Sela had assumed it was a matter of her basic chemistry, but she was a creature of action. Stimulus. Response. Her response was to act. She felt it like a deep-seated itch in a healing wound. It was a surge of energy felt through every cell. In battle, where the threat was clear, this trait served her well. When the threat was nebulous with no apparent means of attack, acting rashly was a disadvantage. Veradin had seen that in Sela within moments. He had attempted to teach her to control that rashness and look beyond the immediate.
Until she had met Veradin, her personal vision of the future had always been vague. She imagined survival from engagement to engagement, nothing more. It was as if he could see a future for her beyond the now. She had committed the sin of believing him.
Yet in moments like this, it was so easy for her to fall back on old habits.
Count to ten. Breathe.
As she returned to the command hab level, Sela continued to count under her breath without realizing it. This time she stepped across the yellow line on the floor. Breeders were never allowed past this point. For a moment, she stood there in the subdued light of the corridor, facing what she assumed was the direction of Veradin’s quarters.
Expecting what? A siren? SSD troopers to descend on her? Nothing happened.
She took it in. There were no crawlers here. No motion sensors. It seemed Trinculo, and his ilk were less interested in monitoring the cresters. The walls were a muted brown unmarred by graffiti or scrapes from the crush of heavily armored bodies pushing past each other in a confined space. The ceiling felt higher. Recessed lights shone down in a soft amber color. It was nearly palatial in comparison to the squadbays.
No guards waited outside Veradin’s chamber. Of course not. He was not there; he was in stockade. The lock on his door was easy to disarm. It opened with a thick metallic clunk. Without waiting to see if the noise brought anyone to investigate, Sela stepped inside.
The room’s lights popped on, sensing her presence. Pulse roaring in her ears, she approached the simple single bed, impossibly neat. Impossible, if one knew Captain Veradin of the mussed hair and rumpled command tunic.
She found the space vaguely disappointing. There had been moments of weakness when she had imagined being here, in this room with him. What did he do in his hours away from her? Did he entertain visitors? Browse the holoweb? This might as well be a non-reg world.
There were things about Jonvenlish Veradin that were a complete mystery still. However, to Sela, there were a million other details she found commonplace and endearing. He ran his hand through his hair, over the right temple when he was agitated. His laugh was honest and perhaps too loud. He chewed the pad of his thumb when distracted. These were things a stranger would know after an hour.
What do I know of him, really? Why would First want him dead or call him a traitor?
Above the bed’s smooth surface, medals for valor lay in a
single row on the small shelf. An image capture glowed from the wall. She tabbed through the images on the device. Smiling faces of strangers peered out from a world Sela Tyron would never know. The last picture slid a jealous barb into her heart.
Veradin, in the gray lapels of a cadet’s jacket. He appeared years younger and a million worlds from that of the Regime, grinning happily under an alien sun. His arm was thrown around a refined-looking young woman with dark hair, striking green eyes and a pensive smile. She was wrapped in a swathe of purple, the color of the Veradin Kindred. Who was she? Cresters had mates, even those from a smaller Kindred like the Veradin. Does my captain have a wife?
Sela sagged to the bed, dimpling the once-perfect surface. Then, after a brief hesitation, she flopped onto her side to push her face into the cushion. She inhaled his scent. Rolling onto her back, Sela gazed up at the flat expanse of ceiling. Doubt coiled in her gut.
The ship’s chrono above the jamb ticked away precious time. Soon the level would be alive again with the changing shift. If she were to act, it had to be now.
Sela rose, plunking the gear bag open on the bunk. Blindly she shoved clothes, gear, and after a long, thoughtful pause, the image capture into the bag. Moments later she was another set of shoulders weaving through the mass of bodies in the middle of the duty shift.
“What are you doing…sir?”
Valen. He followed me.
Sela stiffened.
She could not look at him.
“You’re on downtime, Valen. Go back to the squadbay.” She kept her eyes on the closed door of the level risers, willing them to open, waiting for escape. Why are they so damned
slow?
“I’m not leaving, boss. Not until you tell me what you’re doing.”
It was the defiance in his voice that made her turn to face him. Towering, reliable and oddly baby-faced Valen. There was a bitter pull to the bow of his mouth. His eyes held a muted anger. Was it for her?
