Chapter 18 One Reason #3
Khoth bowed again, but said nothing. Jace worried that his Commander was wearing down under all the emotional check-ins he was being forced to do with humans. But his concern about Khoth had to be left unexamined further.
Nova was now in the hallway that the meeting room was on.
“It’s time,” Jace said as he turned towards the table.
Khoth was already holding out a chair for him.
Jace sat down and allowed his Commander to tuck him in before seating himself by Jace’s side.
Jace would not rise when Nova entered. Her actions meant she did not deserve respect.
He wanted her to know that she had entered his house now.
In fact, she’d always been in his house since he had become the Pilot.
All of the Alliance had and he had to make them fully believe it.
The doors whisked open. Thammah was the first to enter.
She was also wearing a new black uniform.
It was similar to Khoth’s but had a high collar that was zipped up to her chin.
It was a stunning look on her with her scars and shorn silver locks.
Jace saw her eyes go to Khoth’s hair. She knew immediately what he had done.
She gave his Commander an almost imperceptible nod before marching over to the third, still empty table in the room. She positioned herself in the corner.
Nova was next. She was accompanied by two other Thaf’ell officers, one female and one male.
Neither was the officers that had defied her on the bridge.
They looked hard. Like warriors. Not that it mattered even if they did think to attempt some kind of coup aboard the ship. Things just didn’t work that way.
Finally, Gehenna clanked into the space last. She sent a warm greeting to Jace even as her demonic red eyes gleamed and she stalked across the room to hang with Thammah. The two of them were watching the Alliance coalition closely. The door shut. Everyone sat down.
Jace met Nova’s steely blue on blue eyed gaze. “No one can see us. No one can hear us. The Osiris is recording this, but it is not sending it out.”
“Aren’t you pronouncing judgment on me?” she asked.
“You deserve far worse than simple judgment!” General Intoshkin growled. “You acted with no honor and--”
“As if everything you’ve done is by the book? Or do you act to get to the ends you want?” Nova challenged. “We both know the answer to that, general.”
“You were going to kill civilians!” General Intoshkin reminded her.
“I was going to make a hole in the desert. No one would have gotten hurt,” she countered.
“You were out of control!”
“You wouldn’t know what control is if--”
“Enough!” Jace’s voice rose up and cut off the bickering. Both looked at him and ignored the other. “I am not streaming this because we need to talk seriously.”
“Is that supposed to make me more comfortable to share secrets with you?” Nova asked, leaning forward on the table.
She had not looked at her son. Not once.
But he was pretty damned sure she saw the missing selchilite.
Jace felt a rising anger in him. But he stuffed it down.
Hurting her would only hurt Khoth. He could allow her to continue to destroy herself or…
or he could stop it and help her and help himself and…
help everybody. But mostly he cared about Khoth.
He wanted the Commander to be able to walk away from this and have as little regret and guilt as possible and he could do it without compromising his goals.
He was pretty sure he could do that anyways. Well, he was going to give it a shot!
“You still don’t understand,” Jace said and shook his head.
“What don’t I understand?” she asked, her lips thinning.
“There are no secrets,” Jace told her. “Everything you keep in your databases, every message you’ve sent, every report that’s been written up, all of it… the Osiris knows and I know. There are no secrets, High Councillor Nova.”
She stared at him with no expression on her face, which indicated to him that she was starting to get it.
“Now, we can work together to come to solutions for the Alliance’s many problems and how to address the Khul,” Jace said. “Or we can just wait until Councillor Ardath Ulgex finishes convincing the Council to find you unfit and replace you. With herself, of course.”
“Of course,” Nova responded softly and her eyes flickered to Khoth. Just once.
“And then we’d be going through this farce once more with a person who hates humans so much that she’ll never negotiate,” Jace said as the Osiris offered him a sketch of this other Councillor.
Nova’s shoulders released a little tension. “So you’d rather deal with me?”
“I don’t know if I can. You’ve compromised yourself so badly,” Jace remarked.
Her mouth looked pinched for a moment. She said nothing.
Jace leaned forward on his table. “So what’s it going to be? Are you going to work with me or against me? Are we going to speak openly and honestly or do you want to posture some more and bang the table?”
“Is there any choice? As you say, I’m about to be… replaced. I’ll lose everything if I don’t work with you.” She let out a brief laugh that held no mirth.
“Of course, there is always a choice,” Jace told her.
“I don’t need you to accomplish my goals so you can always exit stage left if you like.
The choice is really about whether you want to be involved or not in what’s going to happen next.
Still want to shake the pillars of heaven, Nova?
Or do you want to be cast aside like so many before you and be replaced by someone far lesser? ”
“Why do you want my help?” she asked. “If I am so inconsequential and compromised as you seem to indicate, why do you still want me in any position of power? I can’t imagine you won’t compromise Councillor Ardath Ulgex, too, if there are truly no secrets.”
Jace considered how he would answer this.
He could praise her acumen. He could wax poetic about her past accomplishments.
He could even say that her prior honor would be helpful in getting people to trust him.
He could simply stress that she was the lesser evil and that the Devil known was better than the Devil that was not.
But none of that was true. Well, it wasn’t fully enough to keep her where she was.
They both knew that.
The overwhelming reason he wasn’t having her hauled to the brig and then taken to Haseon in chains was Khoth.
His eyes slid to Khoth’s blue hands that rested on the table.
She had been right to think that he had feelings for Khoth.
And she had been right to think that he would be influenced by his Commander.
She had just been wrong about how much loyalty that Khoth had to her.
Finally, he said, “You know why.”
He saw Khoth frown at him, not understanding what Jace meant. But Nova did. She gave a sad smile and a single nod.
“Then yes, I am interested in working with you,” she answered.
She still loves Khoth, Jace thought with a relieved sigh. She still has ambitions too. But she loves her son and understands why I’m doing this.
“Good,” Jace said. “Let’s get started then.”