Entanglement

Chapter 2

2

Double doors parted to reveal a room where black tiles stretched from wall to wall and two desks faced each other in front of a window that looked out on the stars. Each had a polished surface of Smartglass with keyboards sitting on pull-out trays.

Anna strode into her office in gray pants and a white long-sleeved top, keeping her head down. “So I was thinking we could review the open case files,” she said. “With any luck, we'll find something we can attack. Being proactive always looks good.”

In her mind's eye, she saw the silhouette of Jack standing out in the hallway with a cup of tea in hand. “Yeah, no problem,” he said, following her in. “But you don't have anything to worry about; Jena likes you.”

That may very well have been the case, but Anna wasn't quite sure what to make of this Jena Morane; the woman had a reputation for throwing the rulebook out the window whenever it suited her. True, Keepers were supposed to bend the rules in the service of the greater good – she herself had defied orders when she pursued Denario to Earth – but that didn't mean one should do so casually. She just didn't share the same comfortable relationship that Jack had cultivated with their new supervisor.

That, in and of itself, was a major source of frustration. Jack had latched on to Jena Morane because she represented a bastion of integrity in a world tainted by underhanded politics. For the hundredth time since her arrival on this station, Anna wished that she had been here to complete his training. What exactly had gone on over the last three years to make him so ready to distrust other Keepers? She knew of Breslan's betrayal, of course, and Slade was now under investigation. But she would like to believe those were isolated incidents.

As she approached her desk, she saw something that left a very queasy feeling in her belly. A single long-stem rose with dark red petals was resting on the metal keyboard, and there was no sign of a note.

Baring her teeth in a snarl, Anna felt her cheeks heat up. “No! No! No! When is that asshole going to learn that I am just not interested in him?”

Jack stood at his desk, setting the cup of tea down on its surface. “Daython?” he asked, keeping his back turned. “You mean to tell me the guy made yet another romantic overture?”

Anna winced so hard it hurt, then tossed her head about in disgust. “No! No! No!” she spat, grabbing the rose. “This is unacceptable! This time I'm going straight to his supervisor!”

Jack turned around.

He leaned against his desk with arms folded, scowling down at himself. “That, I'd like to see,” he murmured. “Seriously, An, three times is outright harassment. Something has to be done.”

“Something will be.”

The doors slid open to admit a frustrated Jena who strode into the room in beige pants and a loose blue top. “Morning, children,” she said. “Anna, I just got a call from Larani Tal. She wants to speak with you later this afternoon.”

Anna looked up to blink at her. “About what?” she asked, ashamed by the hostility in her voice. “I filed my report about the shuttle chase; no one got hurt, and we managed to capture the perpetrators.”

The other woman spun around to face her with arms folded, shaking her head. “I'm not sure…” Jena paused when she saw the rose, a look of confusion passing over her face. “If you're trying to sweet talk me, Lenai, I already have a partner.”

Anna thrust a hand out, pointing with the rose.

The petals nearly hit Jena's nose, and she jumped back on instinct. “This…” Anna hissed. “This is the latest attempt by a persistent young man who simply doesn't know when to quit.”

Jena turned to Jack.

“No, not him!”

Slapping a palm against his forehead, Jack groaned. “Really?” he shouted, in disbelief. “You think I would do something like that? No, no, no. If I were going to ask her out, it would require a Bloody Mary and three Xanax.”

Jena backed away with hands raised defensively. “Okay,” she said, nodding once. “Just speak to Larani; I'm sure it's nothing, and if you need help dealing with…whoever sent that…let me know.”

She left the room.

Chewing on his lip, Jack watched her with deep blue eyes. “Extraordinary boss,” he said, shaking his head. “Really good at handling the subtle nuances of all those delicate interpersonal conflicts.”

Anna lifted the rose up in front of her face, hissing with seething rage. “Enough is enough!” She spun around and flung the rose away. “I'll go to his supervisors. I'll file a harassment complaint.”

The rage died to be replaced with dismay when she realized that the only evidence she had in support of her claim was a single crumpled rose. True, Daython had asked her out twice, but that in and of itself was not harassment in light of their history on Alios. He could claim he had nothing to do with this latest gesture.

Anna sat on the edge of her desk.