“They’re going to kill him,” Sela whispered.
Wordlessly, Valen took her elbow. No one noticed them in the crush of dutifully-bustling personnel. They were ignorant of, or uncaring about, this little drama as Valen tugged her into the nearest rec suite.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, Sela wrenched her arm from his grasp.
“Have you lost your mind, Sergeant?”
As she reached for the door control, he cycled it to lock. “Have you
, boss?”
Sela exhaled a plosive sigh, allowing her shoulders to sag.
“Possibly. But I have to do something
.” She slumped to the rec bunk, not caring about what acts might have graced its surface in the past. She planted her face in her hands and propped her elbows on her knees.
There was a rustle of fabric in the dim ugly light as Valen moved closer. Then, after an obvious hesitation, he sat beside her.
There was a long silence filled with the sound of the atmo scrubbers and some balefully sweet music the suite’s previous users had inexplicably found enticing. Valen slapped a thick palm over the interface in the wall beside him. The music snapped off, and the brightness of the room increased.
“I have to do something,” she repeated.
“I heard they arrested him for going up against Silva—”
“No. Not for that. For treason.”
“Treason? Why would they arrest the cap’n for treason?”
Valen regarded her profile. But she continued to stare at the far wall.
“I don’t know. But I do know the charges against him are false.”
“Boss, how can you know…”
“I just do! Stop asking me questions.” She stood abruptly. Valen watched her pace the small room.
Finally, he asked. “It’s not just about Veradin, is it, Commander? Atilio meant something more to you.”
Sela stopped mid-stride and turned to him. “You see so much, don’t you?”
He shifted on the mattress. “All this and brains too.” He smiled wistfully.
“Atilio was my son.” It was strange to hear those words aloud. A secret given freedom in such an unlikely place.
His eyes widened. “Glory all.”
“I’ve never told anyone. Not even Atilio. Not Veradin. In fact, you’re the only person I’ve ever told.”
“But, you should have reported…”
Tyron grimaced, shaking her head as if to say: does that matter anymore? Here and now?
“They never meant for us to come back, did they?” Valen said after a pensive silence. “I got back to my rack, and it’d already been reassigned to some booter.”
Sela imagined the fearful expression on some newly minted soldier’s face to see Valen towering over him like a resurrected giant from a fable.
“They meant for us to die there, Valen.” Tyron sat back down beside him. “We were expendable.”
“But Decca—”
“First doesn’t play by those rules. They never have.” She would not shelter him from the truth. That was not her way.
It was his turn to pace.
He exhaled. “I’m with you, Commander.”
Sela offered a grim smile. Valen had always been there, it seemed. He was bedrock, firm footing. A constant in her life for how many years now?
“I’ve never doubted that, Sergeant. But this isn’t your fight.”
“You can’t do this. You can’t just tell me the lay of it and leave me out. What are you doing, Sela?”
She nodded. “I have to get the captain off the Storm King
.”
“You have
lost your mind,” Valen ran a hand over his face.
“I need to get him on a craft, something they won’t miss like a runner or—
“It’s treason.”
“I know. But I’ve never been surer of anything. The captain is innocent. Trinculo doesn’t care about that. He wouldn’t listen to me. He said he’d arrest me too if I didn’t let it go.”
Valen knelt before her. His enormous hands swallowed hers. “Okay, boss. Say you do that. You get Veradin off the ‘King
. Then what? Trinculo finds out what you did. And then you’re the one that’s dead. Is that what you want? ‘Cause I don’t.”
“If it comes to that.” She gently pulled her hands from his. “Yes.”
“No crester would do that for a breeder.”
“He would. The captain would. He’s the only reason the Storm King
stayed in orbit, the only reason they extracted us.”
“I know,” he said. “But treason?”
“It’s not treason. It’s a rescue.
”
Valen rose. He extended a hand to her, palm up, inviting. “I know a flight tech that will help us.”
“Us?” she asked. “No, Valen. I can’t let you do this. Like you said, once Trinculo figures this out, he won’t just stop with me.”
She trusted Valen with her life. But she could not allow him to follow her down this suicidal path.
Yet, when she would not take his hand, he pulled her to her
feet as if she weighed nothing.
“Some things you just don’t have a say in.”
