The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (14 page)

“Ms. Weiss,” the captain struggled for patience as he realized she had just called him an incompetent idiot without actually saying the words. “I understand you’re upset over this unfortunate situation, but we don’t actually know that anyone is trying to kill you. And as for you, Mr. Hart, kindly put the disruptor down and surrender to me immediately or we will be forced to shut down power to the suite and take you anyway.”

“What will happen to Derek?” Tiana asked as she stepped over the couch and protectively stood between Derek and the Captain.

“I will take him back to prison and if he goes quietly, I won’t press charges against you for helping a criminal elude the police and harboring him in your room.”

Derek’s face was an open book to the Captain. This supposed criminal held to a code of ethics. He was very protective of the red-haired woman. He would not allow any harm to come to her. Derek’s response, when it came, wasn’t a surprise.

“Computer, remove disruptor,” Derek ordered.

* * * *

As Tiana watched him being escorted away, she felt her heart sink. Now she wished he had only been a hologram. But he wasn’t.
He is a real man, and I do mean a real man
. To make matters worse, she realized for the first time since their meeting that he now occupied a special place in her life. The thought of her existence, her career, her new start without him seemed untenable, barren and foreign. Clearly she had gotten used to having him around and he had awakened the lust within her. After the horror of Tom’s betrayal she knew she wasn’t developing romantic feelings for Derek, but she did owe him for saving her life. Little Miss Fix-it rose to the top. Derek was innocent and she needed to do something, but what? How could she best help him? Her Legal-Bot! Maybe there was some technicality they could both cling to for an appeal.
Both cling to? Just till I have mind-blowing sex, then I’ll be fine.

“Computer, call Legal-Bot Darius-20.”

All during her divorce proceedings she had refused to grant the robot the courtesy of acknowledging him by his name, or treating him in any way the same as she would a sentient being. Let’s face it, it was a machine. An arrogant, self-absorbed machine, but a machine nevertheless.

Over the suite’s speakers, the robot’s tone was cold enough to freeze the pitchfork off the devil. “What can I do for you, Ms. Weiss?”

She would have to suck up.

“Darius, I’m glad I caught you. I left in such a hurry that I forgot to properly thank you for the way you successfully handled my case. You were right. Any other Legal-Bot would not have been able to resolve the situation without your panache and skill. I want to apologize for my rudeness to you at the courthouse. I was extraordinarily stressed from the difficulties surrounding the divorce. Your intelligence and knowledge of the law gave me my freedom and I failed to ever thank you.”

“Well, Ms. Weiss, I am glad to see you came to your senses and have realized my value. I am prepared to forgive you.”

With that ego the damn thing has got to be male!

“Oh, Darius, thank you for your forgiveness,” she exclaimed using her best damsel-in-distress tone. “It will allow me closure on that dark period of my life. You are indeed the best in the business.”

Gag me. I think I’m gonna to throw up.

“You are correct, I exist at the top of my field.”

“You know, that’s actually the secondary reason for my call, the fact that you are the best in your field. I am in need of some legal advice and no Legal-Bot but Darius the Great will do.”

Derek found himself in a small holding cell locked in by an energy containment field. He hated the idea that he was going back to prison, but even worse was being separated from Tiana.
I must be nuts
. Ever since he laid eyes on her at the Justice Center, he had felt an intense, intimate and personal connection with her. He had never felt that connection with anyone else. What he had felt for Melinda paled in comparison. He had committed himself to never readmitting a woman into his heart, yet this connection was beyond his control. He was in love with her. It didn’t take his genius IQ to figure that one out.

Derek was very grateful for the time fate had given him to get to know Tiana,
but I have to have more
, he thought obsessively. He had to get himself out of this situation to be with her. He needed, for his own survival’s sake, to hear her voice. He needed to nuzzle her neck, taking in the sweetness of her fiery red hair. Tasting her, kissing her, was as necessary to him as breathing. She had become his life, his very breath. He would venture to the very gates of hell and back if he had to, just to find himself in her embrace. This was what his parents had experienced. Now he understood their commitment, absorption and enthrallment with one another.

