Vira Episode One Read online

  … Okay. That was a hell of a statement. And, on some level, Park should be freaking out right about now, because he hadn’t even thought of that. Vira could simply transport back through space? He had no idea how far they’d made it through the solar system yet, but the Apollo wasn’t a slow ship.

  Her eyes narrowed again, and she floated a little closer to him. “You’re out of your depth. You haven’t even bothered to go over my skill set, have you?”

  “No, Vira, I wasn’t given it,” Park spat back, doing the one thing he knew he shouldn’t – reacting to her. Worse, he was revealing how little the Admirals had told him about Vira’s complete abilities.

  She made a slight huffing noise, then she went to shift around him.

  Park got there again, backing off, opening his arms wide, trying to stop her in the only way he could. Sure, technically he could dart a hand out and try to grab her arm, but what exactly were the chances that she wouldn’t rip his hand off? Okay, he was pretty sure of his original assessment of Vira – she wouldn’t use violence unless she had to. But there were many, many other ways to get away from Park.

  “Please, just wait,” he said, and he didn’t change track this time. His voice wavered with true emotion, but it wasn’t because he chose it to. He just lost that cool, calm, arrogant façade that always separated him from what was going on around him.

  For some reason, that got Vira’s attention.

  He let his arms drop. “I’m being honest, Vira. It might be easy for you, but it’s not easy for us. I want to make this mission a success. But to do that, I need your trust.”

  “To have my trust, you must earn it,” she said, and there was a… haughty quality to her tone. No, that wasn’t exactly right. She didn’t put Park in mind of a queen informing a subject they were far too insignificant to interact with her. No there was… something guarded.

  Park didn’t bother to control his expression as he stared at her and tried to figure out what that thing was.

  Vira crossed her arms in front of her chest and tilted her head to the side, breaking eye contact.

  “… I get it now,” he said, voice stuttering as he just let the words flow out. No mouth filter, no nothing. The first thing that came into his head, he would share with her – because he was starting to appreciate that unless he was completely honest, Vira was going to go through with her threat and just leave.

  She swiveled one eye toward him then the other. “You get what now?”

  “I keep saying it’s hard for me. But it’s harder for you, isn’t it?” His voice was quiet.

  He didn’t really expect what he was saying to have an effect on her. He was wrong.

  Vira’s cheeks completely stiffened. Her eyes widened, too.

  She may have been the one capable of psychically reading people’s minds and emotions, but all Park had to do was watch her expression to understand what was going on in her head.

  “You’re more trapped than I am,” he commented.

  … Park wasn’t entirely sure he believed what he was saying. Yes, okay, she’d technically been trapped in her room for 20 years. But fundamentally, she was still a Spacer.

  She still had power that could outstrip every other single race in the Milky Way. She wouldn’t have to worry about ordinary age and sickness, violence and war. She was a match for all of those.

  But there was something else he hadn’t appreciated since the moment he’d met her.

  Vira had been floating until now. With two soft thumps, she landed. She also unwound her tightly clenched arms from around her middle. “It took you a long time to appreciate that,” she said, voice softer than his had been.

  His lip twitched. He wanted to go with his initial reaction – the one that told him Vira was a spoiled brat who was simply too overpowered to appreciate the weakness inherent in other beings. But he overrode that reaction and went with the suspicion forming in his gut instead.

  “I get it,” he managed. “Trusting me… is going to be hard. Because if I’m wrong—”

  “Then many, many other people will die.”

  Park’s stomach kicked. It was far, far more violent than the kick it had given back in the Admiral’s office when she’d started speaking of this mission. Hell, it was one of the strongest emotions that Park had felt in months, if not years.

  “It took you a long time to understand this,” she said flatly.

  Again, just for a flickering second, Park wanted to react. That part of him that wanted to believe that Vira was a stupid, sheltered child the Admirals had never had the balls to discipline reared its ugly head. The rest of him? It was being cowed by her direct, fiery look.

  “If you are not up for this mission – if you cave into the uncertainty you say all you soft-fleshed races experience,” she said, copying his tone, “then many, many people will die.”

  It felt like a punch in the guts. He wanted to reel, but there was honestly nowhere to go. His back was already flush against the wall between his and Vira’s room. Plus, Vira was a goddamn Spacer – if she wanted to continue this conversation, she could hunt him down to the ends of the Earth.

  So Park faced her, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

  “So tell me, Park, why should I trust you?” Her question was direct, out of the blue, and felt a heck of a lot like being pinned up against the wall.

  He swallowed. He also paused, which was a mistake.

  She shook her head in disappointment.

  She also shifted past him. When he tried to dart in front of her, she simply gracefully floated to the side. She also half disappeared through the wall – one of her arms, one of her legs, and half of her torso.

  “No, wait,” he began. “I’m adaptable,” he spat, and there was a truly defensive note to his tone. A note that simply shouldn’t be there. Because it was one he’d never had to use before. Park wasn’t used to having to use his emotion – instead of his physical, intellectual, and charming skills – to win arguments. Suffice to say, he was rusty.

