But he knew the answer before she even said it. Should have known. He saw the prayer ball sitting on the table.
“Dakrahl,” he told her. He glanced up, made sure she saw his nod toward the spiked object. “High priest. Unusual on a Niyil ship.”
But then again, knowing the ’Sko, maybe not. He’d puzzle it out later. He looked back at the screen. Engineering, crew quarters, galley were shut down. Life forms flickering out. They must be going crazy on the bridge. Probably trying to cut through the blast doors with their pistols. Fools. The ’Sko built ships almost as solid as the Zafharin.
He absently scratched at the prickly itching on his side. He’d shut down bridge enviro in a minute. But part of him wanted them to know, to watch their ship die. Deck by deck.
“What’s that toy have to do with it?” She pointed at the ball.
“Prayer ball. Official toy, as you say, of a Dakrahl high priest. Helps them commune with,” he waved one hand through the air, “whoever they commune with.”
He looked back at the screen. He’d have a dead ship, save for the brig, the Quest’s bay, and this section of the bridge deck, in about three minutes.
“This one’s been communing with the Niyil-Day—”
“Obviously—”
“Niyil-Day,” she repeated. “Niyil-Pry cut the deal with Grantforth.”
He wrenched his attention from the dying ’Sko. The Niyil-Day. Bloody hell. Of course. Much of what he’d risked his life to learn when he and his team had infiltrated Szed had centered around the factionalizing of the Niyil and who’d come out on top. This time.
“At least, that’s what Thren told me,” she continued, then outlined the rest, including the kill order on Jagan Grantforth and any male associated with him. A female named Trilby Elliot was the key.
Rhis suddenly saw the full picture. The Niyil-Day, the most ethnocentric of all the factions, would be the least well-equipped to differentiate one Trilby Elliot from any other human female on board.
Kill the males. Herd the females. One of them, sooner or later, would have to be Captain Trilby Elliot, finder of lost Zafharin officers, keeper of long-lost star routes.
“We’re going to have to start taking the ’Sko a lot more seriously when we get back to the Empire,” he told her. “With the Dakrahl siding now with the Niyil, they’re not a fractured, divided force anymore.”
The Dakrahl would press for recovery of the Drifts. The emperor was not going to be happy.
“We are going back, this time?”
The screen showed no viable life forms on the bridge. He reached for her hand, squeezed it, then pulled her to her feet. “We’re going home, Trilby-chenka. This time, we’re really going home.”
Rhis watched over Dezi’s shoulder as he spiked into a datapanel on the conference-room wall. Images, icons blinked on, underscored by Ycskrite writings. He pointed to two flashing glyphs. “We’ve got two crew, probably officers, still alive. Locked in their offices. But alive.”
Rhis stroked the screen, read their names off to Trilby, standing next to him. “A commander in navigation. And a division chief. Tactical. I can’t shut down enviro in their section without us losing it in here. But that’s okay. They’re not going anywhere, and they’ll make interesting prisoners once we cross the zone.”
“They can’t get through the maintenance tunnels like you did?”
“Not unless they’re three inches wide. When ’Sko blast doors go into lockdown, all maintenance tunnels seal with barred gates. You could slip your hand through, but not much more.”
She leaned against the wall, reached out tentatively, and touched his chest.
Bloody hell. He should’ve changed his flight suit. But there hadn’t been time. And he had other things, more important things, to deal with. Like finding Trilby. Like keeping them all alive.
“You were shot.” Her voice was soft. “More than once. I saw them. I saw you.”
He clasped his hand around hers, brought it to his lips. “I will explain everything. I promise. But later. We need to get on the bridge, get this ship moving. The Razalka’s out there somewhere. And Jankova gets nervous when I’m late.”
He keyed in one more sweep of the bridge and, satisfied no one there could put up any resistance, told Dezi to activate enviro again.
Five minutes later, he and Dezi unlocked the wide bridge doors and stood aside for a moment, letting the stale air and smell of death filter out.
