Shades of Honor (An Anomaly Novel Book 2)

by Sandy Williams

  He didn’t move. Neither did the air in the room. “Continue.”

  “I don’t think I need to.” She circled back in front of him. Her smile faded some, and she watched him, a touch of curiosity in her eyes. Waiting to see how he would react.

  “Javery.” The planet’s name left his tongue like a curse. The minister prime was taking them to his home world. There was only one reason Tersa hadn’t told him: she knew he’d explode. He was on the edge of it now. The pressure built and built. She wanted him to use his relationship with Javery’s top military officer to persuade the planet to join the Coalition.

  “It won’t fucking happen.”

  “You might mention that to Captain Furyk then,” Ash said. “I’m pretty sure he’s aware of the secret itinerary.”

  “Tersa thinks I can reason with my father.” His hands clenched into fists. “I don’t talk to my father.”

  “Maybe this is just an intervention and the prime wants to do what she can to heal old wounds.”

  He glared. Ash snapped her mouth shut, but a small grin remained on her lips.

  “I’ll deal with it,” he said. He’d deal with it right fucking now. “Report to your team lead and stay out of trouble.”

  He headed for the exit.

  “I need a favor.”

  Ash could have said almost anything else and he would have kept going, but she wasn’t the type of person who asked for help.

  He stopped. Looked over his shoulder.

  “Can you convince Tersa to unlock my accounts and restore my permissions?”

  Right. The two thugs. The reason Ash had been late to the Kaelais and the way she’d secretly helped the people of her home world.

  “If the payments start up again,” he said, “will you be in the clear?”

  “Maybe.”

  He faced her fully. “I will on one condition. You have to integrate with your team.”

  “I am integrat—”

  “No. You’re on the roster, but you’re not making an effort to be part of it. Put in the effort.”

  She looked away. The pinch of her brow indicated exactly how much that effort would cost her.

  “If I do,” she said, “you’ll convince her to unlock everything?”

  “I’ll convince her.”

  “Without telling her where the credits went?”

  He nodded. Tersa wanted to know, but he’d be damned if he told her, especially after this Javery stunt.

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” he said. “And, Ash. I’m the commanding officer aboard this ship. I’m on this mission to keep you in line. I’m not to touch you.”

  “Keep me in line?” Ash’s laughter echoed off the corridor’s walls. Her green eyes brightened, and that teasing, fun-loving smile settled on her lips when she took a step toward him and met his gaze. “This is going to be a fun deployment.”

  Ah, hell. Wrong words, Rykus. Wrong damn words.

  7

  Captain Furyk loved his drills. They started as soon as Ash reached her bunk and continued on and off for the next ten hours. That was how long it took the Kaelais to make her way to the Pinnacle, the military tachyon capsule that would take her and the rest of the 6th Fleet to the unpublicized stop at Javery and then on to the meeting with the Sariceans. If it wasn’t against protocol, Ash was certain Furyk would have had them practicing every form of emergency procedure straight through the entry into the time-bend. Instead, he gave all souls on board an hour reprieve before starting up again.

  Her teammates and the other soldiers grumbled about the repetition, but Ash didn’t mind. The interruptions gave her excuses to focus on something besides Liles and her other two teammates. She wasn’t ignoring them, but she wasn’t “integrating” either. She was watching her back, waiting for the moment when Hauch would jump her. If he were like every other man and woman in the Coalition’s Special Forces, he wouldn’t let what she’d done to him go without reprisal.

  But eventually the drills slowed. Ash had more free time, more time to attempt to pry into Trevast’s files and more time to think.

  The thinking was dangerous. It led to her questioning why she was sitting idle on a tachyon capsule bound for a place that had nothing to do with Jevan Valt. When she’d agreed to go on this mission, she’d done so because it was only one week’s delay, and it was possible—possible—Tersa might be right. The Sariceans might have also been infiltrated by telepaths.

