Depths of Blue Page 20

  “Anything I should know about?”

  Jak’s only answer was to lift one shoulder and turn away. His evasion irritated her, and she stared at him, lips pursed. By now he should know that one way or another, she would get to the bottom of things. She was about to push him on it further when she noticed the other Devonite soldiers watching them closely. A few of them stood in a cluster off to one side and were engaged in an animated discussion. The way they kept turning and looking at the two of them, it was obvious that they were discussing her.

  “Do I need to be worried about these guys?”

  Surprised, Jak looked her in the face, then looked over the men around them. “Probably not. I outrank most of them, and that should keep them in line. Devonite men aren’t like the Orthodoxans.” He sneered slightly. “Of course, there are always some assholes. Just make sure you’re not caught out by yourself with any of them.”

  “So nothing’s really changed then, has it?” Torrin said accusingly.

  “What do you mean?” Jak looked confused.

  “Just like in the wilderness, I still need to rely on you to keep me safe.” Torrin wasn’t happy with this turn of events at all. One of the reasons she worked alone was because she valued her independence more highly than almost anything else. It was sometimes dangerous and often lonely, but she didn’t have to rely on anyone but herself. Her constant need to rely on a man for the past week had irked her intensely. “I can take care of myself, you know. I don’t need some guy who thinks with the hair on his chest to be watching over me.”

  “Oh, I know,” Jak replied. By the slight quirk of his eyebrow Torrin knew he still had more than a few doubts in that department. She hadn’t had much opportunity to prove to him that she could handle herself. She looked forward to changing his mind.

  “Let’s go! Wrap it up!” The shout came from their little convoy’s lead vehicle. The men bustled about, securing weapons in the trucks. Sighing, Torrin allowed herself to be led back to their transport. She clambered into the backseat and was sitting there with her arms folded when Jak joined her. There was no way she was pouting, she told herself. She was planning, pure and simple. That and looking forward to wiping the sly little eyebrow quirk off Jak’s face when he discovered exactly how well equipped she was to take care of herself. In her current black mood, he was about to find out firsthand how skilled she was at watching her back.

  She had the biggest bargaining session of her life coming up. This one could literally mean the difference between life and death. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to trade as if her life depended on it. Torrin took a deep breath and pushed the aggravation away from her. It wasn’t a productive emotion. She didn’t understand how her emotions for Jak could flit between arousal, affection and rage so quickly. Obsessing over the sniper wasn’t productive either. She tried to put him from her mind.

  From a pocket, she produced the comb that Jak had whittled for her a lifetime ago. As she pulled it through her hair, she mentally composed a list of what she could offer. She already knew what she would ask for in payment. If she played her cards right, she could end up not only with her life but with the biggest score of her career.

  * * *

  The second leg of their journey was almost over, and Jak was getting restless. She was glad that she’d been able to procure more stims. With luck she wouldn’t need the entire week’s supply she’d managed to pick up, though her body was needing the pills more frequently now. Instead of taking them every twenty-seven hours, she was down to twenty-three hours between doses. She’d never had to take them for this long. Addiction was no worry with the pills, but the other side effects were going to be brutal. She hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with any complications beyond vast amounts of sleep. In training, the doctors had given them some medical gobbledygook about immune system compromise if the pills were taken for too long. If that meant she ended up with a cold as the price for living on stims for a week and a half, then so be it. A little stuffiness and cough would serve her right.

  She smiled ruefully. Torrin would be pissed if she knew that Jak had picked up more of them. She needed to make sure she didn’t find out. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Since their refueling stop Torrin had been withdrawn and distracted.

  The bouncing of the truck’s wheels over well-traveled dirt roads was replaced by the hum of concrete under their tires. They were close to Fort Marshall if they’d hit paved roads. The end to the bouncing and shuddering of the vehicle over the rough roads was welcome, and though motion sickness was no longer a threat, her stomach clenched with concern. One way or the other, she was about to face the piper. She hoped it would go well, for Torrin more than herself.