“Mr. Hart, may I have a word with you?” The Captain said, coming into view on the other side of the energy field.

“I don’t know, Captain, do you have an appointment? My schedule is full the rest of the day.”

They both shared a laugh as the Captain let himself into Derek’s cell and sat down across from the prisoner.

“Mr. Hart, what makes you think someone is trying to kill Ms. Weiss and how exactly do both you and she fit into this puzzle? For that matter, I’m not sure I even know what the puzzle is.”

“Call me Derek, Captain. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, it is a long story.”

“Well, Derek, seeing as you aren’t going anywhere, you probably have time, so the least I can do is make myself available and listen.”

Derek looked at the Captain speculatively, finally making up his mind to relate his story. At this point, he didn’t have much left to loose, and he certainly couldn’t protect Tiana from inside his cell.

* * * *

After leaving Derek’s cell, Captain Maverick had conducted a similar interview with Tiana. It was clearly a quirk of fate that had brought those two together, yet without that quirk, Tiana would probably be dead and Derek would more than likely be in jail.

Upon returning to the bridge, the Captain found Marshall Delaney waiting for him.

“Ah, Captain. You’re back.”

“Is there something more I can do for you, Marshall?” the Captain politely acknowledged him, but had no time for social pleasantries.

“I was wondering if you’d allow me to buy you a drink. Our discussion on the Terrilian war was cut short and, frankly, being fascinated by the subject, I’d like to continue it.”

“Yes, I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it when we were interrupted, but I too was in the service during the war. Recounting war stories is one of my favorite pastimes, and I think we have a lot to talk about.”

The Captain recognized the Marshall’s approach for what it was. They were both on the same wavelength. They were a couple of old soldiers who could smell when something wasn’t right. More than that, they were a couple of seasoned veterans who recognized enemy footprints. Marshall Delaney was right, they needed to talk.

“Marshall, I’d be honored.” Turning to Commander Hollinger, he said, “Commander, the good Marshall and I are going to step across the way to Alexander’s Lounge for a bit. You have the bridge.”

“Aye, sir.” The look in the Commander’s eye clearly indicated that she knew something was up. The Captain never took social calls or breaks.

Walking with the Marshall into the lounge, the Captain’s mind was still trying to sort out the information he had gathered. The situation was too enigmatic. Without more information, the picture was too incomplete to know how to respond. What was the real purpose behind, at least, the two projects Derek and Tiana had been involved in? Clearly there was some military value involved, but what? Thus far the homing beacon remained unexplained. What part did it play in the bigger picture?

The two veterans sat at the long, smooth Plexiglas bar and ordered a couple of beers from the Bar-Bot. The music was sedate and mellow, matching the lighting. A perfect place to share their intelligence, discuss hunches and combine forces.

“So, Marshall, what branch of the military did you serve in?”

“I was in military intelligence. I didn’t see the kind of action you did, but let me assure you, the kind of action I saw was every bit as nightmarish.”

“Were you a field agent?”

“At times. I spent some time operating out of Terril itself. Very little was known about the Terrilians at the time. In order to fight and defeat an opponent you have to know their strengths and weaknesses. I was on the planet to investigate what those may have been.”

“What else did you do?”

“Not much, my cover was blown and my time on that godforsaken planet was short-lived. After I returned I went to work at the facility orbiting Pluto.” He hesitated for a moment. “You know, the one that doesn’t exist,” he finished with a wink and a grin.

“I was moved into the counterespionage division,” the Marshall continued, pausing as if he were carefully calculating how to ask his next question. “Tell me, Captain, how is it that when you were told that the food synthesizing unit in suite 1005 was malfunctioning and using up stored carbon and hydrogen elements you immediately knew what it was doing? Are you a chemist?”

Captain Maverick knew where the conversation was headed. They were both on the same wavelength.

“I could ask you the same thing, Marshall. You seemed to be as aware of what was happening as I was.”

“Captain, you mentioned that you served on a star destroyer. Was it the IGS
Ronald Reagan
?”

“Matter of fact it was. I take it then that you are familiar with Colonel Katia Reginald’s dossier?”

