Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

Karam leaned back, scowling. “Hell, considering just how far under the radar this mission will have to run, our side won’t have any indication that any shift-carrier arrived in the system at all. Given what I’ve seen of Slaasriithi shift precision, they’re going to be coming in behind gas giants, run slow and silent while they take on fuel, and then begin preacceleration for the next shift.”

Riordan nodded. “That’s the expectation. The Slaasriithi are also loaning us some of their technology and technical specialists to help make our job a little easier, but we won’t get a chance to look inside their machinery. Their technical specialists are also duennas for their high-tech toys.”

“What kind of toys?” Sleeman asked eagerly.

“We’ll have a few of those high-speed drone-fighters we saw in orbit: ‘cannonballs,’ according to the apt Ktoran slang. And a few of the autonomous munitions platforms like the one we used at the river battle, but larger.”

Dora leaned far back in her chair. “All weaponry. Why do I not like the sound of that and what it implies about our mission for Yiithrii’ah’aash?”

Riordan shrugged. “With any luck at all, we’ll have no reason to use it as anything other than insurance or leverage. But if we do, then we let the Slaasriithi ROVs both dish out and take the heat instead of us.”

O’Garran nodded. “I like the sound of that .”

Karam scratched his left ear. “There’s something I don’t like the sound of: the length of the trip.”

Caine nodded. “Yeah, it’s long.”

“How long?” Dora asked quickly.

“Six shifts to get back into human space at 70 Ophiuchi. Another three shifts to our, uh, final destination.”

Veriden rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like I don’t know it’s Delta Pavonis.”

Caine smiled but ignored her. “All told, we’ll be lucky to get there by the second week of February.”

“That’s another four goddamned months!” Tina Melah cried.

“It is,” Caine agreed. “And you’ll be spending them in cold-sleep, just like you did on the way out here.”

Melissa’s eyes were wide with interest. “Can the Slaasriithi cold cells be adjusted to handle us?”

Caine shrugged. “They seem to think so, but we’re not going to find out. Since our best medical tests and scanners haven’t been able to detect their organics in our bloodstreams, we’re not about to take the risk of giving them our whole body to infuse. So we’ll rig the long-duration escape pods on Puller for the job.”

Dora folded her arms again. “They’re quad pods. That leaves two of us without a berth.”

“There’s a medical cold-cell in sick bay; that will provide for a ninth person.”

“There are ten of us,” Dora persisted.

Riordan smiled. “So we’ll draw straws. In the meantime, I’ll brief you on what I know of our mission during the preacceleration toward our first shift. That way, when everyone is awakened, we’ll be ready for an update and can hit the ground running. And once we’re done, we should be able to get back home to Earth a lot faster than before.”

Tygg frowned. “How?”

“Just before we left Sigma Draconis, I heard talk about the Republic setting up an express service using one or two of the captured Arat Kur shift carriers. With their greater range and reduced turnaround time, travel back to Earth should be reduced from six shifts to four, and only twelve weeks, total.”

“That’s still a long time,” Dora complained, “even from Delta Pavonis .”

Riordan just nodded: every day was a long time when you hadn’t seen your soulmate in nine months and hadn’t seen your son in — well, forever. “It will be good to get home,” he sighed. “We’ve been away too long.” He hung his head and laughed. “As I count it, I now owe my son Connor fourteen birthday presents. And his mother a proper proposal.”

Noticing the sudden silence, Caine looked up, discovered an oddly changed scene. Bannor, Tygg, Peter, Miles, and Karam were staring at the floor, faces wooden; the rest were staring at them, baffled.

“What is it with you guys?” Dora leaned forward. “Did someone die?”

Rulaine looked up, quick and hard. “Shut up.”

Dora blinked, frowned, opened her mouth.

“Just shut up, Dora.” He turned to Caine — who, seeing Bannor’s eyes, had the sudden sense that he might vomit: he’d seen eyes like that before. At funeral homes and intensive care wards.

“What is it?” Riordan asked. “What haven’t I been told?”

“Look,” started Bannor, hands opening into an appeal. “I didn’t know — none of us did — that you didn’t know about it. Not at first, and then—”

“That I didn’t know about what , goddamn it?” Riordan held his voice level, wasn’t sure if he’d be able to manage that measure of self-control again.

“Caine, if you go back to Earth, you won’t find her — Elena — there.”

Riordan’s thoughts spun off on their own, uncertain, inchoate. “Not on Earth? Why?”

Bannor opened his mouth, then looked away. Peter Wu took up the tale. “Commodore, back in Jakarta, after we took the Arat Kur headquarters, how much do you recall right after Shethkador shot you in the back with his environmental suit’s manipulator arm?”

Riordan frowned. “I–I don’t remember much. I remember falling. I remember most of you were there. I remember Elena screaming, her brother Trevor trying to call in a med-team. I remember feeling that arm sticking out of my back…”

The arm that was no longer attached to Shethkador’s faux environmental suit when Caine had confronted him again at Sigma Draconis, where the Ktor was still masquerading as a cold-planet entity calling itself Apt-Counsel-of-Lenses, and where—

— Apt-Counsel rolled closer to the platform. Caine watched for the angle of the manipulator arm, saw that it had not been replaced. And saw that the other arm was missing as well: a prudent precaution…

But what if the other arm hadn’t been removed as a prudent precaution? What if—?

“Shethkador shot Elena with the other arm a moment after you fell in Jakarta.” It was Rulaine’s voice again: bitter, tight, hating every word. “She was turning when he shot her. It hit her in the spleen, and a piece of the arm lodged in her spine. The two of you were assessed; our docs thought they might be able to save you, tried, had to ice you so that the Dornaani could work their medical magic later on.

“But they didn’t spend one second wondering if they could save Elena; she would have been dead within the hour. The Dornaani offered to mend her if they could, and our docs turned her over to them. They put her in one of their own ICU cold cells and took her away. At first, we thought Downing must have told you when they woke you up. We never guessed—”

“No, the son of a bitch never told me. Of course, he never tells me anything, never commits to anything.” Riordan didn’t remember getting to his feet. “But that’s going to change next time I meet him. Or he won’t walk away from that meeting.”

Riordan wasn’t paying attention to his tone of voice, wasn’t even bothering to choose his words. When he looked around the room again, he had paced halfway across the ring of chairs. The other nine were sitting up very straight; O’Garran had grown pale, Dora looked like she was ready to run, Tina’s eyes were wide.

Tygg’s voice rose behind him. “Caine, I was with Trevor when they took Elena away. Downing was right to do it. There wasn’t any other choice.”

“Maybe not. But he could have left me on Earth to be with her, to take care of Connor. And he sure as shit had the choice to tell me about it when they yanked me out of my cold cell.”