  After another fifteen minutes the truck slowed and came to a stop. The men disembarked, leaving her and Torrin. The smuggler stood, hunched over to avoid the low ceiling. Jak took her arm.

  “Good luck,” Jak said. Torrin turned to regard her and gave her a little smile.

  “Thanks.” Her smile widened. “I think your commanders are the ones who need the luck, though.”

  Torrin seemed a different woman; she radiated confidence. Seeing her like this, Jak knew that Central Command was in for a shock. The smuggler’s confidence cheered her up. As she followed Torrin out of the truck, however, she spotted the last face she wanted to see glaring at her from the surrounding crowd. Her knee buckled when she landed, and she jostled into Torrin.

  “Look out there, tiger,” Torrin laughed, righting her with a quick grab of her upper arm. When Jak didn’t respond, Torrin followed her gaze to the ginger-mustached man gazing at them. “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s my Intel Officer, McCullock.” Jak groaned. “We don’t see eye to eye. I was hoping that by being routed here I wouldn’t have to deal with him. He’s not going to be happy with the way the mission turned out. In fact, not only did I botch it, I managed not to get myself killed.”

  “How did you botch the mission? You killed Hutchinson.”

  “Hutchinson wasn’t my target.” She looked Torrin in the eye, considering if she should tell her. The smuggler was going in to deal with Central Command. If Torrin knew that they’d wanted her dead, she would have a serious edge over them. As she deliberated with herself, Torrin waited, getting visibly nervous.

  “Hutchinson wasn’t my target,” she repeated, her mind made up. “You were.”

  * * *

  When Torrin was eleven, she’d begged and pleaded until her adoptive mother had gotten her a wild plains pony to gentle all on her own. She had loved that little pony, but breaking her to saddle and bit had been a struggle. The pony had kicked her in the chest once as she’d passed behind to saddle her. That powerful little pony’s hoof to the sternum had knocked the wind out of her, but it hadn’t hurt nearly as much as Jak’s revelation. Her ears roared, and for a moment her vision darkened. Now it was Jak’s turn to reach out and steady her.

  “You see why I couldn’t tell you?” Jak asked. His eyes were deeply concerned, begging her to believe him.

  “Uh, yeah.” Her voice was unsteady, and she had to force out the response. Her breath caught, and she forced herself to breathe normally. “You could have picked a better time to drop that bombshell, though.” She needed to avoid any sign of weakness, and she pushed herself away from his steadying grasp. “I’m fine.” While she understood why Jak hadn’t told her sooner, she was still unaccountably hurt by his admission. He could have told her before this. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had plenty of opportunities.

  “You need to use this to your advantage,” Jak pressed. “Make them pay for wanting you dead.” His gaze was intense. Surely she was imagining it, but an emotion akin to fury seethed in the depths of his regard.

  “Don’t you worry,” Torrin said. Her anger rose to match his. They wouldn’t know what hit them. She smiled again. Jak stepped back half a step, and she wondered what her face had looked like. Quickly she got hold of her emotions and calmed herself. It wouldn’t do to hav
e the Devonite Central Command Council know she was onto them.

  “Stowell.” The ginger-haired, mustachioed man pushed his way through the crowd and settled himself in front of them, arms akimbo. He was a couple of inches shorter than Torrin but still loomed over Jak.

  “Sir,” Jak responded, a match for his tone in coldness. He waited just a shade too long before he saluted, and McCullock’s face darkened at the calculated insult.

  He pushed his face right into the sniper’s. “You’ve gone too far this time.” Spittle flew from his lips, and his voice dripped triumph and venom. “You’ll be cashiered for this little stunt.”

  “I don’t know about that, sir.” Jak’s gaze didn’t waver, eyes driving into McCullock’s like nails. “They’re getting an opportunity they wouldn’t have if I’d actually followed your asinine orders.”

