Suicide Mission: Unity War Book 2 Page 2

  Not that it mattered in the long run, since Carey identified as asexual and wouldn’t date either one of them regardless. Reality didn’t stop Brid from crushing on him, though; and if the truth were known, she suspected his unavailability was a large part of why she liked him so damn much.

  Well, that, and his lovely brown eyes.

  Foregoing the cobbler, Brid poured a tall plastic cup of iced tea for Carey, since she knew he habitually drank Oolong, and the only other option was lemonade. After a moment’s thought, she chose tea for herself, too, and brought the cups over to the fireplace.

  “Well, I’m going to give the Simonises my condolences,” Emma said as Brid arrived. “I hate this part.”

  “Me, too,” said Carey. “Good luck.”

  Emma nodded and went off, leaving Brid alone with Carey. “I brought tea.” She handed him a cup.

  “You read my mind! I was waiting until the line got a bit shorter, but it doesn’t look as though it’s going to, does it?”

  “It will when the food runs out.” They both took a long swallow. “Did you know Adam at all?”

  “Well enough that I felt I should attend his funeral. You?”

  “Somewhat. I know his parents better than I did him, but I liked him.” She teared up a little, and she had to sip her tea to prevent Carey from noticing. “You couldn’t help but like him. He was quite a character.”

  “Yes, he was.” Those lovely, attentive eyes grew distant, and for a minute, she thought she’d lost him. Then, “This house reminds me of my sister’s home in Arizona.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “Harper. I love her to death, but I hardly ever get to see her. You know how it is, living on board a warship. Leave doesn’t always take you home. I mean, here we are on Earth for a change, but I didn’t have time to fly all the way to Arizona and attend the funeral.”

  “I know what you mean. I should be attending the funerals of everyone we’ve lost to the war, but it’s physically impossible. So I only attend the burials in space and the Arlington ceremonies. And this one, because I know the parents.”

  He leaned in briefly, conspiratorially, and his nearness sent a shiver down her spine. “A hazard of the profession. Only other Star Force officers know what we go through.”

  She grinned despite the somber occasion, hid it behind her bright blue cup. “I don’t want to tell you the number of times I’ve missed family gatherings because I was too busy commanding a warship.”

  “Do you know it’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen my sister or my parents?”

  “It’s been eighteen months since I’ve seen anybody in my family.”

  “God. We’re a pair.” His gaze flicked to his watch. “We’d better say our condolences if we’re going to. It’s almost time to head back.”

  “Oh.” She wished she’d allotted more time for the wake, but she’d thought the funeral would afford them all opportunity enough to grieve and to speak with Adam’s family. And the truth was, it had done; she simply wanted more time alone with a man she could never have.

  She put her cup down and followed said man to where the remaining Simonises stood with red-rimmed eyes and hollow cheeks, bravely accepting the kind words of strangers as if those words could in any way lessen their pain or make it more bearable. And suddenly she wished she hadn’t come, because nothing she said would make any difference in the lives of these four heartbroken individuals. She had drunk their tea and smiled inappropriately, and one of their children—or their brother—was dead. No matter what she said now, no matter how flowery or soulful her words, Adam was still dead.

  Tears threatened again, part sorrow, part shame, and she willed them away. She didn’t want her emotions to aggravate what the Simonises were going through. “Blair. Denise,” she said when she’d reached Adam’s parents. She took each of their hands in turn. “I don’t know if you remember me, Denise. I’m Brid Stephenson.”

  “Yes, of course,” Denise said without conviction. Her gaze was long.

  “You remember, dear, Brid is captain of the Takarabune. I went to the academy with her before I decided to quit. She was my biology tutor.”

  Brid smiled thinly at the memory. Blair had been two years ahead of her, but couldn’t get the hang of biology for the life of him, while Brid had always aced her science classes, and had offered tutoring sessions for spending money. She and Blair had hit it off—had even ventured out on a single disastrous date at the insistence of their friends—and although they’d gone their separate ways after Blair quit the academy in favour of marriage and a life on solid ground, they’d kept spottily in touch over the years. Brid had even met Denise once, though she’d never met any of their children until Adam had joined the ranks of the Takarabune, and the truth was, she hadn’t realized he was Blair’s son until after he died.

  “Brid, these are our—” Blair’s voice faltered. “Our other two children, Alan and Desiree.”

  Alan forced a smile, but Desiree glared up at Brid with hateful eyes. “You’re the reason Adam’s dead.”

  Brid’s lips parted, but she could think of nothing to say. It wasn’t entirely untrue, to her way of thinking.

  Blair glanced sharply at his daughter. “Desiree! Watch your mouth!”

  The girl clamped her lips together, but she continued to glare, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Brid said. It came out a whisper, and her chest tightened. But she was the captain of a warship, in command of 60,500 lives, each of which she had deliberately placed in jeopardy on countless occasions these past months, because that was her job. They, in turn, risked their lives at her command, because that was their job. And if some of them lost their lives in the process . . . well, that was part of the job, too. It was not her place to cry over the inevitable.

