Games of Command

by Linnea Sinclair

  She pulled the fat fidget into her lap. “Do you understand what the admiral asked you, sweet baby?” She stroked his whiskers. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “Let’s take this one thing at a time. Bad thing. Furzels know Bad Thing for a long time, right?”

  Silence from the fidget. A narrowing of eyes from Tasha. “Where are there lots of Bad Things? Big Bad Things, baby Bad Things, all together. If Bad Thing goes home, where is that? A ship? A cloud world? A green world?”

  More silence. More narrowing of eyes. Then Tasha’s eyes closed. “Holy lubashit on a lemon,” she said softly. She looked at him. “Tank says they come from the void. McClellan’s Void. He calls it Big Crazy Silly Space.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “He showed me,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “an image. A Rebashee gesture.” She touched her thumb to her little finger, arching the other three, then made a small slicing movement in the air. “Dreehalla. It appears, Admiral, all your mathematical theories are wrong.”

  SOMEWHERE IN THE OUTPOST

  The fear was no longer nameless, faceless. It was real. And, as expected, it wore the austere purple and black robe of a Nasyry warrior priestess.

  He knew they’d find him eventually.

  Jace felt Eden’s fingers digging into his arm. So much for trying to protect her from this. One moment they were blinded, clinging to each other as their world shifted from outside in the forest to here, this stark, high-ceilinged room about the size of an average freighter cargo bay. Then his vision cleared and he saw her. Immediately, he stepped in front of Eden—or tried to. It was an instinctive move, which she deftly blocked.

  Eden evidently would have none of that. Where in hell are we?

  “Hush,” he said softly. “Not now.”

  The robed woman standing at the far end didn’t turn or give any indication she knew they were there. There was a long, narrow window or viewport in front of her, shadowy figures shifting in the distance. Window, he decided. Though the room reminded him of a cargo bay, with wide joists curving out from the walls or bulkheads at regular intervals, nothing told his senses he was on a ship.

  At least, not one in space.

  “Let me handle this,” he told Eden. Then chanced it: If I tell you to run, you run. Don’t look back. He tried to block her from his mind then. He couldn’t raise a block, not even the smallest mental filter. Something was stopping him, something—

  PsyServ. He recognized that taint of arrogance immediately.

  PsyServ, here? With a Nasyry Great Lady?

  Something was wrong. He took a quick scan. There were others in the room. He saw only edges of shadows in the irregular overhead lighting but felt much more. Six, no seven. Eight, with the Great Lady. Eight against two. No, three. They had Reilly….

  Reilly was gone.

  Eight against two.

  “Who is she?” Eden whispered.

  My past come back to haunt me, probably kill me, he wanted to say, but didn’t. The presence of PsyServ puzzled him. But Eden had a right to know the basics. “They,” he whispered back. “Eight. All around us.” And he’d lost his weapon in the scuffle with the ’cybe.

  “Oh, Jace! I’m so frightened!” Eden’s voice warbled theatrically. “What do they want?” She clutched the front of his jacket, wailed loudly in his ear. Tucked something into his hand as he moved to dislodge her.

  A laser pistol. He hoped she’d retrieved his from the ground and wasn’t giving him hers. He slipped it into an inside pocket. “Ahh, Eden. I really do love you,” he whispered in her ear, unable to keep a slight chuckle out of his voice in spite of the circumstances. Gods, she was a terrible actress.

  He wanted to believe she was also armed. Or at least had several useful items clamped to her utility belt. He felt them as she bumped against him.

  But if he knew, chances were the other eight knew. PsyServ missed little. A Nasyry warrior priestess missed nothing.

  Sniffling, Eden let him draw her to his side. He patted her lightly on the rump, then took a half step forward. He was already dead. It would matter little if he violated sacred protocol.

  “Great Lady,” he began, his voice carrying clearly. “I acknowledge this unspeakable transgression in addressing you without permission. But I am a lowly saj-oullum, and my crude audacity knows no bounds.”

  A rustle from the shadows in the room but no response.

