Perhaps it was time he put his security clearance to work.
CHAPTER 23: KAT
THE FOLLOWING afternoon, Kat bounded up to the PARC with a couple of green drinks in hand. She may or may not have used her long legs and seniority to her advantage as she muscled her way past the aimless afternoon crowd milling about the Hideaway. But she was hungry and impatient to find Lee. They hadn’t had a chance for more than a passing touch and lingering glance with their busy schedules this morning.
Impatience aside, though, after her night with the twins, her soul felt lighter, like maybe she could still do some good for their galaxy after all. They had stayed up way too late just talking about nothing and Lee. She was up bobbing somewhere near the top layer of eggshell panels lining the walls as she rounded the landing and strode through the first door on the left.
“It’s been a minute,” Kat said, her bobbing soul dipping a little with the recollections from the last time they’d been up here just before their debriefing last term. But she quickly adjusted her internal barometer as she padded over to the long table spanning the room.
Lee stood with his boots balanced shoulder-width apart in a perfect stance, the muscle pulled tight from his legs, up to the arms clasped across his chest and the messy tangle of hair over his brow as he stared into the spread of holograms alreadydrawn before him. “How was last night?” he asked, not yet turning away from the file he was reading.
Kat set the drinks down on the table. “It was nice to have some time with Kiara and Kamata. But I missed you.” Coming up behind him, she threaded her arms through his, tangling her hands in his warmth as she peeked over his shoulder to see what he was working on.
“Did you guys make it down to the blaster range?” he asked, craning his head sideways to meet her gaze with raised brows.
“Eventually.” She winked. Let him deduce what he liked. But their night had been harmless enough. Some girl talk. A spilled bag of cran-nuts. And a trip-wired reversal of the anti-gravity chamber, the continuation of a project the twins had tampered with previously… “We ran into Hanna when we were up in the Hideaway. She sends her love.”
“I’m sure.” Lee’s silent chuckle rippled up his back; she could feel it against her chest as the laughter faded. She swung herself around his body to plant a kiss to his neck, and at the delicious awestruck smile dancing across his cheekbones, peppered those with kisses as well.
Setting her bag down on the floor, she sidled up to the table beside him. “So what haveyoubeen up to?” She nodded to the room, the holoblock he had drawn up on the table before them. “You’re using the Planning and Research Collaboration rooms—I’m guessing this has something to do with our raider clearances?”
“Not directly, but yes,” he said, glancing over as if to warn her that she may not like where this conversation would take them.
But Kat only nodded, putting up her mental blinders as he continued.
“I want to learn what I can about the General. And more specifically,” he clarified, as Kat’s eyes narrowed, “his connection to our galaxy’s history of harnessing dark radiation.”
“You want to know why he was after Segura.” Kat filled in the blank for him.
Lee nodded, loosing a tense breath, one of probably many that had been welling up if he was looking into this history. “I know we’re putting that raid behind us. But I can’t help but think they are still tied to this somehow.” He glanced back over at the holotech open before him. “That initial accident we found occurred over a century ago. That would have been way before his time. But I think I’ve found reference to another—here, take a look at this.”
Lee expanded the holographic record he’d been studying, scrolling back up to the opening paragraphs. “The General mentioned something about another operation during our debriefing a few months back. It doesn’t say specifically here that they were attempting to harness dark rays. It looks like it may have been a sister-project. A branch off of the original commissioned experiments in the century earlier. But… ”
Kat read over the headline of the paragraphs he’d marked in the report.
Operations Shutdown with New Deaths
Linked to Dark Radiation.
“When did this occur?” Shoving the first hints of panic and compression into her I-really-just-hate-the-General drawer, she did the quick calculation in her head based on the report date. “Forty-three years ago.” She sucked in a breath. “This would make it a part of his lifetime.” She looked back over at Lee. “It’s definitely a starting point. I hadn’t realized there were more of those operations. How can I help?”
After another considerable glance confirming that she was indeed in a good place to help, he motioned to another of theholograms he’d drawn up. “I want you to find me everything you can on the whereabouts of a young Marion Narron.”
It didn’t take her too much digging to locate their esteemed future general in the summer of ‘89. As they’d noted the last time they’d looked up General Narron, he had a long and decorated, and very public campaign leading up to his appointment as General of the AMG’s military units, including a few records indicating that he’d been studying to become a physicist before deciding to pursue the military.
But there was nothing that placed him in direct line with the accident. Either he really hadn’t been around, or they’d have to dip their hands a little deeper into the wreckage.
Kat blinked against the dense holofile she’d opened, the contents of which, fully expanded, would likely take up the entire length of the PARC room they occupied.
Deep enough that she would likely need more than a green juice in her stomach…
“I’m taking twenty,” she exclaimed, sitting back on her hands. She glanced over at Lee and the layered holofiles spread wide over the table. “I also think we could use a couple more sets of eyes…”
Lee dragged his gaze away from the table, the white gleam from the holograms painting the gratitude in the tired lids of his eyes. “You think they’re willing?”
“Void, yes!” Whistler howled to the air vents overhead when they caught him in the hallway outside the Canteen.
“You know we’re just asking you to help us dig through some holofiles, right?” Lee clarified, despite the fact that neither of them should have been at all shocked by his casual enthusiasm.