  But as she turned and walked out the door into the sunlight, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses so no one could see the smudges beneath her eyes.

  * * *

  Gnawing at Brid for some time now was the fact that the humans knew extremely little about the aliens they so flippantly called “Snappers,” and how vital any information they could get on them would be. Earth and her Colonies had beaten the aliens soundly, but at great cost to themselves—and they remained at risk, not knowing if the Snappers would one day return.

  So she’d called a command meeting, to be held aboard the Takarabune, to decide what to do about it. Tradition said you had to serve ice water at these meetings, so she’d outfitted the long table with glasses at each seat and a full pitcher at either end. But the hour was still early, and Brid needed her fix, so she’d asked an aide to set down some mugs as well, and to have two pots of coffee continually percolating in the background, with cream, sugar, and artificial sweeteners at the ready.

  A representative of each of the six Colonies was in attendance, including Commodore Dubicki, who represented Lotan, plus Brid, who of course represented Earth. She met them all in the docking bay when their shuttles landed, and escorted them straight to the war room from there, eager to get started.

  “Lady, gentlemen,” she said, “please take a seat. If anyone would like a coffee, feel free to help yourself.” She waited politely until everyone who wanted a cup had prepared one, and then she got her own and sat in the last seat available, directly to Dubicki’s left.

  Since they didn’t all know one another, they exchanged names, and Brid made mental notes to help her remember who was who. She was generally good at names and faces, a boon in her line of work. Once all the introductions had been made, all eyes fixed on Brid, and she squared her shoulders unconsciously.

  “You all know why we’re here, so I’ll get straight to the point. It would be folly for us to think the aliens will never return just because we chased them temporarily out of our skies. We’ve got them on the defensive. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Hua Wu, captain of the Enas ship Kiruna and the only other woman present, drew her brows together. “Yes, bu
t how? We don’t even know where they are.”

  “Which is why I believe our next logical course of action is to find out how the aliens generate wormholes, and how they open and close them. If we knew that, we could travel to the aliens’ homeworld and attack.”

  Achille Esposito, the Regem representative, shook his salt-and-pepper head vehemently, slicing his hands through the air in a decisive gesture. “I must say no. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I can’t say that I’ve often agreed with Regemite opinions in the past, but I must say I concur.” Captain Axelsen of Gharad pinned Brid with an intent stare, then addressed the room at large. “We would be putting our lives in unnecessary risk to go to the Turtles’ homeworld. We have no idea how many of them there may be.”

  “We do know how many we are, though,” said Captain Krupin of the Mare Cognitum. “And it’s not an insignificant number.”

  “Your numbers are down since the attack on your capital, Captain. So are Lotan’s.”

  Krupin snorted. “Spoken like a true Selfite.”

  Brid stiffened. Selfism was the Gharadites’ worldwide mother religion, and it was all mixed up with their politics; controversial in their quest for independence, Selfites believed that one achieved enlightenment by tending to oneself, not to others. Consequently, the Gharadite government had once refused to come to the aid of its then-allies, Regem and Osiris, in their time of need. Both Regem and Osiris had declared war on Gharad, and that war, like so many others between the Colonies, had viciously waged until the aliens had invaded and offered them all a common enemy. Brid had hoped the animosity among the various Colonies would vanish in the face of the alien threat—but old wounds, she knew, could still be picked at.

  Axelsen narrowed his eyes at Krupin. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You’re a coward, Axelsen. You always were, and you always will be. That’s why we were winning in our war against you, and it’s why we’ll win this war, with or without you.”

  “Osirian bastard! You never understood true conviction! You’re nothing but a war-mongering heathen!”

  “And you’re a self-serving—!”

  “Gentlemen!” Brid put her hands up for silence. “Please! These are old arguments. Let’s stick with the issue at hand.”

  “The issue at hand,” Axelsen said, huffing a bit, “is hardly an issue. We can’t afford to go traipsing into enemy territory without first gathering some intel.”

  “We may not have time for that,” Dubicki said, tapping a forefinger on the table top. “We have no idea when the aliens will strike again.”

  “True,” Wu said. “But what if the Snappers have multiple homeworlds—colonies, like our own? There could be a lot more of them than we’re prepared to take on.”

  The Nommos representative gnawed at his lower lip. “She’s right. We shouldn’t move forward with this.”

  “I didn’t say we shouldn’t move forward. I simply suggested we should be well prepared.”

  Brid knew Wu only through her reputation as a thoughtful and insightful captain, but she was very quickly learning to like the woman. “I urge you all to remember the brutal attacks on Osiris and Lotan,” Brid said. “Earth and the Colonies can never be safe as long as the aliens are out there and able to go back and forth to their homeworld without our being able to follow them or escape.”

  They all fell silent. The memory of how the aliens had decimated New Shangana and the Osiris capital was more than fresh—it lived, breathed, beat at the forefront of everyone’s mind like something raw and uncontained.

