Page 54 of Redstone
“I’m fine, Sir,” she said. “But I’m not alone. Kyle’s lawyer is here with me. Have you been apprised of the situation at Redstone?”
“Peacock contacted me about it.”
“Ah.” If anyone knew what was going on, it was Garrett. “Then maybe you wouldn’t mind filling us in?Bothof us?” she emphasized.
“Are you confident, Hummingbird?”
Tamara glanced at Demarcos. He looked right back at her, and Tamara took a deep breath and hoped she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
“I’m confident, Sir.”
Chapter twenty-six
It was strange, being back in the company of people he didn’t have to fear. Well,morepeople; Kyle was already accustomed to Isidore and even Pence, to a certain extent. Now there were also Robbie and Wyl, and with five of them on Robbie’s little ship, there was no avoiding each other. Wyl had disabled the vessel’s tracking system, essentially making them invisible in space, and then set them in orbit around a red giant while they figured out what to do next.
According to the elusive Peacock, whom Kyle recognized as soon as he heard his voice over the comm, the thing to do right now was to make themselves scarce.
“I’m not sure of the next play,” Garrett confessed to Isidore and Wyl. He sounded supremely irritated by his own ignorance. “I’m compiling the data you gave me and collecting evidence. I’ve already scheduled a meeting on the Senate floor next standard month, which was the soonest I could get in. I might need access to Kyle at that point for tests to verify the geneticmodifications, but I’m not sure, and I don’t trust having him anywhere near Olympus or even the Central System while I’ve got Raymond on the run. He’s being suspiciously quiet about everything, including the disgrace that’s Redstone.That, at least, is changing.”
“So, you want us to stay close but not too close?”
“If possible. And for the love of life, don’t get caught doing anything illegal by any planetary authorities while our entire plan hangs in limbo,” Garrett begged. “I’ve got enough to worry about now; I don’t want to add bailing you out of some Fringe jail cell to the list.”
Isidore frowned. “What’s worrying you?”
“What isn’t?” Garret replied dryly. “My husband is two weeks out on a trip to Pandora, carrying some much-needed supplies after the last hurricane season; my kid is restarting school at the same Academy that almost saw him killed last year; and his significant other might just blow up a building this year with hir experiments. Puffin has basically washed her hands of Ten, but I’m not about to do the same. And now there’s the six of you on my radar.”
“Five,” Wyl corrected.
“Six,” Garrett shot back. “Another inmate escaped Redstone during the riots. Three guesses as to who it was, and the first two don’t count.”
“Rory.” Isidore sounded grimly certain.
“Rory, also known as Rory MacAllister, also in possession of nearly a dozen other aliases. One of the most prolific mass murderers in the history of humankind if the casualties from the ship crashes that he engineered count. Prosecutors certainly thought they did. Thanks for letting that piece of work out along with you.”
“Hey, we don’t like him any more than you do,” Wyl snapped.
“I know.” Garrett sounded conciliatory. “How is Robbie? I expected to talk to him today.”
Wyl ran a hand through his hair. “He’s sleeping. Still. Again. He’s hardly woken up since we left Redstone.”
“Did the Regen not—”
“The Regen worked; he’s healed, he’s just … I don’t know. Exhausted. Unable to stay up for more than an hour at a time. Hopefully, it’s just fatigue.”
“If it isn’t, we’ll figure something else out.” Garrett sounded firm. “I’m not leaving you to deal with the ramifications of this on your own. You have the credits, you’ve got all the supplies I could forward to the safe houses, and you’ve got a way to speak to me. You won’t be out there for long. I’ll bring you back soon, I promise. We’ll take out Alexander, undo his xenophobic policies regarding the Fringe colonies and the alien populations within the Alliance, and ensure that you’re all cleared of any charges of misconduct.”
“I hope that applies to me too,” Pence said quietly. He’d somehow gotten right next to Kyle without Kyle even noticing; that was one of the downsides to being on their own for now; there was no way to turn his mods back on. He would have heard Pence from a hundred feet away if he’d had his mods.
Then again, given how small the space onboard was and how tightly they were going to be packed, maybe Kyle should be glad his mods weren’t working. Some things, he didn’t really need to hear.
“I’m sure you can make a case for time served and assistance rendered,” Kyle said just as quietly.
“It would be nice,” Pence mused. “I haven’t been felony free for the past thirty-odd years.” He stared a while longer at Isidore and Wyl, then tugged at Kyle’s sleeve. “Let’s leave them to it for now, hmm? They’ll keep us up-to-date if there’s something we need to know or say.” He left without waiting, but after amoment, Kyle followed him. He passed by Wyl and Robbie’s darkened room, where he could just barely make out Robbie’s restless form on the bunk. He might be asleep, but he wasn’t still.
There was one other bedroom in the little ship, and Kyle shared that with Isidore and Pence. Pence had moved in with them with unceremonious expectation, and Isidore had rolled his eyes but let it stand. Part of Kyle still resented the man’s intrusion into what had been something … close, possibly even more than he knew, with Isidore. On the other hand, he appreciated that at least one other person on the damn ship knew less about what was going on than he did.
Pence bypassed their room and led the way to the very tail end of the ship, where a tiny viewport let them look out on their surroundings. Kyle was used to space being nothing but blackness, but thanks to Wyl’s paranoia, he’d found them a lodging in an asteroid belt around an oversized, slowly dying sun. Red light glimmered off the rocks that surrounded them, and astral dust glittered in the spaces between. It was beautiful, and when Pence sat down on the low bench in front of the port and motioned for Kyle to join him, he did so without a second thought.
