Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4) Read online

  That had never happened, and then Paxe had met Imogen, and realized he'd been wrong to try and hurt the woman he'd had in his hold. He'd been too embarrassed to tell Imogen what he'd tried to do, but moments before he died, he'd sent the information to Oris.

  Bane guessed the Tecran thought Paxe had taken that secret with him when he'd been ripped to pieces. Or hoped he had. Hoped very hard.

  Oris had shared what Paxe had told him with Sazo, Bane and Easi. So far, all four of them had kept it to themselves, carefully listening for any hint she'd survived, searching for information wherever they could find it.

  If the information was out there, they would get it eventually.

  Sazo had found a few strange reports from a research facility on the outskirts of Fa'allen that seemed promising, so Bane would start there, would get into the facility's systems when they arrived in Tecra in a day's time, and try to find her.

  And in case he did track her down, he would have to decide who on the UC leadership team to trust, because he couldn't physically go down to Tecra and get her out himself. The three Grih, the military head of the Fitalian team, and one of the Bukari were currently at the top of his list, but he would choose carefully.

  He would do nothing to endanger the woman more than she already was. And he would save her, if he could.

  If it wasn't already too late.

  And if they did have her, he would bring down the punishment they so richly deserved.

  Chapter 3

  Dray Helvan left the Urna's conference room alone--the first to make his escape.

  He had an excuse, but it was just that, an excuse. He chose to prioritize the request sent to his comm unit from Grih Battle Center over the small talk that had broken out at the end of the meeting.

  Sometimes, that's when the real business got done, during the informal chats after meetings, when people were less on their guard and every word they said wasn't being weighed.

  Although Dray had a very strong feeling that every word of the small talk was being weighed and judged. He glanced to his left, out of the long transparent side of the ship, to look at Bane. The Class 5 was easily keeping pace with the Urna--in fact, they were probably slowing him down.

  Something about Bane, the shape of him, or rather, the ship he inhabited--like a prickle ball from Dray's home planet of Xal--skewed Dray's thoughts. He felt a strange push and pull in his head.

  He'd been raised on the notion of how dangerous thinking systems were, yet there was a fundamental Grihan connection to the Class 5s that drew him. They had been built according to the designs of the long-dead Xalian scientist, Fayir. Dray's fellow Xalian had certainly caused a lot of trouble hundreds of years after his death, but there was no going back to the way things had been.

  The light jump, as the saying went, was already in motion.

  Thinking systems were once again part of the UC's reality.

  And that didn't sit well with some of the UC leadership team. Especially those who weren't Grihan, and didn't have the same relationship the Grih had with them.

  “Dray.”

  The call came from behind him, and he just resisted making a face. He hadn't gotten away as cleanly as he'd thought.

  “Yes, Ambassador.” He turned smartly.

  His fellow team leader was from the Grihan planet of Nastra, and she wore the flowing robes the Nastrans favored, the bright orange contrasting pleasantly with her warm brown skin and light brown hair tipped with gold.

  “I told you, call me Yolandi, or I'll be forced to go back to calling you Commander.”

  Dray nodded, but said nothing. He preferred Battle Center's habit of referring to people by rank, but he would have to adjust. This wasn't Battle Center.

  Yolandi sighed. “I don't know what you're thinking.”

  His lips quirked. “That I need to get out of my Battle Center habits. For years, my only family has been my colleagues in Battle Center, and I think I've become a little stuck in my ways. I'm not used to civilian life.”

  She tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes full of sympathy. He wanted to tell her he didn't need it. The friends and colleagues he trained and fought with, his created family, were more than enough for him.

  “Titles aren't very helpful with the three of us, because we're all equal members.” Yolandi worried her bottom lip. “But if Zutobi also prefers that--”

  Dray shook his head. “She doesn't. It's good for me to change things up.”

  “Well, I think we'll be getting a lot of that where we're going.” Yolandi smiled.

  Dray grunted. That was an understatement, but diplomats like Yolandi seemed good at understatement.

  Zutobi, from the Grihan planet Calianthra, was the administrator of the group, he was the soldier, Yolandi was the diplomat, and when they arrived on Tecra, they would be the most resented, perhaps the most in danger, of everyone on the UC team.

  No planet liked to be dictated to, and the Tecran weren't just being dictated to. They were going to have to welcome invaders into their home, and let those invaders take the reins of control for five years. They would have to let the UC uncover every dark and dirty secret their military had hidden, not just from their fellow members of the United Council, but also their own people.

  He could imagine there were plenty of Tecran with the same problem of push and pull in their brain that he had about the Class 5s.

  They had been lied to by their own military, but would still resent being in the position of having strangers tell them what to do.

  It would be a delicate balancing wire to walk.

  Yolandi was going to be better than himself or Zutobi at that.

  In fact, Zutobi was refreshingly direct in her speech, and seemed serenely unperturbed by the insult or outrage she caused by giving the facts.

  He had enjoyed watching her cut through some of the crap in the meeting, and then watching Yolandi follow behind her administering first aid--metaphorically speaking--to sooth the burns.

