Morgan's Choice (13 page)

“Do you have children?”

“A son and a daughter, as is usual. Soon
enough, grand children.”

“You did the same thing? Made an offer on
behalf of your children?”

“My son’s behalf. And I have accepted an
offer for my daughter, when she is of age.”

“Did your children have any say?”

She smiled a lot, this woman. “Of course not.
And you? Do you have children?”

“Supertechs don’t have children. It doesn’t
go with the rigors of the job.”

“Are you able to have children? Perhaps with
a male Supertech?” This was close to the mark. He squirmed, hard
and uncomfortable.

She tapped her fingers absently on her knee.
“No. I can’t have children. Look, I don’t mind. I never had any
ambition to be a mother, I’d do a terrible job.” She tilted her
head to one side. “Why are you asking me these things?”

Because I want to take you to my
bed.
He swallowed.
“Curiosity.”

The material of the dress rustled as she
stood. The knowing look on her face made him feel like a lusting
boy. Not far wrong.

“
It’s late. Time for me to go,
Srimana
.” She
smiled, an impish, knowing grin. “I wish you…” she chuckled,
“…pleasant dreams.”

“
Goodnight,
Suri
.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second.
The sidelong look she gave him as she stepped to the door was
unreadable. One raised eyebrow, eyes slightly narrowed, her lips
curved and then she was gone. The scent of her lingered, filled his
nostrils, sweet and soft. And perhaps a little more. The image of
the man with the pale-skinned woman filled his mind.
Oh, Selwood, I want
you
.

His dreams might be pleasant but he suspected
they would be uncomfortable. Stupid. He’d been in space too long. A
long night with a couple of whores and he’d be fine.

****

Morgan crossed the passage to her own suite.
Curiosity, huh? She’d noticed the bulge in his pants. Admirals.
They imagined rank could get them anywhere they wanted to be,
including between her legs. A few had tried but she wasn’t
anybody’s addition to the trophy cabinet. She picked her own
boyfriends; hot-shot pilots like Coreb, mid-ranked marines, men
with great bodies who didn’t care about mental hardware, who wanted
a good time, no strings attached. Not for her that romance
nonsense. Keep them at arm’s length; emotionally, anyway. She’d
learnt how to do that years ago, how to keep her heart locked away
in a vault.

Roy was watching a holovid. She glanced up as
Morgan passed with a muttered ‘I’m going to bed’.

She shucked off the hated dress and hung it
away before she went to the washroom.

Still, Ravindra wasn’t like the men who just
wanted to score with the latest female. Her relationship with him
had developed over time, over the many nights they had sat together
over dinner, talking about everything under hundreds of suns. He
was good company, even had a sense of humor now and then. She might
even be beginning to quite like him.

He had a great body, no doubt about it;
wide shoulders, long legs, muscles. Ravindra in his dress whites.
Oh, yes. Yum. She sniggered to herself. A pity he wasn’t a
mid-ranked marine or a hot-shot pilot. Then she might have been
tempted.

Don’t kid yourself, Morgan. You are tempted.
Right now. You can feel it, right through your body.

She shook her head sharply. Enough of this.
Tomorrow, Hanestran would have that mother ship signal data
analyzed. And she had to think on something that absorbed energy
and then, it seemed, spat it back out.

Chapter
Fourteen

Another burst of signal. Nothing. The alien
ship lay on its wingtip, as silent, as unmoving, as ever.

Hanestran made that flinging gesture with his
right arm that indicated frustration. “We’ve tried everything.
Every single burst of transmission. It isn’t going to work.”

“It’s missing something,” Morgan said.

“
Maybe the fighter has to be in
space,
Srimana
,” one of
Hanestran’s underlings suggested.

In space. Maybe. But wouldn’t the processor
at least react? What else? A missing connection, something broken?
“What about the black round thing? Can we put that in the
cockpit?”

Hanestran shot her a look. “Gupta.” He
flicked his head at a female tech standing close by.

