Shades of Dark (49 page)

coming spring 2009

The passenger docks on Kirro Station were cavernous, dimly lit, and bitingly cold. It took forty-five minutes for the Starford Spacelines transport ship to regurgitate Rya’s duffel out of its cargo holds, along with the rest of the passengers’ baggage. By that point, Rya had already turned up the collar on her leather jacket and tucked her hands under her armpits, releasing them only to make a grab for her duffel on the shuddering, rumbling baggage belt. Then she knelt, fished her dark blue Special Protection Service beret out of the side pocket, and removed the rank and service pins. She pulled the beret over her perpetually unruly hair. Some people might look twice if they knew what the beret symbolized. This was, after all, a recently declared Alliance station. Imperial Fleet in all its flavors, including Imperial Security, was not welcome.

But the overheads were weak and those milling about the baggage collection area of the passenger terminal appeared as bleary-eyed as she was. The beret could be mistaken for black. The service pins were deep in her pocket. And her scalp was goddamned frostbitten. She was going to wear her beret, for what little good it did.

It was better than nothing.

The two-day flight from Calth starport had been dismal, with crying infants, hacking old men, and one painfully thin woman who snored like a half-ton freight-loader grinding gears.

Kirro Station was equally dismal. Umoran had been hit hard with financial failures after the grove cankers and lack of support from what was once the empire. Exports were down. Imports were priced like luxuries. More than half the food kiosks in the passenger terminal were abandoned. Those still open offered few selections at ridiculous prices.

She overpaid for a half mug of sweet tea and, clutching it between chilled hands as the duffel’s strap dug a furrow into her shoulder, headed down the long corridor to find the waiting room for the shuttle to Seth.

She passed a few stripers, armed and watchful. Seven months ago, she might have stopped to talk about the job with one or two. She was law enforcement, as were they, although her jurisdiction as an ImpSec officer had been on a much larger scale than station security. Now she played civilian, letting her gaze pass over them as if a man or woman armed with a rifle was nothing more than an interesting curiosity. Though she did wonder if any of them were former ImpSec like herself.

Out of habit she studied their weaponry more than their faces. No Carvers here, not even Stingers. Standard-issue Mag-5 pistols. Rifles were boring Blue Surgers. She’d trained on them, could dismantle them in her sleep, which, in her opinion, was all they were worth. But yeah, get shot by a Surger, it still hurt like a bitch and could put you flat-out dead if someone’s aim was good.

That’s why she liked working for ImpSec. They carried Carver-10s, minimum. Carver-12s on shipside duty. She’d even heard of 15s when they worked the rim or were assigned to an admiral’s personal protection. Totally apex, to quote her friend Lyza, who was by now sleeping in Rya’s bed in Rya’s apartment, possibly even with Rya’s former lover.

The shuttle waiting room was crowded. Not surprising. According to the schedule board, the room serviced three shuttles: dirtside to Umoran and the moon colony, and spaceside to the Seth shipyards. She wondered how many of those huddled down on the hard seats had seen Commander Dina Adney’s coded transmit on available crew positions for the new AIR fleet. A lot, probably, because this was Calth, and Calth had almost entirely withdrawn from the empire after the dissolution of the Admirals’ Council several months ago.

Only the Walker Colonies and Port January were playing coy, but then Port January had long been an Imperial base of operations.

She spied an empty row of bench seats and headed for them, only to realize why they were empty. They were broken, their backs still connected but the seats stripped out. She turned and walked again past humans hunched into coats, children huddled close in a mother’s or father’s lap, and a few Takas lounging casually, not bothered by the cold at all, their furred hands and wrists sticking out of lightweight shirts or thermals, shipyard patches on their chests marking them as returning workers.

The schedule board flashed, catching her eye. A low groan went around the room even before she finished reading the advisory that all shuttles were delayed for one hour due to heightened security concerns.

A baby wailed loudly.

Rya completely concurred with the sentiment.