  Then the woman raised her right arm slowly, stopping when it was about even with her shoulders. Her robe fanned out. A glowing blue orb emerged and floated by her side, expanding until it was about three feet across.

  It took a moment for him to access collective memory and identify it. Bloody holy damn. His stomach clenched. A Ved’eskhar. A legendary monster. Impossible. But this one was real. Now he knew where his psychic block and paralyzing sense of fear had originated. And he knew what had snatched them from the forest to this room. But what was one of his people doing with a Ved? The Ved were parasites, psivampires. A telepath’s worst nightmare. And banished by the Nasyry centuries ago to some unnamed dimension where they would feed upon each other and die. But they hadn’t, and suddenly with a sickening jolt he knew where he was.

  Eden sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Ved’eskhar,” he told her quietly.

  Eden shook her head. “That’s Bad Thing. Reilly—” She glanced quickly down, looking left and right. Reilly? This time the panic in her voice was real.

  Don’t know. He tried to send her reassurances. Reilly was smart. He was probably hiding in here somewhere.

  Reilly and Tank killed one of those things on the shuttle.

  Killed a Ved? On the shuttle? He didn’t know they could be killed by a furzel. And he sure as hell didn’t know one had been on the shuttle.

  One was on the Vax too. And Lightridge. Degun’s Luck. At least, that’s what Reilly told me.

  The disturbing undercurrent he’d felt on the Vax. A Ved’eskhar.

  Things slowly started to make sense. And then the Great Lady turned and spoke. And nothing made sense at all.

  “I will speak now, Jacinto. You will listen. Then, when I’m ready, both of you will die.”

  Even if he didn’t recognize the face, the voice, the use of his name was unmistakable. Only one person in his life had ever called him Jacinto. It was her loving, special nickname for him.

  But there was nothing loving in her face or tone at all, and her aura seethed with poisonous colors. The brief elation he’d felt upon seeing her evaporated like a drop of water falling on the Riln Marin Desert as he quickly tallied the scene before him: a Nasyry holy robe, a Ved, and the stink of PsyServ. All on a world created by the Ved out of the thoughts of humans dragged into the neverwhen.

  This time he did manage to push Eden behind him. He faced his sister squarely, pain slicing his heart as a thousand questions whirled through his mind. He voiced only one: “What kind of game are you playing here, Bianca?”

  She stepped closer to him, the Ved following, and held out her other hand. He’d always thought his sister had the most beautiful smile. This one carried the chill of the grave.

  A small form walked stiffly from the shadows. A boy, almost a young man. Gods, no! Young Jorden. The nephew who had his uncle Jace’s talents. Talents his mother didn’t have. Or did she? Another puzzle.

  Jorden took his mother’s hand, and she turned him so the shaved area in the back of his head clearly showed. A long thin stripe to allow easy entry for an implant. With a sickening feeling, Jace remembered his fingers finding his own missing thatch of hair after PsyServ did the same thing to him.

  “What kind of game?” She stroked Jorden’s dark hair away, just in case Jace hadn’t seen it. “One of control, Jacinto. A game of ultimate control.”

  Eden paced the small windowless office, looking for anything she could use, any way out. Two male human guards in nondescript gray freighter jumpsuits had escorted her here—at gunpoint—after removing her utility belt and pistol. Th
en they frisked her for any other weapons.

  Three other guards—all human, one a woman—did the same thing to Jace, finding the pistol she’d passed to him.

  But he wasn’t in this makeshift holding cell with guards outside the door. Through his telepathic link with her, he flashed her images every few minutes: a long gray corridor, then wide double doors. More guards. Then an examining room that contained an array of medical equipment that, under other circumstances, she’d drool over.

  Now it terrified her.

  Don’t be scared, sweetling. Use what I’m showing you. He sent her the image of the corridor and its various doors again. Find a way out.

  How could she when she was surrounded by PsyServ telepaths who were seeing and hearing everything Jace sent her?

  They’re not all telepaths. Eden; watch their aura. Those that are have implants like I do.

  She stopped pacing. Damn! She reached empathically for the guards on the other side of her door. Only one was a telepath. But wait…yes. There was something in his aura. An odd wiggly red line, very faint.

