Ghost in the Machine (Corwint Central Agent Files) Read online

  “We’ll make it work.” Tara responded first. She could tell Brom wasn’t happy with the idea, but a feeling in her gut was telling her to trust Orynn’s judgment on this.

  “Thanks. I’ll give you a hand after I finish cleaning those filters.” Hank grinned at Tara, thankful she was backing his decision. Turning his eyes to Ethan, he decided to kill two birds with one stone. If Ethan was going to keep avoiding Orynn, he would force them to spend more time together.

  “Ethan, I’ll need you to work out the details of the landing papers for the checkpoints in Chronos. Orynn, I’ll need you to work with Ethan so he knows which ports we’ll need to get trade clearance from. Then we’ll need to chart a new course from Chronos to Gokem, and then to Tir, the quicker the better. Lives are depending on how fast we can make all this happen.”

  Ethan glanced at Hank and nodded. Dammit. “Understood.”

  Hank took another moment to look at everyone around the table. They had a mission and now they had a plan. It wasn’t a plan he would normally go with, but so far Orynn had saved them from shooting their way out of one hangar. Perhaps she could get them through this mission with all stations intact. So much for my record. “Ok then, let’s get to work.”

  A loud groaning rumble filled the conference room and all eyes turned to Brom’s stomach. Hank couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, food first before Brom starts eating the conference table.”

  “Thanks, Cap.” Brom stood and the rest followed him out of the conference room and headed toward the galley.

  10 Connection

  Orynn lingered only a short time in the kitchen. She enjoyed standing near the doorway and observing as Brom, Hank and Tara filled the small space with a chaotic energy. Brom turned out, much to her amusement, to be skilled with a knife and frying pan, while Tara had trouble using the small hydrator. Hank held an onion out of Tara’s reach, arguing with her that it didn’t belong in the omelet Brom was preparing. Orynn quietly laughed as Tara punched Hank in the stomach, causing him to drop the onion into her waiting hands. Without looking, Tara tossed the onion over her shoulder to Brom who promptly diced it and added it to the skillet.

  She had always found pleasure and solace in watching moments of positive interactions like this. She rarely participated, but just being there to witness it gave her a sense of being part of something greater than herself. They appeared to have forgotten that she was there as they carried out what seemed to her to be a well-practiced morning ritual. Not wanting to cause any disruption, she grabbed a ration bar from a box on the counter and slipped back into the corridor.

  Ethan had not joined the group in the galley. As she walked down the corridor eating the ration bar, Orynn wondered why he seemed so strange this morning. The progress from last night had vanished and he was once again avoiding her, however indirectly. She stuffed the empty wrapper in her pocket and stopped in front of an access panel. Accessing the Zera’s central computer, she surveyed a map of the ship and located Ethan in a room just off the bridge.

  For a brief moment, she considered heading back to her room and taking that missed shower, but she knew she was only procrastinating. Knowing it would be better to just get it over with, she put her feet in the direction of the bridge and started walking. Her mind began to wander and tried to think of any missteps she had taken with Ethan this morning that would cause the distance between them to reappear. Sure, she had stumbled into the hallway, knocking into him like a two day old brill hatchling, but that had been far from a reason to be upset with her. He had caught her, after all, and saved her from a hard and bruising wake up.

  A sudden shiver went across her skin as she remembered the feeling of his strong fingers grasping so delicately onto her shoulders. One of her shoulders had been bare. The shirts she wore were old and stretched too large in the neck, and they often draped off one shoulder. It hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but now she tried to recall what his touch had actually felt like.

  Instinctively, her hand went to her right shoulder, which was currently the bare one, and lightly brushed her fingers across it. She furrowed her brow in frustration as she tried to remember, but the memory was overshadowed by an intensely charged energy.

  Oh.

  She stopped in the middle of the hallway, and her expression went from frustration to a wide-eyed realization. Her hand slid down her shoulder and gripped the neck of her shirt. She clenched the fabric in her hand and pulled it up over her naked skin. The meeting with Ethan had just become complicated.

  She walked the rest of the way to bridge in a thoughtful daze trying to contemplate the best way to approach what happened. The bridge was eerily silent and gave the ship a cold lifeless feel. The central Captain’s chair turned as she ran her fingers across the padded headrest. The console in front of the chair showed that the ship was on autopilot and already heading towards the Chronos system. Although Orynn wanted to learn more about the ship itself, and an empty bridge offered her a prime opportunity, she turned the Captain’s chair back the way it had been and continued to the door that led to the side room.

  Ethan didn’t need the beeping com panel from his door to let him know that Orynn had arrived. He’d been watching her since she’d left the kitchen. He’d waited and watched, but the vulnerable bridge had earned only a passing glance from their guest. Any other spy would have used every possible moment to their advantage.

  She isn’t any other spy though, is she?

  He glanced over his shoulder at the beeping door panel. It was obvious that Hank and Tara had started to trust her, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to do the same. Last night, she had shared things with him that were unexpected of someone who may become their enemy, but he was still uncertain about the effects she was having on his system. He ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the ceiling.

  You know exactly why you don’t trust her. You still need a reason to keep her at a distance, despite what you really want, and despite what you did last night.

