[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.”“Shady drug dealers? You don’t say?”Susan smiled and found herself actually liking this man a bit.“Yeah, well, I think the only thing that kept them in line was the name Reginald Bailey.”Reece nodded.“My employer had the same type of recognition.Until, that is, he was shot at his daughter’s wedding.Blew him away, right there in the middle of the temple.”Susan felt the deception immediately, but she didn’t know what it meant.Reece was watching the ground, but his alertness had shot up again.She decided to tread carefully.“How’d that happen?” she asked.“I’d have thought security be tight.”Whatever she’d said, or perhaps not said, must have been right because Reece’s alertness and suspicion died away.“Security was tight and someone still found a way to kill Mr.Woodson.” He shook his head.“Bad business.” He glanced at her again.“Actually, Mr.Woodson was gunned down on the temple’s lawns.”Susan nodded.The deception suddenly made sense.He’d been testing her.The comment about Mr.Woodson being gunned down in the middle of the temple had been a test to see if she would accidentally correct him.Although it wasn’t much of a test.Richard had even mentioned to her that Woodson had been shot at the wedding.Any details she knew, she could have heard from him.Didn’t matter now; she’d passed the test.Reaching the cargo bay, Reece’s men were already waiting for them.Reece excused himself and stepped over to speak with them; it didn’t take long.He returned a few moments later.“You’re cleared for takeoff.My men are notifying Port Control now.Shouldn’t be many ahead of you, so it shouldn’t take long.”Susan nodded as relief surged through her.“Thanks for doing the re-inspection.”Reece only waved his hand as he and his men walked down the cargo ramp.Susan glanced at Adam, but he was already heading for the bridge.Reece had been correct in his guess that not many ships were ahead of them in the line for liftoff.Port Control gave the immediate green light and within minutes of Reece’s departure they lifted off the ground.Shortly thereafter, they were free of the atmosphere and pushing for deep space.As soon as they broke free of the planet’s gravity, Russell left the bridge to go help Jessica move her patients to the med bay; leaving Adam and Susan alone on the bridge.“Where do we go from here?” Adam asked.Susan hadn’t given this much thought.She’d expected Aaron to be here to make those decisions, but she didn’t want to wait around for him to get better.“Beta Leporis,” she answered after a moment’s thought.Adam turned in his chair to look at her.“That’ll take a month!”“We don’t have to go the whole way,” she replied, “but it gives us somewhere to start.”Chapter 34The first three days of the trip passed slowly.Eric and Thomas were treated by Jessica and released.Their bones were fused, but they were still in bad shape.Jessica had given them some shots that would make their bodies heal quicker, but now it was just a matter of time for them.Susan ordered them locked in the two cabins again.Neither man had much liked this, but they hadn’t grumbled.well, not too much.The rest of the crew fell into a normal routine.Besides the normal ship’s activities, they pretty much stayed to themselves.They were waiting, plain and simple.Waiting to see if Aaron would live or not.Aaron’s condition improved with time and on the second day, Jessica proclaimed that she felt confidant her patient would pull through.This news brought smiles and cheers all around and it seemed like a depression lifted from the crew.There were even a few jokes for the first time in days.Susan was sitting alone on the bridge, watching the deep, gloomy blackness of the wormhole; for some reason she always felt it was depressing.She always preferred a star-filled sky.She was feeling better, relieved beyond words that Aaron would awake sooner or later and take back the burden of leadership.She didn’t like it, didn’t want it, and would prefer never to be in charge again.There were still worries, but somehow the simple knowledge that Aaron would still be around made those worries diminish.She might worry about them later, but not now.Now, she was simply waiting on.“Med bay to bridge.Susan, are you there?”Susan’s feet slid off of the console and smacked the deck.She reached over and pushed the intercom button.“Go ahead, Jessica.”“He’s conscious,” was all Jessica said, but Susan was already sliding down the ladder before she finished speaking.Susan was quite sure that she had set some kind of record for getting from the bridge to the med bay as she sprinted through the doors.Aaron was lying on a bunk, looking frail.He’d lost weight, and his skin looked pale and a bit waxen.Susan stopped just inside the doors and telepathically reached out.It was Aaron all right.He was tired, sore, and even hungry, but it was him.A sadness gripped her then and she felt like crying.It was strange; she hadn’t cried since she was ten or so, but the urge to weep came upon her and it was all she could do to fight it off.“Hey,” Aaron croaked.His voice broke in the middle and he half-grinned.Susan walked over slowly, returning his smile as she got closer.“I thought we might lose you there for a while.”“That’s what Jessica says.”Susan glanced around and found Jessica smiling at the two of them.The smile suggested that the doctor suspected there was more to Aaron and Susan’s relationship.Her smile faltered as Susan’s eyes swept over her, and she excused herself and stepped out through the med bay’s double doors.Susan slid a small stool over and sat down to the left of Aaron’s bed.“So how did your first command go?” Aaron asked.Susan sighed.“I never want to be in command again,” she answered honestly.“You can have it.”Aaron grinned.“Thanks, because I’ve missed it.”She spent a few minutes catching him up on the drug run and the events at the spaceport.He seemed impressed with her command decisions and that she had locked up Eric and Thomas for the time being.“Enough about that, though,” Susan said a tad impatiently.“I want to know what happened to you.I already know you completed the assignment, but I want to know the rest.”Aaron nodded and told her the details of his mission, right up to finding Thomas sitting on his doorstep [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]