CHAPTER 29 KAT
KAT STARED into the zagged cut double doors guarding the Command wing. Somehow they always seemed to end up here these days. And yet, no matter how many times she stood here, she always shrank at the thought of who might be residing on the other side.
She traced the seam while Lee made the official request into his hyperband for “Gamma Cadets and Squadron Leads Kat Hanneman and Leland Waters to speak with the Commander’s secretary, Nolan, as a representative of Commander Blanche.”
They honestly could have traipsed right through these doors with their super secret security clearances, shrinking worries aside. But Lee had thought better of it. Best reveal as limited information on their present predicament as possible until they knew exactly where they stood.
She’d also found solace in the fact that making Nolan come to them would have the added benefit of further interrupting his precious schedule, as he never seemed to care much for theirs.
Secretary Nolan took his time. She’d taken to pulling at a loose string at the elbow of her all-terrain suit, Lee looking on with mild amusement while they waited.
“He’s taking extra long though, isn’t he?” she asked, the string from her sleeve having long since drifted down through the polished grates by her boot by the time the doors before them opened.
Nolan had closeted his usual disdain this afternoon. Which left in its stead—a look of hesitancy? Dare she say, he look pleased even? Of course, some of that pleasure dipped with his brows as she beamed back at him.
Mission accomplished.
Unamused, he beckoned them follow. Kat snuck a glance towards the doors on either side of the hallway as Nolan led them past. So many doors, and still so many secrets not even she and Lee had happened upon during their years at the Academy.
But as usual, they didn’t run into anyone on their way in.
Rounding the corner to his office, Nolan scanned his hyperband on the plate by the door, and she and Lee strode inside.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” she sang, eyes going to a stack of clutter along the previously pristine surfaces of his polished desk as she sank into one of the facing chairs, crossing one leg over the other.
Lee gave a light cough, to which Kat ignored as he claimed the other chair. But she managed to sit still while Nolan settled behind the safety of his desk.
“You had a good match today,” Nolan said, glancing upward at her almost strategically as he straightened the pile on his desk.
She noticed he didn’t seem to include Lee with this sentiment.
He kept his tone otherwise polite and professional as he continued to address them.
“Now what may I do for you? I assume this has to do with your recent mission AX71-AR to planet De Zolar?” He motioned to his holoblock.
Kat’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” Lee said. And both she and Nolan’s eyes shot to him. “But it does pertain to mission AX27-AR, and a ship formerly called Segura.”
Nolan’s reaction wasn’t the surprise she’d almost wished he’d shown. And although his mouth didn’t curve up in a smile, she would have sworn it was victoriousness, almost a fierceness to his eyes as he sat up straighter. “Very well. And what do you have for me?”
Kat blinked, her lungs tightening, as something else clicked into place. “You wanted us to come to you,” she said slowly.
Nolan shifted his eyes to her as she continued. “It was you. You’re the one who left our security clearances intact, knowing we’d eventually find it and guess that it was you.”
She shook her head. “But I don’t understand, why?”
Nolan’s face was inscrutable as he studied them.
“Situations change. But I did have hopes the Commander’s brightest might find the additional help useful at some point,” he said, still watching them with narrowed brows.
“And although I cannot confirm or deny your accusations at this time,” he said, holding their gaze, “I would prefer that we keep this knowledge between us. Were a breach in security to be found and made known, any discrepancies would need to be reported, and thereafter revoked.”
“Commander Blanche doesn’t know,” Kat demanded.
“And she’s not going to. You’re aware, I presume, who’s at the helm calling the shots these days?”
“General Narron,” Lee muttered.
Nolan raised his chin just a fraction. “They came to an arrangement shortly after your debriefing. Her priority is and will always be with her cadets. And with some of them being so close to their final term—” he paused, eying them very directly, “—she preferred you be left out. She would never ask anything of you that would put that future at risk.”
A phrase Kat had heard much too frequently last term flipped through her head. Do not engage.
“He’s planning something… Something dangerous.
Something to which he feels the people of Segura may still pose a threat.
And something Commander Blanche doesn’t want us involved in,” Kat guessed, to which Nolan again raised his chin.
And although they’d already run through the implications and guessed as much, to see it confirmed was like dousing her veins in ice water, her very lungs seeming to constrict with the strain.
“You don’t agree,” Lee challenged. And Kat would be impressed with Lee’s boldness except for the fact she was also dying to know his answer.
“I support Commander Blanche’s decision, and her explicit instruction to suspend this information to higher clearance only,” he said, speaking very particularly with his wording, “which is why I won’t tell you that when we were going through the raid files, our arguments against General Narron’s more progressive plans lacked sufficient evidence. ”
“Why does he want to find them so badly?” Lee asked. “What do they have on him?”
“Your guess is as good as ours. A guess I had hoped you might be able to shed a little more light on…” Nolan said, actually losing his mask for a few seconds.
But then he quickly recovered, rising once more to his feet.