He kept Trilby behind him, ordered her to wait in the corridor until he said otherwise. Surprisingly, uncharacteristically, she obeyed.
He definitely should have changed his flight suit. There were questions in her mind now. He just hoped she liked his answers.
Malika hadn’t.
Red-clad bodies were strewn around the bridge in various poses of collapse. He and Dezi moved them to the semicircular room’s shadowed edges. A ’Sko flag and a Niyil one hung from two long beams. He ripped them down, threw them over the two largest piles of bodies.
It would have to do. Though he didn’t know why he was doing it. Trilby Elliot had seen worse. She’d worked for—no, been abused by Herkoid. She’d fought for her life on the grimy back streets of Port Rumor.
She’d watched Khyrhis Tivahr get shot and die.
And that’s why he did it. She’d seen enough. Too much. He could at least spare her some of this.
When he returned for her in the corridor, she was clutching the prayer ball. “Has it revealed all its secrets to you yet?”
“No. But then, I haven’t asked it.”
He guided her onto the bridge and began the sequence to unlock the primaries.
“I threw a replicating weemly into the comm pack,” she told him as the monitors in front of her flickered to life. “It’s keyed to Thren’s ID, but it may activate on its own.”
“A weemly?” He was delighted.
“It would ride on all outgoing messages, link into the receiving comm pack, and replicate again.”
“And?” he prompted.
“The only thing they’d be able to see on their screens would be a copy of my potato–cheese casserole recipe.”
“Everyone has always enjoyed that casserole when I’ve served it,” Dezi said. “Though I don’t think the ’Sko—”
“Will get a chance to taste it,” Rhis finished for him. “Can you disable it?”
She shot him a look that clearly questioned his intelligence. “Of course.”
He returned to the command console, grinning.
More screens flickered to life.
“Intraship’s on,” he told her. “I think Farra and Dallon need to hear from you. And Carina.”
He caught the bright glisten of tears in her eyes. Then she turned, keyed the closest unit. “Dallon? Farra?”
“Captain?” It was Dallon’s voice, sounding distant. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Ship’s secure. Rhis is … Rhis is alive. Here. He’s fine. He says Yavo’s alive too. Listen, I’m dropping the force fields. The brig’s blocked off by blast doors. We cut enviro everywhere else. I can’t let you out onto that deck yet. But go down the corridor, to your left. A friend of mine’s in the cell there. Her name’s Carina. She might be ill or injured. I’m not sure.”
“Farra’s going now.” Dallon’s voice sounded stronger, closer. “Tivahr’s alive?”
Rhis flicked intraship on at his station. “That I am. And be sure I’m still the same arrogant, loathsome bastard I always was.”
A large blip suddenly appeared at the edges of long-range scan. Rhis clicked off intraship, got Trilby’s attention with a wave of his hand.
She looked at the scanner and fear flickered across her face. “What’s that?”
He forgot she couldn’t read Ycskrite. “The Razalka. She’ll be alongside in an hour.”
Her expression of fear changed to one of relief. Then she grinned, threw a haughty look at him from over her shoulder. “You just don’t listen, do you, Tivahr? I told you before. I neve
r said you were loathsome.”
He remembered. But then, she hadn’t heard his explanations yet.
30
The senior captain’s quarters were nice. Very nice. Trilby ran one hand over the soft fabric on the couch. In her other she held a tall tumbler of iced gin. And two limes.
She heard the sani-fac door slide open in the room behind her, heard footsteps on the carpeted floor. The shush of closet doors, the rustle of fabric.
She thought of her own cabin on the Careless Venture. Threadbare. Empty closets. And a man standing there, surprised when she shoved a pile of towels against his chest.
The same chest ’Sko lasers had burned into.
Later, he told her. He’d explain everything later.
But then there was the bridge to unlock and the Razalka to dock with. Demarik to confer with. And quick, insistent transmits between Imperial and Conclave admirals until it was clear to all parties that the Razalka’s appearance through Gensiira and into Syar was on behalf of a rescue operation. Not an invasion.