  If that was the case, it would mean Valt had told his interrogators something true. That would lead to them trusting more of what he said, and Ash didn’t like the idea of anyone believing Valt’s words.

  She didn’t like Tersa’s assurances that Valt wasn’t going anywhere.

  She didn’t like that Valt was alive.

  Ash tried to smother her memories, but the wound her teammates’ deaths had left in her remained sharp. She needed to sleep it off. That should be easy considering she’d barely slept in three days, but the tightness in her chest, her paranoia over Hauch, and the malfunctioning light above her head that switched on and off throughout the night made it difficult.

  It also didn’t help that she was due for a booster. Ash was reliant on the Coalition for the injections. It had never been an issue before, but after the withdrawal she’d gone through a month ago, she was going to make damn sure it wouldn’t become one again in the future. She was spacing out the doses, increasing the amount of time she could go between the boosters without it affecting her performance. It was possible to get off the drug completely, but it would require medical attention, and even then, it was risky.

  She closed her eyes and covered a yawn with her fist. That was a problem to work out later, once she’d had a good night’s sleep…

  Pressure built at the base of her skull. Ash jerked upright and rolled away from the sensation.

  The floor greeted her with a teeth-rattling smack on the chin. It knocked her awake but didn’t fully chase away the sensations from her dream.

  She hadn’t relived her teammates’ murders this time. Instead, she’d been on the Fortune’s Citadel. She’d been in Rykus’s bed when she’d felt the pressure. It was like a tangible hot breath on the back of her neck.

  She’d leapt off the floor, then ran out of the room trailing, tracking, tracing the telepath. She’d followed the bastard to the edge of the ship where he’d disappeared.

  Completely disappeared.

  Now she wasn’t even sure if she’d felt the pressure in the first place. If she had, and a real telepath had been there, then he’d been toying with her.

  The only thing toying with her now was her memories. Fucking dreams.

  Plastic bit into her palms when she pushed herself off the ground. Pieces of the cover to the light above her bunk were scattered across the floor. She’d put her foot through it when it had gone off yet again in the middle of the night. The Kaelais hadn’t been too pleased about that. It had rejected her profile, then run through the synchronization process again, vibrating persistently enough for her teammates to hear. Ash had finally shut the thing down completely. She brushed pieces of plastic off her hands, then turned the cuff back on. It stayed blessedly silent.

  Standing, she grabbed her black uniform off the shelf at the foot of her bed, then pulled it on over her skintight shorts and compression shirt. She leaned against the wall to stuff her feet into her combat boots, and that’s when she noticed Hauch. He was awake and watching her from the bunk across the room.

  Of course he’d be the one to see her roll out of bed.

  Grabbing a hair band and a few other essentials, she silently slipped out the door.

  The Kaelais’s lights were dimmed for the night shift. She headed toward the chow hall, passing nooks that contained small trees that helped filter the Kaelais’s air. Despite their presence, environment systems hummed loudly in the corridors. The ship was working overtime to clean the air of the individual scents and smells from almost a hundred different home worlds. In anot
her few days, after the crew had been eating Fleet-standard rations and breathing in sanitized oxygen, the purifiers could take intermittent breaks. The smell of culture would be standardized, and the soldiers and spacers would, for the most part, assimilate into one military culture. It happened every deployment, and Ash always hated it.

  That’s why she made a game of not assimilating.

  She threaded a hand through her hair, which hung loose below her shoulders. Her fingers found the thin lock she kept braided for Rykus. She let it slip free when she reached her destination and erased the faint smile from her lips. The large room was almost deserted. Only a few people, mostly spacers, sat at the tables. Ash took a seat close to the metal bar that separated the room from the kitchen, then set her comm-cuff flat on the surface of her table. She rubbed her eyes, then accessed the program she was using to try to crack into Trevast’s files.

  Immediately she came across the same obstacle she had the last time she’d looked into them. She was almost certain a trip wire had been woven through the encryption. If she triggered it, it might erase the data. She’d spent the last day trying to find a way to circumvent that possibility, but every access point raised the same alert. She hadn’t known Trevast had the capability to add this type of layering into his encryptions. Most normal people couldn’t do that.

