base, she never expected the woman would dare to murder him in his own office. Why would she? He was giving Josselyn land, travel papers, and credentials. Why would she kill him?
Violette’s stomach tightened. Time appeared to slow as she strode toward the office door. Part of her had been waiting for this day for the last thirty years, since he’d made her promise an oath over their bloody arms, but she never thought it would result in his death. Her father was so healthy, so good, so…
Dead?
The base’s alarm repeated in a series of two short beeps and one long. Violette ignored it. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to rewind time, back to the moment when Josselyn approached her on the floating bucket of asteroid dust they called a fuel dock out in the middle of deep space. She should have disobeyed her father. She should have insisted on being in the room with the two of them. Already she knew it was too late. Her father was gone. There were no last seconds to be had with him. Not with the alarm. The death notice was being automatically sent out to the Federation.
Her father hadn’t talked about Josselyn since the day Violette found the holo-box—until a few weeks ago when he simply told her it was time. It would appear her father’s mystery lady was real—very real—and, by the look of her, too young to have plagued her father’s conscience as long as she had. Josselyn looked to be Violette’s age, maybe even younger, but had been born when her father was a very young man, which made her closer to a hundred. If Violette hadn’t known about the Federation’s short stint preserving prisoners into a stone-like state, she would have wondered at the clear discrepancy in the timeline.
Violette kept moving. She didn’t let her panic or grief show. The general wouldn’t have wanted her to display weakness. As she touched the door, she said to the soldiers, “You have your orders. As his heir, I’m in charge now until the federation sends his replacement. This base operates on the old codes, and I invoke my rights.”
She walked into her father’s office, and the sick feeling intensified. Violette had grown up with Josselyn’s name in her head, a recording that never stopped playing in her dreams. The woman wasn’t in any database she’d ever accessed. And the most surreal part was that when she finally met Josselyn, the woman didn’t even know who Violette was—no idea she was talking to the general’s daughter.
A shudder of grief washed over her as she found her father’s lifeless body slumped in the chair behind his desk.
“No,” Violette whispered. “Not this.”
Josselyn lay on the floor, pale and weak. Her wavy light brown hair was streaked with blonde highlights. The locks looked dull, almost as dull as her grayed expression. Her head was in the lap of Evan Cormier.
Josselyn had given the surname of Cormier when Violette had flown the woman onto the base. Evan’s vessel had followed them. It was Violette’s business to know the landing spacecrafts and who was on them—not that too many travellers wanted to visit a military compound sunk beneath sand dunes. Josselyn had been running from Evan’s ship, or from someone on it. Violette didn’t really care about that detail. Evan was probably trying to stop Josselyn from committing murder. Looking at the man’s face now, it was obvious he loved Josselyn. His tender hands moved desperately over the woman’s body, as if his willpower could save her.
For a moment, Violette thought the woman was dead and was glad for it. But the feeling was short-lived, as she took in the blue tint of Josselyn’s flesh. The coloring gave away the woman’s illness. Whoever had released her from her stone prison didn’t finish the process. She was dying. If the syringe on the floor next to them was any indication, the general had tried to give her the cure for the stasis sickness. Every instinct inside Violette urged her to let Josselyn die.
End this now, Violette’s mind whispered, before she can get off this base. Take your revenge. Shoot her. No one will stop you. They’ll give you a civilian’s medal. She killed a Federation General.
Violette’s gaze found the bloody knife. It was the same slim dagger her father had used to cut her for the blood oath. She looked at her arm, to where the scar was hidden by the long sleeves of