Justice Keepers Saga - Books 7-9

Chapter 2-1

Bright sunlight coming through the window glinted off the surface of a round conference table in a room with sky-blue walls. The man who sat directly across from Anna was tall and broad-shouldered with a hollow-cheeked face of dark brown skin. His hair was cut short, barely more than stubble, and he had a stare that could pierce through to your very soul. “So, the intelligence was bad,” he said. “They had no weapons.”

Director Jon Andalon sat back with his arms folded and raised an eyebrow as he waited for Anna"s response. She still wasn"t entirely sure what to make of him. The man wasn"t a stickler for the rules by any measure, but he lacked Jena"s flare for bucking the system at every opportunity. He seemed to be the sort of Keeper who just wanted to get down to business.

Anna wore a light blue sundress as she sat with elbows on the armrests of her chair, hands folded over her belly. Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail, a lock of peroxide-blonde strands falling over one cheek.

Pressing her lips together, Anna held the man"s gaze for a long moment. “That"s the gist of it,” she said, nodding to him. “We searched each and every cargo hold on Colonel Sorelu"s ship, and we found nothing.”

On her left, Melissa wore a yellow skirt and a white sleeveless blouse. The young woman had a confidence in her stare that hadn"t been there just a few weeks ago. “They had telepaths,” she said. “They said they"d been attacked by Keepers before.”

“So your report indicated.”

“I believe this was a setup, sir.”

Anna felt a surge of pride when she heard her young pupil speak up without a trace of hesitation. Melissa had always been a little shy, and she still preferred to remain quiet throughout most meetings, but a Justice Keeper had to be able to speak her mind when it counted. Amazing what a few successful missions could do.

“You seem to trust this colonel,” Jon said. “Is there any chance that he was hiding weapons elsewhere on the ship?”

Anna scowled, then gave her head a shake. “I doubt it,” she replied. “The man was way too eager to help us. He seemed to want to prove himself.”

wayReclining in his chair, Jon covered his mouth with three fingers and stared blankly at nothing at all. “Then the real question becomes "who is setting us up?" ” he whispered. “You said the Antaurans were attacked by fallen Keepers.”

“Most likely Isara"s crew.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

Anna grinned into her lap, her cheeks suddenly very warm. “Can I be sure of that?” she said, her eyebrows rising. “Of course not, but who else would it be? Pretty much all of Slade"s minions report to her now.”

“Then it seems our next goal should be to liaise with the Antaurans,” Jon said. “We should make it a priority to find out who has been attacking them and perhaps offer some assistance.”

“That could be tricky,” Anna replied. “Councilor Dusep has the media all riled up about us. We start talking to a hostile foreign government without direct approval from the Hall of Council, and there"s a good chance badness will ensue.”

“Your suggestion?”

Tilting her head back, Anna blinked several times as she thought it over. “I would be uncomfortable doing anything without talking to Larani first,” she answered. “She"s supposed to be back in a few days.”

“I suppose that"s wise.”

With a frustrated grunt, Jon stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt. He glanced first at her and then at Melissa, nodding to each of them in turn. “Well done,” he said, before walking out of the room.

Short and to the point, all business and no pleasure. Not that there was very much pleasure to be had in discussing someone"s attempts to start a shooting war between her people and the Antaurans. Whatever was going on, they had to get to the bottom of it and soon. Nothing about this sat well with her.

After Slade used the Key to open the SuperGates, hostile civilizations that had been separated by thousands of lightyears were suddenly capable of showing up in each other"s backyards. It seemed the Overseers wanted a shooting war. Or at least Slade had, which meant the minions who had committed themselves to carrying out his legacy wanted one just as badly.

Anna got up and made her way around the table.

A moment later, Melissa fell in at her side, reaching up to thread fingers through her long, dark hair. “You really think Isara"s trying to set us up?” she inquired. “Don"t the Antaurans have enough reason to hate us?”

“Maybe they do,” Anna said softly. “Maybe this whole damn thing is a field of dry grass, and Isara wants to light a match.”

In the long hallway outside the conference room, they found Keli standing on the tiled floor with her arms folded. The woman wore a pair of black pants and a white short-sleeved shirt. “What did he decide?”

“You can"t just read our minds?” Melissa asked.

“You"re all two-souls, remember?”

Anna held the woman"s gaze for a long moment, her eyebrows slowly rising. Did Keli really think that she could just waltz back in here without any consequences? “That is really not your biggest concern,” she said. “You"ve been avoiding me since we got back from the raid.”

notWhen Keli looked up, her dark eyes were full of anger. “Can you blame me?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. “I"m really not looking forward to one of your lectures on the sanctity of life.”

