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  Her long walk across the polished floor to Va wasn’t as faltering as an observer would have expected. Kyn Behn was far from being as drunk as she made out but it went unnoticed amidst the jovial drinking and eating.

  Va Prie was a head shorter than Kyn, with pale barely sun-kissed skin and enormous grey eyes that reflected clear mountain waterfalls. She watched as Kyn approached, her brows furrowed with uncharacteristic concern.

  Fuck, she knows.

  Kyn tightened her lips momentarily then stretched them into what she hoped was a welcoming smile.

  “Darling Va,” she said, stopping when they were only a hand’s breadth apart.

  “I heard the fleet was back.” Her voice was trembling. “I had expected a call from you.”

  Yes. For all the off-colour jokes and lusty commentary, the Jaeleni were renowned as a society that ran on courtesy. Her lack of communication to Va was a serious breach of manners.

  “Come,” Kyn said, taking her elbow. “Let’s find somewhere a bit quieter. With a bit more peace.”

  With a small movement of her finger, she indicated to one of the wait staff that she was heading to the upper level, a darkly lit lounge level that contained conversation pits of varying sizes. Kyn sought out an intimate corner near the windows that looked out on the lower reaches of the elevator. Its myriad struts were lit up in an intricate web of dotted lines, stretching up into the night sky like a mythic tower of light. Further up, it was swallowed by clouds, the billows glowing brighter where they obscured the framework.

  Kyn—otherwise known as Fusion agent, Laisen Carros—looked at the elevator a bit wistfully, dreading the conversation that was to come.

  “I missed you,” Va said and Laisen didn’t have to turn in the dim light to know there was a half-smile playing about her elfish face. Laisen gritted her teeth, stifling the impending impulses of a full-blown tantrum at the words.

  Copan would have a fit if he knew what she felt like doing. He would probably recommend suspension. It was only that thought that kept Laisen from jumping up, grabbing Va by that intricately sewn collar of hers and shaking her.

  She wanted to yell, pounding words with the weight of blows into the younger woman’s face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, giving me so much power? I am nothing to you! I have treated you with distant kindness and you’ve taken that scrap and built something huge and monstrous out of it. And I don’t want any of it! It’s too soon.”

  She wanted to jolt the feelings out of Va, until those enormous grey eyes that seemed capable of swallowing the pain of the universe cooled into something Laisen was better able to deal with. Instead, swallowing her violent impulses, she smiled faintly.

  “It was a long and eventful tour this time,” she said, avoiding Va’s statement all together.

  But the young woman would not be distracted. “I think I missed you so much because…I love you.”

  Laisen’s gaze fixed on the lit struts on the fortieth level of the soaring elevator. Or was it the forty-fifth?

  Love? What the hell do you know about love, little girl? Love is having some ravening monster ambush you, rip you to pieces, and leave you gasping on a frigid floor. Love is picking up the pieces, ill-fitting and bleeding, and wondering how you’re ever going to put them back together again. Love is selfishly using another sentient being for physical comfort so you can forget the one person who meant the entire universe to you.

  Had it really been only two years?

  “What you’re feeling, Va, is more an infatuation. Maybe what you need—”

  “Don’t patronise me.” The words were low and ground out.

  Startled, Laisen looked over at her and saw the anguish on Va’s face, matched by two perfect teardrops rolling down her pale cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly, but the words were still chill. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Is it true? What they say? That you’re leaving the service?”

  Even the last tour had been an indulgence. Enjoyable but unnecessary. After making sure the Nedron Union was not about to conveniently “annex” any other struggling systems, Laisen’s job was done. But she couldn’t resist the allure of just one more tour in the company of people she had grown to genuinely like and respect. However, in two days’ time, she was out of the service completely with an honourable discharge. And, of course, the military grapevine had carried the news to her young lover’s ears with the speed of ultra-light travel.

