Offworld (Dangerous Times Collection Book #1) by Robin Parrish

Author:Robin Parrish [Parrish, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2009-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

SUCH DREADFUL LIES

Mae was already kneeling over Trisha before Chris had found his footing. Owen moved to join the two of them. Terry had vanished into the dark.

“Bag on the table,” Mae said as Chris passed the table in question. He grabbed the bag of medical supplies.

When Chris reached them, Mae was taking off her giant coat. She balled it up and placed it beneath Trisha’s feet.

“Is she all right?” Chris asked.

“Not cold,” Mae replied with a hand on her forehead. “Not in shock. . . .” She looked to Owen, who knelt next to the bag. “Got a thermalometer in there?”

Owen immediately began rummaging, retrieving a thermometer and handing it over.

“Any idea what just happened?” Owen asked. “The void appeared and then I . . . I went somewhere. Someplace else. I’m assuming something similar happened to you? To both of you?”

Mae ignored the question, her attention focused on Trisha. She grabbed a wrist, taking her pulse, but Mae had no watch on her hand to look at as she measured. Her fingers remained there for only a moment before moving on.

“Yeah, something similar,” Chris replied. “And I think the void may be getting smaller every time I see it. But right now I’m a lot more interested in finding out just who you are, Beech? If that’s your real name . . .”

Mae looked up just long enough to throw Owen a keen eye, eyebrows lifted high.

Owen ignored her, instead looking after Trisha as he spoke to Chris. “Twelve years ago I was a field agent for a special outfit within the CIA. An outfit most people didn’t know existed. It was never officially on the books, so it didn’t have a name. We referred to it as ‘the Division’.”

“What kind of outfit was it?”

Owen hesitated. “Black ops.”

“Black whats?” asked Mae.

“Wet-work,” Chris replied with steely calm, not taking his eyes off of Owen. “Government-sanctioned, stealth assassinations.”

“Not just wet-work,” Owen hastened to add. “Anything the U.S. needed done that political red tape or international relations got in the way of. The Division’s long gone; it was dismantled and abandoned nine years ago, and those of us working for the Division were cut loose—all ties severed, all records erased. It wasn’t long after that that I met Clara, and decided it was time to settle down and forget about the past.”

“How did you end up on my ship?” Chris asked, stone-faced.

“A little more than a year before the Mars mission, I received a visit from a man I hadn’t seen since the Division went under. He was one of my superiors there. He said that there was a potential problem with the upcoming Mars mission, a problem that the U.S. could not afford to risk. He said he could arrange for me to be added to the crew, and that my job would be to protect the rest of you and ensure the mission’s success. They faked a pair of doctorates for me as credentials, though the skills that those

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