The tech rushed off and returned with the
box. Morgan took it from her, opened the lid and placed the black
ball on the pilot’s seat. “Try them all again.”

The signals had been stored into a processor.
A flick of a switch and a stream of vibrations were fired at the
fighter, while recorders monitored any reactions. Morgan recorded,
too, analyzing with her own capability. She’d bet herself against
Hanestran’s equipment any day.

There.

The ball had gleamed for a fraction of a
second. Morgan grabbed Hanestran’s arm. “Stop it. Replay… stop. See
that?”

He sucked in a breath. And deflated. “But
then it’s gone. Something else is missing.”

“Yes. I think I know what it is. The
interface. The eyes.” She pointed at her own eyes.

“But the thing’s dead.”

“
I guess it is with its brain excised.”
Damnation. Maybe they could put the ball back, sow the
Yogin
up.

“
With respect,
Suri
, what about your eyes?”

Morgan stared at Gupta, a keen young tech
bursting with curiosity and enthusiasm. The girl flushed and bowed
her head, looking straight down at the deck.

“
A good thought, an excellent thought,”
Morgan said, patting her on the shoulder. It probably wouldn’t work
but it might be worth a try. “I’ll see if I can get in the cockpit
and you can try that signal again.”

The look Hanestran turned on her expressed
his opinion, but he jerked his head.

She scrambled up the wing, took the ball
off the seat and squeezed herself into the cockpit. The alien pilot
would have sat with its knees under the dash. The best she could
manage was to bring her knees into her body, her breasts her shins
pressed against the dash. It was bloody uncomfortable. Gupta handed
her the artifact.

“Okay, try it again. Just that piece of
transmission.” Morgan concentrated on the black ball, shutting out
everything else.

A gleam flickered deep in the ball’s depths.
It lasted a little longer but not enough. Had she detected an echo
from the console?

“Try it again when I say. And keep that
signal coming.”

She reached out mentally to the black ball
and into the ship. “Now.”

She pounced on the tiny pulse coming from the
console, enhanced it, fed it to the black ball.

The fighter came alive. Screens glowed,
hatches opened, muzzles emerged, the engines waited for ignition.
Cheers broke out, jubilant cries. Morgan withdrew. And the ship
shut down again. Fuck. She stirred in the seat, barking her legs on
the dash.

“What happened?” Hanestran asked, looking up
at her through the helmet.

“I let go and it shut down. Looks like it’ll
stay operational if I keep that signal flowing through me to the
black ball.”

“
If you can keep the connection going,
Morgan, we will record at all angles, open what we can,” Hanestran
said.

“Somebody’s going to owe me, SenComm. My
knees are killing me already.”

She wriggled a bit, settled her back and
resumed her concentration.
Base code binary, word size… word size 128… not
large… repeating codes…on?..., off?... record… save.
The crick in her back edged
through her concentration, nudging her nerves and she withdrew,
sighing. The fighter shut down again. She blinked her eyes to clear
her head. Something in the room had changed. A certain tension? She
looked around her, searching for Hanestran.

Ravindra. No wonder everybody else had
shut up. Even in an isolation suit he radiated an aura. She could
swear he was trying not to laugh. She must look pretty silly with
her knees up around her ears.
If I was at home… so, what do you think you’re
laughing at? Something funny, Your Admiralship?
She bowed her head. “
Srimana
.”

“
You don’t look comfortable,
Suri
Selwood.”

She dared not look at him. If she did, she’d
sneer. “I’m not. And I need a break.”

She struggled out, heaving her weight onto
the edge of the cockpit so she could straighten one leg, then the
other. An arch of the back to ease the crick and she tottered down
the angle of the wing and jumped onto the deck. Shit. She hadn’t
said Admiral, or
Srimana
or
anything. He wouldn’t be impressed. Oh, well. Too late
now.

“After a break, will you return to the
cockpit?” Ravindra said.

He’d asked. Good grief, he’d asked. “If you
wish it, Admiral.”