  A clank from the kitchen drew Ash’s attention. She looked up and saw Specialist Kaylee Teal.

  Cleaning the dishes.

  Bots ran all but the finest restaurant establishments in the KU, and a warship’s mess hall definitely didn’t meet the standard to require human assistants.

  Grinning, Ash fastened her comm-cuff around her wrist and strolled to the bar.

  “Trouble with the robots?”

  Teal spun. When she saw Ash, her eyes narrowed. “The bots are just fine.”

  “What did you do?” The bots were only taken out of commission for “maintenance” when someone needed to be disciplined.

  Teal dropped a processing cube into a deep sink. Sudsy water splashed across the metal bar, hitting Ash and soaking one of the dirty dishes someone had left there, but Ash didn’t give the crypty the satisfaction of a reaction.

  “How are you sleeping?” Teal delivered the words more like a punch than a question.

  Ash managed not to look at her hand, where the plastic from her broken light fixture had left a small cut. Keeping her expression neutral, she met the other woman’s eyes and noted the deep intelligence in them, the rebellious fire. Teal might not be Caruth trained, but she was an anomaly. Lethal in her own way. She’d helped the Coalition recapture her on Ephron, discovered Ash’s illegal admin ID in a handful of minutes, and apparently, she’d screwed with Ash’s bunk light. Point to Teal.

  Nonchalantly she rested her arms on the bar. “I need to put in a repair request for my bunk light. Thank you for the reminder.”

  Teal rolled her eyes, then grabbed another processing cube.

  “Seems like you know your way around bot-run kitchens,” Ash said. “Get in trouble a lot?”

  Teal didn’t respond. When it looked like the crypty was going to play the you-don’t-exist game, Ash made a show of unhooking her comm-cuff. She swiped the screen a few times, tapped through a few news alerts and messages, then yawned. “The Kaelais is a really nice ship.”

  Teal slammed a clean cube onto the counter. “You illegally access my ship’s files again and I’ll short-circuit that cuff while you’re wiping your ass.”

  Ash laughed. “I’ll be more careful next time I access off-limit systems.”

  Teal folded her arms. “What is it you want?”

  Ah, now she had her. “You’re an anomaly. I’m an anomaly. I thought we could be friends.”

  Teal’s gaze darted to the nearest spacers. They were several tables away—too far to hear Ash’s words—but when the crypty addressed her again, she lowered her voice. “You’re trying to make me a target.”

  “Because of the anomaly thing? People knowing what you are should make you less of a target.” Theoretically. In practice, though, it tended to do the opposite.

  “Yeah, well, you’re not Fleet.”

  “Thank God.”

  “I have enough problems without you adding to them.”

  “Captain Furyk has it out for you, doesn’t he?”

  Teal started to say something. Stopped. “How do you know?”

  “I crossed paths with him yesterday. He obviously knows what I am, and he doesn’t like it. And since he has a reputation for being tyrannical about rules and regs, I’m guessing anyone who’s unconventional would grate against his nerves.”

  Teal studied her. There was that calculation in her eyes again, that little tic that you just didn’t find in many non-anomalies. “You have issues with rules and procedures.”

  “Most of the time,” Ash said.

  “Is that why you went AWOL on Ephron?” The sudden change of subject no doubt was intended to throw Ash off-balance.

  “You think I was AWOL?” she asked smoothly.

  “It’s what I was told.” Teal’s tone said she knew that was a lie. The question was, would Teal accept the lie and stay out of trouble? Or would she go digging for the truth?

  “What else were you told?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Teal said. She crossed her arms and straightened, not bothering to hide a self-satisfied grin. “Nothing from the Coalition at least. It’s difficult to dig up information on anomalies when the government keeps only printed records of the important information and that’s locked up on Caruth or Meryk or some other highly protected archive. Other people aren’t so careful, though, especially not two lowlifes from a backwater world like Glory.”