Crossing her arms, she huddled in on herself and shook her head. “So what am I gonna do?” she asked in a breathy whisper. “I have absolutely no proof that Daython was the one who put that rose on my desk.”

Jack stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring off into space. “Maybe you do.” He turned back to the desk, running his fingers along the Smartglass. “This room is monitored.”

A hologram shimmered into existence, depicting their office with the lights off. The doors slid open to leave a square of light on the tiled floor before a small mail-delivery bot rolled in on two wheels.

Roughly three feet tall with a cylindrical body, the thing reminded her of one of the trash receptacles that she had seen on busy city sidewalks. Bots were rarely designed to look like humans, but it wasn't functionality that motivated that decision. She suspected that people just weren't comfortable with the idea of simulated intelligence that looked like a real person.

The bot rolled over to her desk and settled to a stop. Its lower compartment opened to reveal a long arm that held the rose delicately in a metal claw. There was no note, of course. She wasn't sure what this hologram proved.

Anna looked up to study it with lips pursed, deep creases slowly forming in her brow. “So…a bot delivered the rose?” she asked. “How exactly does that prove it came from Daython?”

“Check the mail room logs.”

That could work. Correspondence was almost always done through digital mail – her people had stopped using paper centuries ago – but every now and then, someone had to deliver a physical object. Mail bots handled that task. Each item was pared with a chip that identified its sender and its destination. “Okay,” she said. “I guess my next stop is the mail room.”

“Have fun,” Jack said. “I'll just be here…saving the galaxy.”

Anna stuck her tongue out.

Larani Tal's office was an elegant room with black floor tiles and two pillars that rose to the ceiling. Beyond that, a simple desk sat in front of a window that looked out on the vastness of space.

Anna strode into the room with fists clenched, shaking her head in disgust. I don't know what this is about, she thought to herself. But if they're going to chew me out for not firing on that man, I'll…

She would what? Deep down inside, she knew that she should have pulled the trigger – she had been beating herself up about it for days – but every time she imagined herself sitting in the cockpit of that shuttle, she realized that she just couldn't do it. Anna Lenai could not take a life.

Larani Tal stepped out from behind a pillar.

The woman was tall and slim in a pair of black pants and a white t-shirt under a black vest. Her dark-skinned face was framed by long black hair that hung loose to her shoulders. “Anna,” she said. “Good. I wanted to speak with you.”

Anna pursed her lips as she held the woman's gaze, blinking slowly. “Ma'am?” she said in guarded tones. “Is something wrong? I thought I detailed the events of the shuttle chase in my report.”

Larani waved it away.

She turned around, picking up one of the tablets she had left on her desk. “Nothing major,” she said. “I wanted to discuss the anomalous sensor readings you picked up from Ganymede.”

Oh… that.

Licking her lips, Anna let her head hang. “I was wondering about that,” she muttered under her breath. “To be honest with you, ma'am, I was under the impression that we had no other bases in this system.”

Larani turned around to lean against the desk with her legs crossed at the ankle, the tablet held up in front of her face. “Until last night, I thought the same thing,” she replied. “But I decided to have a little chat with Slade.”

That left Anna feeling more than a little uneasy. The head of the Justice Keepers – until he was formally charged, he would maintain his rank and title – was currently under suspicion for his support of a known traitor.

Anxiety flared in her chest when she imagined Jena's conflict with Cal Breslan. She had read the reports; the man had been found dead in a hotel room with his neck snapped and Jena sitting calmly at the table. Since the day she had arrived on this station, Anna had watched her supervisor for some sign that Breslan's death weighed heavily on her conscience. She had seen nothing of the sort.

That troubled her.

Slade's near unilateral support for a known traitor had seen him removed from active duty while the senior directors investigated his involvement with Breslan. That a Justice Keeper could knowingly aide a terrorist…

Anna lifted her chin to study the other woman, then narrowed her eyes to slits. “If you'll pardon my frankness, ma'am,” she began. “It bothers me that we've started placing military installations in this system without telling Earth's governments.”

Larani offered a small smile before nodding her agreement. “No more than it does me, Agent Lenai,” she said. “According to Slade, the Ganymede station is a long-range listening post designed to detect ships at high warp before they enter the system.”

Anna turned away from the woman.

She marched across the room with her arms crossed, trying to put the pieces together. “That makes no sense,” she said, stopping in front of the wall. “The space stations we have in orbit of this planet would be able to detect an approaching ship just as well as a base in the outer system.”