Not yet, Admiral Vanushavor said later. They needed the data from the captured mother ship first. To prove Garold Grantforth’s part in all this, to show how he’d used Jagan to seduce Trilby in order to learn more about rumored old star charts that the ’Sko wanted. But his plans had gone awry when Jagan’s mother intervened, forcing Jagan to marry the woman she’d chosen for him.
That’s when Garold Grantforth had pressured Jagan to contact Trilby again, apologize, and get back in her good graces. Effectively signing his nephew’s death warrant. Because the competing ’Sko factions had no intention of leaving live witnesses behind.
In the midst of the politics and machinations, Mitkanos, Dallon, and Carina were transferred, carefully, into Doc Vanko’s care.
Not Vitorio. Her friend’s drug-hazed recounting rambled, but Trilby understood and filled in what she knew Carina didn’t understand. Working with information stolen from the Niyil-Pry faction, the Niyil-Day had kidnapped Carina and Vitorio, recovered the nav banks from Bella’s Dream. Told them they’d let them live in exchange for the charts.
But when Carina had refused, they’d killed Vitorio and wrenched Carina away from her brother. And from the inside pocket of her service jacket tumbled an envelope of holos she’d forgotten was there.
More than one had been of Trilby and Carina at Port Rumor’s freighter docks, the Careless Venture’s name clearly visible on the side of the ship behind them. The ’Sko had recognized her ship’s name. So they’d let Carina live, keeping her sedated, hoping this Captain Trilby Elliot that the other Niyil faction desperately wanted would come looking for her. And bring the missing star charts along.
Another shush of a closet door.
Khyrhis.
Unsure of what to tell her.
But that, too, she already knew. Lots of rumors surrounded Tivahr the Terrible. More terrible to his own people, to whom family lineage decreed acceptance.
A boulashka, Mitkanos had called him. A genetic manipulation. No family, no name, no lineage—
She knew what that felt like.
—only, incongruously, he had power.
That she didn’t know. Nor did it interest her.
His fingers slid across her shoulders as he moved around the side of the couch and sat down next to her. His short hair was still damp. He wrapped his hand over hers as she held the tumbler, brought it to his mouth, and took a sip. Then he lowered his hand, but didn’t release hers.
“Feeling better?” she asked him.
“Immensely.”
“Good. I much prefer you alive to dead.”
He hesitated only a second. “I’ve done dead. It’s overrated.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
He looked down at their hands, locked around the tumbler, then brought his face up. “You thought your medistat on the Careless Venture malfunctioned, didn’t you?”
Well, that was the normal state of affairs for most of her equipment on that ship.
“You couldn’t get any true readings on me because there’s a biosymbiotic layer, a matrix, in my chest and back. Sections can migrate anywhere I’m injured. It also skews medistats. Unless Doc Vanko’s customized them.”
All she could think of was that it must have hurt like hell to have something like that inserted under your skin. “What did they do, graft it in pieces?”
He was silent. “No. It grew, it grows there. It’s part of me. I’ve always had it.”
It took a moment for her to comprehend what he’d said. A continually regenerating protective layer. Useful for an Imperial senior captain with a penchant for pissing off the ’Sko.
“There’s more.” He closed his eyes briefly.
She wanted to put down the tumbler, stroke his face with her hands, but he had a tight grip on her fingers. He needed her touch. She didn’t want to break that contact.
“Because of this matrix, my body has a greater muscle mass, strength, density. Faster recovery ability, not only from injury but poisons. Drugs. And I can memorize and record large amounts of data. In some ways, I’m not dissimilar to Dezi.”
He stopped. She knew he waited for her reaction.
“Because of this layer that lives inside you?”
“Because of what I am, genetically.”
“Which is?”
His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Depends on who you ask.”
Pain. She heard it clearly now. He was talking about abilities, attributes he had that had saved her life. And hundreds of others. His voice was tinged with shame. And loneliness.
“Is there anyone else like you?”
“No. The lab was destroyed by people who were afraid they were creating not a new breed of soldier but soulless monsters that would eventually dominate them.”
