Alone in the Crowd (The Chronicles of Anna Foster Book 3) (8 page)

Minutes later, the soldiers escorted Anna to the admin’s office, where she walked inside with the guard.

“Ms. Armstrong,” the colonel proclaimed before shutting the door. “The prisoner is here.”

She did not respond but continued to work without looking up. Footfalls that Anna assumed were the colonel’s marched to the door and out of the office.

After the door had shut, Anna looked at the administrator through the holographic screen. Something about her looked oddly familiar, but she could not quite pinpoint what it was that tickled her mind. Suddenly, it hit her, and she cocked her head. “Danica?”

The administrator looked up from the electronic document she was reading and stared at Anna through the holographic screen in front of her. She looked as if she was trying to discern something about her guest. Then her face cleared.

“Anna?”

“Danica?” Anna cried excitedly.

Danica Armstrong clapped her hand over her mouth as she stood. “Oh, my god!” Her voice wavered, overcome with emotion.

Danica rounded her desk and charged toward Anna with arms outstretched. Anna lifted her bound hands up and let the approaching woman collide with her, dropping her arms around her to return the strong embrace.

“We thought you were dead,” the administrator whispered as tears of joy flowed down her cheeks.

The two ladies remained locked in a hug for what felt like several minutes, neither woman wanting to let the other go. Then, Danica pulled back slightly and was stopped short by the plastic strips binding Anna’s wrists together. She ducked under Anna’s encircling arms and pointed to her wrists. “Okay, this needs to go. Guard, cut her loose.”

“Thank you,” Anna smiled with appreciation.

Once O’Reilly had removed the cuffs, Danica stepped back and examined her. “Let me look at you!” As she took in the sight of her old friend, her nose wrinkled as she studied Anna’s savage-looking leather attire. “You look so…so…Amazon!”

Anna shrugged. “I had to work with what I had available.”

Danica smiled. “Never mind that! Oh, my god! I can’t believe it’s you! I have so many questions! We need to catch up!” She turned to the soldier.

“Guard, you are dismissed. I’ll claim full responsibility for her.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The soldier nodded before exiting the office.

Danica looked Anna over from head to toe again. “Wow! You look great! In fact, I think you look better now than you did when I last saw you. What’s your secret?”

“Survival, Danica. Daily survival. But, you still look good yourself! You’re still thin and have a great figure.”

“Are you kidding?” The dark-haired woman dismissed the compliment. “I hide my flab well. Come sit down.” She led Anna to a chair in front of her desk with a flourish of her hand. The two ladies sat down and looked at each other for several seconds with huge grins on their faces.

“I still can’t believe you’re here!” Danica’s face lit up as she spoke. “How did you get here?”

“Remember that job I got on the mining station way back when?” Anna pointed skyward as her friend nodded. “That station was in this star system.”

“You’re kidding!”

Anna shook her head.

“That explains why we never heard from you. You couldn’t even get an e-mail out to us?”

“No, the company prevented personal messages from being sent through their system.”

“What? You couldn’t just sneak one in?”

“Remember that robotics was my forte, not computers,” Anna emphasized the point with her finger.

“But, look at you!” she continued. “A high-ranking official now, colony administrator. How did you land that job?”

Danica leaned back in her chair. “That restaurant I worked at when you shipped out closed down about a year later due to health code violations. Before the manager got the place back up and running, he fired his entire staff. Everyone! So, I was out of work for a few months and sponging off of Yvette for a while. But then another friend of mine…you haven’t met her…pulled some strings and landed me a job as an intern with the United Nations. I never thought that history degree would actually pay off. Believe me! So, I worked my way up the ladder…without sleeping with anyone, I might add!”

Anna could not help but laugh. Her friend continued, “And, I wound up leading the first expedition of colonists out here to Haven.”

“That reminds me. Why is it called ‘Haven’?”