“I merely read the reports. I was involved in a different operation at the time. What exactly happened that day?”

Painful memories surged within the Captain’s tortured soul. Memories of the only woman he had ever loved. A woman, and fellow officer, who had been killed, along with a dining room full of her peers that infamous day fifteen years ago.

“The reports pretty much covered it. Colonel Katia Reginald of the Terrilian Armada,” he emphasized her name and position with disgust, “had infiltrated our ranks. We knew her as Lieutenant Cecilia Hammonds. Right under our very noses, as it was later discovered, she sabotaged numerous missions and assassinated several of our key officers. Every one of her assassinations looked like an accident. We suspected nothing.”

Looking up from the table and directly at the Marshall, the Captain continued, “That day a short-circuit in the electrical system caused a malfunction within the food synthesizing unit in the main dining room. The malfunction generated a large quantity of odorless gas. It was the lunch hour, the dining room was full. Most of the victims didn’t know what hit them.” The Captain grimly paused, as he relived the painful memories of what had been without a doubt the worst day of his life. The day that not only saw him lose a number of friends and comrades, but also the woman that owned him heart and soul.

“Others, like Mr. Hart did earlier today, figured out something was wrong and tried to get out, only to find that the same short-circuit had also rendered the doors inoperable. They all succumbed before they were able to manually override the door controls. Eventually the gas ignited and blew a hole in the ship’s hull. I watched the bodies of my fellow soldiers get sucked out into space and float away. No funerals, no goodbyes.

“As I’m sure you already know from the reports, we traced the supposed malfunction to a computer access point that Lieutenant Hammonds had used. We apprehended her, but she escaped while on the way to the brig, killing the soldiers who were escorting her. Security logs showed that she made her getaway by donning a spacesuit and jumping out of the shuttle bay doors. We don’t know what happened after that.”

“I can fill in that piece of the puzzle for you, Captain,” the Marshall interjected. “Reconnaissance logs showed that a Terrilian ship stopped at roughly the same place where we believe she jumped off the ship and then turned around and headed back to Terril. We assume that ship was her ticket home.”

The two men sat in silence nursing their drinks, until a female voice broke into their somber mood. “I take it you gentlemen believe that this Terrilian super spy is the one who tried to kill me?”

“Ms. Weiss,” the Captain, recognizing her voice, snapped without bothering to look at her, “do you make it a habit to listen in on other people’s conversations?”.

“Only on those rare occasions when someone is trying to kill me. By the way, Marshall, I, too, have been to the Pluto facility that doesn’t exist. Mind if I join you guys?”

“You may as well. It appears you’ve been part of the conversation all along,” Marshall Delaney retorted, appearing equally frustrated at her intrusion.

“Thank you. Now then, gentlemen, I believe we were discussing the possible identity of the person who is trying to kill me?”

“Ms. Weiss.” The Captain turned to face her fully. “I want to be perfectly honest with you. If, in fact, it is Colonel Reginald who is trying to kill you, I strongly recommend keeping you in protective custody. The woman was the Terrilians’ most successful operative during the war. She’s very, very good at what she does. She’s brilliant, ruthless and one hell of a strategist.”

“Ms. Weiss, what do you know about the Terrilians?” queried Marshall Delaney.

“All I know is what the history books tell us. They tried to kill off Earth citizens living on their planet and the Galactic Alliance came to their rescue, thus the war. Now Terrilia is quarantined by the Alliance and our ships are not allowed to go beyond the Omicron quadrant into their space.”

“I’m afraid there’s a little more to the story that you need to know. In the late twenty-second century, when Earth’s population had grown beyond what the planet could reasonably sustain, colonies were established on Terril, a planet very much like Earth but rich in the natural resources that Earth had run out of long ago. That much you know. What you don’t know is that the planet was lightly populated by a genteel, peace-loving race of humanoids who welcomed the newcomers with open arms. At the time, millions of humans had chosen to seek their fortunes in this new frontier, and relocated to Terril. As was bound to happen, nature took its course and eventually the native Terrilians and earthlings began to intermarry.”