That curt nod for yes. And a hint of
approval. “I had hardly arrived when you withdrew. And although I
can view the images I would also like to see the ship with my own
eyes.”

Wow. He’d even explained. “If you’ll give me
a few moments to recover…”

“Of course. Are you able to access the system
as well?”

“I’m trying to collect what I can. But I
don’t have enough data to go on. I’m carrying out some analysis
now, basically guessing what might have been sent. My first guess
was an order to resume normal configuration from hibernation or
whatever it was. But that’s wrong. This signal was sent after the
fighters had been launched. So maybe a deploy order.”

“
Which makes sense.” He swiveled, looked
the ship over again. “You’ve proved your worth,
Suri
, and I thank you.”

A warm glow of pleasure stole through her.
“I need to walk around.” She afforded him a swift bow and strode
off, lifting her legs up behind her.
A warm glow. How fucking pathetic. An
alien admiral, for pity’s sake. So he’s got a nice butt.
Too long without a man, that’s
what it was. And not likely to have too many options
here.

She kept moving, twice around the
isolation room, a turn past
Curlew
.

Well, maybe she could get something out of
this. Maybe she could get him to let her wear her own dress rather
than those appalling, itchy, uncomfortable sacks to dinner. She’d
have to take the neckline higher, loosen it around the body. Surely
that would be okay. As long as he didn’t see it as a come-on. No.
Why would he? He’d never made a pass at her yet. You couldn’t count
the discussion about being bound. She’d had her concerns but the
incident had passed into history as though it had never happened.
Besides, if he did make a pass, she’d set him straight.

He stood beside the alien ship with
Hanestran, looking at some of the footage they’d collected. She
joined them, facing them both.

“May I ask a favor, Admiral?”

Ravindra glanced at Hanestran, who walked
away.

“I’ll get back into the cockpit for you but I
would like your permission to wear my own dress for dinner
tonight.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I’ll make sure it is suitable. The garments
I’ve been given are uncomfortable. My skin isn’t as tough as yours.
To me, the material is rough and it itches. I’ll wear them to the
mess if I must, but I thought if it’s just you and me, you may be
kind enough to offer me some leeway.”

“How can you make it suitable?”

“I can change the color and the style. The
dress has a little processor.”

His lips jerked in that faint smile. “You
have my permission. If only to see this wonderful device.”

“
Thank you,
Srimana
.” She climbed back onto the wing, squashed herself into
the cockpit and applied herself to understanding the alien
code.

Chapter
Fifteen

Morgan checked the dress out in the mirror.
Dark red, high neckline, let out so it didn’t hug her figure
anywhere. Okay, it looked much better than the hated shapeless sack
and the material felt smooth and soft but not even the bigoted
right-wingers back home could see this as a come-on.

“What do you think, Commander?” she asked
Roy.

The woman’s gaze swept over her. She
shrugged. “He has given permission. Who am I to say? It covers
you.”

It covers you but? “What’s the issue? Women
don’t wear shapeless tubes on the vids. They don’t on the news
broadcasts I’ve seen, either. So why here?”

“It is a warship. There is no place for
sexual titillation here.” The woman radiated contempt. “Can you
imagine what the Vesha women might wear to a mess?”

Morgan refrained from rolling her eyes. What
did they think would happen? An outbreak of rutting? Too late now,
she wasn’t going back. She crossed the few steps to Ravindra’s
apartment and pressed the door panel. Tullamarran bowed her
inside.

Ravindra sat in his usual place. His eyes
lingered, following the cut of the dress over her body.

“Suitable?” Her heart thudded. A sexy tremor
slipped down her spine.

“You have altered the neckline and it does
not fit quite so… er… snugly.”

He sure had noticed last time. “Correct.”

“And how is this done?”

“There’s a processor at the back of the neck.
The material is made of a special fabric with smart cells that can
be reconfigured. For instance, I can change the color.” She
lightened the red to crimson, then darkened it again.