Halcyone's crew is back! Ro, Nomi, Barre, Jem, Micah, and Dev are drawn into a galaxy-wide conspiracy when they discover the hidden power brokers who have been quietly manipulating the Commonwealth for decades.
Please enjoy this snippet from PARALLAX featuring one of my favorite characters: Lieutenant Commander Emmaline Gutierrez.
Jem closed his eyes and listened to the colors of the sounds around him. There was the reassuring green hum of machinery ready for any emergency and the cool blue of the tech’s voices doing routine inventory. It was familiar and comforting as much as it was also still something he was getting used to.
Regardless of his parents’ beliefs or how long it was taking to integrate the device and the strange sensory world it had brought, Jem didn’t regret for a nanosecond getting the implant.
Raised voices smeared the air orange. He bolted upright in the chair and opened his eyes.
“You’re in no condition to leave.” His father backed out from Gutierrez’s curtained cubicle, in full-on Dr. Kristoff Durbin mode, his shoulders squared, his jaw set, his expression firm, but kind. For every step he retreated, she advanced until they both stood in the center of medical.
“And you have no right to make me stay.” Gutierrez’s voice was a rusty blade sawing through his father’s practiced reasonableness. Without her arm prosthesis, she looked off-balance, as if she would tilt to the right and Jem jumped up, but he didn’t think she would accept his help even if he knew how to offer it.
There was nothing off-balance about her anger and her determination to leave.
“My uniform and my sidearm, Doctor.”
The asteroid and the tractor beam. While he’d seen both of his parents stare down actively hostile and dangerous patients, this asteroid was Lieutenant Commander Emmaline Gutierrez and his father didn’t stand a chance of pulling her off course.
He just didn’t know that yet.
Jem stood against the wall and watched as he first tried to be logical. “You’re not cleared for duty, Lieutenant Commander. Right now, I’m the one who will do that assessment. The sooner you get back to my telemetry, the sooner we can return you to full health.”
“You’ve done all you can. I know my body far better than you ever will and what it needs is time. Time I will not waste sleeping in medical.”
Then he tried empathy. “It must be frustrating and difficult to be without your arm. As soon as you’re stronger, we can send you off station for a new limb.”
“I managed one-handed long before you were learning to crawl, Doctor.” Her dark eyes narrowed. If it had been Jem standing beneath their gaze, he would have flinched. His father didn’t move. Good for him. “The sooner I can return to my quarters, the sooner I can rebuild my prosthesis.”
“I don’t think it can be salvaged.” He put his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “Be reasonable. Your burns are still healing. Your right arm doesn’t have its full strength back.”
“No.”
“No?” His father was beginning to lose his temper. Jem could see it in the rigidity of his shoulders and in the way his words were tinged with red.
“I wish to sign out AMA. You can try to keep me here against my will, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Even one-armed, with her face drawn and her skin sallow, swaying slightly in bare feet and barely covered by a thin knee-length gown, Gutierrez was an intimidating force. If Barre hadn’t exaggerated, she’d been half-dead on Charon’s little ship and still managed to pilot herself and Dev to safety.
“I don’t advise it, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Does it look like I’m asking for your advice?”
She looked exhausted and if this standoff didn’t end soon, Jem was worried she’d end up on the floor. But surely his father could see it, too.
“I could declare you a risk to yourself.”
She spoke so quietly, Jem had to strain to hear her reply. “You have no idea, Kristoff.”
