Honor Bound

“They were both targeted,” O’Keefe corrected him. “Glen had asked Fuentes to look into someone. They were killed to keep what he found out quiet.”

“Who?” O’Keefe could see that Dominguez wanted to say more but didn’t trust himself to do it.

“You, Xavier,” O’Keefe told him. “They were investigating you. And what happened to you on that mission to Aphrodite five years ago, just after the war.”

Dominguez’s eyes went wide, his self-control compromised by the drugs that had coated the interior of the glass from which he’d drunk the bourbon. “Jesus, Daniel, you can’t know this,” he shook his head, trying to lever himself out of the chair but somehow lacking the strength. “They’ll kill you when they find out you know.”

“They’re planning to kill me anyway, Xavier,” O’Keefe reminded him. “And when they do, do you think that it’s going to be easy? That the military and the government are going to follow you because you’re the Vice President?”

“They said there wouldn’t be any other choice,” Dominguez agreed, his eyes seemingly horrified at what his mouth was saying. “They’ll be looking for a leader and I’ll be there to lead them.”

“And who’s ‘they,’ Xavier?” O’Keefe demanded. “Who made you all those promises? Who’s your contact?”

“Lobbyist for Republic Mineral Resources multicorp,” Dominguez told him. “Guy named Fourcade.”

“How shocking,” O’Keefe muttered dryly. “And who else does Mr. Fourcade say is involved in this?”

Dominguez shook his head. “He says it’s better that I don’t know. The fewer people who know, the better. Hell, I didn’t even have to do anything. Just wait for you to die, then take office and we could start undoing the damage you did with your emigration policies.”

“You supported those policies too, Xavier,” O’Keefe snarled at him, leaning across the desk. “You were elected as Senator because of your support for them! When did you change your mind on that?”

“I..,” Dominguez’s face went slack and he looked as if he were about to fall unconscious, but then he shook himself. “I don’t remember ever feeling like that. I know I did. I’ve seen the voting records, the speeches. I know I did… but I can’t remember why.”

“What happened on that trip to Aphrodite, Xavier?” O’Keefe asked him, elbows resting on the desk as he studied the man, as if he could discern the truth if he watched him closely enough.

“I don’t know,” Dominguez replied.

“What happened on the trip to Aphrodite?” O’Keefe repeated, slamming his fist on the desk.

“I don’t know,” Dominguez insisted sullenly. “I can’t remember any of it. I just have this weird… divide in my memory. Like everything that happened before the trip is… muffled somehow. Not real, or less real. Like I had been sleeping my whole life and just woke up after that trip. Fourcade said something happened on the trip, too… he said it was key to what we are going to do, but he wouldn’t tell me. I don’t think he trusts me.”

“So why do you trust him?” O’Keefe wanted to know. “Why are you going along with this?”

Dominguez blinked, his face showing some surprise. “It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t,” he admitted. “It seemed… right. Like it’s what I had been waiting for.”

O’Keefe looked up to where he knew the video pickup was located. “Is that enough?”

“No,” Shannon told him over his ear bud, “but it’s all we’re going to get. Go ahead and cut him loose.”

The President sighed in frustration, then turned back to Dominguez. “Xavier, in a moment, I am going to give you another drink. After you drink it, you’re going to go to my guest room and take a nap. When you wake up, you’re going to remember that we had a conversation about how worried I was about Valerie and how I thought you should deliver my scheduled speech to the Senate next week.”

“I can’t!” Dominguez exclaimed, surprising both O’Keefe and Shannon.

“You can’t what, Xavier?”

“I can’t give that speech… I won’t be anywhere near the Senate! I’ve been ordered not to.” He hesitated. “He wouldn’t tell me why… but I’ve been thinking, and I think that’s when they’re planning on having you killed.”

Ari stared at the screen for a second, then looked at Shannon, who was frozen in place with shock.

“Oh shit,” he muttered.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Welcome aboard, Colonel,” Esmeralda Villanueva said to Jason McKay as he moved into the cockpit of the shuttle, pulling himself into the seat behind the command station, strapping himself in next to Vinnie and Jock.

“Thanks, Commander,” he told her. “Tell me, can you link your main viewer to the one on the bridge?”

“Not a problem, sir,” she assured him, adjusting the screen controls until it showed the tactical readout from the bridge, complete with an avatar of the wormhole they were about to transit.

“We’re in range of the gate, sir,” they could hear Pirelli’s clear contralto over the intercom.

“Where’re our resident Russians?” Vinnie leaned over to ask.

“Locked in their cabins and strapped to acceleration couches,” McKay replied.

“Best place for ‘em,” Jock muttered.

“Activate the emitters,” Patel ordered from the bridge. “Helm, ready the pulse drives.”

“Well, here we go again,” Vinnie said under his breath.

“At least we aren’t chasing the ass-end of a fusion drive this time,” Jock mused

The stars ahead of them disappeared as the wormhole opened, then the Sheridan lurched forward under the thrust of the plasma drives. McKay clenched his jaw and gripped the arms of his acceleration couch tightly, preparing himself for the transition, but it didn’t seem to help. Reality abandoned him and left him naked to what was beyond, what couldn’t be perceived by the human mind, for just a fleeting moment that lasted all of eternity and yet no time at all.

And then they were through. “Oh man,” Jock moaned, “Thursday smells horrible.”

McKay let out the breath that he’d been holding for light years and tried to focus his eyes on the viewscreen, where a small, bright primary star and a nearby gas giant were already visible. An alarm began to sound as threat icons popped up on the screen and Pirelli’s voice came over the speakers. “We have multiple bogies within three light seconds… we are being scanned on active radar and lidar.”

“Drive field reactivated,” Sweeny announced.

“Commander Pirelli,” Patel spoke up, “where are we on an analysis of the system?”

“Sensor sweep in progress,” she informed him. “Gauss cannon capacitors charged and ready. Two of the bogies are accelerating our way.”

As she spoke, McKay could see the viewscreen filling in the details of the system, adding detail to the gas giant and adding three large moons to its orbit, two of them marked with the blue and green coloration of habitable worlds… and then adding another jumpgate less than a light second from the one they’d just exited.

“We have the next wormhole located,” Pirelli noted. “Still scanning for Mr. Mironov’s parameters.”

“Helm,” Patel ordered calmly, “make for that gate, one g acceleration analog.”

“Aye, sir,” Sweeny confirmed and in the shuttle they could feel the pressure of their normal Earth weight pushing them into their couches.

“Admiral,” Pirelli reported, excitement creeping into her voice, “we have it… this is one of the systems Mr. Mironov told us about! If he’s right, we should be two jumps away from Novoye Rodina!”

“Excellent, Commander. Is there any sign of the Eysselink-equipped ramships?”

“Negative sir,” Pirelli told him. “Not close enough for us to detect anyway-our gravimetic sensor range is only about five light seconds with the weaker emitters. The two ships heading for us are conventional fusion pulse drive. We should be at the next gate before they intercept.”

“Admiral Patel,” McKay spoke over his ‘link, hooked to the intercom speakers on the bridge.

“Yes, Colonel McKay?” Patel looked up at the interruption.

“Sir, this close to their home system, we have to assume they have communications set up through the gates. From here on out, they’ll be waiting for us.”

“Understood,” Patel assured him. He glanced at Sweeny. “Helm, I don’t suppose we have any idea what