Chapter 49
The Director’s name turned out to be Chadwick Merriweather. Junior. The universe had a sense of irony.
“I wouldn’t get any closer, Major.”
Kael turned, the slight hint of ozone giving the barrier’s presence away. Continued walking as if that had been his plan all along.
“Are you really not going to ask me about your brother?” Chad was clearly dying to tell him.
Kael looked back over his shoulder, “Why bother? She,” he tilted his head at Wraith, who was crouched near Spirit, “already told me.”
He continued his horror walk.
“Brandt said you were stubborn,” Chad called, “I see he was right.”
Kael’s hands clenched. “The Admiral and I have had our differences of opinion.”
“Indeed. He’s most upset that you disabled the Tether on Captain Raine. He’d planned to deactivate her personally.”
“That’s because I declined his dinner invitation,” Wraith called, as if she’d already known. She stood up, looked their way. “Well, technically I laughed at him first. But that wasn’t intentional.”
“I created the Tether, you know. Marvelous piece of technology. One of my more reliable creations.”
“Hmm,” Kael agreed noncommittally. He couldn’t turn around and look at Wraith without giving her ruse away. Briefly tried to reach for her. Couldn’t.
He was not looking forward to that conversation later. If they survived this.
Chad was baiting them. He wondered what reaction the man was hoping for. What would happen when he got it.
It would come down to who blinked first.
Nearly a decade of field repair on damaged fighter craft had given Wraith a good working knowledge of engineering. Enough to see where the power for both shields was coming from.
And maybe, just maybe, she could see how to break it.
She was concentrating hard on the problem, because otherwise the words, He un-Tethered you, he didn’t tell you, started looping through her brain again.
“Does it bother you, seeing your teammate like that, Ashley.”
She glanced up at him, “Sure, Chad, I’m not a monster.”
He sputtered. She could see the spittle fly.
Yuck.
She spotted a rolling chair, pulled it near the right console, and sat down. Put her feet up. Yawned.
Chad was looking between them now. Her lounging, Kael walking around as if this torture chamber was a mildly interesting art gallery.
He should have known they were too blasé and maybe he did, but he clearly couldn’t fathom it.
She wondered what he’d make of Shade. Laughed at thought, which caused Kael to turn to her.
Now was as good a time as any.
“Hey Major, I’m going to have a nap. Wake me up in thirty, forty-five minutes?”
“Want me to clear some space for you?”
Good boy, she thought to herself. Get in position.
“Nope, here’s fine.”
She closed her eyes just as Chad’s voice cut across the room, “Your brother triggered the blast that destroyed the fleet.”
It couldn’t matter.
It did. But it would have to wait.
Kael had wandered back to the roughly thirty-seven-degree mark in the room, per Wraith’s instructions. He tilted his head to the side and gave Chad his best SID Officer receiving a briefing from an ensign look. Sighed loudly.
“Yes. I know. And?”
Chad’s eyes widened, his mouth flopping open and shut like a fish.
“I’m a SID Major, Director. With GEO clearance.” Chad’s face lost all its color. Interesting. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”
Which was when there was a bang of explosive—Rina’s grenade, he thought—and the power went out. He triggered his night vision optics and cursed a second later when the emergency lighting kicked in. Blinked rapidly to clear the spots from his eyes.
Baby Bird. Don’t.
His head snapped to the center of the room. Wraith was standing in the middle of the Anchor, her hand on Spirit’s cheek. He saw her mouth love you to dying man before she laid her hands on the rocks.
The Void screeched.
It hurt. Void, it hurt.
And not just her pain. Spirit’s too. The feedback loop from hell.
She just… needed… to reverse it.
Kael had just stepped forward when the powercell whine gave him half a second’s warning. He ducked behind the solid slab and its partially autopsied resident, silently thanking Wraith for the positioning.
The three smart projectiles hit the corpse and exploded.
He was showered with tissue and bone.
Wraith screamed behind him. Rage, pain, and frustration all braided together.
The Void was screaming too, its emotions less obvious.
He needed to help her, but first, he had to disable Chad.
The Stalker-12 rifle was a nasty weapon and you didn’t need to be a good shot to be deadly. The smart targeting did that all on its own.
Kael could have just shot him, but there was the small matter of the promised boom, and the not so small matter of needing evidence.
The Stalker whined again.
Kael dashed, vaulted another corpse with a muttered apology and dropped prone. Again, the bullets hit the unnamed Other.
That was enough. No more games.
He charged Chad, who raised the rifle. Just not quickly enough. Kael snatched it from his hands and used it to knock the man unconscious with a single strike.
He dragged him off and away from the elevator, just in case, paused a moment and kicked Chad in the balls.
If he did wake up, he wouldn’t be going anywhere fast.
Wraith screamed again.
Ash!
He ran.
Almost… there… Matt.
Just a little… bit… more….
Kael stopped in front of Wraith. Her jaw was clenched so tightly, for a second he was absurdly worried she was going to crack teeth.
He didn’t know what to do. If he even could do anything that wouldn’t collapse everything.
He couldn’t do nothing.
He looked down at Spirit. The man was… he didn’t know. He crouched. Alive. Barely.
Help… her.
The voice was a whisper that cut through the Void.
“How?”
Push.
“Not helpful, my friend. I don’t know how to do that. I’m new to this whole integration thing.
There were no words, but Kael got the distinct impression of eye rolling. Could almost imagine he heard Spirit’s muttered, Idiot.
And then he knew. It was so simple that he’d missed it.
He launched upwards. Shoulder slammed Wraith up and off the rocks and took her place.
The Void laughed.
Reality slammed back into Wraith at the same time her back slammed into the floor, knocking the air from her lungs.
She rolled onto her knees, arched her back to expand her chest. Tried to cough to reset her breathing.
Your body knows how to do this damn it!
Tried coughing again and air hammered back into her lungs, loud and almost painful. She pushed to her feet, still coughing and eyes watering.
Kael was standing at the Anchor.
“Helios!”
She’d meant to scream at him, but it came out as a hoarse whisper. She staggered forward, around the Anchor.
Kael’s hair was standing on end, and his eyes—
What the fuck was wrong with his eyes?
They shifted from white to gray to black. The swamp-water brown gone.
She looked down. Matt was smiling. At her.
Wraith knelt and took his hand. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do.
Suddenly Kael yelled. A raw scream that scraped her skin from the inside out.
The energy in the room shifted, reversed, and was sucked back into the Anchor which promptly disappeared.
Along with Spirit.
Wraith was left grasping at nothing, the chains that had held him falling with a final, hollow clatter.