“But they let you live?”
“I survived. They figured there was a significant amount of money already invested in me. And they were curious.”
Bastards. Worse than the Iffys. “And have you met their expectations?”
He crooked one eyebrow in a self-deprecating gesture. “The ’Sko hate me.”
“For good reason.” She snatched her hand from under his, let the gin and the glass tumble to the floor. He jerked back. She could see from the look in his eyes he was misinterpreting her actions as anger, rejection. She framed his face in her hands, brought his mouth to hers, and kissed him, hard. Then kissed him again, drawing herself up on her knees till she was almost in his lap. She kept kissing him, pushed him backward onto the soft cushions of the couch. She straddled him. He looked up at her with eyes wide in amazement.
“I love you, Khyrhis Tivahr. I don’t give a mizzet’s ass what anyone else says or thinks. I love you. I found you. I’m keeping you. And there’s not a bloody damned thing you can do about it.” She braced her hands against his shoulders. “So you damned well better get used to it.”
He grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her slowly down toward him, stopping only when her mouth was inches from his own.
“Trilby-chenka?” he whispered.
“Umm?”
He kissed her slowly, with almost heartbreaking tenderness. “Yav chera.”
A former news reporter and retired private detective, Linnea Sinclair has managed to use all of her college degrees (journalism and criminology) but hasn’t soothed the yearning in her soul to travel the galaxy. To that end, she’s authored several science fiction and fantasy novels, including Finders Keepers, Gabriel’s Ghost, and An Accidental Goddess. When not on duty with some intergalactic fleet she can be found in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with her husband and their two thoroughly spoiled cats. Fans can reach her through her website at www.starfreighter.com.
On sale November 2005
Only fools boast they have no fears. I thought of that as I pulled the blade of my dagger from the Takan guard’s throat, my hand shaking, my heart pounding in my ears. Light from the setting sun filtered down through the tall trees around me. It flickered br
iefly on the dark gold blood that bubbled from the wound, staining the Taka’s coarse fur. I felt a sliminess between my fingers and saw that same ochre stain on my skin.
“Shit!” I jerked my hand back. My dagger tumbled to the rock-strewn ground. A stupid reaction for someone with my training. It wasn’t as if I’d never killed another sentient being before, but it had been more than five years. And then, at least, it had carried the respectable label of military action.
This time it was pure survival.
It took me a few minutes to find my blade wedged in between the moss-covered rocks. After more than a decade on interstellar patrol ships, my eyes had problems adjusting to variations in natural light. Shades of grays and greens, muddied by Moabar’s twilight sky, merged into seamless shadows. I’d never have found my only weapon if I hadn’t pricked my fingers on the point. Red human blood mingled with Takan gold. I wiped the blade against my pants before letting it mold itself back around my wrist. It flowed into the form of a simple silver bracelet.
“A Grizni dagger, is it?”
I spun into a half-crouch, my right hand grasping the bracelet. Quickly it uncoiled again—almost as quickly as I’d sucked in a harsh, rasping breath. The distinctly masculine voice had come from the thick stand of trees directly in front of me. But in the few seconds it took me to straighten, he could be anywhere. It looked like tonight’s agenda held a second attempt at rape and murder. Or completion of the first. That would make more sense. Takan violence against humans, while not unknown, was rare enough that the guard’s aggression had taken me—almost—by surprise. But if a human prison official had ordered him … that, given Moabar’s reputation, would fit only too well.
I tuned out my own breathing. Instead, I listened to the hushed rustle of the thick forest around me and farther away, the guttural roar of a shuttle departing the prison’s spaceport. I watched for movement. Murky shadows, black-edged yet ill defined, taunted me. I’d have sold my soul then and there for a nightscope and a fully-charged laser pistol.
But I had neither of those. Just a sloppily manipulated court martial and a life sentence without parole. And, of course, a smuggled Grizni dagger that the Takan guard had discovered a bit too late to report.
Finders Keepers Page 36