“You killed two people!”

“Two enemies.”

Other Keepers who stood further up the hallway stopped in their tracks and glanced back in her direction. Great! Just what she needed! Anna didn"t mind making a scene if it was necessary, but she wasn"t exactly thrilled about the notion of her colleagues finding out that someone under her command had killed in cold blood. Few things could embarrass her, but this was one. She started up the corridor, leaving the telepath to revel in her own satisfaction. There was no point to continuing this fight.

Keli fell in step beside her with hands clasped behind her back, smiling pleasantly like a girl at a carnival. “I"ll tell you the same thing I told Larani,” she said. “I do things my way.”

Maybe the ideal Keeper would have reacted differently. Maybe the model officer that Larani wanted to see in all of her subordinates would have found a better way to deal with this. Anna was none of those things. What she was was pissed off and way too impulsive for her own good.

Anna spun to put herself in front of the other woman.

She punched Keli right in the face, using maybe a tenth of her full strength. It was still enough to make the woman cover her nose and dance backwards in a daze. “You…” Keli mumbled. “You would…”

That look came over her, the one that said she was about to rip through your mind with nothing more than a casual thought. And she could probably do it, if she really tried. Telepaths were dangerous.

Anna narrowed her eyes and refused to look away. “Go ahead,” she said, nodding to the other woman. “Lash out the way you did on that ship; make me pay for it. You do know your actions could have gotten us killed, right?

do“They were-”

“Enemies, yes.” Anna strode forward with her arms crossed, pursing her lips and shaking her head. “Except the only thing that made Colonel Sorelu willing to order his officers to put down their weapons was the fact that we had tried so hard to avoid using lethal force.”

avoidWith her mouth open, Keli stepped back and shook her head. “I…I didn"t know.” A moment later, her resolve hardened again. “But I maintain that what I did was absolutely necessary for-”

Planting fists on her hips, Anna looked up at the other woman. The heat in her face was hard to ignore. “You could have used stun-rounds to incapacitate those two telepaths. They would have been no threat to you.”

“I determined-”

“I"ve determined that you were angry,” Anna spat. Too angry to think, which meant that Keli shouldn"t have been on that mission in the first place. That, however, was Anna"s fault. “You wanted a little payback for what"s been done to you, and I don"t blame you for that. What was done to you was monstrous. But even my sympathy has limits. You want to work out your issues, Keli? See a therapist. When you"re a part of my team, you put the mission first.”

I"veKeli was speechless.

“The fact that we were part of an official military operation makes this a combat situation,” Anna went on. “Which means I can"t charge you with murder. But if you ever pull something like that again, I"ll bury you in a hole so deep you"ll forget what sunlight feels like. Are we clear?”

ever“As glass.”

“Good.”

As she emerged from a bus onto the sidewalk of a curving street where trees lined the curb, Anna took a moment to examine her surroundings. The blue sky was devoid of cloud cover, the air hot and humid. Buildings that stood no more than three stories high were packed closely together, some with store-front windows that looked into restaurants or recreation centres.

With a surge of irritation, Anna looked up to squint at the sun. “Hot, sticky and late,” she said. “Exactly what I need if I want to avoid the customary familial nagging session.”

Name the bleakness, and gaze into its void.

Her father stood in front of a restaurant with a large front window, dressed in a pair of black slacks and a high-collared coat. Why men insisted on such suffocating attire in the blazing heat was beyond her.

Beran Lenai was a short, compact man with fair skin and red hair that was turning gray. His goatee already had more than a few flecks of silver. “You are late,” he said in that matter-of-fact voice only a parent could manage.

You“Glad you noticed.”

“Your hair…It"s white.”

Grinning with a burst of soft laughter, Anna felt her cheeks burn. She bowed her head to her father. “Your powers of observation are serving you well today,” she teased. “You said blue hair was unacceptable, so…”

Inside, she found a large room with wooden tables spread out on the carpeted floor. Her family was sitting around a long, rectangular table with candles and a bouquet of red roses. Everyone was present: her aunt Mianda, her uncle Sevan. And of course, there was Alia, the guest of honour.

Older than Anna by two years, Alia was taller, lankier. Her face was a perfect oval where Anna"s was round. Her hair was long enough to reach her shoulder-blades and still in its natural strawberry-blonde colour. And of course, she wore a purple lilac on the strap of her pink dress, the sign of a bride to be.