Movement near the dirtside shuttle tubeway signaled a family vacating several of the benchlike seats—the delay likely meant time for a lavatory stop, or maybe food. Rya was only a row away. She quickened her steps, then slowed. An elderly man and woman pulled themselves off the cold decking, tugging two toddlers with them as they ambled for the seats. A pair of hardbody guys did as well. Dockworkers, Rya guessed with a fair amount of professional accuracy. She stepped in front of the men, blocking their path, trying to give the people with the small kids a chance to get there first.

The bearded hardbody stared levelly at her as she shifted her stance until she stood bladed to him, gun-side away. Ingrained habit. The man was about her age, and not much taller than she was, maybe five-ten. But he outweighed her by at least sixty pounds, and Rya was no lightweight. A factor Matt had always found less than appealing.

“I have breasts, I have hips, I have thighs,” she’d told him more than once when he’d patted her ample rump with some snippy comment. “Get used to it.”

The bearded man’s gaze dropped to her chest.

“Kind of you to let them have the seats,” she told him, bringing his gaze back to her face as her right hand found the small laser tucked against her back.

“Yeah, I’m Mr. Wonderful,” he drawled, with a quick glance to his friend. His hands edged into his pockets.

She palmed the laser, flicking the setting to stun.

“So now I gotta go sit on the floor again,” he continued. “It’s real cold on your ass, you know. Think you should come and keep me warm.”

“I think you’ll do just fine by yourself.” She put her professional tone in her voice. “Have a good one, gentlemen. Now, move on.”

Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or maybe it was that Mr. Wonderful’s friend’s gaze flicked to her beret and down again, possibly catching the outline of the gun in her shoulder holster that even her womanly charms and leather jacket failed to fully hide. He nudged his friend. “Let’s go, Al.”

“Hey!”

Al’s friend grabbed Al by the arm and steered him in the opposite direction.

Rya tucked away the L7 at the small of her back, and didn’t miss the low comment when they were a few steps away.

“Striper? Fuck.”

No, not a striper. ImpSec Special Protection Service. Polite, professional and prepared to kill.

She sighed, caught the grateful gaze of the elderly woman with the sleeping toddler in her lap, and smiled her acknowledgment.

The “shuttle delayed” sign still flashed. Rya wandered away from the tubeway hatchlock and finally ended up leaning against the wall—holding up the bulkhead, her father would say—where the corridor dead-ended into the waiting area.

A few more people stood, filing out, tired of waiting, or hungry, or both. Or just needing to move. Mr. Wonderful and friend claimed two seats quickly, but she didn’t intervene this time because no one smaller, weaker, or older needed them.

She glanced away from them and watched the corridor instead.

That’s when she saw him. A solitary figure in a thermal overcoat that her mind automatically tagged as “Fleet-issue,” moving with a determined but limping gait. He leaned on his cane with every other step, the wide strap of a duffel a dark stripe against the gray fabric of his coat.

He was too far for her to see his face, but as he moved under the dim overheads, his short-cropped silver hair made her immediately tag him as a veteran. Not recent Fleet, then. Probably a casualty from the Border Wars twenty years ago.

Officer? Yeah, she tagged that, too. It was in the way, in spite of the pain and his limp, that he held himself. The set of his shoulders. The lift of his chin. Retired officer, silver-haired, probably in his seventies. Coming here at Commander Adney’s call?

God, were they down to that now? Relying on rheumy old men to try to stop Tage’s insanity?

An end seat on the long bench bordering the bulkhead became available when a fidgety young man in plain coveralls pushed himself out of it and loped for the corridor. She slid quickly into it, next to a dozing Takan shipyard worker on her left. She’d give the space to the old man when he passed by her. Then maybe she’d indulge in another half mug of sweet tea to thaw her insides and her hands. The damned shuttle—

The old man, about fifteen feet from her now, limped under a dangling spotlight, the harsh glow illuminating his face. And Rya, already rising to offer him her seat, realized two things. He was not an old man. And he had the most incredible blue eyes she’d seen in years.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said because that’s what she’d planned to say. And old or not, he was still limping.

He hesitated slightly, those marvelous blue eyes narrowing.

“You want this seat?” she continued. “I was just leaving. Shuttle’s delayed and seats are hard to come by here.”

He stopped in front of her and leaned on his cane.