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  Va’s face lit up with hope as she blinked her tears away. “Where are you going after that?” she asked with choked enthusiasm. “I thought that, considering Fleet B is based at Peer and you’re barracked here, that you might consider staying.” She faltered. “I mean, you already know the people around, don’t you?”

  The set expression on Laisen’s face wasn’t promising, but Va gamely forged ahead. “There are so many people coming and going, you’d never get bored. And there’s an academy here that would be delighted to extend an instructor’s appointment to you. You could take some time off. You’re always telling me how little opportunity you’ve had to enjoy planetside living. Or-or you could come and work with us at Prie’s Pleasure…I could talk to the family….” Receiving no response, she finally stumbled to a halt.

  The cover story had been set, one that Laisen could execute with ease. No hurried displacement manoeuvre was required this time. All she had to do was gently meander to the edge of Jaeleni space under the guise of taking up a new position. Kyn Behn would disappear and Laisen Carros would eventually slip across into Fusion-friendly space. But, in the face of Va’s struggling hopes, the practised words died in her throat.

  “The fact is, Va…,” she swallowed. “There’s someone else.”

  “Someone—?” Watching the expressions flit across the younger woman’s face was agonising. Incomprehension, surprise, anger, betrayal. Laisen forced herself to look fully at her as a form of penance.

  “She’s dead,” Laisen added quickly.

  Incomprehension reigned. “I don’t understand.”

  Laisen shifted position, picking up Va’s right hand and laying it on her thigh, absently playing with it with her fingers.

  “Regardless of what you may have heard down there,” she jerked her head towards the dining hall below, “I was in love with someone very deeply once. And still am.”

  Laisen heard the frown in Va’s voice. “But didn’t you say she was dead?” The strident tone of someone desperately willing reality to conform to her dreams crept into her words.

  “Yes.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense!”

  “No,” Laisen agreed sadly. “It doesn’t, does it?”

  “If she’s dead,” Va paused and grimaced, pulling her fingers away. Laisen let them escape. “And I’m sorry, but if she’s dead, what does she have to do with us? You’re not dead. You’re still alive. What about the rest of your life?”

  Laisen knew she would have to be much more careful in the future. She had buried herself in Va Prie without thinking of Va’s needs, and now had to reap her lover’s bitterness.

  “I wish,” she stopped, trying to pull tangents of regrets and emotions together. Failing. “I already have a new commission waiting for me,” she said, playing the coward. Falling back on the practised lie of the extraction strategy. “Out by Sundi’s World.”

  “That’s, on the other side of the galaxy, isn’t it?”

  “Near enough.”

  A cynical smile twisted Va’s lips, making her look years older. “I didn’t realise I was such an ogre. I must be terrible indeed to make a Fleet Commodore run so many light-years away from me.”

  “It’s, I took it before our relationship progressed very far.”

  “Relationship,” Va repeated. “At least you’ve gifted me that much.” Her last words were so soft, Laisen had to strain to hear them.

  There seemed nothing more to say, so they sat in silence for a whil
e. After many long minutes, Va rose. She hesitated for a moment, as if wanting to add something. In the end, she turned around and left without a word.

  Laisen let out the sigh that had been building through the entire rueful conversation.

  She would be back down to her usual height soon. That would be a relief, even though she was almost used to avoiding low doorways by now. Her skin would be darkened from its current burnt cream tone to its more natural pigmentation. Her hair and eye colour would also be adjusted and the excess weight jettisoned. Everything that characterised Kyn Behn would be erased.

  Except what she had just inflicted.

  She might not know exactly what Va Prie was going through, but she knew its rough shape and pinprick texture and she never wanted to be there again.

  Ever.

  Always be the one doing the leaving. The other way was for victims. And Laisen knew she wasn’t one of those.

  Chapter Nine

  Day 1,520 of the War:

  Lith was hiding out in her quarters.