  Ash’s easy smile wavered. Teal had heard about the attack. It had made the newsvids, but Tersa was supposed to have covered up Ash’s role in it. She must not have covered it up very well, though, or was Teal bluffing? Glory was part of Ash’s official, digital record. Everyone knew the planet was filled with lowlifes. On the other hand, Teal had chosen her words carefully. Perhaps she’d dug up more information on the two thugs than both Ash and the Coalition had been able to?

  Ash wanted to ask, but this crypty was freaking good. Ash didn’t need Teal exploring her past on Glory any more than she may already have. Some secrets needed to remain hidden.

  Teal put both her hands on the metal counter and leaned forward. “You’re hack-sig training is shit compared to mine. Don’t screw with my ship or her files. If I find out you so much as access a meal plan without the proper permission, I’ll make your life on the Kaelais hell. You’ll wish you were still dealing with malfunctioning light switches.”

  That was a threat Ash was certain Teal could deliver on. Unfortunately for the crypty, Ash took threats as if they were challenges. She was about to tell Teal to bring it on, but the woman was still maintaining eye contact. She didn’t look away. At all.

  A prickling sensation crawled up Ash’s spine. She turned.

  And found Hauch standing behind her.

  Ash’s heart rate picked up, preparing her body for the confrontation. Finally. “Morning, Hauch.”

  “Who’s Jevan?”

  That question caught her off-guard. It triggered her survival instinct, making her very aware of each individual in the room: Teal behind her, the spacers scattered farther away, and a short distance to Hauch’s left and right, Liles and Mandell, both leaning casually against tabletops but in perfect position to intercept Ash should she run.

  She could still flee through the kitchen—Teal wasn’t Caruth trained, so there was no way she could stop her—but that wasn’t going to happen. Ash never backed down from a fight.

  “Nice to see you have lots of friends,” Teal said behind her.

  “You want to get some combat experience?” Ash asked. She hadn’t expected Liles and Mandell to join in on Hauch’s revenge.

  “We’re not here to fight,” her team lead said.

  “He is.” Ash nodded toward Hauch. Th
e big man took a step forward. Ash was supposed to get along with her new team—supposed to integrate—but it wasn’t her fault if her team didn’t want to integrate with her.

  Mostly not her fault.

  “I asked about Jevan.” Hauch took another menacing step forward. Ash widened her stance and raised her hands, ready for him to make the first move.

  He eyed her aggressive stance. “You swing and I will take you down.”

  Behind her, she heard a noise. She turned her head enough to see Teal hop onto the metal counter and sit, feet dangling and ready for some entertainment.

  “Jevan Valt is her fiancé.” A smug smile lit Teal’s face. It would be oh-so-easy for Ash to plant her hand in the middle of the crypty’s chest and give her one good shove off the counter.

  Hauch’s gaze shifted to Teal. “I’m surprised you two are friends.”

  “We’re not.” Teal’s voice lost all hint of amusement.

  Hauch turned his attention back to Ash. “Fiancé?”

  “Former,” Ash said.

  “He’s vanished,” Teal put in.

  Seeker’s God, what all did she know?

  The crypty was a problem, one Ash needed to take care of, but Hauch advanced again. Ash watched his eyes, his body movement. After seeing her interact with Rykus in the conference room on Meryk, he undoubtedly knew what she was now. He knew she wouldn’t be easily broken, and he wouldn’t hold back. The muscles in his broad shoulders bulged beneath his fitted black uniform. He was intense, scary, powerful. This confrontation was going to hurt.

  A pace away, he stopped. “My sister is an anomaly.”

  The words hit her like a fist.

  She stared. She blinked. “What?”

  When he invaded her space farther, she retreated.

  “My sister. She’s like you.”

  His confession beat at the shield Ash had wrapped around herself. She didn’t want him to share part of his life with her. She wanted to fight. Fighting was straightforward and uncomplicated.