Chapter Twenty-Two: Between the Lines

She smacked the staff against the practice dummy; then swung it around again for another blow. Back and forth she hurled it until the sweat began dripping from her brow. She ended her session with a stab to the torso area.

Kate set time aside every cycle, or one day on the moon, to work out in the base training room. She released frustrations and stayed in shape, which was not easy in low gravity.

These days it had another advantage. She could clear her mind and plan her escape from Omari.

The first step in that getaway was complete. Since Omari gave the base librarian security clearance to spend time with her, he and Kate were able to spend hours alone. The purpose was to review the logs from the Odyssey. The ship had been gone almost 150 years, so they needed to spend a lot of time reviewing every word. It also gave her an opportunity to ask him for a favor.

The librarian was older than Kate’s father, so Omari brushed away any idea of an affair. The two were left to work without disruption. That’s when Kate asked the librarian for something he could tell no one about. She was an Alexander. Of course, the answer was yes.

Kate asked him to supply her with blueprints for Shackleton Base and Station Beta. The station was close enough to Shackleton to get there quickly, but far enough away that it would take time for Omari to even suspect it. The librarian gave her the shuttle schedules, staff schedules, anything and everything that would help her find a way out.

Beta was designed for deep core drilling and long term gravity experiments. Only a few scientists spent a great deal of time there, so Kate would be out of place. She would have to move through quickly, maybe as a garbage or storage worker.

And, of course, she would have to be disguised. Being an Alexander gave her the ability to get the plans in the first place, but without the right disguise they would be worthless.

Kate let her thoughts drift, wondering what she could pretend to be and what would it feel like to be someone else. Someone that no one knew, someone that no one cared to know. That’s when Omari entered the training room and ripped her from those dreams.

“Miss Alexander,” he called out from the doorway.

“Yes,” she answered.

“You requested I inform you when Io’s shuttle departed Earth,” he said.

“Yes?”

“It has just left, m’am.”

Kate quickly turned toward the door and exited the training room. Never looking directly at Omari, not once.

“Thank you,” she said as she passed by.

Kate headed to her quarters to dress for the occasion. Io would dock at Shackleton Base in a couple of hours.

•••

“Hello, mother,” James said, still standing in front of the site where Yori was killed.

“Hello, James,” she responded. What she really wanted to do was scream. She even dreamt, just for a moment, of dropping to her knees and weeping at what her family had become.

“What are the two of you doing here?” James asked.

“Looking for you,” William said, knowing it was a lie. He and Sun were headed to the vault. “Yes, I wanted to let you know that I’ve sent Io’s bodyguard with her to Shackleton Base.”

“What?” James asked.

“I understand you were concerned because some of the incriminating messages surrounding Yori’s death were sent from his station.”

“Yes.”

“But, I can vouch for his whereabouts at the time of those transmissions,” Williams told him. “I have evidence that will exonerate him.”

James paused. “It is for me to clear him, father,” he said. “That is my duty as the Commander.”

“Yes, son, I understand. But since I was in charge of the original investigation I am privy to facts you may not be.”

“What facts?”

“The transmissions originated from somewhere else,” William said. “I can show you where they came from. Would you like to see the evidence?”

“Yes,” James said. “But not now. Perhaps tomorrow would be better.”

“Very well.”

William and Sun knew that James was responsible, but to confront him, to accuse an Alexander. This was a road no one before them had traveled. The two had just started to talk about it. They had just realized what their own son had been plotting against them. It was not the time for a confrontation.

So, William continued to play the game. He looked down at the hole in the ground, “we haven’t spent time here since Yori was assassinated,” he told James. “Perhaps this is the right moment to begin healing that wound.”

James felt his heart soften. He was reluctant to even speak. Then he looked back at the hole in the ground, and responded with an honesty he had long forgotten.

“The hole is deep,” he said.

“It is,” William responded. “But, perhaps it can be mended.”

James looked over at his mother. “Do you think it can be mended, mother?”

“I don’t know,” she told him.