  Cheloi—the Colonel, she corrected hastily—and Rumis were at a meeting with Twol in Yellow sector. To the Colonel’s chagrin, remembering her comment about the accommodations in Yellow sector, they were only due back early the following morning. Lith had been expecting to drive both senior officers to their meeting and was both surprised and relieved when Twol indicated he would send his own driver. The young man was on another errand and it would be an easy detour to pick them up.

  That gave her time to think about her original mission.

  ….

  No it didn’t, she conceded, her mind a stubborn blank.

  While she tried to cram ridiculous assassination scenarios in her head, most of them evaporated during the quiet hours and she was left with little else but lust and the craving of a murderer’s hands and lips on her body.

  “I don’t care,” she muttered. “It’s only physical. Nothing more.” But knew it for the untruth that it was.

  She wanted to hate Cheloi Sie, wanted to use that anger to power a ruthlessness that would enable her to kill the Colonel. But she couldn’t. She was an abject failure. How Nils would laugh when he found out. She was the perfect agent in the perfect position, ultimately unable to pull the trigger.

  All she wanted now was to run as far away from Menon and the Empire as she could. But how? In all their exultant planning, Nils had never touched on exactly what Lith was supposed to do after she managed to eliminate the Senior Colonel. It was yet another example of his callowness and her own gullibility. Only one thing was sure. Her mission was over. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. Her best strategy was to take the Colonel up on her offer of a transfer, get off planet and figure something out from there.

  At that moment, her intercom chirped. Later, when she was safely home and away from the war, Lith would wonder whether her fancy that the quick tone sounded angry was some kind of premonition. She frowned and walked to the door, not expecting anybody.

  She pressed the access button and restrained a jump as the door slid open.

  Colonel Koul Grakal-Ski.

  His grey eyes moved up her figure, from waist to hair, and Lith stilled the impulse to zip up her tunic completely. At the moment, only her throat and the top of her black undervest were visible but, in the presence of a predator like Grakal-Ski, she felt stripped down and naked.

  “Colonel, what a surprise.” She strove to keep her voice low and even.

  He nodded. “May I come in?”

  She wanted to refuse him. There was something in his expression, a smug watchfulness, that she didn’t like.

  “Of course.” She moved to one side.

  Grakal-Ski strolled in, making a show of looking around. His gaze swept past the neatly made-up bed and assortment of cards, pins and buttons on the bureau. It skimmed across to the wardrobe, the door—thankfully!—closed.

  “How are you settling in?” he asked, swinging his gaze back to her.

  “Er, fine. Thank you.”

  She couldn’t forget that it was Grakal-Ski who had physically transported her to the Nineteen, presenting her to the Senior-Colonel as a deal already done. At the time, it had seemed a serendipitous meeting. But Lith was swiftly coming to the conclusion that, where the pale-skinned Colonel was concerned, there was no such thing as chance. There was something about the way he moved around her room, a leashed economy, that told her he was about to spring a trap.

  “Your detailed records finally came through from Central Control,” he said, sauntering over to her desk. He used his fingers to casually probe the flimsies and e-pads that lay haphazardly on the smooth surface. Lith watched his hand as if hypnotised, trying to quell the feeling of violation as he touched her belongings. What did he want?

  “They take time, these records,” he continued. “People come and go. Transfers, promotions, deaths.”

  Lith’s skin suddenly felt cold, a phantom icy chill blasting her body. Was there something wrong with her paperwork? But she’d been assured that everything was fine. Nils promised her that everything would pass a double-level audit.

  Grakal-Ski kept walking around, as if slowly working off an excess of energy. Forcing Lith to watch him.

  “Promotions. That’s an interesting topic. I almost got a promotion, you know.” He angled a look at her that she would have described as attractive on any other face. An expression that was playful and a bit humorous. “I was after command of this territory but it went to Colonel Sie. Then she had an unfortunate driving accident and I thought it was in my grasp again, but she survived. She’s a very lucky woman. Intelligent too, although I’m sure you’ve already noticed that.”