  He looked back down at the view-monitor. The com panel had stopped beeping and she was now standing outside his door with an uncertain look on her face. Her hand was hovering just over the com unit as she debated tapping it again. She lowered her hand, raised it again, rethought her action and lowered it again, this time turning to leave. Ethan felt his lips start to smile as he watched her movements. Even her awkwardness had a strangely beautiful grace to it.

  You know you want to talk to her.

  He hated when his own mind was betting against him. After a deep breath into his cooling system, he hit the com button and connected to the bridge. “I’m sorry, Orynn. I was running a diagnostic, but you may come in now.”

  Orynn stopped mid-step with her back to the door. She had almost made it off the bridge. Three more steps and she would have been on her way to a shower and away from a conversation she wasn’t looking forward to. Putting the well-practiced smile on her face, she turned and walked back to Ethan’s door. As she approached, it opened automatically, and she stepped into the dimly lit room that was filled with view-screens, technical panels and several other pieces of equipment she couldn’t identify at first glance.

  “Hello, Ethan.” Orynn stayed near the back of the room as the door slid shut behind her. “I hope I am not interrupting, but I thought it may be best for us to discuss the port arrangements as soon as possible.”

  “Now would be fine. I have already placed us on a course to Chronos territory and we will be in range of the first outpost check-station in twelve hours.” Ethan turned his chair slowly around to face his guest.

  It was strange having someone besides Hank in his domain. Thinking on it, he actually couldn’t recall a time when Tara or Brom had ever been in here. Looking at her, she seemed so uncomfortable standing in the doorway. One hand was clutching the shoulder of her shirt and the other was fidgeting next to her side. Her eyes were wandering around his room without really seeing any of it.

  She knows.

  She knew
he was looking at her, and she could stand the silence no longer. “This is your workstation?”

  “And my quarters.” He regretted saying it the moment it left his mouth. Her eyes darted around again and it looked like she wanted to run. He sighed inwardly. They needed to have this talk, or it would only get worse and the mission would suffer. He had to do something to salvage what he could. It was his fuckup, after all.

  “Would you like me to reduce the gravity? It may take us some time to square away the port clearances.”

  “I...” Her eyes finally settled on his face. Normally, she would avoid returning to low gravity after her adjustment process had begun, but her nerves could use the relaxation it would bring. “I would appreciate that. Twenty-four percent of normal at fifteen-percent per minute, please.”

  “And the lighting? I don’t need artificial lighting, so Hank normally complains that it’s too dark in here.”

  “No, the lighting is fine.” She looked to the glowing consoles behind him. “My eyes are better suited to lower levels.”

  “Understood. Zera,” Ethan spoke aloud to the ship’s computer, but kept his eyes on Orynn. At least she was looking in his direction now. “seal the door to this room and reduce the environmental gravity settings of the room twenty-four percent of normal at fifteen-percent per minute.”

  “Command confirmed.” The Zera’s voice was female, but lacked any hint of emotion. The door gave a hiss as the compression seal was put in place.

  Orynn let out a long breath as the gravity started to shift. Her whole body relaxed as the pressures on her muscles and lungs eased. “The Zera has an A.I.?”

  “Yes, but it’s not sentient.” Ethan continued to watch her as the gravity shifted. His own system kept his feet planted firmly on the ground as she slowly left it. When the tips of her sandals left the floor, she let out an audible sigh of relief. The hand clutching the shoulder of her shirt let go and the fabric drifted down her skin. Her eyelids grew heavy, and her shoulders sank backwards slightly with her torso arching upwards. When her eyes opened fully again, the mercury in her irises was glistening with a luminescence caused by the view-screens lit behind him.

  I want to touch her.

  She felt his eyes on her as the gravity finished adjusting. He had been sitting still and silent the nearly five minutes it had taken. She tried to read his expression, but it was as hard to understand as his unique aura. Inhaling deeply, she gathered her resolve and resisted the urge to look down at the floor. “I am sorry for this morning, Ethan. I had no right to do that.”

  Here it comes. Ethan’s hands tightened around the armrests of his chair. “I’m sorry too, and I can exp...”

  She held up her hand and stopped him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You stopped me from hurting myself, and I repaid it by connecting to your system without authorization.”

  This was not the reaction he was expecting, but he did his best to keep his confusion from showing on his face. “I thought I may have felt something, but I wasn’t sure.”

  She paused and bit her bottom lip, something she hadn’t done in a long time. This would be so much easier if he was not staring at me so intently.

  “I swear to you that I cut the connection as soon as I realized what I was doing. The connection was a subconscious reflex and I did not intend to invade your privacy. I read nothing from you, but that does not diminish what I allowed to happen.”

  She doesn’t know.

  He fought back a relieved smile. “It’s alright. You had just awoken, and I’m sure you wouldn’t have done it knowingly.”

  “Never.” The resolute honesty in her response broke Ethan’s stoic expression and he finally gave her a small smile. Relief washed over her entire body and she returned the smile. “Thank you for your understanding and your kindness.”

  Kindness wasn’t exactly the word he was thinking of. More like bastard, or prick, or fucking prick bastard.

