Games of Command

by Linnea Sinclair

  If he’d even go with her.

  Lady Sass. He knew now. Her past associations.

  She fought back, kicking, then landed an elbow to Angel’s midsection. She held on to Dag’s rifle with one hand. He yanked it—and her—back to him, his face smeared with blood, his eyes blazing. She dropped to a half crouch, kicked his knee. He bellowed in pain, falling.

  And let go of the rifle.

  She hit the floor with it, rolled, aware of Angel lunging for her, aware of Drund just now putting her in his sights….

  I’m going to die. And I never told Branden I love him.

  Fear, hopelessness washed over her like a thick, oily tide. Panic choked her.

  She struggled to her feet, swinging her rifle up, but Drund was squinting, finger on the trigger. Then he was gone, jettisoned sideways by a black-clad blur.

  Someone grabbed her shoulders. She swung around, slamming the butt of the rifle into a face. Angel screamed, flailing backward.

  Gods, Angel, I’m sorry. But this is wrong. Crazy.

  Bootsteps on her right. She spun back, rifle coming up.

  Kel-Paten. With Drund’s rifle in one black-gloved hand. He stared at her, his expression hard, his eyes glowing with luminescent power. With hatred.

  She saw that clearly. So very clearly.

  And the heart that she’d so carefully guarded for all those years—never giving it away to any man—shattered. Into a thousand tiny sharp-edged pieces.

  A hatchway groaned open. The hangar filled with shouts, boots pounding on the floor. Kel-Paten jerked around, but she grabbed his arm. “This way!”

  He yanked his arm back. “Another trap, Lady Sass?”

  “No. I swear.” She’d never felt so helpless. And she’d just taken down two of the best-trained mercs in the business.

  Kel-Paten hesitated long enough to make sure she knew he didn’t trust her. But he also had no choice. Laser fire spit overhead.

  He ducked. She grabbed his arm again and ran.

  THE RAFT

  They reached the maintenance accessway just as laser fire sizzled on the decking around them. Sass tapped in the override security code she knew by heart. Kel-Paten, at her back, laid down cover fire. He could have as easily turned and killed her.

  Part of her wished he would. The pain in her heart was almost unbearable.

  The hatch slid open. “Go!” She swiveled, swung her rifle up, and strafed the hangar, then ducked in after him, slapping the hatch closed and locking it. “No time to scramble the security codes. They—”

  He pushed her roughly aside, lay his hand flat against the back of the locking mechanism. It sizzled, sparked, and went dead. Only then did she realize his gloves were off, tucked into his utility belt. He’d fried the lock shut.

  In spite of her pain—or perhaps because of it—she quirked an eyebrow at him. “Damn. Works for me. This way.”

  She sidled past him, heading for a ladderway she knew would lead to a central maintenance tunnel. There’d be a half dozen ways they could go from there. And Dag—when he stopped rolling on the floor in pain and cursing her—would spend a lot of time trying to figure out which.

  If he could still walk. She thought she’d broken his knee.

  They reached the ladderway. She grabbed the gritty metal rung and stopped. “One deck down is the small-skimmer bay. They probably expect us to go there, hot-wire a skimmer or transport, head dirtside.”

  “The outpost is dirtside.” His tone was flat, his expression telling her nothing.

  “We’re on a miner’s raft off Kesh Valirr.” It sounded crazy even as she said it. “Please. Just listen. We don’t have much time. Three decks up is the main maintenance tunnel. Breaks out to six smaller tunnels. Gives us a lot more choices and a lot better chance to lose them. But the call is yours, Admiral. I know you don’t trust me. So you decide. You want to hot-wire a skimmer, we hot-wire a skimmer. You want to gain a bit more breathing room, a few more options, we go up.” She jerked her face toward the ladder.

  “Up,” he said tersely. And that was the only thing he said for the next ten minutes as they climbed, ran down narrow tunnels lined with encased conduit and red-striped piping, and climbed some more.

  Three times they had to double back. Someone was coming—legitimate maintenance crew in orange overalls each time. It gave Sass a chance to catch her breath but not to speak, to offer Kel-Paten an explanation. Hell, she didn’t have an explanation.

