Armageddon (18 page)

* * * *

The clone was waiting for him when Nigel opened the rear service door. Nigel had had all day to come to terms with his situation, however. He’d walked into a trap.

He wasn’t certain of exactly how they planned to spring it, but he had a fair notion that what they wanted was for him to lead the clone back to home base. Obviously, they’d tried everything else they could think of to discover its location and they’d decided to use the breach in their security to get what they wanted, or finally figured out a way to use it to their advantage.

That meant he was going to be alive at least long enough to lead the clone to the base.

He still hadn’t decided whether or not the clone’s appearance meant that Dax and Lena were dead, but he couldn’t see that he had a lot of options at this point. He was going to do his best to see the thing through and hope that he lived long enough to avenge them if the bastards had gotten to them.

Neither man spoke as they moved quickly through the service area of the building and finally reached the main entrance level. They took the tube from there, passing twenty levels of labs and halting at last on the lowest floor of the administration offices.

The informant had been an accountant.

Mentally, Nigel shook his head at the thought. Who would ever have thought it would be an accountant--more of a bookkeeper actually because the man hadn’t even been upper rung--that would save the world?

The door to the general office was locked. Nigel glanced at the clone.

“You don’t have the key code?”

“I’ve forgotten it,” Nigel lied. “I’m a med tech. I’m not used to this cloak and dagger shit.”

The pseudo Dax’s lips thinned irritably, but he stepped forward and, without hesitation, keyed the code in.

Nigel swallowed a little convulsively.

The clone had definitely been in touch with them if he had the code. The question was, had he been ordered to help? Or hinder?

He didn’t bother to look up at the vid trained on the door. He knew it wasn’t disabled, as it was supposed to have been.

The minute they were inside, the clone led the way through the rabbit warren of cubicles, heading unerringly toward the cubicle that had once belonged to Gerald Smith and now belonged to his clone.

Nigel began to go through the desk immediately, searching every article he came across for a crack or crevice the man might have used to hide the film. He was only half

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way down the first wall when the clone straightened abruptly. “I think I’ve found it.”

Nigel whirled in surprise, extending his hand for the film. “Let me see it.”

The clone hesitated for a fraction of a second and then handed it over.

It was a memo, Nigel saw, frowning.

A memo?

I’ll need a replacement part for Mr. S. Mullins.

Nigel read the memo three times before it dawned on him that S. Mullins must be the name of someone they wanted replaced. Still more confused than enlightened, he glanced at the date, and then the origin of the memo. Coldness washed over him abruptly as the date and name clicked together.

The date was the day after Stephen Mullins was inaugurated as Prez.

And the origin of the memo was the head of a government agency.

He handed the memo back to the clone. “You might be right,” he said. “But it doesn’t make any sense to me. This looks like something that just got misdirected.

Maybe we should keep looking?”

The clone looked like he wanted to argue. After a moment, though, he merely shrugged, tucked the film into his pocket and made a pretense of searching. “We need to make this quick, though. Security’s liable to notice the vids are down any time.”

Nigel’s mind was working at light speed while he finished the fruitless search.

Unfortunately, his mental calisthenics were equally fruitless. He had no weapon, and he wasn’t likely to find one between the accounting office and the exit.

Reminding himself that he’d already decided the trap wouldn’t be sprung until he’d shown the clone the way to home base, and hoping he was right, Nigel focused on trying to figure out some way of leaving the information for someone … just in case he didn’t make it.

They finally reached the point Nigel had been dreading. “Either that’s it, or it isn’t here.”

The clone nodded. “We’ll get this back to home base and let them study it.

Maybe they’ll be able to crack it. It’s e-ink. Maybe it isn’t the message that appears on it now, but the one that was on it before?”

Nigel tried to look excited about the suggestion. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

When they’d exited Quasar Corp, he made his gambit. “See you back at base.”

The clone checked. “I don’t see any reason to split up. We’re out. They aren’t on to us. Anyway, I thought you were in a hurry to see Lena. I left her at the base.”

He should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy. It didn’t take a lot of thought to figure out if he made a break for it he’d be dead before he’d gone three feet. He had information the gov had already killed a half a dozen people to keep quiet. There was no way they would’ve planted it there for him to find unless they’d been ready to make sure he wasn’t going to live to pass it along.

It occurred to him as he merely shrugged and headed toward the people mover that the whole message might be bogus, but he decided after a few moments’ thought that he could be reasonably certain it was. They would’ve known that it had to be something good or he wouldn’t believe it was the evidence they were looking for. And if he wasn’t convinced, then he wouldn’t lead them back to the base.

He wouldn’t have risked it himself, but it occurred to him that the mastermind behind this nightmare had become increasingly desperate to locate the rebel base. The

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rebels must be getting close anyway, because he was starting to get really sloppy.

He didn’t even know Dax all that well and he’d sensed almost immediately that the dupe wasn’t Dax. Lena had figured out right away that Morris was a dupe, too. Of course neither man would’ve been easy to replicate. They’d both been like ghosts.

