothing, but she said no more.
Simmons was grinning. “Yes, Mr. Sidassian, you’ve guessed correctly. Commander Ryu works for the Foundation. All right, let’s see here. Let’s dust off that old elevator pitch, shall we?”
“Dusting? Elevators? Excuse me, sir?”
“And we’re off to a rousing start. Never mind. This ship is a military outpost of the Orlay-Rockel-Nyelon Foundation. Commander Ryu is the leader of this cell, and I’m its liaison with Foundation leadership and scientists, as well as one of them myself. While we are sincere in our running of humanitarian efforts in the region—efforts that include looking for troubled passengers in need of transportation, such as yourself, I might point out—that is not the primary mission of this cell.”
“I… gathered that,” Kael said slowly. “Wait, troubled passengers?” He glanced at Ellen, and she gave him a nod.
“It was Simmons’s idea to post passenger listings at various ports.”
“You’d never guess what the cat drags in,” snickered Simmons, mostly to himself.
“You mentioned a primary mission,” Kael said. “We’ve been attacking Enhancer laboratories.”
“We are not targeting Enhancers specifically. Our mission is defending people from unscrupulous scientists. Recently, it’s mostly been rogue researchers who kidnap and torture people with illegal biological experiments. Or do their experiments where there are no laws at all. It can be anything scientific and unethical, but the bio folks sure have been active lately.”
“I gathered that too, sir. Ellen—Commander Ryu—assured me this was not a faction-specific mission. But who determines if something’s unethical?” Between every black and white were many shades of gray.
“We do,” Simmons said coldly, without a hint of hesitation. “In your region—well, in a lot of regions—Enhancers are most likely to run afoul of ethical experimentation standards. But that’s a tactical point. What I’m trying my best to explain is that the Foundation is determined to prevent the abuse of science in any space we can reach. Or limit its abuse, anyway. But unfortunately, that’s not the extent of it. Striking back at scientific breaches of ethics may become more of a short-term project because we’ve had some reports of a much more dangerous enemy on our radars. Metaphorically, speaking. Um, that probably didn’t make any sense.”
“A more dangerous enemy?”
Simmons nodded, grave now. “The commander tells me you’ve encountered several at this point.”
“The creatures on Desori. The white spider tentacle things,” Ellen chimed in.
“We’re still gathering information on them, but they may be a newly arrived alien race. You should know that they appear to be targeting men with extreme prejudice. That is the real reason I’ve asked Commander Ryu to put together this mostly female ship.”
“I should know this? Why are you telling me this, Mr. Simmons?” Kael said slowly, choosing the civilian designation to see the young man’s reaction. Simmons didn’t notice. Kael probably could have called him Doug. He might even have preferred that.
“I’ll be straight with you, Sidassian. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you, and I’d like to offer you the chance to join this cell as a member of the team. A job. If you’re interested.”
Kael’s heartbeat jumped to double time. That he had not expected. “Heard good things? From the commander?” He glanced at Ellen.
Simmons smirked suddenly, a crack in his seriousness, and Kael had an inkling that the man was not at all oblivious to the fact that they might have flirted with more than a professional relationship. “As a matter of fact, not from the commander. She mutters things from time to time that she thinks I don’t hear, but—”
“Simmons,” she hissed.
“All right, all right. I’m pretty clear on where she stands, though. But no, actually Dremer has been your strongest proponent. Lieutenant Verakov and Sergeant Morales have also each reached out to me independently to recommend your recruitment.”
Ellen’s eyes widened a little at that. She hadn’t known about that, had she?
“Isn’t that… a little out of the chain of command, sir?” Kael said.
Simmons shrugged. “I don’t think praise is usually limited in its distribution, is it? Besides, we only run a mostly military organization around here.” His sunset cat shirt certainly drove that point home as he grinned.
“So I’ve heard.”
“So, you want a job?” Simmons said, fidgeting with excitement. “I mean, there’s some pay and benefits and stuff. We could talk about that if you want, or I can just send you an email.”
Kael snorted, but he eyed Ellen. She wasn’t meeting his gaze.
“Are you okay with this, Commander?” he said softly. If she was, why hadn’t she asked him herself? He would have liked something along the lines of crawling into his bed in the dark and whispering the offer in his ear.
That was pretty much never happening.
Did she even agree with this idea?
She held her gaze on Simmons, who had raised his eyebrows expectantly, but finally her eyes darted toward him. She froze. Fear crept into her eyes, just as it had in those moments of confessing how scared she was, how she couldn’t imagine taking a risk and screwing up so bad again.
He waited.
“Simmons would not do anything against my guidance,” she said eventually. “Would you, Simmons?”
“Of course I checked with the commander before I considered making this offer. After I talked her out of resigning—”
“Resigning?” Kael snapped. “What the hell, Ellen?” Simmons’s face lit up with amusement. Good thing someone was enjoying himself. “You said this was the most important thing you’ve ever done. Why the hell— I— You can’t give it up, damn it.”
“She’s not giving it up,” said Simmons. “And you said that, Commander? I’m so touched.”
She glared at the vid feed. “Don’t get cocky, I can still change my mind and tell you all to piss off,” she snapped. “And I would simply prefer that this particular personnel decision be made without my input. So get on with it.” She took her eyes off both of them and stared into the distance.
Ah, so that was it. Of course. After what had happened with the Mirror’s Light, she wanted to prove to herself that she hadn’t biased this situation. That he would be here because other people wanted him here too. That way she’d be able to live with herself if anything in the future went wrong.
Maybe.
He straightened, bracing himself for the next part. This was too good to be true. He might as well burst the bubble before he got used to this feeling of maybe not being screwed over by the universe for once. “Sirs, there’s probably something you should know. I was…” He gritted his teeth. No matter how many times he had to explain it, it never got easier to say. “I do have a criminal record. I was wrongly accused of murder on Faros IV. Conscription to the Theroki was my sentence. If you have any problems employing felons, that might be an issue for you.”
Simmons laced his fingers together in front of his chin. “Oh, we know.”
Kael blinked. Then his gaze darted to Ellen, who was still staring off into nothingness. “You know?” he said to Doug but looking at Ellen.
“You think I would divulge the innermost secrets of the Foundation to you if I hadn’t already cleared you to take the job?”
No one had ever cleared him for anything. He blinked again, retraining his eyes on Doug. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Cleared you for the job. Soon those fabricated charges won’t matter. Although I can clear them, if you want?”
“Yes, sir,” he stumbled awkwardly. “I do want. But how—”
“I may be a liaison, Kael, but I’m part of this mission too. Information is my business. I find it, I edit it, I keep it. On occasion I create it. Sometimes it’s even true. Others… not so much.” He grinned, the first predatory expression Kael had seen on him. He immediately liked the man more for it. “To be clear, the false charges are not an issue for us. The offer was extended with full knowledge of them.”
Kael took a deep breath, trying to cover how stunned he was. “Email me your details. Assuming things check out, I accept,” he said quickly.
“Excellent. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you, uh… what do I call you?”
