And then...another GAMES OF COMMAND scene

Another little GAMES OF COMMAND vignette than ran through my mind (and into the keyboard) after the story "ended" in the book:

Sass was nervous as she stepped into the Regalia’s ready room. Branden Kel-Paten saw that in the way her gaze flicked to his as he rose from his seat behind the room’s long conference table; saw it in the way she was trying not to purse her lips as her mind—-caffeine-fueled, as usual-—worked at light speed. And he saw it in the way she absently fingered the edge of her utility belt, then caught herself and stopped. After three months of living with her on the Regalia, he knew all her little idiosyncrasies and more.

After three months of living with him, he thought she might realize she had nothing to worry about. It wasn’t as if he was going to kill the man following Sass into the ready room. Though the thought did hold a certain appeal…

“Kel-Paten.” Dag Zanorian nodded curtly, the ready room door shutting silently behind him.

Ooh, jealous! Tank’s furry head poked over the table top from where he’d been snoozing on an adjacent chair for the past hour while Kel-Paten went over the latest block of data he snagged from a Concordance cruiser before it escaped into the Void. The furzel’s empathic and telepathic range had expanded in those passing three months and he was never subtle about commenting on what he sensed or heard.

Embarrassing at times in the privacy of the captain’s quarters. But informative right now.

So Dag Zanorian was jealous. Imagine that.

“Zanorian.” Kel-Paten nodded back.

“Sit, Dag,” Sass pointed to a chair opposite his, compscreen already slatted up out of the table top and at the ready. “We’re all on the same side now.” She rounded the end of the table then lifted Tank out of the chair. The black and white furzel thumped down onto the ready room table with a soft sigh. Love Mommy!

Sass swiveled the chair around to sit. Kel-Paten brushed the top of her head with a kiss before she did so, sat when she did, didn’t miss the narrowing of Zanorian’s eyes.

Big jealous!

Sass tapped a white paw in warning. Evidently she heard Tank this time.

Kel-Paten bit back a grin while he shunted data to Zanorian’s screen. “This is the pattern we’ve been picking up in this sector for two weeks now,” he told Zanorian as a private message popped up on his screen: Gloating is unprofessional.

But it feels so damn good, he sent back to her screen with a thought. The Regalia—-being U-Cee-—wasn’t designed with data ports at every comp station for him to spike in. So far he’d only had time to convert two stations in the ready room, one on the bridge and, of course, in the one in the captain’s quarters. The majority of his time was spent bringing the New Alliance fleet up to date with everything he knew about the Triad. It didn’t matter it was now called the Sanctified Concordance. The hardware—ships, station, data systems—were still Triad built. And the personnel—even though they were Ved controlled—were still Triad Fleet crew and officers. The latter pained him. It was bad enough to witness the deaths of some of his key officers. It was worse to watch those still alive, controlled and driven insane by the Ved...

*************************


See, the characters really never shut up. Or go away. I guess that's kind of good. ;-) ~Linnea

GAMES OF COMMAND - after the last page...

Authors always write more than the readers read. For any novel, there are pages and pages that end up on the cutting room floor due to word-count limitations (I've posted some here), and then there are the post-book scenes. These are things that flow from the keyboard even after the book has been put to bed.

You see, when you've been living and breathing a character (or several characters) for months (or even years), you can't just shut them up, turn them off with the flick of a light switch. Not surprisingly days after GAMES OF COMMAND was done, edited and outta-my-office, Sass and Kel-Paten still wandered in from time to time and gave me a glimpse of what happened AFTER the book's last page...

Ralland Kel-Tyra caught Sass by the elbow as she threaded her way through the tables in the ship’s mess, and leaned his mouth down to her ear. “He’s about thirty minutes from imploding.”

She angled her face towards him but didn’t look at him. She watched Kel-Paten, instead. Had been watching him since he’d entered the Regalia’s mess hall ten minutes ago. “How long has he been like this?”

“His ‘I’m the only one who can save the universe’ mode? About four months, ever since he headed the mutiny against Psy-Serv.”

