Games of Command

by Linnea Sinclair

  “You don’t ride through a vortex flare and come out smelling like a blossom,” Tasha pointed out. “And the Novalis wasn’t the Vax.”

  “True, but—”

  “But what?” Tasha leaned forward. “You’ve picked up something and you don’t like it. I’ve known you too long, Doc. What do we have here?”

  “It’s nothing I’ve encountered before,” Eden said truthfully, folding her hands. “But whatever it is, it’s keeping him unconscious. I just thought that if he heard a familiar voice, it might draw him out.”

  “I could stand next to him and say, ‘Place your bets, please,’ but I don’t think that’s going to help.”

  “Probably not,” Eden admitted. “I—Uh-oh.” She reached for a stack of reports to her left and quickly dragged them to the middle of her desk. Her voice, when she spoke, was a bit louder than normal and almost authoritative. Eden did many things extremely well. Acting was not one of them.

  “…and I think that if we can make the crew understand the importance of proper nutrition—oh, hello, Admiral. Can I help you with something?” For a moment, hope blossomed. Maybe he’d reconsidered and would let her take a shuttle back to Lightridge.

  “Doctor.”

  He spoke her title but didn’t look at her. He watched Tasha, or more accurately, the back of the captain’s head.

  Seeming to realize she was the object of scrutiny, Tasha raised her eyes in a pleading gesture before turning in her chair.

  “Sebastian,” Kel-Paten said. Pause. “I didn’t realize the doctor needed to report to you on the crew’s nutritional requirements.”

  “We were covering a number of topics,” Tasha told him blandly.

  Eden quietly replaced the report in the stack. There was no way the admiral could have overheard their conversation—the noise level in her sick bay was too constant. But his appearance seemed anything but coincidental. Tasha was right; he was following her, but was it because she was U-Cee or something else?

  “You’ll be off duty shortly, Doctor.” It was a question, but as with many questions posed by Admiral Kel-Paten, it was issued in the form of a statement.

  Eden glanced at her watch, using the movement to give her time to open her empathic senses. It was just the three of them in this relatively small area of her office. This was her best chance to try to read Kel-Paten’s aura—if a biocybe could be accurately read by an empath. Damn, she hadn’t considered that. “Shift ends for me in half an hour, sir.”

  “Then I’m sure you have things to attend to before leaving.”

  “Actually, the captain and I were—”

  “I’m afraid I’ll be requiring”—and at this point Tasha turned her head, so only Eden could see, and exactly mouthed Kel-Paten’s words—“Captain Sebastian’s attention at this time.”

  Tasha’s glib action caught Eden by surprise, and she tried to cover her gurgle of laughter with a coughing fit.

  Tasha winked, then turned and faced Kel-Paten. “I don’t suppose it can wait until after dinner? I made plans to—”

  “You’ll have to cancel those plans. I’ll have something to eat brought to the ready room.”

  Tasha sighed theatrically as she stood. “Dining by starlight, Admiral?” The Vax’s ready room had large floor-to-ceiling viewports set into the outer wall. “How can I resist such an invitation?” And with that she waltzed out of the office.

  The mask dropped. Eden—waiting for something exactly like this—saw it and felt it. Kel-Paten’s usual impassive expression blurred into something heavily tinged with emotion when Tasha coquettishly turned her face up to his. And Eden saw an aura that only she or another empath like her could see.

  Kel-Paten’s aura pulsed with an intensity not unlike the hot flare of the vortex he fought yesterday. He was fighting a surge of emotion, Eden realized. But was he fighting to suppress it or fighting whatever was keeping him from experiencing it?

  Either way, it was a problem. A properly functioning biocybe was not supposed to experience emotions.

  He looked back at Eden for a brief moment as if he were about to say something, then caught himself as if he knew what she was thinking: Section 46.

  The mask fell back into place.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Doctor.” He inclined his head slightly.

  “Of course.”

  Eden leaned back in her chair after he left and tried to analyze what had happened. Something about Tasha Sebastian sparked a change in Kel-Paten. An emotional change. She wondered who put it there: Kel-Paten himself—responding to years of games with the U-Cee captain—or Sellarmaris Biocybernetics and PsyServ, looking to add another layer of complexity to their cybernetic creation now that the U-Cees were part of the Alliance?