  He pushed the thought away and kept the small smile on his lips. He should have left it at that, but he wanted to know more. “How are you able to do that, if you don’t mind my asking? Connect with tech, I mean.”

  “I listen.” Orynn moved closer to his chair and brought her legs up to a loose seating position. “Vesparians are not able to read minds like the Trexen, but we pride ourselves on being very good listeners. Everything has an energy that we can interpret, and we simply open ourselves to it and listen if chooses to speak to us. With tech, I have found that I can go beyond a simple one way connection. I can feed into that connection and make it flow both ways.”

  “So if I were to let you connect with me, you would be able to access my systems through that open connection, like a system terminal or communications array?”

  “Yes, exactly!” Orynn’s eyes lit up. He was grasping it so easily and she was thankful to have someone to converse with on this level.

  His smile widened at the excitement in her voice. “And all Vesparians can do this?”

  “No, not all, but the ability does seem to be increasing with each generation. It is something I realized very young, and I have worked for a long time to hone the skill.”

  He hung on every word. “But all Vesparians can do the projections and memory removal?”

  “We do not actually remove the memories, and that is a common misunderstanding with those we work with at Central. We did, at first, but we found that it could leave the brain damaged if too much had to be removed. So, we have found ways to alter and hide parts of a person’s memory to lessen the impact on their neural pathways.”

  He thought on that for a moment. It sounded like making a hidden file in a programmed system. The person’s brain wouldn’t know it was there because it wouldn’t know to look for it in the first place. “Does this mean the process can be reversed?”

  “Yes, it can be.” She looked at him before continuing. Jehdra had asked them to trust her and perhaps knowing this would help, even if the knowledge may be temporary. “Another Vesparian, or perhaps a well-trained Trexen, could reverse it. It is rarely done, however. If we change someone’s memory, we have a very good reason for doing so. In all my years, I have never done it.”

  “In all your years? How old are you?” The expression on her face changed and he wished he could learn to not ask every question that popped into his head. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

  She surveyed him for a long moment. She didn’t normally discuss her past or personal details with others, but she feared he would pull back again if she withheld from him. “I am two hundred and fourteen years of Corwint.”

  He could only imagine what she had seen in that time. “And is that considered... young for your people?”

  “Perhaps a few centuries ago, it would have. We spend the first sixty to eighty years of our lives learning how to control our abilities. Only after we are able to display control are we allowed to venture beyond the homeworld.”

  She paused and thought about stopping her explanation there. Her hand moved mindfully up to her hair clip. Pretending to adjust it, she trailed her fingers across its carved design of blooming roses and leafy vines. It was dangerous to let someone in. “However, circumstances being what they are now, the lifespan of my people has started to normalize with that of the Common races.”

  He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Normalize?”

  She gave a soft sigh and bit her bottom lip again. She knew she should stop. The hair clip digging into her scalp warned her to stop. It was information that she had previously only shared with a precious few, and all but Jehdra had now either forgotten her existence or they were dead. Her eyes looked to the side as she weighed her response. When her voice finally came forth with a reply, it was quiet and subdued. “It is complicated.”

  “You don’t have to explain if you’d rather not.” Ethan wanted to know, but he felt guilty for pushing her.

  But I want to. She knew better, but she longed to let someone in again. Speaking with him like this was bringin
g back feelings she had pushed away for so long. It reminded her deeply of a cherished friendship that she missed so much, and even knowing what that friendship had cost, she couldn’t keep her heart from pushing her forward. She looked up to the ceiling for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then let out a long exhale.

  “Before I can explain our current normalization to you, I must tell you about the history of my people. The rumors surrounding Vesparians are not all drunken speculations passed around trade ports. It is true that many, if not most, of us are infiltrators for hire. We do it because we are good at it. It is second nature to us. We do it because it is what we were engineered to do.”

  He let the words sink in for a moment, trying to infer her meaning. “Engineered. As in bio-engineered?”

  “Yes.” She looked back at him and noted the confusion on his face. “Let me go back further. Do you know of the Tarsen Fracture?”

  “Yes, of course.” The Tarsen Fracture was the brutal civil war that eventually brought down the Tarsen empire over a millennium ago. Its factions had almost obliterated each other, and they had destroyed their planet in the process. The factions had since moved from the home planet to their respective colonies on other planets, one of them evolving into the Xen’dari Empire. It had been the same war in which the Tarsen tried to take over Brom’s homeworld of Orell. The pieces finally clicked into place and a look of understanding widened his eyes. “Are you saying the Vesparians were bio-engineered by the Tarsen as weapons?”

  A small smile graced her lips. “You are very intuitive, Ethan.”

  “So that’s why your people fought for the Tarsen on Orell? Were you created specifically for those battles?” He regretted his blunt nature as soon as the words crossed his lips, but she continued to look at him with her soft smile.

  “Yes, and no. Vesparians existed long before the war, and long before the Tarsen Empire. We were a peaceful people who had not yet developed interstellar travel or even basic technology. We were hunters and gatherers, still worshipping the seasons and traveling from place to place as they changed. Three hundred years before the fracture, the Tarsen came to our planet with promises of mutual benefits and trade.