  But he wasn’t willing to give up yet. “You can’t go back to Earth. Vira, if you leave the ship, they’ll ask questions. Plus, Admiral Forest needs us to succeed,” he begged. Yes, that’s right, Arrogant Park begged. “I know you know how serious the threat of the Force is. Admiral Forest and the other Admirals wouldn’t have imagined letting you out if this mission weren’t important.”

  She still remained there, half in the wall. She darted her gaze toward him. “It’s critical,” she pointed out, tone blank.

  “Then don’t leave. If you transport off this ship,” he said, voice shaking at the very thought of it, “people will ask questions.”

  She stared at him. “I have no intention of transporting off this ship,” she said.

  He twitched. “But you—”

  “Yet. I’ll give you another chance, Park. As you say, it’s hard for you soft-fleshed, weak races to make up your minds. When you’ve made it up, tell me.” With that, she finally left, and there was nothing at all Park could do to stop her as she floated right through the wall.

  … Shit.

  They’d barely made it out of space dock, and he’d already essentially lost.

  Not only had he allowed Vira to read his thoughts and find out that he felt desperately underequipped for this mission, but far worse, she now knew his weaknesses. If he’d had any hope of controlling her, he knew that would’ve been through the chain of command. Because even if the Admirals had mollycoddled her, she did have a basic understanding of hierarchy.

  Now?

  Shit.

  It was essentially all over.

  Park walked toward his bed, flopped down on it, brought his hands up, covered his face, and half screamed into them.

  But he didn’t allow it to last.

  Several seconds later, when the brunt of his anger had burnt away, he forced his hands down. He clenched his teeth, and he started to plan.

  There would be a way to salvage this. All he had to do was find it.
/>   Chapter 5

  Vira

  She didn’t understand him. But she was sure of one fact – he had been the wrong man for this job. Though, on some level, she respected the decisions of the Admirals, obviously their desperation had forced them to come up with the wrong decision. She understood they were eager to do everything they could to combat the Force before it began its full-scale invasion of the Milky Way, but that desperation was leading to poor decision-making.

  It didn’t matter.

  Vira was fully capable of going through this on her own. She didn’t need a minder. Though she could admit that… there were holes in her understanding when it came to appropriate personnel decorum, she could learn them. All she had to do was open her mind and follow the other people around her.

  Though she’d threatened Park that she would leave the ship, she had no intention of doing that. She would make it to the Expanse, and then? She would scour that moon clean. If she found Force technology, she would return it to the Admiral. If she found Force soldiers?

  She would engage them.

  She appreciated the seriousness of her secret. On some level. If the other races of the Milky Way understood what she was, they would covet her. From the Barbarians to the Kor, they would send their secret agents to capture her.

  But Vira was not weak. She was also prepared. And, fundamentally, she understood the cost of keeping this secret too long. The day of reckoning was coming, faster with every moment. The Force had been attempting to push into the Milky Way with greater frequency. And every time they did, they got a little closer. And the closer they got, the more it whet their appetites.

  They would not be stymied for much longer. Someday soon, they would activate all of their sleeping forces in the Milky Way, and they would start a war.

  The Coalition needed to know that it had weapons strong enough to combat those forces. Weapons like Vira. And though, on any other day, she hated thinking of herself as a tool, when it came to peace, she would gladly accept that responsibility.

  She looked over at the clock, though she didn’t need to. She could estimate time perfectly in her own mind. She began to count down the seconds.

  She rose from her chair, neatened her uniform for the thousandth time, ticked her eyes toward the clock, then finally strode toward the doors.

  She could feel Park doing the same from his quarters.

  It was time for their first duty shift to begin.

  Park had a distinct energy. A curious emotional cocktail, if you will. It made it very, very easy to keep track of him, even through a solid titanium and farian wall. She could’ve switched off that function in her mind, but she chose not to.

  Whether Park realized this or not, the success of this mission would not come down to his ability to control her – it would come down to his ability to control himself.

  She reached the door. Rather than push out a hand and tell it to open, she simply forced it to open with her mind.

  Though, if Park had been aware of what she’d just done, he would’ve pointed out that it was an unacceptable risk, and that computer logs could be used to prove that she’d used a mental connection she shouldn’t have, he was wrong.

  She could hide herself from all scanners. She had been training for 20 years, after all.

  The door opened, and she walked out several seconds before Park did.

  She turned hard on her foot, not bothering to wait for him, and strode toward the elevators at the far end of the accommodation deck.

  She didn’t like to walk. It seemed inefficient. She could see the elevators approximately 45 m away, and it would be far quicker and far less boring to simply transport into them.

  Do that, and dear Park would have a heart attack.

  By the time she was 5 m away, he finally exited his room.

  “Hey, wait up,” he said immediately, rushing up to her side.

  She didn’t slow down her pace.

  She passed several other crew members coming and going from their rooms.

  Their thoughts swamped her.

