Chapter 3 What’s Right
What's Right
“Where is Jace?” Colonel Diane Parker asked. “Has anyone seen him? He was just here! Khoth, he was with you, wasn’t he? Inside the ship?”
The last of the Khul ships was blasting off from Earth.
They were headed towards the Sun. The humans inside them had been given quick–and as benevolent–deaths as could be given.
Jace had insisted on being part of every single one of those deaths.
Khoth had been by his side, trying to give strength to his Xi and Xa simply by being there as words were inadequate to address the horror and pain and loss.
But now as Khoth turned his face from the blue-white glow of the Khul engines, he realized that Diane was right.
Jace was not there. This last ship to go was the one they had flown in and there had been no humans to put out of their suffering inside.
That had already occurred with the destruction of the Hive.
“I do not see Gehenna either.” Khoth frowned as he used his suit to search for both Jace and the AI.
“We just got him back and he wouldn’t explain…
” Diane bit down on the frantic fear in her voice.
Her nostrils flared as she drew in deep breaths to steady herself.
“He asked us not to question him about what happened up there. Not yet. That he needed to get this done…” She gestured towards the last ship whose exhaust looked as large as another star in the desert sky now. “And then he would tell us.”
It was on the return trip to Earth that Jace had explained to Khoth this plan.
“Everyone will want to talk to me. Debrief us, I guess, about what happened and what we think it means and all that,” Jace had told him as he had paced around the interior of the pod chamber of the Khul ship.
The pods were empty now though there were still living larvae in the ship’s systems. The skin between Khoth’s shoulder blades twitched at that thought and he found himself looking carefully at the piping, seeing if there were any leaks.
“The thing is that we can’t really take time for all that right now.
Gehenna tells me that there are a dozen Khul vessels in and around Sunrise, all of them with cargo.
We have to stop the suffering of those people and we’ve got to get these ships with the larvae off Earth,” Jace continued and Khoth looked back at the lithe, yet muscular form that moved with grace yet tensity in that moment.
He couldn’t help but also remember how Jace had risked his life for Khoth’s, had come back for him despite such an act being almost certain death, and then had put together an insane plan that had worked to get them out of the Hive.
He’d respected the young man before that, but now he had to admit that Jace was rising in his estimation to almost Daesah levels.
He tried to push down that admiration, reminding himself that Jace was very new to all of this, and yet he was the Pilot for a reason.
“A debriefing in General Intoshkin’s hands would take considerable sub-cycles,” Khoth agreed with Jace.
“So I vote we don’t go back to the base, we don’t go back to the Osiris, not yet. Have them come to us,” Jace said as he paused in his frantic pacing. “We don’t ask permission to deal with the ships. We just do it. That will keep them off kilter.”
“I agree. That seems like a wise course,” Khoth answered.
Jace looked up into Khoth’s face. “No one can truly understand what it was like there, but us, Khoth.”
Khoth’s voice softened, “No, they cannot.”
“Everyone is just trying to wrap their heads around me, the Osiris, Gehenna,” Jace told him. “They’ll want to think and regroup. They’ll want to have things ordered before they do anything.”
“Yes.” Khoth inclined his head.
Jace’s eyes became unfocused for a moment.
He was clearly speaking more for himself than for Khoth right then.
And Khoth didn’t think he was actually referring to those on the ground as Jace said, “The impact of what we saw and did will get in the way of what we have to do right now to help people.”
They had not had a chance to speak more as Gehenna merrily texted them that they were about to land!
But no more needed to be said. They were in agreement that speaking of what had occurred in the Hive, to those like Mrs. Lo, would not be discussed until they had dealt with the other Khul vessels, and made Earth safe for the moment.
Part of what Khoth had not had a chance to say to Jace was that his mother and a Thaf’ell fleet might well be through the gate by the time they had completed that task. She would not allow General Intoshkin or the Parkers to keep Jace from the Illumen Alliance’s grasp.
His eyes scanned the sky for any sign of his mother’s Colossus-class spaceship, the Ashaton, but saw no sign of it yet.
So his gaze swung towards Colonel Parker who was watching him very closely.
Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides and her whole posture was rigid.
She didn’t trust him. She thought he had something to do with Jace disappearing.
Not yet.
“Yes, I heard him say this to you and agreed with it,” Khoth told her.
In the gathering dark, his gaze narrowed as he took in all of the people present.
There were a dozen soldiers, all of them watching the ship leave.
General Intoshkin and Captain Parker were speaking together in low tones.
Thammah was somewhat in their circle. She cast a meaningful look at him and tilted her head slightly to Captain Parker and the general.
Whatever the two were discussing, he was likely not to enjoy it. Where had Jace gone?
His gaze was back upon Colonel Parker. “It was the best. What needed to be done… needed to be done with alacrity. If Jace stopped to speak with you and answer all of your questions–”
“I know,” her voice was hoarse. She rubbed her face with both hands as if to clean away the emotion. “But now he’s gone!”
Khoth checked his suit’s system. No sign of Jace or Gehenna.
Their signatures were being hidden from the system.
That meant that Jace had done this intentionally.
There was no one and nothing on Earth that could have harmed Jace or taken him away now that the Khul ships were gone.
The Osiris wouldn’t have allowed that in any case.
It was still unclear if the Osiris had been behind the Khul ship ascending to the Hive, but what was certain was that the ship now had no intention of Jace being harmed.
“He is not in danger, Colonel–”
“Diane,” she corrected him. Her gaze became serious as she focused on him. “I can tell that Jace has taken to you. That he’s influenced by you. So if you’re going to be that close to my family, you can call me by my first name.”
Khoth inclined his head after a moment. He felt that by using her first name she was making their connection stronger. It would be harder for him to betray her. And she was right. Calling her “Diane” and then taking her son away… well, it would be hard. But he had done many hard things in his time.
“Perhaps he has gone back to the Osiris,” Khoth suggested, even as he knew that was not where Jace had gone.
It was actually the last place Jace would go if he read the young man right at all.
Jace was still half convinced the Osiris had sandbagged them.
Not telling Jace what it was planning showed it didn’t care about Jace’s agency in all of this as the Pilot.
By staying away, Jace was punishing the ship in the only way he knew how.
Besides, after all that had happened, the upheaval to Jace’s Xi and Xa that day, Jace needed something familiar and trustworthy.
Someplace safe. The Osiris wasn’t that in Jace’s eyes right now.
But still, he lied, “That is one place where it would be difficult to track him. He wanted to have a word with the Osiris after all.”
She nodded and bit her lower lip. “Yes, I’ll try there. If General Intoskin realizes that Jace is missing… he wants to debrief him. We need to find Jace.”
Khoth nodded, but she was already turning and striding off.
His gaze slid to Thammah. The Flight Commander was making frantic movements with her hands towards the general and Jace’s father now.
He realized that they were about to do something very foolish, likely towards him.
Khoth would not be there for them to do it.
He brought the helmet of his suit up and turned on the suit’s camouflage option.
He did not exactly become invisible, but it was close.
People would see a blur if he moved, but if he remained still he would become one with the landscape.
But he was moving and it was dark so he was a dark blur that zipped off into the night that no one noticed.
He requested the address and directions to where he thought Jace had gone.
Where are you going? Thammah’s text came up on his HUD.
Going after Jace. Keep them looking for us around the Osiris, he informed her.
Where’s Jace? Jace is missing?!!!! Thammah’s use of the human exclamation point was similar to Gehenna’s.
He is not missing. He has merely gone home, Khoth told her. Keep the others away from there.
Huh. From what people are saying here, I don’t think they’ve even considered he’d go back to his house, Thammah admitted. Amazing that you–who has only just met him–knows him so well already.
Was there some kind of teasing in this statement?
There seemed to be. Khoth cocked an eyebrow up at it even as he moved as swiftly as the wind down Sunrise’s darkened streets.
There were no lights on in the houses. No children played in the yards.
No adults congregated at the outside tables and spoke in low tones.
Every single person in Sunrise had been taken into Area 67 for “debriefing” and containment.
There was a three-day infection window when it would become clear whether someone had been infested with larvae or not.