  After several moments, the commodore spoke again: “Well. Does anyone have any new arguments to bring to the table? No? Then let’s not waste time rehashing what has already been said. Are we all ready to vote?” A general nodding of heads confirmed that, yes, they were ready. “All in favor of going to the alien homeworld—provided, of course, we can find our way?”

  Brid raised her hand. Enas was with her, she saw, as well as Lotan, and, obviously, Osiris.

  “All those against?” Regem, Gharad, and, finally, Nommos. “Then we proceed. It is my personal opinion that since this venture is Captain Stephenson’s idea, she should be the one to head the mission.”

  Brid’s eyes went round; this was not a turn she’d been expecting. But, “Agreed,” came the overwhelming consensus, and she was therefore duly volunteered.

  So be it, she thought. So be it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Just outside Earth’s atmosphere

  Fault sat at the edge of the Takarabune’s docking bay, gazing out at the day shift’s mechanics as they performed routine maintenance checks and the much more involved work of putting back together those fighters that had fared less than well during the Freyr Ambush. Head mechanic Nuria Gomes had warned him off hanging around when he didn’t have specific reason to be there, but he liked the docking bay. It wasn’t exactly quiet, but he stayed off the floor itself, well away from anyone, and everybody ignored him and did their work, so he felt like he was alone.

  Which was what he wanted, especially right now, when he couldn’t get a handle on his emotions. It had all started back on the Mare Cognitum when he’d suddenly realized he was beginning to enjoy killing, and it had only gotten worse since. Doctor Begbie had died in his arms, and then Adam Simonis had died in battle before his eyes. Fault blamed the Snappers for both their deaths, and he figured it wasn’t wrong to like killing so long as it was aliens you were killing and not humans.

  But his hate no longer confined itself to the battlefield. He was mad at no one in particular and everyone at once, and he constantly fought the sometimes overwhelming urge to lash out, to start fights—and not just arguments, but knock-down, drag-out fistfights. Even with women. There were moments, for instance, that he wanted nothing more than to strangle the life out of Ness Vasilescu.

  Anger wasn’t his only problem, however. At times an inexplicable sadness overtook him, too. He thought maybe he was sad over Adam’s death, or even Begbie’s, but he couldn’t figure out why that would be—in his lifelong career as a soldier, he’d never mourned anyone’s death; he’d never needed to.

  And he was scared. Damn scared. Mechs went crazy all the time, and he had to wonder if this was how it started. If he snapped, not only would he likely murder innocent people, but they’d deactivate him or send him to live out the last of his days in a cell in a “rehabilitation facility,” where they sent all the rest of the cyborgs they didn’t outright deactivate.

  All these emotions tangled up inside him with no way out so that he never knew what he would be feeling from one minute to the next, aside from lost and alone. He wasn’t used to confiding in anyone, and anyway, if he did, they’d probably ship him off to a rehabilitation facility first chance they got and be glad they were rid of him.

  His eyes wandered over to Nuria, who filled out her mechanic’s coveralls in a way that should be illegal. She was another reason he liked coming here—he really preferred Jaden, but any opportunity to stare at those breasts was an opportunity he didn’t want to waste. Someday he very much wanted to see that woman with her shirt off—but he had no doubt that she’d punch him in the mouth if he ever suggested it. So for now, at least, he contented himself with ogling her from a distance and pretending not to.

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  He started a bit at Jaden’s voice but recovered soon enough. She settled beside him, gazing out across the docking bay as if trying to see what he saw. She smelled good—not just because she’d bathed recently, either, and it wasn’t perfume. Maybe she used some kind of soap or shampoo other than standard regulation-issue . . . or maybe it was just her.

  “My thoughts ain’t worth a penny these days.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Come on, give.”

  He didn’t want to admit he’d been sniffing her. “I was thinkin’ about how hard it is to keep mechanical stuff working. You know, like the fighters an’ all.” It was close to the truth, although he’d been
thinking more about his own mechanical parts, and especially the technological parts, like his nanites.

  “Bullshit.”

  He blinked at her, wondering if she saw through him somehow, terrified that she had.

  “You were looking at Nuria’s tits.”

  “Got me.” He tried a smile, but all he managed was a twitch.

  She shook her head, grinning. “Why are men so obsessed with big breasts?”

  “It’s not just big breasts, it’s all breasts.”

  “But big breasts are better.”

  He shrugged. “Women like big muscles.”

  “Not me. I like my men lean.”

  “Like Garner.” It came out more surly than he’d intended, but he’d seen the way she looked at Garner, and it pissed him off. He wanted her to look at him like that, but all he ever saw in her eyes lately was concern, and sometimes anger, when he hit her last nerve.

  She didn’t say anything, so he knew he was right. He gazed back out at the mechanics working, saw one of them fiddling about with his Banshee. He’d lost track of Nuria.

  Jaden stared along with him, her long brown hair shielding most of her profile from the edge of his vision. She tucked the hair behind her ear, and the movement prompted her fragrance to drift over to him again, filling him with the urge to bury his face in her neck.

  She took a breath. “Don’t you ever get lonely sitting out here by yourself?”