  “So you admit disobeying a direct order!” McCullock’s voice rose in victory. “I’ll see you court-martialed and tried for treason. You’ll be facing a firing squad before you know it.”

  Jak just stared back at him. He stepped back and watched the wild-eyed officer, who was breathing so hard the ends of his mustache trembled. McCullock became aware that a deathly quiet had descended over the crowd, and he glanced around shiftily to see a crowd of soldiers staring at them.

  “What’s worse, sir?” Jak asked. His voice was loud enough that those watching could hear him clearly. “Bringing back an asset to the war effort or not letting the border posts know that there was a soldier out on a run on the other side of the fence who hadn’t come back on schedule?”

  Torrin had only thought it was deathly quiet. It shouldn’t have been possible for things to get any quieter, but they did. No one moved, and she was pretty sure everyone stopped breathing.

  The officer drew himself up, visibly tamping down his emotions. “I don’t know how that happened. I gave the order to notify the trenches and border posts. It must have gone astray somewhere.” Torrin found his display unconvincing. Jak just nodded.

  “Of course, sir,” he replied evenly.

  A short man, barely a couple of centimeters taller than Jak, appeared next to McCullock. His hair was gray at the temples, and he was clad in rumpled fatigues that looked as if they’d been recently slept in. By contrast, McCullock was dressed to the nines in a peaked cap, pressed uniform, with medals and service ribbons decorating the front.

  The disheveled man glared at McCullock. “I believe your presence is needed elsewhere, Captain.”

  McCullock jumped and paled. He gave a half bow, bending slightly at the waist. “Of course, General. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. I meant no disrespect, sir.”

  “Just go, McCullock. We’ll discuss this later. Dismissed.” He turned away from the disgraced captain to Torrin. “My apologies, Miss Ivanov. Some of my subordinates can be more than a little overzealous. I am General Callahan. Some call me Central Command.” The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, she noticed. He had a calming presence. He exuded so much steadiness that she would have sworn he could have kept his balance while balanced on the wing of a ship while it navigated an asteroid field.

  “No problem, though if anyone needs an apology, it’s this man.” She indicated Jak with a wave of the arm. If she could mitigate some of the punishment he feared was coming, then she wanted to do so. Even though he should have told her the truth about his orders days ago, it didn’t change the fact that he’d saved her too many times to count over the past weeks.

  “Certainly,” Callahan said. “Sergeant Stowell will be dealt with in accordance with his actions.” He smiled, the grin splitting his face. He must have been hoping that she would miss the part where he guaranteed nothing about Jak’s treatment, for good or for ill. He needed to get up earlier than that to pull that sort of obfuscation over on her. She made her trade with words; he would find out soon enough why she was so good at her job.

  “Why don’t we get you somewhere where you can get cleaned up?” Callahan said. He glanced over his shoulder and motioned to someone in the crowd. A man separated himself from the crush of soldiers who’d been watching with open interest as events transpired. This soldier was better dressed than the general, though not as snappily as McCullock. He had the look of an officer to him, which was confirmed by the way the Devonite enlisted men parted for him.

  “Come along, let me show you the showers,” Callahan said.

  A shower! As heavenly as that sounded, she kept an eye over her shoulder as Jak was escorted in the opposite direction. She caught his eye and sent him what reassurance she could. His pale face looked like he needed it. Callahan threaded her hand through the crook of his elbow. It should have been awkward, given the difference in their heights, but it felt surprisingly natural. He chatted amiably to her as the crowd evaporated around them. The new officer trailed behind them at a respectful distance.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jak glanced back at Torrin as she was escorted away. Torrin caught her eye and winked.

  “Time to debrief, Sarge,” the soldier to her left informed her. “Sorry, we can’t stop for anything.” Jak glared at him, her irritable persona firmly in place now that she was back among her people.

  “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” Jak demanded hoarsely.

