Chapter 40
Red Flags
There he goes…
Fia watched the tiny trajectory vector of Davik’s ship leaving the station, keeping her vigil from her observation tank.
It felt invasive. It felt obsessive. But she was not well acquainted with boundaries, and she had accepted that she would keep tabs on him as long as she could.
It would not be a pastime she could indulge in once the Fleet left Tau Ceti, and so she was making the most of it while they still shared the same star.
She was meant to be spending this time facilitating the recall of troops. However, she had been instructed by her commander to postpone things, so she had idle time to fill while she was instilling delays.
And so she spent it watching The Argent flit about the system.
Occasionally, she would pull a few threads to displace another ship’s itinerary if it could get him a higher spot in a docking queue.
A little something to make sure Davik could stay on-schedule.
It wasn’t nearly enough. She didn’t want to just sit by and offer him minor conveniences.
She wanted to reach through the ether and hold him, to talk to him, to tell him she loved him.
What cruelty that would be. Despite all the delays she caused, they were almost done recalling all the remaining members of the Fleet. Ninety-five percent, if the latest figures were accurate. They were running out of time, and the Sovereign would make the call to leave the system soon enough.
I can’t just reach out to talk to him when I’m about to be in cryostasis, destined for an unknown star tens of thousands of light-years away. I’d be clawing at healed wounds. He has already mourned. I should let him move on.
The thought of him moving on made her stomach churn.
The thought of another’s hands where hers had been?
Of another person making him melt into a shuddering, writhing mess?
Davik, her Davik, looking at someone else with those warm eyes as his pupils bloomed in rapturous affection? Saying their name? Making him smile?
She slammed her fists against the shell of the tank in aimless fury, harming herself more than the equipment. The sound of the bone-rattling impact was muffled by the water into an impotent thump.
He deserved to smile. He deserved happiness. Even if it was not with her. She had to find her peace with that.
Maybe being halfway across the galaxy would make it easier to let him go.
She hauled herself out of the tank at the end of her shift, ignoring the ensign who was trying to offer her something for her rapidly bruising hand.
She had struck much harder than she had realized.
Maybe it was the dose of hormones and performance chem cocktail swirling in the water.
It made her reactions whip-fast, but also made her physically erratic and quick to rage.
She assured herself that it was just the chems that caused the outburst. Not her own unresolved feelings for a sweet, warm-hearted man with muscular forearms and an eager tongue.
“The commander is ready for you to meet—” the now reasonably irritated ensign tried to tell her.
“Yes, yes. I’m on my way.”
“I will make a note that the medic atrium will expect you afterwards?”
Fia finished toweling off and pulling her flight suit on, doing her best not to wince when she had to use her now throbbing hand.
“It has been a week since I was last nagged by a medic. Let them know I’m looking forward to it,” she grumbled as she set off for the command center.
Yet again, Vek was late. Yet again, she had too much time to let her mind wander while she waited for him to arrive. She didn’t blame him. He was busy trying to run two operations. One, a massive rescue and recovery effort. The other, sowing the seeds of dissent and revolution.
Six months of hard work, but Fia knew it was for naught. Sure, they had helped secure healthier relations with TCIP, but there was no spark in the Fleet to rally and join them in force. Convincing an Icthian to change course was a tall task, especially for those raised beneath the Sovereign.
The waiting was making her restless. She hauled herself out of the chair to pace, managing almost three full circuits of the office before Vek finally arrived.
“Why is my file cascading across the Federation streams?” he snarled as soon as he came into the room, striding to stand in Fia’s path.
“It isn’t,” she flung back. “I destroyed everything they had. We periodically sweep in case any operative flickers across their boards. Do you think I somehow forgot to include you in those queries?”
He continued his glowering as he settled into his chair, sweeping a hand across his desk to bring up a bright web of flickering lights and datastreams.
It was a constellation of alerts, all showing that someone in Federation systems had brought up the logs pertaining to Vek. Specifically, it looked like there was intense scrutiny pointed at the security footage from the day he was extracted.
“They routinely do audits of any open files and unresolved issues. That isn’t out of the norm.
” She squinted at one datastream, reaching out to pull it into her focus and follow it deeper.
“They are chasing their tails. There’s nothing here.
I tore out everything they had of you, every recorded mnemograph and everything in your dossier.
They likely put some new, ambitious, scrappy intern on the task.
They are overzealous, and it will go nowhere. ”
“If they find what they wanted from my memories, if they piece together how the Fleet is hidden, do you understand how vitally ruined we all will be?” His chastising tone dropped to a savage growl.
“Do you think I haven’t noticed that our resources are being used to track your little pet?
If you were too distracted to make sure that we were properly hidden—”
The chems in her system had not yet fully metabolized. She was too wired. Her hand hurt, and the pain was grating on her. These were reasonable excuses for why her self-control was paper-thin, and why she found herself baring her claws and launching at her commander.
This was not like their scuffle on The Argent. Then, he had been dazed, malnourished, and drugged. Any upper hand she had in that moment of opportunity was absent. Her fingers made no purchase, scrambling at empty air as he had already moved out of the way of her strike.
Vek kicked the desk between them towards her with terrifying strength. Pain roared from her hips as the metal frame collided with her. Her vision swam, and darkness crept in to black out her senses before she even hit the ground.
The impact as she met the floor knocked the wind out of her, and panic doused her fiery rage. Everything went pitch-black and deathly hushed.
A beam of light cut through the blackness. Just one narrow angle of the world around her that he allowed her to perceive. All she could see was him, standing above her, holding a rigid vertiblade aimed squarely at her stomach.
“You forget yourself, Sentu. Do not mistake our familiarity for leniency. I do not entertain aggression as a means of communication between my officers.”
The sharp, cool edge of his scalloped blade slid along the valley of her abdomen. She grunted in pain as it caught and effortlessly split the fabric of her suit, pressing just enough to score her scaled skin beneath.
“If you cannot keep your gut impulses under control, I will spill them before you can breathe a word of protest. Understood?”
A growl burned in her throat, but she quelled it with a forceful nod.
She knew she had overstepped. She did not enjoy being humbled, but she also rarely threatened bodily harm when provoked.
This was a lesson on the effects of poor sleep and pining for a man who had not so much as sent her a ping in half a year.
The light in the room crawled back into view. Fia looked up to see Vek furl his vertiblade as he leaned against the now-askew desk.
“I believe that brings us to an even keel. You attacked me once, justified. I defended once, justified. Do not force me to re-evaluate your value versus your risk again.”
She brought herself back to her feet, tracing a fingertip along the slice in her suit. There was barely any blood, just a slight tinge of orange dotting the frayed fabric. Her ego hurt far more than her hide.
“The mnemograph imprints were destroyed, and the logs have been cleared. I was not distracted.” She attempted to keep the snarl out of her speech, but her words were clipped.
“I have done everything I can, but I cannot remove the memory of your presence from the very minds of those who captured you.”
Vek stroked one of his tendrils in an irritated, self-soothing gesture. “Can you quell it?”
“I will distract them with useless data, but the human aspect of these things is not quantifiable or controllable.”
“That will have to suffice.”