“Slade claims the Ganymede Station was built shortly after first contact with Earth. At the time, we had no permanent outposts in this region of space. A base was necessary to warn our construction crews of any potential threat from hostile fleets.”

“And we hid it from Earth because?”

In her mind's eye, Anna saw the silhouette of Larani Tal standing by the desk with the tablet in hand. “Relations with Earth were fragile then,” the other woman explained. “We did not want to intimidate them.”

Closing her eyes, Anna breathed deeply through her nose. “That's brilliant,” she said. “So instead of openly building trust, we decide to plant our flag on someone else's property.”

“Ganymede can hardly be called Earth property.”

Glancing over her shoulder, Anna felt a lock of red hair fall over her face. “Article Thirty-Five of the Leyrian Accord,” she said, eyebrows rising. “The uninhabited worlds of any inhabited star system shall be designated local territory.”

Larani closed her eyes, turning her face up to the ceiling. “I understand your anger, Agent Lenai,” she replied. “I even share it. Regardless, now that you know, I must order you to never divulge this information to anyone. Especially Agent Hunter.”

Well, that made some amount of sense. Jack was known for his distrust of authority and his tendency to go his own way whenever it suited him; Larani probably thought he would run straight to the Canadian government the instant he got a whiff of something out of whack.

Of course, that left her in the undesirable position of having to choose between her friendship and her duty. Not an easy thing for Anna Lenai. “So,” she muttered, whirling around to face the other woman. “You want me to participate in a cover-up.”

“I want you to trust your conscience,” Larani replied. “A Keeper must be willing to disobey orders in the service of justice, but unlike your friend Jack, you are not prone to leaping to the right every time someone in a position of authority says 'go left.'

“Consider what would be best for the fragile relationship between Earth and Leyria. These people need us, Anna. They've come close to expelling us once before. Provoking them into doing so again will only leave them vulnerable to the hostile powers in this region of space. Antaur would love to get its hands on Earth.”

Anna hesitated.

What the other woman said made sense, but she couldn't escape the profound sense of revulsion when she considered the prospect of lying to her friends. And to her superior officers. Did Jena know about this?

Anna was about to speak when Larani offered a pleasant smile that left her feeling off balance. “Follow your conscience,” she said. “That is always your first priority. But consider wisely the consequences of your actions.”

“I fail to see the point of this.”

Grecken Slade sat in a chair with his back to a gray wall, his hands folded on the table in front of him. The man wore a blue coat with gold embroidery, and his black hair was left to hang loose, framing a face with tilted eyes and high cheekbones. “I've answered these questions many times.”

Jena looked up at him, squinting to make her point. “You're going to answer this one again,” she said, nodding curtly. “No more dancing around. Tell me everything you know about Cal Breslan's dossier.”

Slade threw his head back, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “Cal Breslan was born and raised on Petross Station,” he said. “He bonded a symbiont at the age of seventeen and moved to Leyria to commence his training.”

“Were you there when he received his symbiont?” Jena asked. “Did you know any of his teachers?”

Slade fixed his gaze upon her, and for a moment, she honestly thought the force of that stare might tear strips of skin off her body. “No,” he said in a voice like silk. “I did not meet Breslan until many years later.”

The other senior directors looked unimpressed.

On her left, Larani Tal sat with her back to the window, anxiously scanning the contents of a tablet. The woman's dark hair was a mess, flyaway strands falling over her otherwise lovely face.

Glin Karon was on her right, sitting still with his hands in his lap. A short, compact man in a high-collared shirt, he watched Slade with a wary expression, sweat glistening on his face.

And then there was Dray Adarus.

The man had come here from Leyria for the specific purpose of taking part in these hearings. His normal position was that of a program director for the many academies that trained young Keepers, and he was quite eager to find someone – anyone – who recalled teaching Cal Breslan.

Adarus was a tall man with broad shoulders and long blonde hair that fell in waves to the nape of his neck. His face was handsome enough. Well…in her estimation, it was a little too handsome. She had never cared for statuesque men.

Jena leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed, watching Slade like a hawk. “So you don't know any of his instructors?” she asked, raising a thin eyebrow. “You can't point us to anyone that could verify our records?”