  Why did Lith feel she was wading into quicksand? “Colonel–”

  “When I transferred you to the Nineteen, I wasn’t thinking much beyond unsettling her. Making a move she hadn’t anticipated.” He ran a finger along the closed door of her closet, a light delicate touch, not even looking at her. “I wasn’t sure if it would work but it was worth a try. You see, all I needed was one action, one mistake, and command would be mine.”

  His gaze shifted and he stared at the wall for a moment. “I remember the morning you met the Colonel,” he said, his voice light. “There seemed to be something, special in the air, didn’t there?” He turned and arched a pale eyebrow at her. “It was the first time I’d ever seen the Senior Colonel so…flustered.”

  Why was he telling her this? It sounded sick and sordid coming from his mouth. “Colonel–”

  “But I’ll give you both the highest marks. If you have been having an affair, you’ve been discreet about it. With no solid evidence, any complaint I lodged would only be the occasional whine of a thwarted man against one of the most decorated officers on the planet. I had reconciled myself to another loss. Until your transfer papers arrived.”

  He went back to the desk, brushing things aside to clear a space then leaning against the blunt edge, watching her. His eyes were as sharp as blades.

  “You say you come from Laeyek Omni B.”

  “That’s right.” Lith forced herself not to cross her arms or take on any defensive posture.

  “And that you graduated with an advanced degree in Social Economics from the University of Jatsdohn nine years ago.”

  “Yes.”

  She remembered querying Nils about that as well. Wouldn’t people wonder what she had done with her life in between graduating from university and volunteering for the Menon campaign? Nils disagreed. People in the Empire often moved around, he told her, dallying in one occupation after another. This was especially true of the professional classes. Perlim apparatchiks and their children could afford to waste years chasing dead ends.

  “I read through your academic transcript. You’re a very apt student,” he commended, then lifted a finger. “There’s only one thing that bothers me.” He paused, spinning the moment out. Lith forgot to breathe. “The university at Jatsdohn didn’t start teaching that course until six years ago.”

/>   Lith’s stomach roiled, sending bile into her clenched mouth. She swallowed acid and couldn’t help an abortive glance to the doorway. The colonel noticed the instinctive move and a thin smile curved his lips.

  “Make one move towards that door,” he told her coldly, “and I’ll cut you down in a second.”

  She believed him.

  “It was a masterful forgery,” he continued. “In fact, if I didn’t have a nephew studying in the neighbouring province, I wouldn’t have even questioned it. And then, after that little incident at Bul-Guymem, I began finding out lots of other interesting things.”

  She moved, only a twitch of her muscles, but it was enough. Koul crossed the floor in two angry strides, grabbing the collar of her uniform until it bunched in his left hand and pushing her against the wall as he twisted the material.

  “You’re Fusion,” he hissed. “Don’t think I don’t know it.”

  The cloth of her tunic pressed against Lith’s throat, cutting off part of her air supply. She wanted to cough and breathe at the same time, and felt the rigidity of Grakal-Ski’s knuckles behind the scratchy softness of the material.

  “Why were you sent here?” he demanded. “Are you on a covert mission to sabotage the Menon campaign?”

  He was half-right but Lith didn’t know how to answer. Then she felt something else, hard and inexorable, pushing under her ribcage. In one smooth motion, Grakal-Ski had withdrawn a weapon with his free hand and was pointing its barrel up into her torso. Lith tried not to think of how many of her vital organs were in its line of fire.

  “Who sent you?” he hissed. “Was it the Fusion’s Higher Convergence? Their military intelligence section?”

  Still half-choking, Lith shook her head.

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “But you are from the Fusion?”

  She nodded in one jerky movement.

  He was silent, his jaw working, while he thought through her answers. His grip never wavered.

  “What is your mission?”

  “Kill…,” she gasped.

  “Who? Me?” His grip tightened once more and Lith saw a red haze in front of her eyes. She thought her head would explode. A loud pounding thumped through her skull.