“In the meantime, I appreciate you coming by to clarify a point pertaining to mission AX71-AR to planet De Zolar,” he said again, very slowly and deliberately meeting their gaze.
“I believe you will find the raid materials to be in order, should you ever wish to revisit that particular mission again.”
Nolan’s eyes sparkled as he came around his desk, an added liveliness to his step as he led them back outside. “I trust by now you can show yourselves out?”
Fucking Nolan.
She and Lee were back outside the Command wing doors, before either of them bothered to do more than curse his name.
“Something about working with that man always makes me want to violently throw things,” she muttered, grinding the toe of her boot into the floor.
“If it helps, I believe the feeling is mutual,” Lee said, dodging her as she set an elbow to his ribs.
She blew out a breath. “You were right about the General.”
“I feared as much,” he said with a half grin, half grimace.
“Should we feel bad for not coming to see him sooner?” She motioned behind her to the doors.
But Lee lifted his head higher, his mouth set in a hard line. “We’re here now.” And she knew where he was going with it when he glanced back up at her with some of that clarity in his gaze. “How badly do you think Nolan wants us to peek at those raid files?”
Sitting side by side in the Hideaway with their holoblocks on the table and fingers like anxious static, Lee drew up his old folders on the hub.
“Here we go De Zolar…” Lee murmured.
The raid files were right where they’d left them. They were even still sorted neatly under Lee’s system.
Most of them.
“That one,” Kat said, pointing to a flagged folder on “Evidential Support”floating in the middle of the flyover statistics.
“That’s got to be him,” Lee agreed. Their Commander’s secretary definitely had a style. He drew up the contents of the folder. “What have you got for us, Nolan—”
Kat stared numbly at the series of files that had been added to their hub. Aside from now residing in the wrong folder set, these also appeared to be in order. Exactly as they’d left them—three months ago. When they’d returned from—“These are from the Segura missions,” Kat breathed.
“Sure seems like it,” Lee said. He opened up one of the files from the original detailing, briefly checking its contents. “But if these are here, I wonder if—”
“We should check for the originals. On it,” Kat said, ponytail bobbing behind her as she dragged over her holoblock, drawing up her own files on the hub.
“Searching for mission AX27-AR... And nothing.” She dropped her hands into her lap for about 1.
5 seconds, then she was drawing up a second search. “AX13-AR?”
Again, she gaped, staring blankly at the empty hologram where two sets of old mission files should have lain. “They’ve wiped them. The original raid files, raid reports, they’re gone. Not even our higher clearances are pulling them up…”
As a gut check, she ran a couple more searches, but the rest of their old missions were all present and accounted for. Kafron. The moon mission. De Zolar… “Why would they wipe those files?”
“I don’t know. But something about this feels off,” Lee said.
“I wonder what was in that arrangement,” Kat mused aloud, softly enough that it would get lost in the lazy post-Laser Rounds flitting. Softly enough that they wouldn’t have to put weight behind it if it meant nothing.
“How are things looking from your end?” She glanced back over as he clicked into a few more of the replica files.
“The files have all been renamed. I’d wager they’ve been encrypted as well to make sure the content is not easily detectable.
And by the looks of them, the majority of files were added here this afternoon.
” Lee squinted as he swiped through the holofile in front of him, drawing up yet another.
“I’ve only had a chance to open a fraction of them, but from what I can tell, I’m guessing we’ll find copies of both raids here, along with who knows what else. ” He blew out a breath.
“That’s good that’s—very meticulous.” Her eyes were already glazing over as she stared into the growing pile of glowing holofiles.
“That’s the Commander’s secretary Nolan for you.”
And when she glanced over at him, Lee merely raised his brows. Are you surprised?
Kat snorted, she supposed not. “I just wasn’t expecting this from him, not without the Commander’s sanctioning vote, that’s all. I know he doesn’t like us,” she said, rolling her eyes when Lee looked like he was about to interject. “He could get in serious trouble if he was caught.”
“He’d deny it,” Lee said.
“He so would.” Kat laughed softly. “But that’s not the point. I think he really believes we can find something to help the Commander.”
“I hope we can,” she said a second later.
“You and me both, Hanneman. You and me both.” But when she looked over, his gaze had caught on the leg of a very uninteresting black leather armchair across the Hideaway.
“What are you thinking?” she asked quietly enough so as not to raze his thought trail if he wasn’t ready for her.
“It’s just the timing for these… and something that was said today.” Lee’s gaze had dropped even lower to study the backs of his hands. “He left us the clearance before the General had even left the ship. But I don’t think he would have given us these files if we hadn’t gone to see him first.”
“Probably not,” she agreed, still waiting.
“He’s giving us the choice. They need our help—that’s pretty clear, but even now, he’s giving us the option. We could stay in the dark and leave it be…”
“Or?” she asked
“Or we blitz forward.”
And when his eyes met hers she let some of her favorite partner-in-crime light filter through them. “I think you already know what I’m going to say, Waters.”