  “No! Not at all, Sarge! Just if you were hungry or thirsty or…wanted a shower or something like that, we can’t stop.” The poor man looked extremely uncomfortable. If Torrin had been there, she would have been in stitches over the uneasy soldier’s discomfort while he struggled with to find a graceful way to tell a non-com that he stank.

  “Fine,” she said while inside she chuckled. Neither of her two escorts attempted any further conversation as they accompanied her through the fort. Their destination ended up being a singularly unprepossessing building. It was of middling size and of indefinable color. Everything about the building screamed that it was unimportant. In Jak’s experience, that meant there was no doubt it was extremely important.

  The two men accompanied her into the building and up to the second story where they left her in front of a plain wooden door. She pushed open the door and was greeted by two officers…and McCullock.

  “Stowell,” he sneered. Both men turned and looked at him with such disdain that he seated himself in one of the chairs along the wall, muttering to himself all the while. The men were both colonels. From the looks of their uniforms, one was Operations and the other Intelligence. In stark contrast to McCullock, they both wore fatigues instead of dress greens. The Ops colonel walked forward with his hand extended.

  “Sergeant Stowell,” he greeted her warmly. “Congratulations on taking out Hutchinson. We missed a few opportunities to nail the bastard back before he got taken off front line operations.” His grim smile exposed slightly crooked teeth. Grasping her hand, he shook it firmly. “Whatever else happens, remember that you avenged the deaths of hundreds of Devonite soldiers.”

  Whatever else happens? That didn’t sound promising.

  “Wait,” she said, cottoning to the other part of what he’d said. “How did you know—?”

  “That Hutchinson is dead?” The Ops colonel thumbed his right earlobe. “Good news travels fast. Besides, we have friends in all sorts of places. The Orthodoxans think their force field holds us out, but you know better than most how porous their fence really is.”

  The other man, a little shorter than Ops, came over and took her hand as well. “I just want to add my congratulations to Colonel Elsby’s. So good job, Sergeant. Now let’s get started.”

  Elsby grinned at his colleague. “Wolfe is impatient to debrief,” he informed her conspiratorially. “His kind are always after the next piece of intel. You and I know it’s all about what you can do, but he’s all about what he can learn.”

  Wolfe had seated himself in one of the chairs behind the long table that dominated the far end of the room. One chair faced the table, and he gestured toward it, indicating that she should sit.

&
nbsp; “It’s because of what we find out that you know what to do,” Wolfe said, straightening the papers in front of him and opening a plain white folder. His voice held the weariness of an argument often debated.

  “That’s fair,” Elsby admitted, crossing the room to take one of the other seats behind the table. They left the middle chair empty. Jak waited for McCullock to take the third chair, but he showed no signs of moving.

  Wolfe caught her glance over at the still muttering captain. “He’s not part of the debrief. He’s only here to give us background on your original mission parameters.”

  “That’s right, the original mission parameters,” McCullock repeated with heated emphasis. “Since you strayed so far from the original mission as to leave it completely unrecognizable.”

  “And now we have an unanticipated opportunity” came a voice from behind them. Recognizing the voice, Jak came rigidly to attention. General Callahan closed the door and crossed the room to take the empty chair. All three men came to attention and saluted. Callahan returned their salutes. “At ease,” he told Jak as he sat.

  Jak snapped off her best salute and dropped into parade rest.

  “Take a seat, son,” he told her in a fatherly tone. “I’m sure you’ve been through a lot.”

  “Sir,” Jak agreed and carefully sat in the chair.

  “Now tell us what happened out there. Take your time, but be thorough. We need details only you can give us so we know how to proceed.”

  Jak wondered what kind of information they were looking for. Intel on the Orthodoxans or on Torrin? Probably both. She swallowed hard and launched into her account of events. She needed to spin this just enough that they realized how great an asset Torrin could be. Maybe they would overlook the part where she’d gone completely rogue on her assignment. That would require glossing over quite a few details, but if she stuck to the bare bones of her account and let them draw their own conclusions, she might get away with this. She hoped.