Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Aiden admired Evelyn’s single-minded focus.
It was a quality that he himself also possessed.
Game recognized game. He was usually focused on logistics, on finding flaws in plans that could come back to bite his crew on the ass.
Evelyn was focused on picking apart the past. Monday morning quarterbacking her own sacrificial actions was starting to take a toll on her.
She’d spent most of the past two days scrutinizing the data that L.I.N.D.A.
had collated for her. Aiden realized that this was not an unusual way for her to spend her time — she’d just swapped her usual literary diet of romance, cozy mysteries, and fantasy with a steady stream of historical and current events, articles and news clips flying over the screen of her tablet as quickly as she could get through them.
Sprawled across sofas in the lobby, perched on cafe chairs drinking lattes, lying on the banquette in the observation deck, Aiden watched as Evelyn set out on the bizarre exercise of reading her own life from a historical context.
Every time a historian painted her as a selfless martyr, she groaned.
“Martyrs have to suffer. It’s in the definition. I took a nap,” she repeatedly muttered, flicking through to the next article in disgust.
He’d brought her a variety of snacks and beverages to keep her energy up. Half the time he managed to sneak up on her and switch out plates or cups undisturbed. When she did notice, she would grant him a sheepish smile that took his breath away.
He had watched the sigh of relief she’d given when she realized her family was alive, if not well.
He’d seen her face fall when she viewed the photographs of the Tanalian capital — Randelie — seen the before and after comparisons L.I.N.D.A.
had generated of the great cultural centers of the past that she’d sacrificed herself to save.
Even to Aiden’s eyes, the new buildings were soulless in comparison to the beauty and intricacies of the ones they replaced.
He’d asked L.I.N.D.A. for a copy of the research that Evelyn had been reading. He hated being uninformed on a job, and while it still rankled to think about Evelyn in that context, facts were facts.
The propaganda coming out of the Tanalian Royal Office was thinly veiled, even to Aiden’s unfamiliar eye.
Emil Bellica clearly had his own PR team making up releases to placate the masses.
All photos of Evelyn’s family in the last eighty or so years showed unchanging faces, clearly being used to puppet Emil’s points and pass his policy.
He had to admit that Emil had planned the subjugation of Tanalia with an elegant hand.
Keeping himself in the shadows had been a good strategy.
It may be an unspoken truth that he was the power behind the throne, but on paper, everything was legitimately undertaken, neatly preventing GPC intervention in their “treaty dispute.”
It didn’t even look like Bauder had to fire a single blaster after Evelyn had agreed to fuel their research. Poisoned words and tightening regulations had done the work, choking the life out of the people a little at a time until they were completely beaten down.
Curiosity had got the better of him by that point and he’d started looking into the lives of any dissenting voices on Tanalia.
But then those people disappeared. It wasn’t long before Bauder banned most art and culture and began treating Tanalians like test subjects, analyzing people for talents that could be cynically categorized as “profitable” or “useless.”
Not only that, but scientific research had stalled, which Aiden found interesting, as it was one of the few areas Bauder had been funneling money toward.
Uninspired scientists. Who’d’ve thought?
He’d done some additional digging and found that many scientists had disappeared from the public eye and were never seen again. Aiden had asked L.I.N.D.A. to forward the information to Evelyn’s tablet, feeling uncomfortably like a conspiracy theorist.
All in all, the situation on her home planet was a bleak one, and Aiden hated watching the effect these facts had every time Evelyn read a new report about the home she’d willingly sacrificed herself for.
He’d walked in on her watching a bootleg documentary some students had smuggled off the planet that focused on the impact Bauder’s occupation was having on the natural resources.
He’d barely understood something about soil composition being thrown off, but he was no scientist. Besides, Evelyn understood it, and he could tell it wasn’t pleasant news.
Every tightening of her eyes, every frown, every hastily wiped tear broke his heart for her a little more.
When he wasn’t stealing little peeks at Evelyn, Aiden had devoted his brainpower to the Vinnie situation.
All the leads the others had been able to uncover had petered out.
They had no more information about their employer than they had at the beginning of the job.
Her motivations were still largely unknown.