He met up with another moment of truth when they reached the entrance to the tube station. Take the clone on a wild goose chase and hope something would come to him? Or head directly for base and hope they had gotten the message he’d sent earlier and were waiting?

It wasn’t much of a contest. He didn’t want to risk dying with the information he had without making a hell of push to get in the right hands.

* * * *

Dax was sitting at his desk, his legs crossed on the top of it and a glass in his hand when Lena came out of the bath. She tilted her head, studying him for a moment to gauge his mood.

His gaze flickered over her slowly and then returned to the liquid he was idly swirling in his glass.

After a moment, instead of pulling on her suit, she moved to the bed and got in, pulling the sheet up and tucking it beneath her arms. “What is it?”

Dax’s gaze flickered to her. He shrugged, downing the last of the liquid in the glass. “I’ve been playing with the puzzle.”

Her brows rose. “The puzzle?” she echoed curiously.

“We’ve been compiling data for years. With no leads and hundreds of possible suspects, it’s no wonder we’ve barely scratched the surface. I decided to go back over it again after the conversation we had the other day.”

Lena frowned, casting around in her mind in search of what conversation he might be referring to.

“What you said about the gov, and the fact that whoever was behind this would have to be someone in power who didn’t have to worry about losing it through an election.”

“Oh!” She shrugged. “I’m a historian. Mostly we don’t always find specific facts, especially not since the storms when so much was destroyed. We have to figure out things by the process of eliminating the most unlikely.”

His lips curled faintly in a smile. “And sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Lena’s brows lifted. “Meaning, things go out of focus when you get too close?”

“Exactly. So, assuming the culprit really is somebody in the gov, and not some high powered corp head, eliminating the people we’ve already checked out, and all of the people that have to worry about getting re-elected every four years--the list is a lot shorter. In fact, really short, but I’m not sure any of these possibilities even make sense.”

Lena hesitated, but finally decided if he didn’t trust her nothing she could say was going to make him trust her less. “Can I look?”

As if he’d only been waiting for her to ask, he dragged his legs off of the desk, picked up a sheet of film and moved to the bed. Sprawling beside her, he handed her the list.

Lena read through the names slowly, pausing to dredge up what she knew about each of the men and women on the list. When she’d gotten to the bottom, she went over

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it again. “This woman is too young. She was only appointed to that position maybe five or six years ago. This man, too. He’s been around maybe twice that long, but the conspiracy predates his arrival on the scene.”

Dax looked her over appreciatively. After a moment, he got up, moved to his desk to collect a laser pen and returned, deleting the names from the list.

“She’s too old,” Lena said after a moment.

“She’s been around a while, though.”

“Yes, but she’s too old. She must be nearly eighty. She couldn’t hope to hold the position much longer no matter how many people she replaced. Besides, neither money nor power means a lot to people that know they’re facing the end of their life. She’s looking forward to retiring and spending her last years with her grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, not controlling the world.”

After working over the list for several hours, they had cut it down by almost half.

Lena frowned at the names that remained. “My money would be on him, if I was just guessing,” she said finally, tapping her fingernail on the lettering.

Dax looked at the name and chuckled. “Any particular reason why? Other than the fact that everybody hates them?”

Lena smiled reluctantly. “You’re probably right. I was just thinking, though, that I don’t know a thing about him. I didn’t even know his name and I keep up with the people in charge of the government.”

Dax took the list from her hands and dropped it to the floor beside the bed. “I’ll make a note of that,” he murmured, leaning forward to brush his lips across hers. “Baby girl doesn’t know the guy so she doesn’t trust him.”

She pulled away and he leaned back, eyeing her warily.

Reaching for his suit, she grasped the front and tugged it open. “I want to feel all of you,” she whispered, placing a light kiss in the center of his chest.

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The certainty that something was bothering Dax grew upon Lena as they lay curled together in the aftermath of their lovemaking. She supposed it might be that he had gone back to worrying over the puzzle, probably was that, at least in part, but she sensed that there was something else.

She had a feeling she knew what that something else was.

“When do you think we’ll reach home base?” she asked him finally, idly playing with the hair on his chest.

He tensed. “Six hours … more or less.”

Pain squeezed Lena’s chest as if a hand had fisted around her heart. Six hours. It had been a hell of a whirlwind romance--not that it was actually a romance. They’d been together a grand total of two weeks, just long enough to make her feel like dying at the thought that he was going to walk out of her life just as abruptly as he’d walked into it.

When she’d finally gained control of her wayward emotions, she turned in his arms, tracing a trail of kisses along his hard chest to his chin. If she wasn’t going to see him anymore, she was going to make the most of the time left.

He tucked his chin, aligning his mouth with hers. After kissing her almost lazily for several moments, he shifted, pushing her to her back and moving over her.

* * * *

“Captain Morris!”

Dax disentangled himself from Lena and strode to the com unit. “Yes.”

“We’re on final approach, sir.”