Rya looked up. Yeah, up. Six-two, three. Stocky, maybe two-forty-five. Fleet thermal coats were a thin fabric. He had wide shoulders, a muscular neck. And a dual shoulder holster. She judged that, too.

Something flashed over his face—a wariness—then it was gone.

Her beret. He was Fleet. He knew its significance.

A baby wailed somewhere behind her, its cry dissolving into a series of hiccups.

“AWOL,” Rya said quietly in explanation of her head gear, because that wasn’t all that far from the truth. Then she said a name and watched for his reaction. “Adney.”

Confirmation came in the slight lessening of tension around his mouth.

“That’s pretty much why a lot of us are here,” she said, her voice still low. She didn’t know why she’d added that information. No, she did. For some reason she couldn’t define, but based on the cop’s sense she’d honed over the past few years, she trusted this silver-haired man. He exuded…something. An aura of command, of respect?

Yes, command and respect, now that she thought about it.

But more than that, she sensed that was why he was here. And she wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. Because in addition to that aura of command that ringed him like an impenetrable halo, she also felt a deep loneliness in him. A heavy weight that maybe had something to do with his injury or maybe not.

But it was there. It was palpable.

And it wasn’t just her cop’s instincts telling her that, but her years as the daughter of first Lieutenant then Commander then Captain Cory Bennton.

“Would you like to sit, sir?”

“How long is the delay?” His voice was deep, resonant.

“One hour max, due to heightened security concerns.”

He was shaking his head in dismay.

The Takan on her left rose to his feet and called out to a group exiting toward the corridor. They waved. He headed for them in a long, striding gait.

When Rya turned back the silver-haired man had let his duffel drop to the floor next to his boots, its strap still in his fingers. It was heavy, but he wasn’t going to let it go or out of his sight.

“This is never a pretty maneuver,” he said and, twisting slightly, angled himself down into the vacant chair.

She sat in the Taka’s seat, forgetting she’d said she was leaving. She caught the tail end of a half-smile, half-grimace on his face, and realized her error.

“My leg thanks you,” he said with a hint of wry humor. “My ego is severely deflated.”

She grinned back, doing a quick mental tally of him as he wedged his cane into a niche on the benchlike seats, and then dragged the duffel between them. Early to mid-forties. The silver hair was an anomaly. It was thick, and judging from some still dark patches, had once been a rich brown about as dark as her own. His face had nice features. Not pretty-handsome like Matt, but classic with an edge toward rugged.

“Accident?” She pointed to his right leg, extending stiffly out.

“Let’s just say negotiations with a possible enemy combatant didn’t go as planned.” He adjusted his coat as he spoke. His hands were square, strong, the backs dotted with scars.

No pretty boy, this former Fleet officer. Engineer, she thought. Or chief of maintenance. Worked with his hands and cared little about gashes and barked knuckles.

The schedule board flashed again and this time there was a definite announcement. Two-hour delay for the shuttle to the moon colony, four-hour delay for the shuttle to Seth’s shipyards. The shuttle for Umoran, however, would arrive in fifteen minutes. Boarding would commence ten minutes after that.

Sighs of relief mixed with groans.

“Fuck.” This, softly, from the man next to her. And with no apology. Well, he’d tagged her as Fleet as clearly as she had him. What were a few epithets between friends?

He leaned forward as if to stand, then stopped, slumping back slightly, his gaze pinned on the wide viewport across the waiting area as if he could see all the way to Seth. Or the shipyards.

His eyes were narrowed, his brows furrowed. She’d seen that look on her father’s face when he was forced to make decisions he didn’t like. Or when decisions he wanted to make weren’t possible. The shuttle delay clearly had this man on edge.

“The empire’s not going to change all that much in the next four hours,” she commented, her voice low.

He slanted her a glance. The hard, angry emotions she saw in his eyes startled her and almost had her reaching for her L7. But he looked away, removing the immediacy of the threat. Still, she watched his hands because she knew he was armed. They were in plain sight though now one fist clenched.

“It already has.” He spoke suddenly, his voice as low as hers but harsh. “Tage hit Corsau an hour ago.”

She felt her eyes widen. He was looking at her now, studying her, not only anger on his face but grief.