Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One (40 page)

Science Advisor to the Office of the Prime Minister

“Well—”

“This is why I hate politicians. This is why I hate bureaucrats. This is why I refuse to have anything to do with the government or the military or anything which remotely
looks
like it might be connected to the government. Stupid, bloated, overwrought bureaucracy has lost the capacity for even rudimentary independent thought. Ugh!” With a visceral groan she threw herself onto the couch and dropped her head into her hands.

It took him a minute to get past his own stunned reaction and circle around to sit beside her. “Perhaps he didn’t actually review the report—I
have
to believe if he did his reaction would be a bit more alarmed.”

“Oh, I’d believe he reviewed it.” Her voice was muffled against her hands. “But he’s a government lackey. What else is he expected to do? He has a checklist full of procedures and every fucking thing which crosses his fucking desk must be corralled through that fucking checklist. It’s the only thing which exists in his world—without it there would be
chaos
! And he’s probably got a fucking checklist for that, too….”

She groaned into her hands. “I swear, I should just let them all die.”

“Hey….” He reached over and gently pulled the closest hand away from her face, then lifted her chin so she was forced to look at him. “Possibly. But you won’t, because you’re a better person than they are.”

“I’m really not. I can count on one hand the number of people in the universe I truly like or even particularly care about…well, maybe plus the other pinky if I have to add you.”

“Do you?” It came out far more serious in tenor than he had intended.

She shifted her eyes away, but her mouth curved up in what closely resembled a grin. “I suppose.” He suspected it might have come out far more affectionate in tenor than she had intended.

Then she sighed, and the moment passed. “I can already see how it will all play out. I’ll yell and scream and make an ass out of myself, and the bureaucrats will frown and hem and haw and suggest calm and caution, and I’ll end up flipping off the EASC Chairman or the Defense Minister or, hell, the Prime Minister himself. And getting kicked out of the building isn’t going to help the situation, but it’ll hardly matter at that point….”

Abruptly her hands fell to her lap; she nodded sharply. “Okay. Pity-party over.” She leapt up and strode over to the data center.

“I am responding to let Dr. LaRose know he will have his precious hardcopy by tomorrow evening. I am checking to make sure my
mother
is arranging me an audience with the EASC Board, because if anything is a matter for the military, this damn sure is.”

She worried at her lower lip. “And I think I need to make the visuals of the scary tentacle ships bigger.”

She eyed him over her fork piled high with pasta. He had managed to pull her away from the data long enough to sit down and eat something for dinner, though not until after he had whipped up the angel hair pasta with Campari tomatoes and spinach and the tempting aroma filled the cabin.

“What.”

He chuckled, a little chagrined at having been caught. Her ability to read him was approaching uncanny levels. “You
do
realize you’re bringing an enemy spy into Alliance military headquarters, right?”

She rolled her eyes in mild amusement. “You won’t be recognized, will you?”

“I highly doubt it. No more than two dozen people in the galaxy are aware of what I do for a living—and I’m fairly certain none of them are on Earth. My official record shows me as an assembly manager for Terrestrial Avionics, as you discovered, but even it’s a very old image.”

“You’ve got fake identities, right? Can you use one of them? Samuel maybe?”

“Samuel isn’t one, but yeah, absolutely. I can—”

“It isn’t? Why did you use it with me, then?”

“It’s just somebody I knew and was the first name to pop in my head.”

“Hmm.” She frowned. “Can we say you’re a scout for a corp and we bumped into each other while investigating the Nebula?”

“I happen to have a ready-made identity for such an occasion. I can be Cameron Roark, minerals scout for Advent Materials out of Romane.”

“How many fake identities do you
have
?”

“More than two, fewer than ten….” At her widening eyes he shrugged. “What? I’m a versatile chameleon.”

Her expression darkened as she busied herself twirling more pasta around her fork. When she spoke, her voice had lowered noticeably in tenor and volume. “So we’re once again back to the fact that I wouldn’t know if you were lying to me.”

He exhaled through pursed lips. “Normally I’d say no, you wouldn’t…but you appear to have my number, don’t you?”

She regarded him with such intensity he felt stripped, bare. “Do I?”

Still, he struggled past the instinct to mask himself behind a façade and forced himself to meet her gaze honestly. “A minute ago, I wasn’t entirely truthful as to where the name ‘Samuel’ came from—and you knew it, didn’t you?” Her mouth merely twitched in response, which was response enough.

“The truth is he wasn’t just somebody I knew. He was the person who recruited me into SpecOps. He was my mentor and my friend for seventeen years, and he was murdered four months ago by anti-synthetic terrorists. The funny thing is, he wasn’t even especially pro-synthetic. He was simply doing his job. I didn’t mention it because…well, because I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“So am I…but that’s a tale for another day. Alex, I’m not lying to you—about anything. And if I try you catch me, so I may as well not try. But I can’t prove it, I can only say it. And you can take it for…whatever you think it’s worth.”