Aiden and Nannette had spent hours debating the logistics of the drop. Who was to go? Who was to be visible? How armed should they be?
“To the teeth,” Nannette had said when Aiden proposed the question. “We still don’t know what Vinnie wants. Odds are she doesn’t want to kill Evelyn, but we can’t say for sure. We all take weapons. Especially her.”
Every known variable had been analyzed. Every analysis had been poked by Elenor and Lillian until Aiden was satisfied that he hadn’t missed any angle. While anything could happen once they met with Vinnie, all the factors that could be controlled would be controlled.
Aiden caught the time on his office view screen.
He’d been staring at his whiteboard for longer than he’d thought.
He cracked his neck, deciding he was past time for a break.
Wandering around the ship would do his brain good.
He left his office, stretching as he walked out and down the hall.
He found himself walking toward Evelyn’s cabin, his body on autopilot, seeking her out when he knew he shouldn’t.
When he reached the door, he found it open.
He poked his head in the room, expecting to see her sprawled in the easy chair, legs dangling over the side.
It seemed to be her preferred reading position.
She seemed incapable of sitting in a chair as the design intended.
Instead, he was greeted by an empty room.
Coffee break?
She drank a staggering amount of caffeine.
He wandered to the lobby bar. It was empty.
Aiden thought about asking L.I.N.D.A. where Evelyn was but regarded that as cheating.
With a shrug, he went to the bar to make himself an Old Fashioned.
When he reached for the cocktail cherries, he found the jar missing.
He frowned and twisted an orange peel over his glass.
Drink in hand, he poked his head into the VR deck. It was empty. As was the kitchen and the spa, the massage droids powered down and sitting in their storage closets.
He made his way back to the lobby and climbed the spiral staircase to the observation deck, where he found Evelyn, her legs pulled up to her chin, arms around them, sitting on the padded bench seats.
The jar of cocktail cherries was open in front of her, a sticky trail of syrup splattered on the table they sat on.
She was staring out into space, not really seeing the expanse of stars on display as they traversed the galaxy.
Aiden sat down next to her. He used the toothpick in the jar to pluck a cocktail cherry, then plopped it into his drink, the dark red syrup spiraling out into the amber of the cocktail, a boozy miniature nebula impersonating the ones they sped past.
“I told you the cherries weren’t safe.”
He smiled as he put the toothpick back into the cherry jar. “Small price to pay,” he said.
They sat in silence, Evelyn staring out into the galaxy and Aiden’s attention divided between the view and the woman beside him.
“I’ve been sitting here, trying to think of bigger fuck-ups in human history than mine,” she said.
Evelyn loosened the grip she had on her knees and ran her hands down her shins.
“So far I’ve got the first guy who saw a herd of palakan and thought ‘oh, what sweet looking little dudes’ before he was eviscerated, and the soldiers that let the horse into Troy. ”
“Impressive company.”
“That’s me. Evelyn Alpertti, impressive fuck-up.” She scowled at the jar of cherries as she stabbed the toothpick into the jar for another of the syrup soaked fruit.
“I think you’re being a little bit hard on yourself.”
“Aiden, an entire planet of people is being subjugated by a tyrannical dickwad because I didn’t think things all the way through. I just cheerfully marched off to be a hostage for a hundred years.” She jammed the cherry into her mouth and managed to chew it while maintaining her scowl.
“Not for nothing, but the tyrannical dickwad in question bears more of the responsibility here than you do. You did something very brave trying to save people. Maybe you were impulsive, sure. But you were supposed to have support. It’s not your fault your backup didn’t do their job.
Your father was supposed to make sure Emil kept his side of the bargain.
The Tanalian Senate should have stopped him from caving.
There are more pieces on the board than you and Emil. ”
Evelyn raked her hand through her hair. Aiden was impressed that it seemed to be free of syrup so far.
“Pound for pound, I will give you that Emil bears more responsibility than I do,” she said. “But I can’t help but wonder if he would have made as much headway without me to use as a hostage.”
“Playing ‘What if?’ is the least productive thing you could be doing right now. It’s not going to make you feel any better, and it’s not going to answer any of the questions I know you have.”