“Umm,” Sass said and then sighed. It had been less than an hour since they’d left the Vaxxar—a ghost ship now, secured for tow. Timm Kel-Faray and two other crew were in Monterro’s sick bay. The rest of the thirty-nine survivors were sent to the mess for a hot meal while her crew made some hasty rearrangements for sleeping quarters to accommodate them on the three day trip to Varlow.

Kel-Paten had tailed after her—or sometimes strode ahead of her—as they’d gone from shuttle bay to the bridge to sick bay and now to the mess.

At the moment, he was standing by a table of three former officers from the Vax, whose trays were full of hot food and mugs of cold beer. But a few minutes before that he’d been at a table of four, and minutes before that, another table of three. Had he eaten? No. He hadn’t even had a sip of beer.

“When’s the last time he slept?” she asked Ralland.

“I honestly couldn’t tell you. But I thought when we found the Regalia, found you…did you see what happened when Tank showed up on the bridge?”

She had. The site of the unshakeable admiral dropping to his knees had shaken her. “We had visual of your bridge, just not audio.”

“I thought he was going to implode then. He didn’t. That’s what worries me. He should have. He achieved the objective: he saved everyone he could from the Vax and Dalkerris. He got out of the Void, again. And he found you. That was everything. I thought that was everything. But he won’t stop. He can’t stop,” Ralland corrected himself. He shook his head wearily. “Damn him.”

“When’s the last time you slept, Captain Kel-Tyra?”

Ralland slanted her a quick, challenging glance that was one hundred percent Kel-Paten, even though his eyes were the color of chocolate and Kel-Paten’s were pale ice blue. Brothers. Four, six years apart? She didn’t know. But their stubbornness was just one more thing they had in common. “I’m due,” he admitted after a moment.

“And you’ve been assigned one of the executive guest suites.” The Regalia had two on the deck below the bridge. In an emergency—and this was one—they could sleep three people. “My people will take very good care of your crew,” she added. Five had already left, being guided to their quarters by one of her crew and a furzel, for probably the first decent sleep they’ve had in months.

“It’s him I’m worried about,” Ralland said, jutting his chin in the admiral’s direction. Kel-Paten had moved to another table.

“I will take very good care of your brother,” Sass said softly.

Another glance but no challenge this time. “You’re an amazing woman,” he said with a small smile.

She smiled back. “Then let me do my job.”

He squeezed her arm. “Aye, Captain.”

“Get some sleep. And if you can find your way to my office at 0930, I could use some help processing your people before we hit Varlow.”

A short nod. “I’ll be there.” He moved away, the sound of his footsteps lost in the clatter and clank of the mess hall.

She headed for Kel-Paten, who looked her way at that moment, his mouth curving into that odd, crooked smile of his. She noticed again how much thinner his face was. He wasn’t eating or sleeping, and maintaining his 'cybe systems was draining his body. It was as if he was stuck on Red Alert, all systems at max. If he didn’t implode he would burn up from the inside out.

“Our table’s up there.” She motioned to the command staff dining table on the raised platform along the wall.

“I’m not hungry and there are a few things I—”

She yanked on his arm. “Now, flyboy. Food. Beer. Or wine or Excelsior or whatever’s your poison of choice. But now.”

She saw it then. It was as if—for a moment—things weren’t synching, as if—for a moment—he didn’t know who she was or where he was or what he was doing there. His expression blanked. She felt him tense under her fingers. Fight or flight.

Then he was back. “Tasha—”

She switched tactics, abruptly. “I need your help. My office, now.” Taking care of himself wasn’t on his agenda. But a request for help fit neatly into his ‘save the universe’ mode.

She’d feed him, later. After he imploded...

Not quite a scene, I know. A bit of a vignette. There's one other that occurs a few months past this one. I'll post that next week (if I'm not going too nutso packing for RWA National and forget to do so).

I've been asked if readers will see further adventures of Sass and Kel-Paten. I don't have any formally planned as of right now, no. But you can see from the above that the characters aren't about to go away without a fight. I guess that's a good sign. ~Linnea

Games of Command - Deleted CH 15 scene

From the original 2001 file, so don't mess with me on style or typos or inconsistencies or such, okay? ;-) This is raw, unedited shhhhtuff.