  That’s what the implant looks like?

  She felt Jace’s affirmative.

  But Bianca—

  She’s oullum, he told her. And… he hesitated, and Eden could feel the hurt radiating through him. He loved his sister. But his sister was no longer someone to love. She’s emotionally unstable, and not just from her relationship with the Ved. She hates telepaths, hates the Nasyry for making her feel inferior—

  She’s wearing a priestess’s robe.

  She fancies herself the high priestess of the Oullums. Jace sounded disheartened but angry too. Frustrated. Eden felt that, felt how difficult it was for him to deal with this.

  And that’s why she kidnapped you?

  We haven’t quite gotten to that part yet. I have to go. I’ll check back in a few minutes.

  And the warmth she knew as Jace vanished.

  Damn. Back to the problem of getting out of here. Eden examined the sole desk in the room, large and metal with three drawers on either end. It had also held a data terminal at one point, but that slot was empty. She rifled the drawers. Not even a lightpen so she could stab a guard in the neck. If she could get out of here. Or get them to come in.

  Now, that was a thought. Maybe if she started screaming, pounding on the walls, the guards would have to investigate. But what could she hit them with? No chairs. Only the desk, and she couldn’t lift that. She’d tried.

  She looked up. A recessed light panel. A plastiglass insert surrounded by a metal frame. Her mind worked quickly. Drag the desk under the light panel, stand on it, and yank down the covering—if she could reach it. The insert would be too lightweight, but maybe the metal frame could be fashioned into something sword-like. Of course, she’d have to break it apart first, but maybe that would provide her with some nice sharp edges.

  She went back to the desk, grabbed a corner, and tugged, her hands slipping on its rounded surface. It budged an inch or two. This wasn’t working. Perhaps if she pushed?

  She sidled around to the other side of the desk. Pushing gained her another two inches, an ache between her shoulder blades, and a scrape on her palm when her hand slipped again. Her head pounded.

  Damn. Maybe if she took the drawers out. She pulled out the one on the top left, but it stopped. A safety-latch mechanism, she realized. She knelt and reached into the open space, feeling blindly with her fingers. Swearing. Finally, she found it, and the heavy drawer slid completely out.

  The door to the office opened, startling her. Three guards, including the woman who had taken Jace away. Jace…gods, how long was it since he contacted her? She reached, sensing him on the edges of her mind. But he wasn’t talking.

  The guards stepped in. The woman was the telepath, her aura tinged with red squiggles.

  Eden pushed herself to her feet, bringing the long desk drawer with her. It was bulky, unwieldy, but if she could slam one of them in the head with it…

  Three pistols appeared as she lifted the drawer.

  “Don’t be stupid, Dr. Fynn,” the taller of the two men said. He had reddish hair, cropped very short, and a nose that looked too small for his broad face.

  She lowered the drawer. “Where’s Jace?”

  “This way.” Small Nose waggled his pistol.

  She recognized the gray corridor. Three doors, a cross corridor, another two doors. All closed. No signs that said Escape This Way. She listened again for Jace or Reilly but heard only silence.

  They came to the double doors, and when they opened, she recognized the medical facility. No Jace. “Where’s Jace?” She put a firmness in her voice she didn’t feel.

  The two male guards assumed position by the door. The woman kept walking, disappearing behind a single door on the right. It closed behind her.

  No one answered her question.

  The single door opened again. Bianca strode through, the blue orb floating sinuously off her left shoulder. Bianca the Beautiful Bitch, and her Bad Thing. If Eden wasn’t so damned mad and so damned scared, she might have found the moniker she’d bestowed on Jace’s sister amusing.

  “I want to see Jace,” she told Bianca.

  “What did you do to his harness?” The woman fairly spat out the words.

  Harness? “He doesn’t have a harness.”

  “Of course he has a harness. He’s a telepath. They all must have harnesses!” Bianca almost shouted the last few words. The blue orb’s glow increased, pulsing. “They must be controlled. But you…you!” She pointed at Eden. “What did you do to his harness? It’s changed. It’s not responding to commands. Dr. Kel-Novaco will not be pleased.”