“A couple of years ago, a scout from the UN flew out here after NR Suppliers sold the system to them to check it out. The story goes that the scout was nearly out of supplies when he arrived. He discovered the moon and loved it so much that he almost never left. But, the fact that he was able to replenish his supplies with little worry of any danger helped him name the place ‘Haven’. So, it’s been called that ever since.”

Anna sighed. “Well, that makes sense.”

“Why?” Danica asked. “Did you have something else in mind?”

“Actually, yes. When I first discovered the moon over ten years ago, I…”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Danica. “You discovered the moon?”

Anna nodded.

“Then, why didn’t you report it and reap the rewards? You could have been living the high life back on Earth by now!”

Anna leaned forward and placed her hands on the edge of the desk. “Tell me about it! If it hadn’t been for the fact that a corporate enforcer tried to kill me before I could submit it, I would be.”

“What? Kill you? What for?”

“Long story. I’ll give you the details later. Needless to say, they wanted me dead.”

Danica looked shocked. “Those assholes! At least that bastard didn’t succeed.”

“Yeah. But because of him, I was marooned on Par…uh, Haven. That was over ten years ago.”

“So, you’ve been here, alone for over a decade?”

“For the most part, yes.”

“Wow! I am so sorry, Anna.”

Danica’s words brought tears to her eyes. “Thanks.”

Danica frowned as she grabbed a tissue from a box on her desk and rounded her desk to hand it to Anna, which she accepted with a nod and covered her eyes with it. “Oh, Anna.” She wrapped her arms around Anna from behind and squeezed her tight. “It’s okay. I’m here now. You’re never going to be alone again.”

Anna cried for a moment while being comforted by her friend.

As the weeping subsided, Danica leaned around Anna’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Anna nodded and blew her nose.

Danica smiled and returned to her seat. “So, we should digress. You had a different name for the moon?”

“Yeah, I had called it Paradise.”

“Paradise?” Danica confirmed. “I like that better than Haven. Gives it an exotic feeling.”

Anna shrugged. “But that is neither here nor there now. It’s officially called Haven, but it will always be Paradise to me.”

Her friend smiled her approval.

“So, what’s happening with the others, like Yvette and Rachael?” Anna did not want to dwell on lost fortunes.

The cheer on Danica’s face drained. “Oh, Anna. You really don’t want to know.”

Anna frowned. “What happened?”

Danica nodded her head for a few seconds before she sighed. “Do you remember that loser Rachael was dating before you left?”

The technician thought back for a few seconds. “No.”

“Probably just as well. He and Rachael broke up for a short while but got back together. I never knew what she saw in him, but anyway. About a year and a half later, the two of them must have gotten into a big…a really big fight. The next morning, the police found her dead in the alley behind her apartment building.”

“Oh, my god!” The shock of the news hit her like a punch in the gut, and her hand shot to her mouth in horror.

“We tried to get a message out to you, but your bosses were not very forthcoming with your whereabouts, and refused to relay a message for us unless it related to your job.” Danica pointed a finger at her friend. “I thought that company was bad news! I knew I should have…”

“Forget that for now!” Anna waved her hands in front of her impatiently. “What happened?”

“It was a heart-wrenching experience for all of us. I was crushed, but Yvette went off the deep end. She swore that she would avenge Rachael, and she did, too. One day later, the police found Rachael’s boyfriend dead in his apartment, and Yvette confessed to the crime. The courts found her guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced her to forty years at the penal colony on Io.”

Anna hung her head. Waves of guilt washed over her. “I leave for a new job, and everything goes to shit.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Anna,” Danica consoled. “It’s not your fault. It probably would have happened even if you were still with us.”

“No, I might have convinced her to find some other guy to be with instead of that jerk that killed her.”

“I doubt that. He seemed to have a lot of control over her life. Besides, there’s nothing we can do about that now. That was a long time ago. Let’s concentrate on what’s happening now.”