MAIN LIFT, I.H.S. VAXXAR

Sass heard Kel-Paten’s hard bootsteps come up behind her just as the lift doors opened.

"You’re off duty until I tell you otherwise, Sebastian," he said as they stepped inside.

"Ah. And who died and made you C.M.O.?"

"If I see you on the Bridge any time today I will forcibly carry you back to your quarters."

Could be interesting, Sass noted. Then: Naah.

"You don’t have to keep looking at me," she told him after the lift doors closed. "I’m not going to keel over on you again."

"I should have realized you weren’t well yesterday."

"You shouldn’t have realized anything. You can’t keep track of all four hundred fifty of us on board. That’s Eden’s job. If anything, I should’ve checked in with her earlier when I didn’t feel well." Those letters. Those damn letters and the way he’d looked at her when he’d walked into Sickbay. It made her stomach tense and she knew it was guilt knocking at her conscience’s back door. He’d thought she was dying. Cal Monterro had hinted how miserable Kel-Paten had looked.

"All the more reason you are not to be on active duty today."

"Kel-Paten--!"

"There’s been... a lot of stress accompanying this transtion, with the new Alliance," he said, ignoring the daggers she visually flung at him. "We’ve only this Serafino situation to wrap up right now and when that’s finished, well I think you might want to take some time off."

Oh no. Oh no. This wasn’t heading where she thought it was heading. Not now. Not so soon! "I really don’t think---"

"Perhaps just a couple of days. Some light R & R ." He wasn’t looking at her, but watching the digital deck numbers flash on the wall of the lift.

No. No, Sass pleaded. Please don’t mention T’Garis. Please. I can’t handle this right now!

"Have you ever been to T’Garis?" he asked just as the lift doors pinged.

She stepped out onto the Deck 2 Corridor. "No, I’ve never been to T’Garis," she said through clenched teeth. "You wouldn’t let me, remember? Something about a little inconvenient war going on. Damn tough to bust through the neutral zone with the Vax on my tail all the time."

She lay her hand against the door scanner. "But," she continued brightly as the door slid into the wall, "I’ll probably get there sometime. I know A.T. wants to go. I’ll mention it next time I talk to her." She nodded at him. "I’ll be in my office after lunch. Not on the bridge, Admiral. In my office." And she hit the manual override on the inside of the door frame, closing the door in his face.

From his position on the back of her couch, Tank perked up his fluffy ears and murrupped several times.

"Don’t ask, fidget, you don’t want to know," she told him, then stripped off her jacket and fell promptly asleep on her bed.

then same chapter, a few pages later...

BRIDGE, I.H.S. VAXXAR

Brynar Kel-Paten sat in the command chair, one elbow on the armrest, his chin in his hand and watched, without watching, the movement of his senior officers at their stations. No one spoke to him, which was just as well. His mind was on other things.

She thought he still doubted her allegiance to the Alliance, because she’d known Serafino years ago, when she was a card dealer at a nighthouse of questionable repute. Queenies. He’d never been there, but he’d been to the higher-priced versions the Empire had to offer. That Sass knew more about a darker side, a very much less legal side, of life, he had no doubt.

That that was also what created an ease between Sass and Serafino was also a logical conclusion. They’d spent their formative years in similar circumstances.

But Kel-Paten was afraid there might be more than just that. Everything about Jace Serafino when he was around Sass-- the way he moved with a controlled grace; the way he talked as if every word were intimate; the way he looked at her with anticipation-- everything said something more was going on.

But what it was he couldn’t prove, yet. Other than the one thing he did know was that Serafino would, given the chance, strip Kel-Paten of whatever he valued, whatever he held dear.

Because he’d been the one who had found out about Serafino’s sister. And he’d been the one who had relayed that same information to the Defense Minister, all the while uncomfortably knowing that the young woman and her son were innocent bystanders.

He wanted very much to believe that they had been taken into protective custody and were safely relocated.

But he’d never been able to prove that.

And Serafino had never mentioned that. But he knew; he knew Serafino knew he had been the one to find his sister.

And he also knew Serafino would stop at nothing to get revenge.


~Linnea

http://linneasinclair.com/gamescover.htm