Stealth Read online

  "All of them," he said. ''You can't care about them. Your work is too important."

  "Do you care about them?" she asked.

  "Hell, no," he said. "Why should I?"

  She wrenched out of his grasp. Her upper arms ached where his hands had dug in.

  She lowered her head and walked away.

  "Rose, wait."

  She didn't. She kept walking. He grabbed her one more time, and she tried to yank away, but he held her too tight.

  ''Why should I care about them?" he asked.

  "Because science is supposed to be for the public good, Quint," she said. "Not to help the Empire gain more power."

  "There's nothing wrong with the Empire, Rose." He sounded convinced.

  She looked down at his hand. "Let me go, Quint. You're hurting me."

  He released her. She shook her arm, trying to get the circulation back.

  "And, for the record, Quint," she said. "Any time a government believes that it can sacrifice people for the greater good, then there's something wrong with that government."

  He frowned as if he was trying to understand. The look on his face hurt her more than anything. He hadn't understood. He hadn't understood from the beginning. And she should have realized it.

  She turned her back on him and walked away.

  And she hoped she would never ever see him again.

  Now

  "What happened to me," she repeated. If she explained it to him, she would simply see that expression again, the one she had walked away from so long ago.

  So she decided to sidestep the question.

  "What happened to me is simple," she said. "I grew up."

  He was frowning. She couldn't trust him. Not even when he said he could keep her from the worst punishments. Maybe he could. But he wouldn't save her from interrogations.

  And the last thing she wanted to do was betray her friends.

  She didn't dare trust him. He always tricked her.

  And then she got cold. He was tricking her now, forcing her into conversation while the military closed in on her ship. She wasn't leaving the area because of him.

  She had to get away from him. Or at least, she had to try.

  "What does that mean, grew up?" he asked.

  "It means it's been a long time since I last saw you, Quint," she said. "What happened to me is too complicated to explain in an hour-long conversation. I lived a lot. So did you."

  His frown eased as the tension in his body seemed to go. Maybe she did know him. And maybe she had grown up enough to fool him.

  "Oh, dear," she said, keeping her voice calm. ''You're bleeding again."

  He raised a hand toward his face.

  "Don't touch it," she said. "I don't know what got in those wounds. But something's keeping them from healing. I don't want you to spread it. Sit back on the bed."

  He looked alarmed. He sat down.

  She grabbed her kit and brought it over. Then she picked up the numbing agent.

  "Lean back. Close your eyes for just a minute."

  He did. She grabbed one of the anesthetics, hoped the dosage wouldn't be too much for him, and as she wiped the numbing agent along his clean cheek, she inserted the anesthetic into his neck.

  "Hey!" he said, and tried to sit up. But she held him down with one hand, knowing the anesthetic would work quickly. He fumbled, reached, and fell backward.

  "Hey," he repeated softly. And then he closed his eyes.

  She stepped back, counting for a full minute. No one, no matter how strong they were, could stay awake with that stuff flowing through them. She checked his vital signs. They were good.

  She hadn't really thought this through. But she had only a few minutes to execute the plan, however haphazard it was.

  Her heart was beating harder than his was. She hurried to one of the escape pods, and checked the supplies. Food and water for a week, more if he rationed. Her hand floated over the communications equipment. If she took it out of the pod, she would buy more time. He couldn't contact anyone. She could leave the emergency beacon.

  But he might die before anyone found him.

  Then she shook her head. One person too many had already died on this mission.

  She wasn't going to kill Quint, too.

  She left the pod's door open. Then she went to the bed. It had been a long time since she'd lifted someone heavier than she was. She eyeballed him. She thought she could do it without reducing the gravity in the ship.

  She slid under him and pulled him over her shoulder, wobbling a bit under his weight. She lurched like a drunk as she carried him to the pod, glad that the ship was relatively empty, so she didn't hit much. She crouched, her knees screaming in protest, then let him fall to the floor.

  He didn't wake up.

  She shoved him into the pod, checked his vitals one last time, and let out a small sigh of relief He was fine. He would be fine.

  Weirdly, she felt the urge to apologize. She was leaving him yet again without any explanation-or, at least, without an explanation he could understand.

  But she didn't say anything. Instead, she closed the pod door and went to The Dane's control panel. She noted the coordinates, made sure the pod's emergency beacon showed on her communications readout, and then set the pod loose.

  "Get out, get out, get out," she whispered. She never wanted to see him again, and she was afraid she would.

  She looked at the screens, watched as the pod tumbled away from The Dane. She needed to get out of this sector. This cruiser couldn't escape Enterran space fast enough to get her to the Nine Planets before Quint was found. Plus she had believed him when he said that he had already released information about the ship.

  Everyone would be looking for her.

  For that reason alone, she couldn't go back to the rendezvous, nor could she contact the others. She hoped they would follow instructions and leave after the designated period of time.

  Not that anyone would be looking for them. As far as the Empire knew, as far as Quint knew, she had been working alone.

  The pod got smaller and smaller until it was just a dot on her screen. She should just leave him to his fate. After all, one death in the service of a cause didn't matter.

  That was his philosophy, anyway.

  But it wasn't hers.

  She went to the control panel, scanned for the nearest starbase, and sent a coded message, warning of a ship in trouble, and escape pods at these coordinates.

  It was the least she could do to salve her own conscience, even though doing so might cause her capture.

  She had no idea if she would get out of this alive, but she was going to try. And she was going to try to do it alone.

  But she kept staring at that dot, even as it became part of the blackness of space, indistinguishable from everything around it.

  He had known her well. He had probably known what she would do.

  He had made it easy for her to get into the Empire, to get back on a stealth tech research team. He had done it for the wrong reason, but he had done it.

  Had he let her go this time?

  She closed her eyes for just a moment. He had called her his Achilles' heel. Maybe she was. And maybe she should be grateful.

  But she'd rather believe that she had escaped him a second time.

  She'd rather believe she had done it on her own.