  She didn’t know if one would matter.

  She just wanted to live long enough to get this nightmare over with. She wasn’t even sure if they were physically here or if this was some kind of hallucination and their bodies were back in the forest on HV-1. But her jaw ached where Dag or Jonn hit her. She rubbed it. Felt very much as if she was really here.

  She thought of the crew of Degun’s Luck and the lifeless bodies strewn about the ship. Were their minds taken elsewhere and tortured while their bodies stayed on board? Or was the entire ship taken, drained of life, and then dumped back in the space lanes?

  Emotional parasite, Eden had said about Bad Thing. The dying one had tortured Eden’s mind on the Galaxus. But in the forest, something physically took Jace and Eden away. Bad Thing, Tank told her. A Bad Thing that wasn’t weakened or shielded.

  Something to consider…

  The maintenance workers’ voices became fainter.

  “Clear. Let’s go,” she said, after the exit hatch clanked shut.

  Kel-Paten nodded. She trotted past him. They were in an older part of the raft now, built on top of a section of the original cavernous ore-processing plant. Though they couldn’t see them, Sass knew suspended gridways and automated conveyor belts crisscrossed in a dozen layers under their feet, moving the raw ore to the appropriate grinding stations. But this tunnel was inactive, with conduit cobbled together, power panels heavily patched. A lot of overheads had burned out, but that was okay. She knew where she was headed. There should be a row of abandoned offices coming up at Maintenance Access 7714. The whole corridor needed a complete rewire job. Until then, with no accessible power for equipment, the small offices lit only by emergency lighting were useless.

  But they could use them. Maybe she could get him talking. Maybe they could figure out where they really were, how they’d gotten here, just what in hell was going on. If not, she knew of one office that had a working sanifac. She no longer had her backpack or canteen, and she was desperately thirsty.

  Too bad she couldn’t take Angel up on that offer of beer. Getting trocked up seemed like a nice idea right about now.

  She watched for Access 7714. If she couldn’t pick the lock on an office door, Kel-Paten could probably fry it. But she’d never met a lock she couldn’t pick, given enough time. Only…

  It was a large coil of black conduit that blocked their path instead, spooled like a bloated snake, blocking more than half the tunnel. Damned thing had to be five feet high. Access 7714 was just beyond it. Sass flipped her rifle around to her front and, putting her back against the metal-paneled wall, pushed against the pile and squeezed sideways by it.

  The wall gave way and Sass fell backward, down into darkness and the grinding, chugging machinery below.

  A scream caught in her throat. Her arms flailed, smacking something, tangling. It hit her in the face, knocking her cap off, and she grabbed for it instinctively.

  It was the conduit. She clawed madly at it, but it slid through her grasp as it tumbled, unspooling as she fell.

  She closed her hands tighter and jerked to a stop, almost losing her hold on the slick tubing. Gasping, she clung to it, feet dangling. She didn’t dare look down. Not yet. She was still sucking in huge gulps of air and trying very hard not to throw up.

  She should try to climb back up, but what if her movements started the conduit falling again?

  She chanced a glance down. She was suspended at least twenty feet above the top level of gridways. It was a long way to the bottom.

  Kel-Paten. Gods, did
he fall too? Had one of the things that hit her in the darkness been him? He was so close behind her. Please. Don’t let him be down there. Sweat trickled down her cheeks. It had to be sweat. She wouldn’t cry.

  “Tasha!”

  “Kel-Paten?”

  “Hang on!”

  Like she had a choice? The conduit jerked again and she slipped another few inches. “Shit!”

  “Wrap your legs around it,” he called, but she was already doing that, her Fleet training kicking in. Wrap one leg, lock the other foot on top of it. Lock your hands. Pray.

  The conduit jerked, jiggled. The rifle—miraculously still slung over her chest—cut into her breastbone. But up she went. It seemed like hours, but when she reached the gaping hole that used to be a wall, her tears hadn’t dried.

