Against Impassable Barriers

Chapter 2

2

The woman was tall, at least half a head taller than Liam. Shiny black pants clung to thickly muscled thighs, and her long white shirt stretched over broad shoulders. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. The wrinkles in the skin around her eyes said she was prone to smiling, but the scowl she was currently directing at Liam was anything but amused. The tailoring of her shirt suggested a uniform, but if she wore any insignia, it was covered by her crossed arms.

At first, Scout wondered just how heavy this woman must be that she could stand upright in the microgravity. Liam, with all the body modifications that came with being a galactic marshal, could stand and even walk around the cabin with only the slightest of springs to his step. Scout and the others had given up trying to walk; it inevitably ended in ricocheting between floor and ceiling. The woman wasn’t moving, but she looked like if she did, it would be with the unstoppable forward momentum of a tank.

Then Geeta reached out a hand to touch the woman’s elbow, and her fingers passed through it. The woman didn’t even react, but Emilie and Geeta were as stunned as Scout. The ship’s moon hologram had been beautiful, detailed, and plain to see from every angle, but there had never been any question that it was just a projected image. This woman, though, looked real. As if she were physically there in the cabin with them.

Only she wasn’t.

Scout looked over at the two dogs, who were watching with only mild interest. The very opposite of their usual reaction to the sudden appearance of strangers.

“Captain Salvo,” Liam said.

“Save it,” the woman said, holding up a hand against whatever words he had been about to say. “Where’s Bauer?”

“Dead, sir,” Liam said. The sternness melted from Salvo’s face.

“You’re certain?” she asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“That is a shame. It wasn’t this McFarlane fellow? He didn’t seem capable of getting the drop on a marshal like Bauer.”

“No, sir. It was an assassin, trained and with body modifications. Bauer wasn’t even the target, just collateral damage. The political situation here—”

“Thanks to you and your partner, I’m far too aware of the political situation here,” Salvo said, the sternness back in her tone and the furrow of her brow. “I had to come here personally to extract you in order to defuse some of the tension in this political situation. Personally, McGillicuddy. I didn’t just have to leave the office—and you know how much I hate leaving the office—I had to leave galactic central.”

“I am sorry,” Liam said. “I owed Bauer far more than she asked of me. I had to come and see her final wishes through.”

“McFarlane isn’t with you?” she asked, her eyes sweeping over the cabin. Scout flinched as those steely blue eyes rested on her for the barest of seconds before moving on to Geeta and Emilie.

“No, he died as well,” Liam said. “Bauer asked me to see to her protégé, Scout Shannon.” He held out a hand, directing those eyes back to Scout.

She fought the urge to squirm as the woman looked her over, or to explain that she didn’t look a thing like her usual self. All her clothes were borrowed and mostly not to her style. Even her hair was different, a necessary part of the disguise that helped her escape the space station with Geeta and Emilie despite an entire security force hunting for her. Gone were the long honey-gold curls so reminiscent of her mother’s hair. In its place was a short orange mop of hair, no longer holding its shape without the elaborate system of hair products Seeta’s friend had used to set it.

The microgravity didn’t help either. But at least her hair was too short to get in her eyes.

“I have to remove you from this system,” Salvo said, returning her attention to Liam. “Just you. No others. I’m here with a ménage of tribunal enforcers.” She paused, and Scout sensed that those tribunal enforcers, whoever they were, must be very near at hand. Salvo had the air of someone carefully choosing her words while working hard not to shudder.

“Yes, of course,” Liam said. “Are you coming here, or . . . ?”

“We’re in orbit over you even as we speak,” Salvo said. “Don’t worry about nothing appearing on your sensors. Apparently, that’s normal for this type of tribunal enforcer craft.”

“But what about us?” Scout blurted out.

“Something will have to be arranged,” Salvo said with a frown. “We can’t just leave you there on the airless moon.”

“Can’t you take us with Liam?” Geeta asked. Scout noticed she was standing straighter as if at attention, holding fast to the back of the pilot seat behind her to keep from floating away and ruining the effect of standing at attention. And that little edge was back in her voice, the one she used when forcing someone to acknowledge her authority as an ensign working in security on Amatheon Orbiter 1 and not get hung up on her youth and diminutive size.

“It’s not safe for them here,” Liam said. “I can explain in more detail, but that’s the gist of it.”

“They can be moved, but only to another location within the barricade,” Salvo said. Her eyes darted off to one side, and Scout guessed she was looking to one of those tribunal enforcers to confirm her words before looking back at Liam.

“There is no safe place for us inside the barricade,” Geeta said. “At least two groups of people are hunting for us.”

“It’s all right,” Liam said quickly. “Give me a minute to settle things here and I’ll go with you.”

“We’re descending now,” Salvo said. “A minute may be all you get.”

The hologram winked out of existence as abruptly as it had appeared.

“How could she do that?” Emilie asked wonderingly. “Did she bypass the ship computer’s security protocols?”

“As a captain, she can do a lot more than that,” Liam said. “She could have fired our rockets remotely and just brought us to her if she wanted.”

“Why didn’t she?” Scout asked.

“She knows more about what’s happening than she’s going to let on with a ménage of tribunal enforcers all around her. She has to obey all orders to the letter, but every bit of wiggle room she can find she’s going to use. Like coming here personally and giving me as much advance warning as she could.”

“Warning to do what?” Scout asked. “Are you going to run away?”

“No, that’s not possible,” Liam said. “I was hoping my friends would get here first, and that I could turn myself in back at galactic central. I’m afraid me being arrested was always going to happen, it was just a matter of when.”

“What happens to us?” Emilie asked.

“You’ll go on as we have been, waiting in the ship,” Liam said. “It’s not much longer now, surely.”