Despite the suggestion, Anna could not hold back the emotions bursting forth. Seeing the tears welling up in Anna’s eyes again, Danica passed her another tissue. Then, she moved around the desk and hugged Anna from behind again, providing as much comfort as she could.

“I’m so sorry, Anna. This is all so sudden for you.”

“No, it’s okay,” Anna dried her eyes with the tissue. “I just need to deal with this on my own.”

The communicator on Danica’s desk activated, interrupting them. “Ms. Armstrong?”

Both ladies looked at the device. Anna was surprised.

“Armstrong?”

“Pardon me a sec.” The administrator returned to her seat.

Touching the button before sitting down, Danica responded, “Go ahead, William.”

“The shuttle with the last of our supplies has landed south of town. Shall we begin offloading?”

Danica glanced at Anna for a brief second. “Go ahead and start without me. I’ll be by in a little bit to verify the shipment.”

“Yes, ma’am.” William closed the channel.

“Armstrong?” Anna repeated, pushing her mourning to the back of her mind. “I thought for sure that it would be Meriwether.”

Danica smiled a devilish grin that was all too familiar to Anna. “Oh, you mean Brad? Hell, I’d never marry him. I only went out with him for the sex. If you’d seen how big he was, you would have quit your job before you’d even started.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Anna laughed. “So, who is this Armstrong guy that won your heart?”

The administrator grew serious. “That would be Jake, but I tend to call him Jerk nowadays.”

Anna’s jovial face turned sour with the news. “What happened with him?”

“Another whirlwind romance. He was another attaché at the UN with me. We met, fell in love, and got married. Then, I found him sleeping with an intern named Brittany about six months later. I slapped him with the divorce papers so fast it sent his head spinning. I should have figured something like that would happen when he did not want to sign any prenups. Still, I got ten thousand dollars a month from him in maintenance until I signed on for this colony.”

“That’s not bad,” observed Anna. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, though.”

Danica dismissed the apology with a wave of her hand. “That’s okay, but thanks. Honestly, I wouldn’t be where I am now, if it hadn’t been for him. And, finding you again has made it all worthwhile.”

The women smiled at each other again for a few seconds. Then Danica broke the atmosphere. “I hate to do this, but I need to get to the landing site to check in these supplies. Life as the head of a colony, you know.”

“It’s okay.” Anna walked around the desk and hugged her best friend. “I’m happy for you. This is a big responsibility.”

The two broke the embrace after a brief moment, and she continued, “That reminds me, and I hate to say this. Your colony can’t stay here.”

“I was going to ask you about that. Why is that?”

“Do you know anything about the way the moon revolves around the gas giant?”

Danica thought for a few seconds. “I know it takes about a month for one orbit. Am I missing something?”

Anna nodded. “I didn’t think the scout would have hung around long enough to find out. For about twenty-four hours each month, the moon is eclipsed. It’s the only kind of night we will experience here.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Danica’s question contained a fair helping of hope.

“Not really,” the blonde answered with a shake of her head. “That’s when all the wildlife comes out.”

Danica paused. “Wildlife? You mean there’s more than what we’ve already found?”

“The herbivores you’ve found and probably hunted are just the tip of the iceberg. When night falls, the predators come out, and they can be pretty nasty.”

“Like what?”

“The most prominent that I have found are what I call the triwolves. They have dark blue fur and are quite aggressive.”

The administrator absorbed the information for a few seconds. “Why do you call them triwolves?”

“Simple answer, really. They have six legs, three in the front and three in the back.”

“I see,” Danica mused. “Why not call them ‘hexwolves’, since they have six legs?”

“Some people might think that they have magical powers or some such nonsense.”

“Then, what about ‘se…’ Never mind.” Anna’s resulting smile told Danica what she needed to know.

“Wow! I am actually kind of impressed with this. We come here expecting to rough it from the very start, and my best friend is here with full working knowledge of the place.” She fell silent. Then her face lit up with eagerness.