gaian consortium 03 - the gaia gambit Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  If You Enjoyed This Book…

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  THE GAIA GAMBIT

  A NOVEL OF THE GAIAN CONSORTIUM

  CHRISTINE POPE

  DARK VALENTINE PRESS

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  If You Enjoyed This Book…

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE GAIA GAMBIT

  Copyright © 2013 by Christine Pope

  Published by Dark Valentine Press

  Cover design and ebook formatting by Indie Author Services

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

  Please contact the author through the form on her website at www.christinepope.com if you experience any formatting or readability issues with this book.

  Created with Vellum

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Have you ever had a human woman, Captain?”

  Rast sen Drenthan turned toward his commanding officer and tried not to frown. “No, Excellency.”

  What might have been a smile twisted the edges of Admiral sen Trannick’s scarred mouth. “You should. They’re delicious.”

  Rast didn’t reply at first, but instead glanced past the admiral’s bulky shoulder at the pale yellow sun of the Chlorae system. Three planets, but only one mattered. Chlorae II, site of the richest deposits of millenite yet discovered. Millenite, vital for the subspace propulsion systems of starships the galaxy over, whether Gaian, Stacian, or Eridani.

  Too bad the Gaians had been the first to find it.

  Odd that sen Trannick would mention human women, considering it was one particular specimen who had been a pebble in his boot for some time now. Captain Lira Jannholm, commander of the Valiant. Officially, the cruiser was listed as being assigned to the Gaian Exploration Commission, and not the Defense Fleet, but Rast knew better. The cruiser had settled in almost as soon as the initial GEC team reported its findings to the government back on Gaia. The Valiant’s stated mission was to provide support personnel to the scientific team, but all the parties involved knew it was really there to make sure that no interlopers attempted to interfere with the Gaians’ claim.

  “Perhaps on my next leave,” Rast told the older man, his tone deliberately casual. It wouldn’t do to offend the admiral, but Rast wondered exactly what his commanding officer had intended by asking such a personal question.

  “Perhaps sooner,” sen Trannick replied, and this time there was no mistaking the smile that lifted his distorted lips. Those scars had been earned during the siege of Arlinais, when he had stayed to pilot his own ship through the maelstrom and take out the Gaian flagship, thus banishing the troublesome humans from that sector once and for all.

  Rast did not answer, but a prickle of unease began to work its way from under the heavy trinials of knotted hair that fell down his back. As suited a captain, the dreadlocks were banded in copper and gold, and suddenly felt heavier than he could ever recall.

  “This Captain Jannholm,” the Admiral went on. “What do you know of her?”

  Probably far less than you, Rast thought, but he only said carefully, “She is young for her rank, but tenacious. She knows we are bound by the treaty, and so maintains her patrols but refrains from engaging our forces. Her orders are strict, I imagine.”

  “They are.”

  “I beg your indulgence, Admiral, but I’m not sure what you expect from me in this situation. Any attack on the Valiant would surely lead to retaliation, both by the Gaian Defense Fleet and the Council’s security forces.”

  The admiral’s grin widened. “Not an attack, sen Drenthan — a wager.”

  Stacians were notorious the galaxy over for their love of a wager, and the admiral was a particularly ferocious gambler. Rast had never quite understood his people’s predilection for finding a reason to gamble on everything from the number of chicks in a cheris’ clutch to the number of days in a woman’s pregnancy, but he knew better than to reveal such an un-Stacian attitude. No, he had limited himself to the sorts of harmless wagers that kept him in the game but could cause no real trouble. He had the feeling, however, that what the admiral was about to propose was far from harmless.

  “Are we wagering on what it would take to get the good captain to abandon her defense of the millenite?”

  “Oh, I know better than to bet on that. She is, as you say, tenacious. But I also know you’re an ambitious one — and no harm in that. You would do very well in command of a system fleet, and not stuck out here in the hinterlands playing treltha and minsk with the Gaians.” The smile returned, even as sen Trannick continued, “Offer to withdraw if Captain Jannholm will spend one night with you.”

  Had the admiral gone mad? It might have been easier if he had, but Rast saw no signs of madness, only a canny gleam in the other man’s copper-colored eyes that seemed to indicate he knew exactly what his subordinate thought of such an outlandish wager.

  “Excellency, whatever we might think of the Gaians, Lira Jannholm is the captain of a starship, not some harlot in an Iradian brothel. Surely — ”

  “Are you saying you will not do it?”