  Kel-Paten grabbed her collar first, then one hand came under her armpit. He lifted her easily, her boots catching on the tangle of conduit that still remained. His arms went around her back and, holding her tightly, he dragged her back into the tunnel.

  It felt so incredibly good to have something solid under her feet. Someone solid to lean on. For a moment she thought she felt his face against her hair, his breath in her ear as if he were going to whisper something. But she must have imagined that, because his arms loosened, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders when she swayed toward him. “You can let go now,” he said, and she realized she still held a section of the conduit between them in a death grip.

  Slowly, painfully, she unfolded her fingers. “Oh, gods.” She bit down on her lip. How could she feel so numb and be in so much pain at the same time?

  “Wait.” He unhooked her rifle’s strap, tossed the weapon on the pile of conduit next to her, and then lowered her to the floor. Kneeling in front of her, he took her hands in his, stroking, kneading. He hadn’t put his gloves back on, and in the uneven lighting she could see the scars striping his fingers, glimpses of the silvery powermesh implants on his palms. Yet his touch was so gentle. Her hands stopped spasming. The length of conduit—her lifeline—landed with a muted thud.

  She stared at it for a moment, then looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.” For causing you so much trouble. For having past associations. For loving you when all I can do is bring you pain.

  His eyes were luminous in the patchy lighting. His face was a shadowed mask. “Can you walk? It’s not wise to stay here.”

  She nodded, snatched her rifle, and struggled to her feet. His hand on her arm guided her. “There,” she said, pointing to the hatchway with 7714 stenciled on it. She winced. Her shoulder ached like hell. So much for Eden’s best efforts with her rotator cuff. “There are some abandoned offices. I think…I need to sit down for a while.”

  The office with the sanifac was exactly where she remembered it. It took Kel-Paten only a few seconds to trip the lock. She stumbled in, her body shuddering every few minutes as fear spiked and receded, spiked and receded. A green strip of emergency lighting glowed in the ceiling; a smaller one was in the sanifac. Both rooms were empty.

  Kel-Paten locked the door behind them as she crossed the room. She propped her rifle against the wall by the sanifac. It had an old-fashioned lever-operated sink, but it worked. She splashed water on her face, then, cupping her shaking hands, took several long drinks. And felt abysmally selfish. “Water’s clean and cold, if you want some.”

  “No.”

  She left the sanifac, walked over to the corner farthest away from where Kel-Paten stood in the dimness, and folded herself down onto the floor. She hugged her knees against her chest and stared at the dark outline of her boots.

  Please, someone wake me up. Get me out of this nightmare.

  Another pair of boots walked across the room and stopped in front of hers. “Tell me again how this isn’t Serafino’s doing.”

  Logical conclusion: Serafino and Zanorian were both mercs. Both hated Kel-Paten and were hated by Kel-Paten. But Kel-Paten didn’t know what she did. She raised her face. “A Nasyry can do a lot of things, but I don’t think he can resurrect the dead.”

  “Explain.”

  “The short guy with Dag Zanorian? That’s Jonn Drund. Know the name?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “He died seven years ago on Lethant.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  “I was there.”

  “On Lethant?”

  She nodded.

  “Then you are Lady Sass.”

  “I was, off and on until seven years ago. But Lady Sass is dead now too.” She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Damned inconvenient when the dead don’t have the good graces to stay dead, isn’t it?”

  “What kind of game are you and Serafino playing here?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” She sat up straighter. “Drund is dead. Yet he’s here, alive. And Zanorian’s here, but he has only one scar. Last time I saw him—about five years ago—he had two. Damned proud of them and not about to have his face vanity-patched. Angel doesn’t have the commitment tattoo on her left wrist from when she and Suki pair-bonded. It has to be at least nine years for them.”

  She sucked in a breath, damning the fact that he could see her expressions far better than she could see his. “Zanorian and Angel would never call me Lady Sass, blow my cover in front of you.” They’d worked with her for too many years, whenever UCID needed to resurrect Lady Sass for a mission. “And Serafino would have to raise the dead to pull off this kind of shit. He’s simply not that good. He’s not even a full-blooded Nasyry.

