Page 63 of Pets in Space 10

Gaerynx had grown into a love-hate relationship with the clock display in the Deck Five conference room.

For ninety minutes and counting, he, Amalena, and their cats had been confined to the executive conference table, prisoners in all but name.

The adrenaline from the chaos in the computer nexus room had long since ebbed, leaving a cold, empty weight in his limbs.

Gaerynx watched Amalena from across the table as she murmured something to Merix, whose carrier sat on the chair beside her.

Her fingers rested on the mesh. Her posture was straight, but her focus turned inward.

In the plush conference chair to his right, Pavrel had finally settled down and was now curled in furry, sand-colored ball.

The kulak hadn’t been physically hurt by the power surge or the shrieking alarms, but he had been terrified.

For the first hour, he’d pressed against Gaerynx’s side, twitching with every movement in the room.

Now he slept, though an ear twitched whenever the doors opened to admit one of the security team.

Right from the start, after being marched into the room, he’d refused to answer a single question from Rishi or Toldt without the presence of his lawyer or a registered employee advocate. Amalena, her face pale but her voice steady, had done the same.

Their stonewalling had earned them a round of frustrated glares, followed by a demand to empty their pockets.

He was secretly amused at Toldt’s disgruntled look when the resulting pile on the table turned out to be boringly mundane.

A couple of reusable notepads, his multitool, a headband, a few stray fasteners, and Merix’s leash.

Sypher had later swept the room with a handheld scanner, finding nothing more than Gaerynx’s wristcomp, which he’d been forced to surrender.

Amalena’s company tablet, which she’d clutched all the way from Deck Two, sat in the center of the table like an accusation, later joined by their personal datapads and his own tablet, retrieved from where they’d left them around the ship.

They’d made him unlock his tablet to stop it from playing the chirping music he’d chosen as a distraction.

The security team clearly thought the enforced confinement was a punishment, but Gaerynx found the downtime an unexpected mercy. It gave him time to think, to sort through the blur of events.

Captain Lecuyer had stormed in about thirty minutes after they’d been detained, her expression thunderous.

To Gaerynx’s surprise, she seemed to lay as much blame on Rishi’s team’s behavior as she did on him and Amalena for their actions.

He thought it a fair assessment, though he doubted RyoGenomica would see it that way.

According to a talkative Okonye, who’d poked his head in to try and get details about what happened, the ship was in a holding orbit, waiting for clearance at a station dock for repairs.

The comms tech had been most interested in what they’d done to the emergency comms nexus.

The power surge had apparently cascaded through the ship, forcing a hard restart of nearly every system, including navigation and pilot controls.

Gaerynx had stifled his impulse to apologize for causing so much trouble and forced himself to repeat his refusal to answer questions.

Amalena had been as subdued as Pavrel, until Dhalshun had stomped in with the kulak’s large carrier, ordering Gaerynx to put him inside. The simmering anger in Gaerynx’s chest had barely begun to bubble when Amalena’s quiet voice cut through the tension.

“Please, by all means, feel free to try,” she’d said with an acid smile. Turning to Pivada, who’d been standing guard, she added, “I recommend bringing the first aid kit. And maybe recording it for the galactic net? Shoving strong, unwilling cats into carriers is always popular content.”

Pivada had barked a laugh. Red-faced Dhalshun had kicked the carrier into the corner, then spun on his heel and left.

The memory brought the ghost of a smile to Gaerynx’s lips.

He glanced at Amalena, wondering how to breach the wall of silence between them.

He desperately wanted to ask what she had done, how she had touched his wrist and boosted his weak, low-level talent into something much stronger.

He’d felt the surge of it, a torrent of power that wasn’t his own, focused through him to mash that red button like he wielded a sledgehammer.

Her minder talent, however “inconclusive,” was potent.

No wonder she hid it. He bet the CPS would be highly interested in a talent like that.

Which was exactly why he couldn’t ask. Not here. Not now. He would save that conversation for a time and place where no one else could be listening in. He cast a sour glance toward the abstract wall decor where the audio device still marred the design.

A chime from the room’s clock display marked the top of the hour.

