Chapter 3
The stars were beautiful.
She’d forgotten that. Forgotten a lot of things, like how to be a person.
Wasn’t sure she’d ever get it back.
But she had to give the Major credit where it was due. He was doing everything he could to manage it.
Three days, she had been on the ship.
It was still jarring.
She could feel the rumble of the engines through the walls and floor. A floor she had ended up sleeping on, curled against the wall as she had in her cell. The bed was soft. So damn soft. Like a cloud. So, of course, her body wouldn’t let her rest on it.
When the Major had knocked the first morning, he’d brought her breakfast. Nothing fancy, he told her, just oats with honey, and a protein shake.
He’d left her to it, and she’d found herself shaking. Real fucking food.
Even the protein shake counted.
Those damn oats were the best thing she’d ever eaten.
He’d reappeared to invite her to join him for lunch. In the officers’ mess. Fewer people, he explained. All of whom gave them both a wide berth.
She didn’t care.
Nor could she eat.
Her body wasn’t used to it. Which fucking sucked.
Still, she took the opportunity to catalog the officers. A few veterans, but fewer than she’d have expected. They stared through her, like she was already dead.
Good. Let them underestimate.
There were few she’d expect to survive more than a few minutes in a ground battle, although a couple looked like they might know their way around a fighter’s cockpit.
The ones who would survive a fight were obvious: they watched her hands, not her eyes.
After he had eaten, the Major took her back to her room.
Rinse, repeat for three days, three meals a day.
The luxury of it—the normalcy of it—staggered her.
Now she was sitting in the briefing room, looking out at the stars. The Major was already at the conference table, reviewing something on his data pad.
She was sure he’d get around to talking to her.
Eventually.
Kael laid his pad down and looked at Wraith, who was looking out of the viewport. He’d tried to keep thinking of her as Captain Raine;, but that wasn’t who she was. Whoever she had been before the final battle? That woman was gone.
He didn’t know whether Wraith suited her as a call sign during the War, but it sure as hell fit now.
“Will you join me?”
She turned and he gestured to the chair next to him.
“I think you might have missed a lesson or two in officer school,” she told him as she rose. “Specifically the parts about giving orders.”
“Would you have joined me if I’d ordered you to?”
She jerked a shoulder and sat down, “Maybe.”
“But, maybe not,” he said and smiled. She remained expressionless.
“If you’re up for it, I’d like to go over the mission brief with you.”
Wraith regarded him, “And if I’m not?”
“Then we wait.”
“Why?”
His smile widened, “I think you missed the lessons about not questioning superior officers.”
“Oh, no. I was there. I just don’t always choose to follow them.”
Kael nodded. “I’d heard that about you. To answer your question, this mission is critical, but I need you functional. It’s not so time-sensitive that it can’t wait a few days while you acclimate.”
She lounged back, studying him. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“What?”
She didn’t reply, just looked at him.
Okay, he could play.
“Intelligence exchange? One for one.”
She raised an eyebrow, “A more dangerous game than I had in mind. But fine.”
“Very well.” He considered her, decided to go with the most important fact first.
“My brother was on the Onyx when you blew it up.”
Well, that’s an opener of note.
But if he was hoping to shock her, if he was hoping for any reaction at all he was going to be sorely disappointed.
“My condolences. Your question.”
The Major—what had he said his call sign was? Helios?—nodded slowly as if she’d passed a test. Or at least the first part of it.
“Thank you. Why did you blow it up?”
“That’s what you’re leading with?”
“It’s not your turn to ask a question.” His look was smug. He thought he had trapped her.
Wraith could feel the slight shudder of the engines as the Eventide prepared for hyperspace launch. She looked at Helios, shook her head, rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t.”
His jaw dropped.
It was almost funny.
“What?!”
“It’s my turn to ask a question.”
His look was wild, but he nodded for her to continue.
She hesitated just a beat too long. The next question exposed a weakness like a knife to the throat. Her weakness. But he had probably already guessed where she bled. It was worth the risk.
“What happened to the rest of my team?”
He sat back, “Funny you should mention that.” He tapped his data pad, and a screen flared to life behind him. Six faces. Six ghosts.
Her breath caught in her throat and her own eyes stared back. A stranger’s eyes, before the cell, before the War stole their light
Damn, they looked young.
“Ghost Command is a big part of your mission.”
Ice trickled into her veins, but she shrugged nonchalantly, “It’ll be good to see them again. You have one last question.”
“If you didn’t blow up the Onyx,” his voice dropped, deathly quiet, “who did?”
Every cell in his body was attuned to her. He needed her answer. Then he could decide whether he believed her.
She held his gaze, almost pityingly.
“Have you ever been in a large space battle? The question is relevant to the answer,” she told him before he could object to another question.
“I was on the Antioch for Cryos Six, and on the Aurora for the final assault.
“Final?”
He raised an eyebrow at her, “The one you rather spectacularly ended.”
She blinked at him, then gave a slight tilt of her head as if filing that information away for future reference.
According to her file, she’d been more than half dead when they’d found her. So maybe she didn’t know that her actions had been the defining ones.
“So you’ve been on the edges, but not the center.”
He nodded, even though it wasn’t a question. She held his gaze.
“I don’t know who blew up the Onyx, Major. Or even if anyone did. They’d taken a couple of hits, but were still moving the last time I saw them. Then the Others’ big old flagship went boom and I was far more occupied with trying to get the hell out of there than noticing the exact positions of all the ships.”
She paused and tapped a finger on the table. “I’d have thought they were far enough away to be out of the blast zone. But here’s the thing about being in the center of a fight like that, Major, it’s chaos. It changes second by second.”
His knuckles whitened around the data pad. Five years of intel and unanswered questions, and her answer was “chaos”?
Her eyes darted to his hand, clocking the gesture.
“So who blew up your brother’s ship?”
She shrugged.
“Maybe they just got unlucky. I sure as hell couldn’t tell you.”