Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One (41 page)

Alex lay on the bed, still dressed, the bed still made, and stared at the ceiling.

What was she
doing
?

She ached to leap off the bed, vault up the stairs and claim the kiss stolen from her by the alarm. And whatever followed.

She wouldn’t have stopped him; she had been moving into him, welcoming the embrace and its consequences.

She had no particular problem with casual sex. Though she’d never give Ken a run for her money, she had engaged in it from time to time. And given all the stress and tumult of the last week, god knows she could use some about now….

So why not follow through now? Why not leap off the bed, vault up the stairs and give in to the undeniable attraction and sexual tension which had been building for days—hell, since about five seconds after they met?

Because she was afraid.

It wasn’t easy for someone like her, to admit even to herself she was afraid. Unless it was of an army of massive alien ships—and that hadn’t been easy to admit.

But she was afraid.

She was afraid it wouldn’t be casual at all. She was afraid if she fell into the ocean of those devastating blue eyes, she might drown. His easygoing demeanor belied an intensity simmering just beneath the surface, one constantly threatening to overwhelm her even from afar.

She was afraid if she allowed him
in
, if she opened up, if she shed the multiple layers of emotional armor in which she wrapped herself, she risked losing the very control over herself and her life she so treasured. Control she had cultivated for years, decades.

And when he inevitably left, she was afraid she would have lost her way.

37

METIS NEBULA

I
NNER
B
ANDS

M
AJOR
D
ONEL
F
ERGUSSON STOOD
at the wide viewport of the
SFS Aegea
and gazed out at nothing.

It wasn’t actually nothing, of course. It was nebular gas and dust and particles. It glowed the color of lemonade with dashes of periwinkle.

It was a tactical nightmare. There were no distinguishing features, no points of reference and no shadowy recesses in which to hide.

In addition to the
Aegea
, the 2
^nd
GOI Platoon consisted of four electronic warfare and two reconnaissance vessels. All the ships were well-equipped both offensively and defensively, but the majority of the firepower was concentrated in the
Aegea
. It also sported a suite of VI-driven probes and wideband passive sensors.

And though every ship possessed the finest in multilayer dampeners, the
Aegea
provided further protection in the form of an adaptive field. Dynamically generated and powered by a dedicated LEN reactor, it extended out in a five kilometer radius from the hull and blended all emissions within it into the surrounding cosmic radiation. ‘The Bubble,’ as the team referred to it, encompassed the entirety of the Platoon during normal impulse travel. In the absence of shadowy recesses in which to hide, it would have to suffice.

“Rather beautiful, wouldn’t you say?”

He glanced over at Lieutenant Udine, who had joined him at the viewport. “Just looks like gas and dust to me.”

The young man laughed. “My mother’s a cosmologist. She’d faint on the spot if she heard you say that. I guess a bit of her perspective wore off on me.”

“I didn’t know we let dreamers into the special forces these days.”

“Only on the sly.”

“Well, I won’t spill your secret, but you might want to keep it to yourself. Some of these soldiers may be inclined to break your spine if they catch you waxing poetic.”

“I welcome them to try, sir.”

“Ha! Good to hear.” His gaze drifted around the bridge. The
Aegea
was thinly staffed, and everyone on board doubled as a commando, sniper, EMT or half a dozen other roles along with running the frigate. “Scans?”

“Expected EM signatures continue steady from the core region of the Nebula, sir. No deviations and no additional readings.”

He activated the platoon-wide comm. “Re-engage sLume drives on my mark, destination 0.4 AU out from the portal, heading 22.4° NE. This will be our final superluminal traversal before reaching the target zone. Ready state on arrival. Two…one…mark.”

The gas clouds blurred and faded, though it hardly looked any different to him. As they had already been deep in the Metis interior, the journey took minutes.

The ‘scenery’ which snapped back into focus shone considerably brighter than before and had organized itself into pillars of thick, nearly solid cloud formations.

“Status report.”

“EM signatures match those provided, sir. TLF signal originating N 297.41° W, distance 0.39 AU. No anomalies detected.”

“Recon 1, Recon 2: fan and approach TLF origin, full stealth. Slow and easy, boys.”

Acknowledged.

He waited. Civilians imagined special forces missions were all gunfire and explosions—but whether in an urban incursion or deep space, eighty percent of any mission involved
waiting
.

Somewhere beyond the towering golden clouds sat an army of alien vessels. Once located, the team would take measurements and visuals from maximum safe distance. They would send a drone back out of the nebula to report contact. Then they would remain here, hidden in The Bubble, ready to track the alien force if or when it departed.

Unless the aliens were already gone, a far worse scenario. If they had departed the portal they could now be, quite literally, anywhere—in which case in order to track them, the team would first have to
find
them. Hopefully before the aliens massacred a world or did whatever it was they were planning to do.

He fully understood the size and scope of the enemy force which awaited. The power of the force he couldn’t say, as the type or size of their weaponry remained unknown. But one thing he had learned over the years was every adversary had a weakness. Fortified ships were slow and unwieldy; small ones were fragile. Bombs could be disarmed, EM attacks shielded. In this case, enormous ships simply made for enormous targets—not that he intended on shooting at them. Not
this
mission anyway.

“Recon 1, Recon 2, report. See anything yet?”

He was met by silence. Sometimes their shielding was a little
too
good. “Comms, can you establish a connection with either of the recon units or their pilots?”

“Negative, Major. Recon units are not responding, nor are they showing up on scans.”

Well, they wouldn’t. “Keep trying. All ships, prepare to advance at 0.5 impulse. Stay inside The Bubble. I repeat, stay
inside
The Bubble.”

Acknowledged.

