Onekka - The Tragedy of Jaqui Fennet Read Online Free PDF Page B

duality of
intention. No honeysuckle bush ever lied about its intention to dominate - it
just did so, and left it up to the plants around it to try and stop it. If only
people were so easily figured out.

Garret had been a good boss, these last few years. He was always attentive,
rarely angry beyond the point of occasional sarcasm, and openly approachable. It's
just a shame he wasn't even approaching open. As a man, he'd never hit on
her, though his gaze lingered on her breasts and posterior occasionally. She'd
wondered more than once if he'd make a better lover than the forceful, forward
guys she inevitably ended up with. Perhaps he would, but she'd always known
he'd come with a large side order of commitment, and that left a very bitter
tang in her mouth.

To discover his involvement in dealings that were definitely shady, and
possibly downright illegal, was almost offensive to Jaq. So much for her
character assessment!

She crept into the glass lift and whispered, "Admin one," into the
control console. As the doors closed and she flew upward, Jaq pressed herself
into the rear corner, hoping it was the least visible position. To anyone
watching the lift, it would look like a maintenance sweep - a regular elevator
run to ensure oil and cable was evenly utilised.

She rose over the shadow city like an angel of night, or so her imagination
told her. The adrenalin was pumping through her, and she was aware of it just
enough to know the strange thoughts were a side effect. With Onekka laid out,
silent and sinister, below, Jaq marvelled all over again at the station's
technical achievements. She was a firm believer that people were just another
species, as motes of dust to the power of nature, but sights such as this
reminded her of the grandeur that human endeavour could touch.

She was nearly at her floor. Time to find out if I can rely on Helen. As
the elevator swooped silently to a halt, she stood in the middle and faced the
camera. Helen had agreed to delay removing Jaq from the security system,
knowing that Garret would defer the task to her. The only problem would be if
DePennier took care of the task himself.

Standing there in the black nothing, forcing her eyes to stay open against the
urge to squeeze them shut, Jaq began to wonder. A bead of sweat trickled down
her nose and the need to scratch was gigantic. Instead, she pressed her fists
into tiny balls and focused her mind on the pain her nails inflicted. As the
agonising wait continued, the silence seemed to fill with ghostly echoes.

Was that a clarion, far below - had she been found out? Jaq had just convinced
herself she could hear running feet converging on her position when a tiny
green light winked into existence before her. Through the sigh of relief and
the accustomed dark, it was powerfully intense.

Finally, the office doors slid open and she slunk forward, as silent as she
could manage. It may have only been moments she'd stood in that elevator but it
felt like a week had passed. She didn't have much time to work - if she wasn't
out of the office by the end of Witching Hour, she'd be floating down the
maintenance stairs in the deadly cold of space.

First stop was the boardroom where they'd met with Armcorp. It seemed like a
decade ago to Jaq that she'd unwittingly made the faux pas that so drastically
changed her life on Onekka. This was the only room large enough to accommodate
the full delegation, so this would be where any future meetings occurred while
she was safely hidden away on her audit. The first strange thing was that the
door was locked. Caught momentarily off guard, it took Jaq a moment to realise
she still had access rights to the boardroom. Slipping her hand across the
access panel, she unlocked and opened the door. In three years of that job, Jaq
had never needed to unlock the boardroom.

In the near blackness, the chair backs were like soldiers, standing in
formation around a fallen foe. The second strange thing hit her - a faint
odour,