Gaerynx’s gaze snapped to the time. The RyoGenomica board meeting should be starting right about now.

He looked at Amalena and saw she’d noticed, too.

She met his eyes across the table, her own expression a subtle mixture of despair and hope. He knew exactly how she felt.

He’d bet his lottery-winnings mansion that Dequer and Sainik had pushed their agenda item to the top of the list. No matter what scenarios he ran in his head, none of them ended well.

In the worst case, the data never arrived, the memory cube was destroyed, and he and Amalena were terminated and charged with corporate espionage and property destruction.

Sainik was vindictive enough to try pinning the archive room’s fire on him, too.

In a mixed-case scenario, the records got through, causing a delay for review, but the vote on HM-8544 eventually passed.

He and Amalena would still be terminated.

Companies didn’t like admitting mistakes, and they almost never kept whistleblowers.

Even if, by some miracle, the data arrived and Consuelo Margoth shut the whole thing down, they were still finished. After the stunt in the computer room, there was no best-case scenario. All they could do now was wait for the consequences to rain down.

The conference room doors slid open, admitting Rishi and Sypher. Gaerynx tensed for a moment, but they were only there to relieve Pivada and Toldt. The exchange of guards was done with the efficiency of a shift change, the silence of the room broken only by a few quiet words.

Without warning, the wall-sized holodisplay that dominated the far end of the room flared to life.

An official RyoGenomica seal materialized, then resolved into a live view of the company’s poshly appointed boardroom, a dozen people settling into their seats.

The holodisplay gave it the feel of being in the board room with them.

Rishi spun toward the wallcomp and stabbed at the comms icon. “This is Rishi. Shut down the comms to the executive conference room. No comms allowed!”

Okonye’s voice boomed out from the speaker.

“Sorry, Team Leader, no can do.” He didn’t sound sorry in the slightest. “We finally got external comms fully working again. It’s company policy to display and record Governing Board meetings.

Move to another room if you don’t like it.

Now, stop bothering us with your petty bullshit.

We’re trying to test systems so we actually dock at the space station, not crash into it.

” The connection cut with an unpleasant beep.

Rishi’s jaw tightened as she wordlessly pointed to Sypher and Pivada, then stabbed a thumb toward the holodisplay.

They hastily tried various manual controls. The volume momentarily blared loud enough to make Pavrel jerk awake, then returned to its normal level. Another attempt turned the room’s ambient lighting a warm, buttery yellow and activated soft spotlights over each empty chair around the table.

Gaerynx wanted to hear the board meeting, even if it was confirmation of his own career execution.

He took a lesson from Amalena’s playbook.

Leaning slightly toward her, he tried for a conversational tone.

“I hope they know what they’re doing. The holopresence system is so touchy and expensive to fix. ”

Amalena picked up the cue instantly. “I know, right?” She let her glance linger on Rishi for a long moment, then shrugged one shoulder. “I certainly wouldn’t want that repair bill coming out of my budget.”

After another failed attempt that made the display flicker alarmingly, Rishi threw up her hands in defeat. “Leave it. Just… leave it.”

The security team seemed unaware that by seating them in their assigned spots from earlier meetings, Gaerynx and Amalena were now appearing in the boardroom’s holopresence system as silent, virtual audience members.

Gaerynx saw it in the array of holographic attendees.

Rhys was also there, his expression unreadable.

Two familiar faces from his and Amalena’s own teams were present as well, looking grim.

For a wild moment, Gaerynx wondered if he was a bad employee for wanting Pavrel to sit up in his chair and make a holographic appearance.

No, he wasn’t, he decided. If this was his last day, he might as well leave a lasting impression.

In the boardroom, Sainik launched into a rapid-fire presentation on the fast-track drug concept. His clothes were flashy, his confidence sharp. Several board members nodded along, their expressions avid.

Gaerynx felt a familiar wave of resignation. The presentation even managed to slip in Sainik’s favorite buzzwords from the reorganization announcement.

“Synergy, velocity, and innovation, my ass,” Gaerynx muttered, then glanced up to confirm the system’s microphones were still muted for the audience.