  The implant. Oh, gods. Were they trying to access Jace’s implant? She’d altered it the only way she could: by changing the codes by which it accessed each function. It was still functionally active. It just couldn’t talk to the programs that told it what to do.

  “It was malfunctioning. I had to deactivate it or it would have killed him.” Surely Bianca cared if her brother lived or died?

  “Of course it would have killed him! It’s an older prototype. But now it’s not responding to basic commands. We’ll learn nothing from it when we extract it.”

  Extract it? “Extracting it could cause severe brain damage. Or kill him!”

  Bianca frowned. “He’s served his purpose.”

  Gods. Jace was nothing more than an experiment to her? “He’s your brother!”

  “He’s a filthy mindsucker,” Bianca shot back. “The data in the harness is more important.”

  “And your son? Your husband?”

  She smiled. “Galen’s harnessed. And Jorden listens to me. To us. We,” and she gestured to the blue orb at her side, “know best when their mind habits can be used. Like in bringing my brother to us, so he could be harnessed. We had to play a little game, pretend I was in danger. I knew Jacinto would respond to that. He always has. Dr. Kel-Novaco put an excellent unit into him—at the time. Then it developed problems. Problems we think we can avoid in future harnesses. But we need to extract it and its data for that.”

  Bianca tilted her face slightly. “You’re a doctor. Surely you know the importance of medical research.” Her expression hardened. “How did you deactivate his harness?”

  Eden’s mind raced. Bianca would kill Jace. Her only concern was the unit, not her brother’s life. But Eden had watched Sass in the casinos enough times to know that sometimes you had to bluff and bet it all, even when you held only one good card. This, she felt, was one of those times. “I changed the access codes.”

  “I want the new ones.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Eden crossed her arms over her chest. “No.” The only chance Jace had would be for Eden to be the one to remove the implant. Unlike Bianca, she would do everything to keep him alive. She had to convince Bianca to let her be the doctor in charge.

  Bianca motioned to the blue orb.

  Fear slammed into Eden. Cold,
oily, invasive. Bad Thing crawled into her mind. She was in the cockpit of a shuttle, alone, as it hurtled out of control toward a sun. Then she was a child again. No, older, perhaps fifteen. Yes, fifteen. It was Maridee’s birthday party at the lake. A horrible day. The memory was actually worse than the out-of-control shuttle, because the party was real.

  Eden didn’t have the lithe, slender body the other girls did. Feeling plump and uncomfortable with her curves, she wore a shapeless bathing suit. The boys laughed at her. “Drown the fat girl, drown the fat girl!”

  No, no. They never said that. They just laughed. But it didn’t matter. They were saying it now. And it felt real. Water in her face. Water in her nose and mouth. Hands, feet pushing her down, kicking her. Water in her lungs. Pressure. Horrible pressure. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. Fear smothered her. Dying…

  Let me die. Let me die. Death is good…

  No, sweetling! Don’t listen to it. Hold on to me…

  “Bring her back!”

  Bianca’s voice jolted her.

  Eden found herself on her knees, trembling, bile rising in her throat. But she’d heard Jace. Warmth flooded her.

  “She has the codes,” Bianca was saying. “We need those codes.”

  Yes, they did. They needed her alive. She struggled to her feet, swaying. “I will be the one to extract it.” Her voice was raw, raspy. She could still taste the murky lake water. “Or you will not get the codes.”

  Bianca stared at her, eyes narrowed. “If you were a telepath, I’d order a harness implanted in you. You’d obey me then.”

  Bianca didn’t know she was a telepath! To her, Eden Fynn was just a CMO. Ship’s doctor on the Vaxxar. An oullum. But surely the Bad Thing knew? Or was it reading her only as an empath because it had no solid form and couldn’t touch her?

  “I perform the surgery or no codes,” Eden repeated.

  It took several minutes. Finally Bianca nodded and thrust one hand toward the single door. “Your patient’s in there. I want the implant and the codes by sunrise or…” and she let her voice trail off.