The
Aegea
and its complement of electronic warfare ships flew silently into the pillar of nebular clouds. The viewport revealed only a bright yellow haze, thick as the fog rolling through Cove Bay when he was a child visiting his grandparents on the Scottish coast. He hadn’t been to Earth since the 1
^st
Crux War. If galactic events continued on their current path, he may never see Cove Bay again…which seemed a shame.

A bank of screens filled with broad-spectrum sensor readings created the illusion of sight as they advanced. The screens displayed the positions of the other ships (minus the Recon units), the locations of the pulsar, its companion white dwarf and the location of the portal, as well as a plethora of scientific data beyond his expertise.

“Major, we should clear the densest clouds in another thirty seconds or so.”

“All ships, slow to 0.2 impulse. Again, stay inside The Bubble.”

Acknowl—

“Sir, I’m picking up a—”

The last thought Major Fergusson had as the blazing white pulse incinerated the
Aegea
and the rest of the 2
^nd
GOI Platoon was that the viewport’s spectrum filters really needed to be upgraded, because this was just
too damn bright
.

38

SIYANE

S
PACE,
S
OL
S
YSTEM

A
LEX SPUN THE COCKPIT CHAIR
around when she heard him come up the stairs. He wore a smile; she returned it in full. If he had taken her retreat the night before as a snub, he wasn’t showing it. They had quickly fallen back into a comfortable, easy, mildly flirtatious routine this morning. She was glad for it.

It wasn’t the only reason she felt rather relaxed, all things considered. While normally she retained at most a vague, mild attachment to Earth as ‘home,’ in the current circumstances she had been relieved to enter the Sol System. Yes, it was home, but it was also the best defended stellar system in existence. If Earth’s defenses weren’t enough to keep it safe, nowhere would be safe.

“Final clearance granted. Looks like your alter ego ID held up. Ready to see the homeland?”

“I’ve
seen
Earth, Alex.”

“In vids.”

“In full-sensory overlay.”

“Still not the same.” She shrugged teasingly. “You’ll see.”

When they exited the Northeast 1 Pacific Corridor they were above the Gulf of Alaska. She veered south-southeast and slowed the angle of descent to run slightly off the coast.

The waters began a deep cerulean, but shifted to a paler cyan as they approached land. It being late fall, the massive glaciers had already begun descending from the mountain peaks toward the shore. Two icebergs were mid-calving from a glacier and the water was sprinkled with free-floating chunks of ice.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as discreetly as she could manage. He had doubtless seen many worlds and more than a few wonders. He wouldn’t be easy to impress…but it didn’t hurt to try.

His gaze was riveted out the viewport, but his expression in profile appeared scrupulously neutral except for the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips—

—he sucked in a gasp, and the formerly neutral expression lit up in delight. She followed where his gaze led. A school of five orcas had broken the surface in dramatic fashion as they pushed through the ice slush and into the open waters. They danced and dove—then the largest one leapt out of the water, spinning through the air to land on its dorsal fin and send a cascade of frothing water over its companions.

She gave up watching him discreetly and grinned. “They were once nearly extinct. It took a lot of work to bring them back into the wild.” She paused, simply enjoying his delight for a moment. “Seneca doesn’t have oceanic wildlife?”

He shook his head. “What we call oceans are…well, not like this. Only about forty percent of Seneca is covered in water. It’s a young planet, rich in metals due to the active stellar cluster, but indigenous species are limited and tend to be small. This is
amazing
.”

Her attention drifted to the view once more. “I’ve always thought so.”

The terrain soon gave way to tundra followed by the coastal forests of the numerous islands dotting the coastline. In minutes the northern edge of Vancouver Island came into sight; beyond it the midday sun reflected brilliantly off the first of the skyscrapers which stretched from North Vancouver to Portland. It was a beautiful fall day in the Pacific Northwest.

She swung to the east, dropped into an airlane and headed down the Straight toward the spaceport. He leaned against the half-wall and draped his arms across his chest. “Nice city you’ve got here.”

“This?” She scoffed with feigned nonchalance. “This is nothing. The Northeastern Seaboard Metropolis stretches for over 1,000 kilometers along the east coast. But it
is
the largest metropolitan area in settled space, so it would.”

“Uh-huh. You done showing off now?”

“You’ll just have to stick around and find out.”
Oops, that might have come out a little differently than she had intended….

His voice became both softer and deeper in tenor. “Okay.”
Yep, sure did.

She chose to ignore it while slowing and banking toward the rooftop docking platform.

EACV-7A492X to ORSC:  Arrival sequence initiation requested Bay L-19

ORSC to EACV-7A492X:  Arrival sequence initiated Bay L-19

ORSC to EACV-7A492X:  Arrival clearance window 14 seconds Docking Lane 27

She eased in and lowered the ship to the roof. The clamps grasped the ship with a gentle
clang
.

The process was all automated for the next few moments as the lift descended to the L level and rotated to her private hangar bay. The force field shimmered as they passed through it, re-solidifying once they were on the other side. A small jolt and the clamps locked into place in the hangar floor.

She shut off the engine and toed around to face him. “Shall we—” A blinking red light flashed in the corner of her eVi; she frowned but accepted the livecomm.

“Alexis, dear, I’m afraid the Defense Minister has arrived and requested a personal briefing. We’ll need to push your meeting until 1430.”

“Oh, for fucks sake, Mom.”

“Now, I—”

“Was there something about ‘urgent’ and ‘vital importance’ and ‘grave threat’ and ‘alien
yebanyy
superdreadnoughts’ that you didn’t understand?”

“Of course not. But I have many responsibilities which impact the safety and security of the entire Alliance, and we
are
at war, and some—”

“You mean you have a Very Important Job? I hadn’t noticed.”

“There’s no reason for you to take such a tone with me. I can’t exactly keep the Defense Minister waiting.”