“How many times must we go over this, Director Morane?” Slade asked. “I did not know Cal Breslan until he was many years out of the academy.”

Glin Karon lifted his chin to appraise the other man. “It seems to me that this is a problem,” he said, turning in his chair. “You have placed several commendations in Cal Breslan's file. You are the head of the Justice Keepers.”

“Until you choose to depose me.”

Jena stood.

She paced a line behind the table with hands clasped behind her back, heaving out a frustrated sigh. “The problem, Slade,” she said, “is that it's been almost three months, and we can't find anyone who can verify the information in Breslan's file.”

The man had supposedly been a Keeper for more than twenty years, and with the shortened lifespan that came as a result of bonding a Nassai, it was not surprising that many of his instructors were dead. Those that were still alive had retired to one of the outer colonies and were now conveniently unavailable.

Slade remained as cold as a snowstorm, his face betraying not one particle of emotion. “And whose problem is that?” he asked. “If you cannot produce sufficient evidence to demonstrate that I was involved in this so-called conspiracy, then by law, you must drop all charges.”

Larani Tal fixed her gaze upon the man, blinking behind strands of long dark hair. “This is a serious matter,” she insisted. “Director Slade, would you at least describe what made you willing to trust Breslan?”

“He was competent.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“I have already been more-”

Clenching her teeth, Jena shut her eyes tight. “The man had a symbiont, Slade,” she said. “A symbiont that was willing to kill for him. Can you explain that?”

Slade regarded her with that flat expression, undaunted by the question. “No,” he said simply. “I was not there when Breslan bonded his symbiont. Though it occurs to me that you may have overlooked the simplest explanation.”

“And what's that?”

“Has it occurred to you, Director Morane…” he asked, slouching down in his chair with hands folded behind his head. The smug little grin on his face made her want to slap him. “That a lifetime of exposure to Breslan's mind might have corrupted the symbiont?”

It was a good tactic.

With one seemingly innocent question, Slade had cast doubt on the very foundation of their institution. She could already sense the rising tension. Nassai bonded humans and then – when their hosts died – they returned to their Collective, carrying the sum total of that person's knowledge and experience. Who could say how that would affect a race of interconnected beings?

Could humanity have slowly perverted the Nassai? The symbiont that she carried replied to that with a resounding “No.” Jena was hit with a wave of disgust so profound it almost made her nauseous. Silence lasted for nearly a minute before someone finally decided to speak.

Dray Adarus rose from his chair, standing tall and proud like the statue he was. “I think we should change course,” he said, glaring at Slade. “You gave Breslan a commendation for his work on Palisa.”

“We've been over this…”

Adarus scrubbed a hand over his face, massaging away what looked like a nasty headache. “And we'll go over it again,” he replied. “What specifically motivated you to decorate Breslan?”

Slade turned in his chair to face his accuser, the slight flush in his cheeks the only sign of his annoyance. “Cal Breslan quickly and efficiently brought down a cabal of arms dealers,” he said. “Thus promoting peace on the Fringe.”

Jena had a few things to say about that. Leyria took a very negative stance on the issue of skirmishes between its colony worlds and the nearby Antauran territories. As if political will alone would stop the violence. The Core Worlds could preach peace until their lungs exploded, and it wouldn't change the fact that many of those skirmishes were caused by Antaurans raiding Leyrian outposts.

So how did the homeworld respond to this? By restricting the flow of weapons to its outer colonies. Leyria's position was that the colonists should just come home. Never mind the fact that doing so would leave three habitable worlds and over a dozen space stations ripe for Antauran conquest. All that would do was create a new Fringe, one much closer to the homeworld.

“I think,” Slade began, “that we are done here.” He stood up, smoothing wrinkles from his coat and pants with a sigh. “Breslan hid is treachery well. His schemes to aid and abet the terrorist Leo were as unknown to me as they were to you.”

“Sit down,” Jena ordered.

Slade flowed around the table, all the way to the door. He paused there for a brief moment, keeping his back turned. “I think not, Director Morane,” he said. “I will return to my quarters, where I will remain under lock and key until you decide to do away with these insulting allegations.”

Double doors slid open, and Slade stepped through, spinning around to give them all one last withering glare. “Be swift in your decision,” he advised. “I have decided that I have no more patience for foolishness.”

And just like that, the meeting was over.