“You’re leaving us alone?” Scout asked.

“Alone together,” Liam said. He turned away to look out the front screen of the ship, but Scout saw nothing out there. He turned back to the three of them waiting anxiously for him to explain. “We haven’t been wasting our time here, have we? You all know how to operate every system on this ship, and Emilie even knows how to fly it. Geeta knows how to monitor her sister in stasis and make adjustments if needed, and Scout has all the tools of a galactic marshal save the gun. You’re as prepared as I can make you.”

“You knew this would happen?” Scout asked.

“I knew it was a possibility,” Liam said, looking out the front screen again, this time his eyes lower down towards the lava bed, but again Scout saw nothing.

“What’s a tribunal enforcer?” Geeta asked.

“They are officers of the court. They’re a strange lot, all from the same planet near the galactic core. The planet was settled by humans centuries ago, but there was something in the soil or water or air that changed them over time. They are something other than human now. Some say they are telepathic. All I know is that they don’t talk much, just watch you with these piercing eyes, and they are all damn unsettling. But you don’t need to worry about them. I know ‘enforcer’ sounds scary, but unless you are attempting to violate a court order, ‘observer’ would be a more apt description of them. And there would be no reason for you to violate a court order.”

He looked out the window again, then went to the back of the cabin and retrieved a bag from one of the cabinets. Personal things, Scout guessed.

“Crossing the barricade violates the court order,” Geeta said.

“Which is why you’re not going to try to do it without my friends’ help,” Liam said. “Just wait here for my friends the Torreses. John Carlo and Mary Grace. You know what they look like, and you know the sign and countersign.”

“Justice,” Geeta said.

“Sovereignty,” Emilie said.

Liam gave them a nod.

“Don’t you need to turn in the belt?” Scout asked, touching the buckle of the double belt around her hips. The equipment on that belt had come in handy on more than one occasion, but technically it was never hers.

“No, keep it,” Liam said. “Gertrude left it to you.”

“She never said that,” Scout said. Her cheeks flushed; she had as much as admitted to reading all of Gertrude’s personal correspondence to know such a thing for sure.

“She gave you access,” Liam said, looking almost puzzled that Scout hadn’t known that.

“How . . . when?” Scout asked, even more confused than he.

“She must have gotten a sample of your DNA at some point?”

“Blood,” Scout said. “She tested me for poison.”

“She used that to give you access,” Liam said, checking the contents of his bag briefly before throwing it over one shoulder. “If she hadn’t, you would never have been able to remove that eyepiece, let alone use it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Scout said. “I handed the eyepiece to someone else to look at the tablet. Gertrude had never met her. How did she have access?”

“She could use the eyepiece because you handed it to her, and she could see only what you had summoned onto the tablet for her to see. She wouldn’t have been able to use it in any other way.”

Scout had so many more questions, but something clanged against the hull, echoing through the cabin.

“They’re here,” Emilie said. “Five bald people in long blue robes and your boss. How are they just standing . . . oh, I see. Clever. I guess it’s safe to open the door now.”

“Yes, it’s time to go,” Liam said.

“Wait!” Scout said, rushing to catch Liam’s arm. He had to catch hold of her shoulder as well to keep her from tumbling over him. Once he had her steady, Scout pulled a battered tablet out of one of the belt’s many pouches. “This was Farlane McFarlane’s tablet. There might be evidence on it. Maybe a way to get some of the money he stole back to his victims.”

“Good thinking,” Liam said, tucking the tablet into a pocket on the side of his bag. “You three are going to be all right. There’s not a doubt in my mind about that.”

“I wish we were going with you,” Geeta said. “If they knew about my sister . . .”

“It wouldn’t change anything. I’m sorry,” Liam said.

“I wish I were going just to get a closer look at that ship,” Emilie said, still gazing out the window. Her voice was full of wonder and awe, the sort of thing that would usually bring a smile to Scout’s face. Emilie’s enthusiasms were sometimes hard to understand, but they were so genuine they were infectious.

But at the moment, it was all Scout could do to blink back the tears as Liam pressed the button to open the door and lower the ramp. At least this time he was walking away of his own free will, not dragged off to be tortured by parties unknown.

But the result was the same. Scout was on her own in a world she barely understood.

Then she felt a hand on her arm and looked up at Geeta bravely attempting to summon her first smile since her sister had been hurt. It was a wobbly smile, but it was enough. Scout knew she wasn’t alone. Not this time.

Emilie had moved from the window to the top of the ramp to look down at the cluster of figures awaiting Liam. The five with bald heads and blue robes formed a circle around him and Salvo as he stepped up to her, hands extended as if ready to be shackled. She waved away his gesture with a grimace of annoyance, then led the way back to whatever ship had brought her there, the five tribunal enforcers maintaining a disciplined phalanx around them.

None of them had so much as glanced up at the three girls still in the ship.

“I can’t wait until we get to galactic central,” Emilie said as she pressed the button to redraw the ramp and close the door. “You should see their ship! It’s like living crystal, gorgeous and fluid. They just extend part of it like a pseudopod to attach around the doorway of our ship. Better than an airlock. It’s amazing!”

She went back to the window to watch the ship lift back up into the starry sky, but Scout couldn’t summon much interest in the wonders of a world that felt further away than ever. Neither could Geeta, who was staring fixedly at the part of the floor that had just been a ramp, biting down hard on her lip.

Scout wasn’t used to being around people, not since her family had died when she was ten. She really didn’t know how to be a friend. She didn’t know what to say, so she just put her arms around Geeta and hugged her tight. Geeta stiffened momentarily, but then she relaxed and hugged Scout back.

They would be okay, Scout decided as the two of them slowly drifted across the cabin. As long as they were all together, they would always find a way to be okay.