  “Moreover,” she continued, anger forcing her brain to work again, “everything that you saw back in that freighter bay, everything that happened, is wrong and you know it. Gund’jalar doesn’t put contracts out on people, doesn’t abduct them. But if for some bizarre reason he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t put a wild-ass freelancer like Zanorian in charge.”

  “He’d put Lady Sass in charge,” Kel-Paten intoned.

  “Damned straight he would. But we didn’t do abductions. You know that. Hell, you’ve tracked his cells for years. But you only know him because he funds the Danvaral liberation movement by hitting up Triad freighters. What you don’t see is that he’s also the law—sometimes the only law—out in the Far Reaches. People listen to him because he’s intelligent and fair. He’s not a wanton murderer and he’s not a kidnapper.”

  He was silent for two, three heartbeats. “I almost kidnapped you once.”

  Sass caught a slight change in the tone of his voice, or thought she did. A degree or two of the intense chill around him thawing. She was probably wrong. Then she thought again about what he said: he’d almost kidnapped her. Sarna Bogue and the entry in his logs.

  She looked away for a moment, then back up at him, her face hiding nothing. “I wish you would have,” she said quietly.

  He turned abruptly and headed for the sanifac. She heard the water come on and in the muted green glow watched his silhouette cup his hands and drink as she had earlier.

  He shut the water off but didn’t return to the room. He stayed with his hands planted against the edge of the sink, back bowed, looking down, saying nothing. She didn’t know if he was working up the courage to tell her he loved her or to kill her.

  Either seemed a valid possibility right now.

  THE OUTPOST

  Go Blink! Tank panted, tired and thirsty. And hungry. His stomach growled. Hunting Bad Things was hard work. He wanted to nap but knew he couldn’t. FriendReilly was tired too.

  There were just so many Bad Things here.

  Friend? Here! He heard Reilly’s call and heaved a sigh.

  Tank here! Go Blink! He appeared next to Reilly, who was facing down a large ugly smelly light. Tank wrinkled his nose in disgust. It must be a really old one. The stench was terrible.

  A Blink shield encased much of its glowing body, but the Bad Thing pushed against it, straining the lines of energy.

  Reilly wavered on his paws, one hind leg almost buckling. The sight of his friend
stumbling shot fear through Tank. Friend hurt?

  Friend tired. Help. Finish here. Go Blink for Friend.

  Tank help! he said, but he wasn’t sure. He was just a fidget; he didn’t completely understand how to weave a perfect shield.

  And the Bad Things weren’t dying fast enough.

  This one strained against Reilly’s shield lines. Three snapped.

  Shtift-a! Tank narrowed his eyes and ignored the rumbling in his stomach. Love MommySass. Love FriendReilly… He paused, sensing something that had been in the back of his mind for a while but he’d been too busy to notice.

  Mommy? Silence. No, not silence. Pain.

  No! Tank stood frozen, trembling. His stomach heaved. Mommy was gone. Bad Thing took Mommy. Tank go! Tank help Mommy!

  Friend, please! Reilly’s voice was strained.

  Another shield line snapped.

  Shtift-a! Shtift-a! Tank’s ears lay flat to his head. His tail thrashed. His heart cried out in pain.

  Reilly’s left hind leg collapsed completely this time. And he was too close to Bad Thing.

  Misery closed in on Tank. If he left now, Reilly might die.

  He bared his teeth, growling, and focused on old, stinky Bad Thing. Go Blink!

  Eden studied the data on the implant, Jace coming over now and then to ruffle her hair or stroke her neck. What she would have given to have this information on the Vax! She could have removed the implant. And he would have had time to recover.

  Now, although the medical equipment here was excellent, recovery would be a problem. That Bianca intended to kill both of them she had no doubt. She just didn’t know how long after the surgery they’d be allowed to live.

  Which led her back to the only logical option, one she and Jace had fretted over as she paged through the data—they had to get out of here soon.

  We not only have to get past the guards, we have to get past the Ved, Jace told her. The furzels have neutralized a number of them. But from what I can sense, there are still far too many alive. We’d never make it to the ship.

  Not the Galaxus. The Traveler.