CHAPTER 2 LEE
LEE WATERS stood at attention with his back straight and his hands locked behind him, and his feet a steady, shoulder width apart. It was a form of respect, timeless and resilient. A form he had taken great care to perfect over the years. And the form they expected of him.
“Good morning, cadets.”
It was second nature to stand here at attention as their Commander addressed them, red-hair blazing and light-colored pantsuit as pristine as ever. But it took every bit of willpower in his arsenal to keep his focus on her with the daunting figure at the wall behind her.
General Marion Narron was here at the Academy. Again.
The Commanding General of the AMG was even more grizzled in person. From this proximity, his dark gaze pierced like daggers, his eyes the steel. And there was a scar on the side of his face that Lee had never noticed from his photographs.
At the Commander’s commencement of the meeting, a virtual transmission was accepted. Lee didn’t dare take his eyes off of the Commander and General to confirm exactly which holographic forms had joined their debriefing, but he could feel eyes on his back. Many, many sets of eyes.
Commander Blanche’s voice was tight as she announced the holographic arrivals. “We are joined this morning by the Commanding Council, representatives of the Allies of the Mangorian Galaxy, as well as Commanding General, Marion Narron.”
‘Be on your guard’? Fucking Nolan.
Again, Lee didn’t dare shift his gaze or let a single breath dip or stutter as he willed that frustration to cool, willed it to settle into something smarter, something calculating. The four of them had made a plan, and he intended to stick to it.
It had been roughly two days since they’d returned back to the Academy. And for those two days, he’d gone over all they’d seen and all they’d learned onboard Segura. The lab. The claims. The stakes. The possibilities…
And every single decision they’d made on that ship.
He knew exactly why he’d helped the Segura scientists run. It was for the same hopeless heroics for which he’d wanted to become a raider in the first place. And the reason he was still standing here today. He wanted to create a better galaxy—a better future for all of them.
That had all been his decision.
But to those he served—what they would make of his service? It all came down to this moment. To the people in this room.
Lee drew in another steady breath, channeling that calculation down from the head he held at attention, to the grates beneath his boots as Commander Blanche began to speak once more.
“You have been called here this morning to address the events surrounding mission AX27-AR, to which the four of you were assigned as squadron leads.”
Lee stared, unwavering, back at the Commander. He didn’t regret a single action they had taken with Segura that day. And even with a larger audience than anticipated standing around them, he would not shy away from it.
“We have records and data for roughly the first eighty hours of the specified mission,” she continued, “but beyond that, everything goes dark…”
Lee could recall perfectly those hours before crossing through the energy field that first time, the early dinner they were sipping and the ailments of the heart he’d struggled against as he’d warred for the clarity with Kat and Levy. But all of that had come before.
“Walk us through the raid.” There were still hints of tightness in the Commander’s voice that hadn’t been there in the days prior, although she covered them well. She was not pleased with whatever outcomes had led to this debriefing today.
But they were here, and she was giving him and Kat and the other squadron leads the chance to tell their side of the story, with as many advantages as could be afforded their situation.
If this was the only shot they’d be given, void if he didn’t take it.
Commander Blanche had recommended them and stood by them before. She would stand with them now.
Keeping his eyes locked on Commander Blanche, his voice steady, Lee started through the initial approaches that had led to their discovery.
“We went out to study the radiation spikes as outlined in our raid briefing. The triggering anomalies were again long gone by the time we got there, but what we did find were pulses.”
Lee took no issue with laying out the landscape.
They were facts the Commander knew already, and that the council would find in the data eventually, if they hadn’t already.
“We tested the magnetic fields with blasters and then again with the Raiding Interstellar mod-vehicles to determine that the magnetic fields were, at the time, what we believed to be a shield. That’s when we decided to try to pass through ourselves. ”
“What prompted you to attempt this yourselves and not wait for further assistance?” she asked. Another olive branch. They had already been over this too, but Lee hoped it would cushion the fall when they got to Segura.