It seemed as if her eyes were searching his very soul for traces of deception, and he wondered why he had ever thought he could lie to her. He straightened up in the chair. “Which is why we need to discuss something.”

Her gaze didn’t budge or falter. “Okay.”

“You’re right, I do need a false identity to get inside EASC, because there’s no way they’re going to let a Senecan intelligence agent walk in the front door. But I have an idea, one which stands a chance of bringing an early end to this war and uniting us against the alien threat. And I’d like your help.”

“Good news. Richard’s available to meet us tomorrow as well.”

He stowed the last of the dishes and raised an eyebrow at her over his shoulder. She had responded enthusiastically to the plan, jumping at the prospect of being able to diffuse the ‘stupid
khrenovuyu
war.’ She had proceeded to strategize and improve upon the plan and now had increased its odds of success considerably by bringing to the table someone who might actually possess the information he needed.

She continued to surprise him in the most unexpected ways, and he had been an idiot to think he should—or even could—do it without her.

“So, Naval Intelligence Liaison to Strategic Command, huh? Sure he won’t shoot me on sight?”

“It’ll be fine. He’s a teddy bear.”

“Alex,
no one
in intelligence is a teddy bear.” The man was a necessary and arguably welcome player—but he
would
be an adversary, at least to start.

“Well he is.” She turned to him when he joined her at the data center. “Listen. I’ve known him my entire life, and he is one of the few genuinely good people I’ve ever met.”

“Okay. My life is in your hands, but okay.”

“
Whatever
. Besides, he’ll have no reason to doubt you because you’ll be with me. I’ll be talking about alien superdreadnoughts, and you’ll simply be….”

“Alex’s boy-toy?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes away from him. “Um….”

A wicked smirk grew on his lips. “How many times have you visited Strategic Command wearing a random man on your arm?”

Her brow furrowed in a farce of deep thought. “Almost nev…once,
maybe
twice…three times at most. Definitely.”

His jaw dropped open in mock indignation. “Then I
shall
be Alex’s boy-toy. Now that I will enjoy.”

She grinned playfully at him, and he found himself yet again drawn into her eyes. They reflected the light from the visuals above the table, transforming her irises to an incredible luminous platinum. Mirth danced in them like fireworks against a star-soaked sky.

Seconds passed before she tore her gaze away and focused back on the data. After a moment she flipped the position of two of the images, frowned, and flipped them again.

“The second way was better.”

She didn’t question his opinion and immediately flipped them back while chewing on her lower lip. “It’s not as though the fate of the galaxy rests on the order of a couple of visuals. I only hope it’s enough. Maybe when decorated by some high theatrics on my part….”

He grasped her shoulder and shifted her to face him. “I have no doubt you’ll make them listen. You have a way of refusing to accept any alternative to getting what you want, and everyone else will find they’ve no choice but to fall in line.”

A corner of his mouth curled up. “I mean, you got me here.”

Her voice dropped to a murmur. “I did, didn’t I?”

They were already standing
so
close. His hand, still resting on her shoulder, drifted up and slowly, carefully tucked her hair behind her ear…then lingered along the curve of her jaw. She didn’t pull away, and the ticking by of endless seconds faded to insignificance.

The pad of his thumb drew softly over the hollow beneath her extraordinary cheekbone. With a breath she began turning into his hand, as if to place a kiss on his wrist—

—when a chime pealed through the cabin.

Her eyes were a little wide as she stepped back, but he couldn’t be certain if he heard regret or relief in her voice. “And
that
would be the Gould Belt monitoring system…with the tightened security I’m guessing I need to check in.”

He somehow managed to wait until she moved toward the cockpit before dragging a hand roughly over his mouth to stifle a groan, followed by a curse or two. He sucked a deep breath into his oddly constricted chest.
Jesus.

She spent several minutes in the cockpit. He leaned against the wall, ankles and arms crossed loosely in a stellar imitation of casual relaxation, and waited.

When she finally returned to the table she was grimacing a bit and managed to avoid his gaze while not
looking
like she was avoiding it. “Security’s even tighter than I expected—we’ll need to check in half a dozen times before we get to Earth, but I set up the next few to be automated so I can get some sleep. Which….”

She glanced at the Metis report a final time, then shut it and the other data on the table down. “I should do. Busy day tomorrow, so I’m going to call it a night.”

He didn’t bother to hide anything in his eyes or his expression. His voice was soft but its tone unmistakable. “Are you sure?”

She huffed a breath that came out a ragged laugh and at last met his gaze, irises swirling liquid silver filled with unknowable thoughts. She
almost
smiled.

“Not in the slightest…” a retreat toward the stairwell “…which is why I
really
should.”

He bit his lower lip, blinked and forced a smile. “Understood. Good night, Alex.”

Her eyes closed for a moment. She nodded, seemingly to herself, and started down the stairs. “Good night, Caleb.”