  “You were called away to the comms station?” Yolandi asked.

  “Yes.” He glanced behind her, saw some of the other UC leadership team were leaving the conference room as well. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “I'll walk with you.” Yolandi smiled, not answering.

  Dray started moving and she fell in with him. When they were far enough away from the rest of the leadership team, she cleared her throat delicately.

  “I wanted to talk to you without being overheard.”

  Dray glanced over at Bane again, flying so close to the Urna that Dray could see the individual spikes that covered the outside of Bane's Class 5.

  Yolandi must have caught the direction of his gaze.

  “Hmm. Well, not overheard by the other members of the team. I can't do anything about Bane.”

  “Some would like to.”

  She sent him an amused sidelong look. “Quite a few, by the earful I got.”

  Dray shrugged. There was nothing to be done. Bane was here, at the Grih's request, and no one could send him back.

  Any whining was just a waste of time.

  “It's about one of those conversations I had concerning Bane that I want to talk to you about.” Yolandi's voice dropped, so Dray had to lean closer to hear her. “The Fitalian ambassador on the team, Pilto, put in a request that we ask Bane to hang back a bit when we get to Tecra and stay out of sight of the planet. He seems to think Bane orbiting overhead like a third moon will be seen as an aggressive tactic. Some sort of intimidation.”

  Dray just lifted his brows.

  Yolandi blew out a breath. “And that's just what he is, isn't he? The big stick to our . . . smaller stick.” Her lips pressed together.

  She was right that there was no sweetener involved in this mission. No possible way the Tecran could see their arrival as anything other than a punishment.

  Except . . . “The sweetener is they get to stay in the UC, and not be at war with the rest of us.”

  “Not taking something a
way that they already have isn't a very compelling sweetener.” Yolandi sighed. “You think Bane will refuse?”

  “I refuse to ask him. Bane looming over Tecra is exactly the kind of power move we need to make it clear we aren't messing around and we have the means to enforce the agreement they signed if we have to. It'll save all kinds of stupid power plays.”

  “What should I say to Pilto?”

  Technically, none of the Grih had any special access to Bane, and Dray hadn't been designated as the liaison between the Grih and the thinking system, but he understood why Yolandi had approached him. He was from Battle Center, and almost every interaction Bane and his fellow thinking systems had had with the Grih had been through the military.

  “Tell him no. And if he wants to argue the point, he can come and speak to me.”

  Yolandi sighed and nodded. “I'll avoid him as long as possible and then send him your way if he persists. Thank you, Dray.”

  She gave a small wave and turned off toward the staterooms the main leaders had been given to sleep in, and Dray carried on to the comms station.

  There was a faint ping in his earpiece, and he lifted a hand to accept the incoming communication.

  “I'm in full agreement.”

  Dray was so surprised by the comm he almost missed the second ping indicating the comm had been dropped.

  He didn't recognize the voice, but he had a feeling he had just heard from Bane.

  He stopped, turned to look out of the clear wall toward the Class 5. A light on the deadly prickle ball winked back at him.

  Chapter 4

  The sound of two hovers passed by, their powerful engines a hum in the thick fog, their speed almost a crawl.

  Lucy curled tighter around herself, pushing back into the cold, damp corner of the garage she had found as a hiding place.

  They were hunting her.

  Or perhaps covering all their bases, because she still hoped they thought she'd gone into the sea.

  The interesting thing was that they were very quiet in their hunting.

  They weren't storming doors and striding around.

  They were creeping.

  They were hiding the fact that they were hunting at all.

  That would give her an advantage if they caught her in a public place. They wanted to avoid attention, and she'd take any help she could get.

  The sound of the engines faded and she slowly stood up and waited another ten minutes but they didn't return. Finally she shuffled through the garage, looking through the hovers parked there for anything that could help her.

  She'd parked Farnn's at the far end of the slightly shabby space. She didn't know what her plans were, but she wanted to keep the hover somewhere she could come back to if she needed it.

  In one of the hovers near the door, a much older and more battered model than Farnn's, there was a cloak, a medieval looking garment with a fastening that clipped under her chin. She had noticed a few hanging in the staff lounge in the facility as she'd been marched past the door.

  The cloaks were obviously the fashion in Tecra.

  She pulled it on, and began shivering even harder as the warmth enveloped her.

  The hem hit the tops of her feet, and she became aware that she could barely feel her feet now, the thin slippers she'd been given to wear in the facility useless against the cold, hard floor.

  She worked her way through the rest of the hovers, wondering why they were all open, with no roof or way to enclose them like a car.

  It must be something to do with the Tecrans' love of open skies.

  They were obviously close evolutionary cousins to birds, or at least bird-like creatures, and she guessed they liked to feel the wind on their faces.

  She, on the other hand, would be happy to stay out of the wind, find a warm place to curl up in, and sleep.

  By the time she'd reached the last hover, she'd found a scarf and a small blanket made of something very soft, but nothing more.

  She looked over the garage, aware that her movements were sluggish, that she was swaying on her feet.