“We had the capabilities and had been given no reason to suspect danger or foul play of any means, beyond the existing knowledge of potential dark radiation. We hadn’t yet exhausted our options.”
Lee tipped his chin then towards Whistler, handing off the pilot’s seat.
“Ma’am. Your honors,” Whistler said. His formal voice always caught Lee by surprise. “With our limited knowledge of the interactions between the forcefield energy and the dark radiation, given the recent spikes, we had a rare opportunity to investigate further.”
Whistler steered them through the updated information about the cloaking device on the energy forcefield, the reconfiguration of their own ship’s shields, and the draining of its reserves that had made it essential that they locate further resources.
He got to the portion of the raid where the transports would come to head them off. But he didn’t continue.
From the opposite side of the room, Zane straightened almost imperceptibly, and Lee waited for loyalty to win out. He waited for the presence of the council, and opportunities for Placement, to prompt the military brat to stray and divulge everything.
But Zane hesitated.
When he spoke, Zane skipped right over Segura’s transports.
He skipped over the mention of researchers and scientists.
He made no mention of another soul having been onboard at all.
“We found a ship waiting for us inside the energy field and boarded. Upon further investigation, we learned neutrinos were being used to harness the energy and power the magnetic energy fields.”
And in the beats following, the silence struck a chord of its own.
A chord Commander Blanche was picking up on as she leaned in almost curiously. “You say neutrinos were being used to harness that energy,” she said, speaking slowly, clearly. “Of what nature were the conversions?”
This was new information. He could see it in the way she now glanced warily between them. And this was the question they’d been dreading from the start.
One shot.
This would either be the shock and opener they needed, or it would go down very badly. Lee took a deep breath, looking Commander Blanche straight in the eye as he spoke. “We believe they succeeded in harnessing dark radiation.”
As expected, gasps of breath exploded around them, accompanying the murmurs and whispers from all corners of the room. But Lee kept his eyes focused on the Commander, watching every tick in her jaw until she motioned once more for silence.
When she made the glacial tip of her head for Lee to continue, he did so, explaining the delta-gray readings they’d observed down with the conversion rooms. The implications, the liabilities—and all their potential.
“This particular ship has been in operation for decades. Perhaps longer. The dangers of dark radiation were no surprise. From everything we were able to observe, the proper precautions were in place. Everything was being carefully monitored and appeared to be under control.”
“Who was running this operation? What of them? What do we know of their motives behind the energy fields and the illicit harnessing of dark radiation?” Commander Blanche asked carefully.
She would know from the General’s reports that the ship, Segura, had been deserted by the time General Narron’s men had boarded.
But their light trails as Gaia’s transports had jumped to hyperspeed, and the day-to-day evidence of their former space facilities—those would have all been there. Easy pickings to be found.
“We don’t know where they went,” Kat spoke up from beside him.
Truth.
Partial truth. While they were back on Segura, Lee had heard her mention a base—an outpost, really.
“But as to their motives,” Kat continued, seeming to draw strength from each word out of her mouth, “As stated before, we were given no reason to suspect foul play and have every reason to believe that the energy reserves, and the dark radiation itself, were being used as a defense against that which plagues the galaxy.”
Commander Blanche scanned each of them in turn.
Lee couldn’t say at this point whether or not she believed them, or what she made of their accounts of Segura.
Nor how much of this—if any—she had pieced together before this debriefing.
And as to whatever conclusion she was coming to, Lee could only guess as they waited for further questions.
Her eyes came to linger once more on him. “Is there anything else you wish to add at this time?”
“No ma’am,” Lee said, his fellow squadron leads echoing the sentiment.
“Very well.” She took up her place once more at the forefront of the room, addressing the council behind them.
“In light of recent events, I would like to move that we table this conversation at this time and submit their findings as evidence in favor of further investigation on the claims of the success of this dark radiation defense and all of its prospects.”