  Though some of them simply thought about their duty shifts, other crew, and mission specific details, several of them became distracted by her.

  She felt their intense curiosity. Obviously, word of her had spread. And it wasn’t word of how she had been able to predict the exact arrival time of the transport. No, they kept thinking one thing – stuff up.

  Apparently, she was the ship’s new stuff up. She didn’t know what that meant, but she could tell from the exact emotional vibe of their thoughts that it wasn’t kind. And yet, as soon as the same crewmembers saw Lieutenant Park, their emotions changed. They were happy to see him, even if they didn’t know him.

  Vira’s jaw hardened.

  “I said wait up,” Park said, tone becoming exasperated as he finally rushed to her side.

  She felt his gaze on the side of her face. It was obvious he was attempting to assess her emotional state, trying to figure out if their argument last night had affected her.

  She heard him swallow, could even feel the shift in blood flow as the fine muscles of his throat accommodated the move. “Did you… sleep well?” he attempted.

  She opened her mouth to point out that of course she didn’t sleep.

  “Just say yes,” he thought back to her. “It’s a standard question you ask a friend. Okay? It’s for the benefit of the rest of the crew.”

  She paused. She didn’t like it when he ordered her in her mind. It was loud and rude and invasive.

  And yet, something made her nod. “I slept fine,” she commented.

  That comment alone seemed to deflate Park’s shoulders. Perhaps he erroneously took it as evidence that she’d forgiven him.

  “Our shift starts in five minutes,” he thought to her as they finally reached the elevator.

  There were several crew in front of them, and she could feel as his muscles shifted and constricted in his hand. He was obviously getting ready to reach forward and stop her should she attempt to muscle past the crew and get into the lift first.

  She’d learned her lesson.

  Apparently, you needed to wait for anyone in front of you.

  Park took another tight breath. Though, to anyone without the ability to finely assess a person’s biological state, his stance would have appeared easy. Park was many things, but she was starting to appreciate that he was good at controlling his outer appearance. To anyone but her, that was.

  “This is going to be our first duty shift, so I’m pretty sure it will be a shakedown.”

  She seriously didn’t want to reveal to him that she had no idea what he was talking about. Also, as they entered the lift with several other crew members, she could hardly start conversing with him verbally while he thought in her mind.

  Instead, though she wanted to ignore him, she looked at him inquiringly.

  Again that sent a pulse of relief through his body.

  Park, according to the rumors she’d heard about him, was meant to be a man who had a switch in his head. When he was out partying and imbibing himself, he would flick the switch off, and he would become the life of the party. But when he was on a mission – just like this – he would rein in every emotion and become nothing more than a soldier taking orders. But this was a mission, and either he hadn’t flicked that switch, or he’d never had it.

  “Commander Jameson is going to attempt to see what we can do,” Park continued to explain in her mind. “He’s going to put us through our paces,” Park started. He shook his head, but it was a light enough move that the other crew members in the elevator wouldn’t have noticed it. “That means he’s going to attempt to see what our skill sets are,” Park thought more simply.

  She understood the term ‘putting someone through their paces.’ And yet, she didn’t understand why Commander Jameson would do such a thing. They would have all come from the Academy with clear service records and aptitude test scores. Why bother re-creating what was already on file?

  “It’
s because he needs to see how we adapt to different environments,” Park explained.

  Vira blanched. Had he just read her mind?

  Park reacted. Eyebrows clunking down low. “What’s the matter? You look seriously pale.”

  The elevator stopped, and the two other crew members walked out, but not before a young Ensign turned on her foot and awkwardly smiled at Park. “Sir, um, this might come out of the blue, but those of us who are new aboard are having a get together later tonight in the mess hall. We owe,” she uncomfortably shifted her gaze toward Vira for several seconds, “you and the Lieutenant here a round of drinks.”

  Park’s stance and expression changed in an instant. His smile widened, and somehow, his eyes sparkled. “We’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Good luck on your first duty shift,” he added with another flash of that smile.

  The Ensign blushed and walked out.

  The doors closed.

  Vira couldn’t stop herself from turning to Park. “Why did you answer for me? It would be an inefficient use of my time to attend—” she began.

  Park took a moment to swivel his gaze toward her, his eyebrows peaking. “Because you estimated the correct time of transport, and as tradition dictates, everyone else must buy you a round.”

  “I cannot become inebriated,” she said blankly.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. But the tradition, however, will still stand.”

  Though she didn’t want to show vulnerability, especially considering she had already come to the conclusion that Park was the fragile element in their team, she couldn’t stop her eyebrows from pitching low. “Considering my… less than… appropriate dealings with members of crew so far, I do not think it is a wise choice. Plus,” for some reason she swallowed, “though that Ensign technically invited me, she did not want me to come.”

  Park pressed his lips against his teeth. It was a strange expression. He also guarded his thoughts, and she had no idea what he was feeling.

  “The crew have been thinking about you again, ha?” he said.

  She tried to control her expression. “Yes,” she said as if she was simply reeling off the facts of a mission.