  There was nowhere to lie down, and the thought of lowering herself back to the icy floor sent a shiver through her.

  She shuffled back out the small side door she'd found open, and took a better look at the building attached to it.

  There was no sound except for the suck and surge of the waves far below at the foot of the cliff, and the fog wrapped around her, icy and suffocating. She would have to step carefully. She knew the edge of the cliff wasn't far away, but the fog obscured everything.

  It also completely shrouded the building to her right, but a few small lights were strong enough to penetrate, their glow diffused by the swirling cloud.

  Lucy moved cautiously toward them, and found they were on either side of a set of stairs.

  She climbed up them, finding the staircase strangely deep and narrow.

  She stumbled a few times, and at the top found a large set of doors, which would not open.

  Above the doors was a carving, something that looked art deco in style to her eye, which she couldn't make out well, but seemed to be a hooded hawk, wearing a cloak much like the one she had stolen from the garage.

  She had the blanket she'd found clutched to her chest, but she knew she would need to find somewhere to sit and wrap her feet in it before she lost feeling in them altogether.

  There was a narrow walkway leading around the building, to the left and the right, with no railing. Lacking any other option, Lucy followed it right, keeping close to the wall to make sure she didn't fall off.

  The fog seemed to thicken, and as she made her way around the side of the building the sound of the waves grew louder.

  If she did fall, she guessed it would be to the bottom of the cliff.

  The walkway ended abruptly in a small door set in a wall that seemed to stretch up forever.

  She stared at it, trying to think what to do, and then turned her head as lights seemed to bloom to her right.

  She blinked, sure she must be hallucinating, but after a moment, she realized the fog had cleared, giving her a view down the length of the cliffs.

  In the distance she saw tall buildings, lights blazing from them as they rose up out of the cliffs. Further along she could see a city of sorts, where the buildings stood two or three rows deep.

  Just as suddenly as the fog had parted, it closed in again, leaving her with nothing but a vague glow in the distance.

  She shook her head, concentrated on what was in front of her again, and pushed at the door.

  It swung open, and in what little ambient light she had, she made out some kind of storage shed.

  She was out of options, so she stepped inside, crouching down in the doorway to feel for something to prop the door open with.

  The idea of it enclosing her in complete darkness was too much.

  Eventually she found something long and thin to keep the door open a little.

  She sank down on the floor near the door, leaning up against the wall. Cool, damp air blew over her through the thin crack. It chilled her face, but she wound the scarf up to cover her mouth and nose and the fresh air helped dissipate the smell of dust and mold. She sneezed, pulled the cloak around her, wrapped her feet in the blanket, and closed her eyes.

  The Tecran met the Urna with a full envoy a day's journey from Tecra. The five massive Levron battleships coming toward the UC ship were the most powerful the Tecran had in their arsenal now that the Class 5s were no longer theirs.

  If it was meant to be intimidating, Dray thought, it was successful.

  A hush came over the crew as soon as the envoy was picked up by the Urna's systems, and a fair crowd had gathered in the large communal area of the ship to watch them arrive.

  “Do you think this is all the Levrons the Tecran have left after the battles we had with them?” Zutobi leaned closer to Dray, her voice soft.

  Dray lifted his shoulders. “Maybe.” Five were not enough to police the massive Tecran space bo
undaries. “I don't know if I hope it is, or not. They can't keep their people safe with so few.”

  “Word is, they poured every resource they had into building the Class 5s. They cut back on Levron production. They don't have any in construction to replace those we destroyed when they attacked us.” Zutobi leaned forward to get a better look. “What flight configuration is that?”

  Dray scanned the five ships moving toward them, three in the front, two in the back.

  To him, it looked like an attack configuration. And that's probably what the Tecran were going for.

  They had to be feeling more than a little sensitive about having their military and government run by strangers for the next five years.

  They couldn't help flexing a little muscle, perhaps.

  They would be very much aware that every battleship in the United Coalition would descend on Tecra if anything happened to the UC teams coming to take the reins.

  Although it would be cold comfort to him and everyone else onboard the Urna to know their deaths would be avenged.

  Suddenly Bane, who'd been lurking beside the Urna like a large wrecking ball, moved forward, and faster almost than the eye could track, flew up and over the Tecran envoy and settled into place behind them.

  There were audible gasps among the crowd.

  “The weapons on the back two Levron are hot, and being shielded to disguise the fact.” The words in Dray's ear surprised him enough that he jerked.

  Bane.

  He drew in a breath. “I'll pass that on.”

  His murmured response had Zutobi glancing at him with a frown.

  He began moving through the throng, looking for the head of the UC leadership team.

  Around him, he could hear the tension in people's voices as they speculated about what was happening.

  There was no one here who didn't understand they stood on the very knife edge of violence.

  “Wait before you do anything.” He spoke conversationally, hoping Bane was still listening, but tension coiled in his gut. He didn't know how to exert any control over a thinking system. They had no Earth women with them, and he wondered now whether that had been a mistake.