  The edge in the admiral’s voice was obvious, and Rast quickly backpedaled. “No, Excellency, of course not. But — ’’

  “Best not to keep Captain Jannholm waiting, sen Drenthan.”

  As there was clearly no more to be said, Rast bowed from the waist and then exited the admiral’s chamber, cursing his luck in being given this post in the first place, cursing his commanding officer’s ruling vice, and cursing Captain Jannholm most of all — for if she had been some grizzled veteran, the admiral would never have cooked up this unlikely scheme.

  * * *

  “Message coming in for you, Captain,” said Lieutenant Ramirez from the communications console. His brows drew together. “It’s — it’s from the captain of the Stacian ship.”

  Lira Jannholm swiveled in her chair so she could see the comm officer more clearly. “Come again, Lieutenant?”

  “Captain sen Drenthan.” Ramirez’s shoulders lifted slightly. “He’s requesting a private
channel.”

  Stranger and stranger. The Stacians didn’t normally approach their Gaian adversaries with polite requests for private communications. No, generally, they were more inclined to take what potshots they could, if they thought the Eridanis and the Zhore and the other senior members of the Council weren’t paying attention. After all, those small attacks never caused any real damage, although they did tend to make the Gaians more on edge than ever…which was the whole point of the exercise. Still, Lira knew she couldn’t ignore such a request.

  “Patch it through to my ready room,” she said, and rose from the conn.

  The Valiant was certainly not the grandest member of the fleet, and so her ready room was a small chamber barely three meters square. But at least in there she could have a modicum of privacy.

  She pushed the button on the comm console, and the image of a Stacian officer flickered into existence in the space above the desktop. As she had never actually met a Stacian in person, she didn’t have much experience trying to differentiate between them. This Captain sen Drenthan seemed a typical enough representative of the species — golden-skinned, eyes dark copper, the masses of his coarse dark hair twisted into ropes that fell down his back. Humanoid, yes, but taller and bulkier than most Gaians, with bony ridges along his cheekbones and brow.

  The Stacian’s expression might have been considered pleasant on his own world, but she found herself wanting to step backward from that penetrating glare.

  “Captain sen Drenthan,” she said coolly, as if having an enemy commander contact her privately was something that happened every day. “You wished to speak with me? I feel I must remind you that under Section 56, Paragraph 112, of the Eridani Accord, contact between opposing forces is supposed to be limited to cases of extreme emergency, or — ”

  “I am well aware of the strictures of the treaty, Captain Jannholm.” He paused, and the gleaming copper eyes cast downward for a second or two, as if he were weighing what he intended to say next. “However, the treaty was written to foster peace, and what I wish to say to you may help to achieve that end. I would see you in person, here on my ship.”

  “You would…” For possibly the first time in her life, Lira found herself at a loss for words. Certainly she had never thought the Stacian commander would invite her over as calmly as if he were extending an invitation for afternoon tea. She gathered herself and said, “I’m afraid that is quite impossible.”

  “I am willing to offer up ten of my crewmen in exchange — as a gesture of goodwill. But once I have spoken with you, you will understand why I wished to do so in person.”

  Her tone flat, she responded, “Abandoning my post in such a way is completely out of the question.” It crossed her mind to request that he come to visit her here on her own ship, but a second glance at those forbidding brows and that stern jaw told her such a demand would at best be ignored.

  “I would not call it abandoning your post. Tell me, have you never once left the Valiant to assist the scientists down on Chlorae II?”

  He had her there. She had gone planet-side from time to time, since part of her assignment here was to make sure that the scientists had complete access to all the resources they needed. What they all knew was that the Valiant served mainly as a placeholder, a babysitter until the GEC’s heavy transports could arrive with the equipment, personnel, and materiel necessary to establish a full-fledged mining colony on the planet.

  “That is not the same thing, Captain,” she told him.

  “Perhaps not. But you will still be serving the interests of peace.”

  “I had no idea the Stacians were so interested in peace,” she returned. Although she had been halfway hoping that he would show some reaction, his expression did not change. At least, she didn’t think it did.

  “There is probably much about us you do not know, Captain Jannholm.”

  Well, that was true enough. She watched him for a few seconds, the barbarian splendor of his hair and uniform strangely at odds with the sterile interior of her ready room. Possibly she was making a huge mistake, but she hadn’t achieved her current position without taking a few calculated risks.

