Dark Beneath the Moon by Sherry D. Ramsey Read Free Book Online Page B

notice her tattoo, because she held it out so I could see it better. “Chron lettering,” she said with a shrug, “copied from a captured ship during the war. I wear it to symbolize my life’s work.”
    “What does it mean?”
    Cerevare chuckled. “I have no idea. That, you see, is part of its symbolism. My committment to the unknown.”
    I smiled. “So one day you might find out that it means ‘airlock’ or ‘engines’?”
    “Or something even less desirable,” she said with a wink. “Whatever it means, I will be happy, because it will mean I have learned something new about them.”
    “I admire your passion,” I told her, and I meant it.
    “I think it is important for the future,” she said. “How can we lay the war to rest when we don’t understand it?”
    “It was a long time ago,” I offered hesitantly.
    “But not longer than memory,” she replied. “And without the answers to those two questions of yesterday, how can tomorrow be assured?”
    I thought about that, what she was really saying. “You think they could come back.” We rolled to a stop in front of the open airlock dockway that led to the Tane Ikai ’s forward hatch.
    “I think if they came back, there should be someone who understands all the whys,” she answered.
    “Sounds like a tall order,” I said, unloading her bags from the scooter.
    “And one that I cannot hope to completely fulfill,” she said, climbing out and straightening the folds of her leggings. “But I will do what I can.”
    “That’s all any of us can hope for, Cerevare. Welcome aboard.” And I led her inside to meet the rest of the crew.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 6 – Luta
The Past Throws a Long Shadow
     
     
     
     
     
     
    WE WERE ONLY two days out from Anar when I received a surprise message from Lanar. Surprise, because I didn’t think he’d want to bring the Cheswick close enough for an FTL WaVE message when we were trying to avoid attention. But Baden commed me right in the middle of my tae-ga-chi workout to tell me that Lanar was signalling. I frowned at having to interrupt my form, but took it on the encrypted screen in my quarters.
    “Hello again, little brother,” I said, towelling off my face as I plunked myself down in my chair. “How am I supposed to keep a low profile with a Protectorate patrol ship on my tail?”
    “I’m keeping my distance, don’t worry,” he assured me with a grin. He leaned away from his screen and I could see the Protectorate plaque on the wall behind him, the motto In Astra Pax— Peace Among the Stars—curving under the stylized atom-and-stars emblem. “We got a WaVE upgrade at Willis Point, so I don’t actually have to get too close.”
    I smiled. “Yes, Baden upgraded our systems on the return trip from Kiando.” I held up a hand to forestall his next question. “I don’t know how he got hold of Protectorate tech before you did, so don’t even ask me. You’ll have to ask him yourself. If you really want to know, which you might not.”
    “You might be right about that. Listen, I heard you had a little trouble en route to Mars.”
    I almost asked how he knew about that, but I remembered in time that we’d filed an incident report when we docked at Mars.
    “It was nothing we couldn’t handle, but—it was strange.” I leaned back in my chair and tapped my fingers against my lower lip. “It wasn’t like a pirate attack—he had next to nothing for weapons. A few flash-pack torps, that was it. As soon as we fired our own warning shot across his path, he took off with some kind of drive that wasn’t standard issue on the tub he was driving, and sent—”
    I stopped—too late.
    “Sent what?” He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at me. “Seems like you left something out of that report you filed on Mars.”
    I blew out a sigh. “ Okej , you got me. I didn’t think they needed to know, and it would have raised more questions that I didn’t want to answer. He sent off an