  Either possibility was valid. And both could very well be dangerous.

  EDEN FYNN’S QUARTERS

  Issues other than Tasha’s continual run-ins with Kel-Paten gnawed at the back of Eden’s mind all through dinner with navigation officer Dannar Kel-Minra, but she couldn’t quite place what they were. It wasn’t Dann’s obvious interest in her. He’d never made her feel uncomfortable.

  But he didn’t make her feel anything else either. She couldn’t truly remember a man who had in the years since her divorce. She prowled about her quarters after dinner and wondered if that was why she felt so restless. Her life was fulfilling in all areas except one: romance.

  But then, she didn’t sign on with Fleet because she was husband-hunting.

  She thought about taking a sedative—she had the night before because of sheer exhaustion. But tonight, other than that odd restlessness, the usual aggravations of a huntership CMO were her only concerns. The comfort of Reilly, her large black furzel, nestled against her was all she needed. She fell asleep shortly after her head touched the pillow.

  Or she thought she did.

  Over the years, she’d tried to figure out if the space she now occupied—this gray, hazy, yet palpably solid space—was real or just a dream.

  It never felt like a dream. It felt as if she stood in a large, dimly lit room. She had no sense of walls, but she had a definite sense of floor, and, as she did for years, she took a few steps forward once she realized where she was.

  She wasn’t afraid. This was a place of immense peace. It calmed her mind. Often, when she was troubled before sleep, she would wake—if that’s what she did—to find herself here. And she knew that if she waited long enough, the thoughts or images needed to solve her problem would come into her mind. She wouldn’t physically see them—she never physically saw anything here except for the soothing gray mists.

  Except now.

  She stumbled over him in the fog, sensing his presence only moments before they collided—she, moving dreamily forward, and he, just rising from his seat. And then there was the warm and very reassuring pressure of his hands on her arm and about her waist as he drew her against him, then back down to the bench.

  A bench. A stone bench.

  And a man.

  Jace Serafino.

  “I’m sorry, I—ohmygods!” she gasped. She had to be dreaming. But her hand, now pressing against the soft fabric of the shirt covering his chest, felt the presence of a heartbeat.

  He studied her face. “I…know you.” Like Kel-Paten—it was a question yet a statement.

  She nodded. “Dr. Eden Fynn, CMO on the Vaxxar.” And winced when she heard the formality of her own tone. Why the hell didn’t you just add “reporting for duty”? she chastised herself mentally.

  Jace was smiling at her. “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Why didn’t I—” And she stopped, frozen by the realization that he heard her thoughts.

  You’re a telepath. She whispered the words in her mind.

  Yes. Like you.

  Like me? I’m not a telepath. To be a telepath meant you were either a government agent with TelTal or PsyServ, or you were declared—based on the Intergalactic Psychic Concordance and Protection Statutes enacted when she was a child—l
egally insane. I’m a Healer, an empath.

  You’re here, aren’t you? His question was as gentle as the hands that now rested against her waist. She knew she should object to this sudden familiarity, except that it didn’t seem all that sudden. The way he held her, the way he guided her to the bench, even the way he now used that light, teasing tone in his voice—his mind voice—seemed so natural, so normal.

  Here? she questioned.

  In Novalis.

  She shook her head. That’s not…the Novalis was your ship.

  Novalis is a place. This place. I named my ship after it.

  How did you know the name? Did you name this place?

  His soft chuckle was audible. The ancients named this place, I think. Or maybe the gods did. It depends on which legend you’re taught. Don’t your people have songs about it?

  Not that I remember. But I wasn’t raised…my father was human.

  Ahhh. He touched his fingers lightly on the left side of her face, first at her temple, then twice on her cheek, about an inch apart. His thumb came to rest under her chin.

  She was trembling. She knew what he’d done and she suddenly knew who—no, what—he was. She felt his touch beyond her mere physical existence, though the physical sensations were admittedly pleasant. It was an ancient benediction, a blessing of a Nasyry warrior–priest that denoted safekeeping. May the gods keep you in their care were the words that often accompanied it.