  “Make sure your second-in-command and chief weapons officer are among those you exchange,” she said.

  He bowed from the waist. “As you wish it, so it will be.”

  * * *

  Captain Jannholm was smaller in person than he had thought she would be. Something about her stance, the straightness of her shoulders, had bespoken a taller woman, but she barely came up to his shoulder, slight even for a Gaian.

  Not that she seemed to notice her lack of height. She stepped into his chamber with her head high, the stars of her rank gleaming on the high collar of her dark-gray uniform. He signaled to the two security officers who had escorted her in, and they bowed, then exited the room.

  For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. She seemed content to merely survey her surroundings, from the hangings on the wall to the rugs of woven chikka fur on the floor. Rast had heard that the Gaians mocked the Stacian ways, saying their practice of taking luxurious furnishings with them into space proved they were barbarians. For himself, he had never understood the reason for making one’s surroundings as spartan and spare as possible. Save perhaps, that the Gaians were notoriously money-pinching in their ways, and perhaps having such uncomfortably sparse ships was one way of saving a few units.

  Then Captain Jannholm fixed him with a direct stare, and asked simply, “What is it you wanted to say to me?”

  Now, with her standing before him, broaching such a subject seemed more impossible than ever. She was not, as he had told the admiral, some whore from the brothels of the outer territories. Everything about her seemed correct, from the coil of dark hair on the back of her head to the gleaming toes of her polished boots.

  And although he had always thought Gaians plain, with their too-smooth skin and distressing lack of personal ornamentation, he looked on this Lira Jannholm and found her oddly lovely. Perhaps it was something in the curve of her mouth, or the color of her eyes, a clear blue-green that evoked images of deep water, so rare on his home world, and so unlike the copper and gold and bronze hues shared by his fellow Stacians.

  But reticence was not a trait the Stacians commonly shared, and he saw no point in indulging in it now. “For some days we have been at an impasse, Captain.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “No doubt you have been cursing my name and wishing me to leave.”

  Something flickered near her mouth, a hint of the beginnings of a smile before her expression smoothed itself once again. “I didn’t know your name to curse it, Captain sen Drenthan. But I will admit that my life would be easier if your government would just recognize the fact that the Consortium had first claim to this world, and allow you to withdraw.”

  Unwittingly, she had given him the opening he needed. “But that is exactly what I have come here to propose.”

  Her brows lifted. “The Stacian government would never permit such a thing.”

  Cool thing she was, cool as the color of her eyes. Of course, she had no way of knowing he’d already been granted such permission by proxy, through Admiral sen Trannick offering the wager in the first place. “The Stacian navy does not operate under the same constraints as the Gaian fleet. Individual captains may choose to make such decisions based on their individual situations.”

  “And what precisely is the situation?”

  He admired how she stood her ground, facing him straight on, even though he towered over her by several handspans and could easily have overpowered her if desired. Quelling a smile of his own, he said, “I will withdraw from the system…if you will spend one night with me.”

  For a few long seconds she didn’t move, didn’t blink. Then, slowly, “Is this a joke?”

  “A joke?”

  The even pallor of her skin didn’t change, although Rast knew humans had a tendency to flush red when faced with uncomfortable situations.
She said, her tone even enough, “I suppose I should be glad you said this to me in private, but really — why precisely did you ask to meet with me?”

  This wasn’t going quite as he’d planned. He’d expected disbelief, anger, embarrassment. He certainly hadn’t thought his proposition would be viewed as some sort of jest.

  “This is why I asked you to meet me in private. Or would you rather I had asked you such a question in front of your bridge crew?”

  “I would rather you didn’t ask such a question at all. Has the Stacian fleet stooped so low as to consider such matters even worthy of discussion?”

  He might have asked himself that same thing. But trying to explain the intricacies of the wager to this alien woman, of the millennia in which the rituals had evolved, would help very little. To be sure, he didn’t always understand them himself. However, he knew that to back out was inconceivable. He could only pursue his suit to the best of his ability.

  “Are Gaians so rigid that they are incapable of exploring alternate means of diplomacy, of peace?”

  Finally a few spots of color flared in her face, high up along her cheekbones. “I would gladly meet you at any arbitration table if your offer of withdrawal is sincere. But to expect an officer of the fleet — ”

  “I expect nothing. I can only ask. The choice is yours whether or not you consider the withdrawal of Stacian forces from this system worth your…sacrifice.”