“I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

He saw when he turned to look for his uniform that Lena had sat up in bed. Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep. He felt like a complete ass for keeping her up all night, but he’d felt a desperation to make love to her over and over, as if doing so was going to make it any easier.

Scrubbing his hand over his jaw, he discovered he needed a shave--which probably accounted for the redness all over Lena’s neck and chest. Moving to the lav, he shaved quickly. “Would you like to come up with me?”

Lena looked at him hopefully and he felt his gut clench. He forced a smile.

“Nigel will probably be watching for our arrival.”

Nodding, she climbed from the bed and moved to the lav as he moved away and grabbed a uniform to put on. He saw when he glanced up from pulling his boots on that she’d pulled her borrowed suit on and was trying to get her feet into the boots. Crossing the room, he tapped her chin to make her lift her head and aligned the front edges of her suit, smoothing the seal.

When she’d combed the tangles from her hair, he took the comb and raked it through his, irritated when he realized it was halfway down his shoulders and wondering if had been that long since he’d remembered to get it cut or if it was just growing faster than he remembered.

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Rodriguez glanced at him questioningly when he saw Lena was in tow. Dax glanced at the forward viewing screen. As he did, it went black. “Still no contact?” he asked, pointing Lena toward a vacant seat before he sprawled in his own.

“We got a blip right after I called you, captain.”

Dax frowned. “Return hail?”

“No sir.”

Dax glanced at Lena and then looked at Rodriguez again. “I’m not in the mood for guessing. What was it?”

Rodriguez flushed. “Don’t know, sir. S. That’s all.”

Dax stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Abruptly, his eyes widened and he whirled to look at the blank screen. “Screen on!”

A flash of light filled the room. A few seconds later the ship began to shudder.

“My god! We’ve been hit!” Rodriguez exclaimed staring at the screen in disbelief. “The base is gone!”

Pushing himself from his seat, Dax moved to stand closer to the screen, scanning the scene of destruction. “There!” he growled, pointing to a spec in the distance. “Bogey at ten o’clock. Take that son-of-a-bitch out!”

“There’s another one--at three.”

Turning, Dax stared at Lena for a moment and finally strode towards her.

Grabbing her arm, he hauled her out of the seat she’d only taken moments before. “Go back to my cabin, now!”

Lena stared at him fearfully. “Why?”

“Because it’s safer, closer to the pods. If the evacuation alarm sounds, don’t hesitate. Go straight down to second level and get into one of the pods.”

He must have seen her reluctance to leave in her expression. His face hardened.

“I need to be here. You don’t.”

“Captain!”

Lena nodded even as he turned away, not because she wanted to go, but because she felt much safer near Dax, even if he thought she’d be safer in the cabin. She didn’t want to distract him, though, not when he needed to focus his entire attention on the ships attacking the base.

The trip down the tube was scary as hell. The ship shuddered, bucked, began to weave and sway, nearly throwing her off the ladder several times. She was shaking like a leaf by the time she reached the level for the crew quarters. The ship had begun to shift so violently and abruptly from side to side, she felt like a drunk trying to make her way down the corridor, stumbling into first one wall and then the other. Relieved when she reached the cabin at last, she looked around for the safest spot and finally moved to the desk chair. Swiveling it into its upright position, she locked it down and looked around for a safety harness. Dax had loosened them, she discovered, and flung them out of his way for comfort.

The jolting and jouncing grew progressively worse until she had to clench her teeth together to keep from biting her tongue. She realized after a few moments that she could hear air screaming around the ship, explosions in the distance, and then several close enough that the whole ship quaked.

Dizziness assailed her as the ship tilted sharply to one side and then abruptly rolled. She let out a squeak of fright, squeezing her eyes more tightly shut. Something

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either slammed into the ship, or exploded so close by the effect was nearly the same. The noise was nearly deafening. The ship did an abrupt freefall that almost made Lena lose what was in her stomach. The lights went out. Blue and yellow lights flickered on a few seconds later and alarms all over the ship began screaming deafeningly. The freefall ended so suddenly that she thought for several moments that the ship had slammed into the earth.

She was clawing at the restraints to escape when it dawned on her that there’d been no evacuation alarm.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she listened to see if she could hear running feet, shouting, anything that might tell her if the ship was going down.

It was still airborne. She knew that from the bouncing jolts that kept rattling her bones.

The alarms were shut off after a few moments and the lights came back on.

Hardly daring to breathe, Lena tensed for another hard jolt that never came. The ship seemed to glide smoothly for several moments and then she heard more sounds that she didn’t recognize that totally terrified her, whirrs and clicks and moving metal.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Dax’s voice abruptly bellowed from the com unit. “All hands, suit up!”

Was that the evacuation order?

He hadn’t said evacuate, and besides, that sort of announcement was usually made by a voice from the computer. Hearing a bustle of activity, she unfastened the restraints and rushed to the door.

As it opened, she saw men and women piling out of the crew quarters, fully armed and armored and racing toward the tube.

After staring at them for several moments, she finally realized that Dax was launching a ground assault--or expecting one.