  Innocuous words, but said by a Nasyry, they carried power.

  A power that, decades before, severed relations not only with the U-Cees and the Triad but with the empathic Zingarans who worked with them. Saj-oullum, they termed her mother’s people. Consorts of dead minds, a damnation against an empathic people who willingly associated with nontelepaths.

  “Who are you?” She spoke out loud now, afraid what her thoughts would reveal. More afraid of how he might judge her, half Zingaran, half oullum. Dead mind.

  He looked at her quizzically and withdrew his hand from her chin. “I’m Jace Serafino, last time I checked.”

  “But you’re Nasyry.”

  His eyes narrowed for a moment. “Your studies have not been totally lacking, Doctor.”

  “There were things I wanted to know.” Her father never encouraged her interest in her deceased mother’s Zingaran heritage. It took her years to learn the little she had.

  “Self-taught, Healer?”

  Was he reading her thoughts? “Mostly, yes.”

  His hand was back, cupping her face. She felt his feather-light touch in her mind, the sensation almost soothing if it weren’t for the fear she kept tamping down. But that was silly. This was only a dream.

  Relax. Jace’s voice was soft. I won’t hurt you.

  “But you’re a telepath.”

  So are you, came the answer, still in her mind. A touch telepath, Doctor. At least, you are with me. You can link to my thoughts by touching me.

  I’m an empath, she repeated.

  He seemed amused by her stubbornness. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You experience your strongest empathic readings when you touch your patients, don’t you?

  It was something she always knew but never admitted, not even to her examiners in med school. Especially not to her examiners. But in sick bay, I tried with you. There was nothing.

  A small smile. You underrate yourself. Especially in that delightful outfit—do you always work half undressed in sick bay? I found that touch of blue lace rather memorable….

  Eden saw what he’d seen as he flashed the mental image to her: her less-than-cooperative uniform zipper and the blue lace—gods, that bright blue bra of hers!

  That’s not what I meant!

  You blush beautifully. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

  Captain Serafino—

  Jace. There was a firm but friendly insistence in his tone.

  She sighed. Jace, I received no telepathic readings from you in sick bay.

  A waft of negative emotion now; a slight tension from him that quickly faded. That’s courtesy of PsyServ.

  PsyServ? You’re an agent for them? The fear that abated from his light teasing returned full force.

  No! His answer was emphatic and, she knew through her empathic senses, the truth. May the gods strike me dead if I ever…

  He drew her against him, fitting her against his chest, his face resting in her hair. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck, and it was calming, reassuring, like the gray mists around her.

  And there was something else: safety, protection. Eden imagined that she couldn’t feel more protected were one of the gods to suddenly come down and cup her in his hand. There was a tremendous power in this man called Jace Serafino. And a tremendous benevolence.

  Suddenly he tensed, his breath catching hard as sharp pains, thin and cutting as microfine wires, laced through his body. He thrust her from him, but she grabbed for his hand.

  “Eden, don’t! It might kill you,” he rasped.

  “What’s wrong?” Where they touched, her flesh stung and tingled like a thousand insects dancing a fandango of death on her skin.

  He managed a pained smile. “PsyServ. Four years ago.” He gulped for air. “An implant. There’s an implant. It inhibits telepathy. That’s why you can’t—”

  He slid to the ground, his body shaking. “Oh, gods. Eden—!”

  Then he disappeared.

  She bolted out of her bed, rudely dislodging the sleeping furzel. She pulled on her uniform, fumbling with the zipper, then grabbed for her boots and comm link. It trilled just as she exited—still in her stocking feet—into the corridor.

  “Sick bay to Fynn! We’ve got a Code Red on Captain Serafino!”

  “I know, gods damn it, I know!” she barked back at the tiny transmitter. “I’m in the lift and on my way!”

  SHIP’S GYM

  Sass was upside down, grasping her ankles in a spine-popping stretch, when she saw Eden walk into the gym. Well, perhaps walk wasn’t the right word. Even from Sass’s inverted perspective, the CMO’s method of perambulation was better categorized as trudge.

  A tall, full-figured woman of a comfortable beauty, Eden Fynn had sparkling blue eyes, honey-gold hair, and, as heard more than once from the lips of various male crew, “legs that don’t quit.” But that reference had nothing to do with the act of walking—an act that Eden wasn’t performing with her usual bright gait. Especially not at 0630, when she normally bounded in to the gym to accompany Sass on their morning jog.

  “Captain, we need to talk,” Eden said as Sass slowly straightened out of her stretch.

  Sass took an intuitive leap based on the fact that Eden was still in her sick-bay scrubs: “Serafino.”

  A confirming nod.

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Don’t ask me how or why, but yes.”

  “Kel-Paten didn’t—”

  “This has nothing to do with Kel-Paten. At least, not at this point,” Eden said with a tired sigh.

  “Then what does it have to do with?”

  Eden’s answer was barely audible. “PsyServ.”

  “Oh, damn.” That wasn’t a term Sass wanted to hear. PsyServ was—in her opinion—a vicious, insidious, power-hungry agency that was far beyond the control of any rational governmental authority. Its proponents lauded it as the great protector, an eradicator of the unscrupulous. Sass doubted any PsyServ agent would know a scruple if it bit him in the ass. She grabbed her friend by the elbow. “My office. No. My quarters.” The latter was the only place she could be sure Kel-Paten wouldn’t barge in to unannounced.

  Sass pulled a bowl of lushberries from her small galley’s refrigerator as her cabin door closed behind Eden. A plaintive cry sounded at her feet. She glanced down into a pair of pleading golden eyes. “You’ve already been fed,” she told the long-furred fidget, hearing Eden chuckle knowingly.

  The golden eyes didn’t waver.

  “Oh, all right.” Sass filled a small saucer with sweet cream and put it in it
s usual place on the counter. The fidget stretched his pudgy body against the tall stool and made several snuffling noises.

  “Still can’t jump that well, can he?” Eden asked as Sass put down the bowl of lushberries and picked up the soft creature, placing him in front of the saucer.

  “Not when there’s someone around to save him the trouble.” Sass retrieved the bowl of fruit and plopped it in the middle of her dining table. “Start from the beginning,” she said. Then she sat, hands folded, and listened to Eden’s recitation: her inability to use her empathic senses to diagnose Serafino, her nagging feeling of something being very wrong, and her inexplicable encounter with Jace Serafino in a place called Novalis and, no, it wasn’t on his ship.

  “This isn’t just a dream?” Sass asked.

  Eden plucked one of the plump lushberries from the bowl in front of her. “I guess you could liken it more to an out-of-body experience. You’d have an existence there. You can touch and feel things.”

  Sass sat back in her chair, popped a large purple lushberry in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully. “And you can access this dream place because you’re Zingaran. Makes sense. How did Serafino get there?”

  Eden didn’t reply until Sass swallowed the berry. “He’s a Nasyry telepath.”

  Sass felt her jaw drop open. “Oh, damn.”

  “I know.”

  “But the Nasyry don’t associate with us. With nontelepaths. What’s he doing here? Other than the fact that we found him, that is.”

  “I don’t quite know yet.”

  “You mentioned PsyServ.” Sass’s words came quickly, her brain pumping out worried thoughts even faster. “If Serafino’s a telepath and the Triad—I mean, the Alliance—ostensibly hired him for the Illithian mission, that means he’s on their payroll, which means he’s also on PsyServ’s payroll…Am I right on this? Are you following me?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, he’s not on PsyServ’s payroll. He’s on PsyServ’s shit list.”

  The proverbial light of knowledge clicked on in Sass’s brain. “A rogue telepath.” The very thing the Intergalactic Psychic Concordance and Protection Statutes were designed to hunt down. The illegal use of telepaths to acquire inside information in the business and legal sectors had wreaked havoc in the trade markets and the courts in both the Triad and the Coalition. The Concordance ensured all telepaths were identified, properly trained, and monitored. The Protection Statutes went after those who weren’t.