“The Coalition burned you.”
He nodded. “For the greater good. The more the story was told, the more the morale of the Fleet and Corps increased. I finally accepted the hero status after a while, but every damn time Tersa wants me to use my name or show my face or deliver a speech for morale, it takes me back to that battle.”
Ash made a thoughtful noise from her perch on the end of his bed.
“What?”
“She asked me to convince you to hang up your weapons.”
He snorted. “Of course she did. What did you tell her?”
Ash shrugged. “I didn’t make any promises, but the idea of you sitting behind a desk is just as impossible as me sitting there.”
The urge to walk to the foot of the bed and pull her into his arms made him move forward, but instead of going to her, he made a safe, wise move and sat at the head of the bed. Ash’s gaze followed him, a slight grin on her lips and that little spark he loved back in her eyes.
“I thought we moved past the we-need-to-keep-our-distance thing,” she said.
“We’re in my quarters, Ash. You’re going to spend the next few hours in my bed—sleeping in my bed. We’ve moved past that.”
“Prove it.”
Seeker’s God, he wanted to meet the challenge in her eyes.
“Come here,” he said, his voice gruff. This was dangerous, dangerous ground.
She folded her legs beneath her on the end of his bed, then slowly, lithely crawled toward him. He reached out and ran his hand over her tight ass. Uniforms shouldn’t be made to fit that well.
She slid into his lap, and he pressed his lips against hers. It was a languid kiss, as teasing as her crawl across the bed had been. She deepened it. He let her, his hands exploring her body. He wanted her out of her clothes, naked against him just like she’d been on the Citadel. He swung her down on the bed, placed his hands to either side of her head, and hovered over her. Her hips rose, pressing him to the edge of his control.
To the edge of it, not past it… yet.
He dug his fingers into the pillow beneath her head. “We’re still not doing this.”
She stared up at him, seduction in her eyes. “Really?”
His thumb slid gently across one of the dark circles beneath her eyes. “Really.”
Suppressing a groan, he rolled off her and pulled her into his arms, tight against his chest. She was stiff until he nuzzled the back of her neck, kissed her shoulder.
“We really should be doing other things,” she murmured.
“Sleep,” he whispered into her ear. “I give you permission to dream about me.”
He would dream about her and their nights on the Fortune’s Citadel. He dreamed about them every night.
21
A vibration woke Ash from sleep. Rykus reached to the table beside the bed and found his voice-link. He slid it over his ear. “Rykus.”
Ash couldn’t hear the person on the link, but her fail-safe’s eyes found hers.
“I’ll… find her. Is there a problem?” While he listened to the person on the other end of the link, Ash yawned, then stretched against him. He stopped her from rubbing against him with a hand on her hip. “Yeah. We’ll… I’ll be there. Conference room B.”
He tossed the link back to the side table, then gave her a stern look, to which she responded with a sultry smile.
She rose like she was about to get out of bed but changed trajectory at the last second and instead straddled him. “I think I should be pissed.”
“You should?”
“You commanded me to sleep.”
“I suggested you sleep. In my bed. In my arms. You slept because you were exhausted.”
“I had things to do.”
“Things that you can do today. We exit the time-bend in two hours.”
Two hours until go time. Anticipation heated her veins. Anticipation and plain, raw lust. She bit her bottom lip and stared down at her fail-safe.
“Do I need to slink out of here? Or do I have time to stay?”
Both hands went to her hips this time. “Slink…” He winced. “I mean we have to leave. We got an upload at Javery—”
“An upload?” She moved against him. Just a little.
He closed his eyes, let her move a bit more, then he exhaled and lifted her off him as if they were in zero-grav. Damn, he was strong. Physically and mentally. Men didn’t turn down her offers. But that was one thing that attracted her to him: his will was almost unbreakable.
Almost.
He’d taken his uniform off sometime during the night. He wore just his underwear, and that disappeared into the pair of black tactical pants he pulled on. His torso was still bare. Ash watched the ripple of muscle when he took the two steps to his tiny closet.
“It can be fast,” she purred.
He glanced over his shoulder. A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I know you now, Ash. You’re never satisfied with one quick fuck.”
His words made heat pool low in her stomach. On the Citadel, there had been many quick fucks. All had been followed by long, languorous, lovemaking. Damn, she wanted him.
He pulled a shirt on, covering his broad shoulders and ripped abs.
“Liles has been trying to reach you for an hour,” he said. “We received maps of Ysbar Station from Javery’s comm-point. We need to study them, ID extraction points, blind zones, the full workup.”
“Don’t I have orders to sleep?”
“If you stay here another minute, it won’t be because you’re sleeping.”
A smile spread across her face.
“Don’t take that as a challenge.” He moved forward and kissed her cheek. “Go on. I’ll meet you in the conference room.”
Ash forced herself to leave. As soon as Rykus’s door closed behind her, she took her comm-cuff out of her pocket. She’d left the crushed daytris box in the isolation chamber and hadn’t accessed the cuff since Teal lost Trevast’s files. She didn’t know if the whole device was burned or just the stolen data.
Making her way down the corridor, she accessed her diagnostics and backup data. Yep. All gone, damn it. If the Kaelais was running with as many kinks as when Ash first boarded, it would take hours to resync her profile. Plus she trusted her cuff about as much as she trusted a street kid on Glory. Better to ditch it and start over with a new one than to risk some subtle virus hiding in the operating system.
After tossing it into an incinerator bin, she found an unmanned terminal near rec deck and logged into her profile. She put in a request for a new cuff, checked the box for upgrades, and marked it urgent. Fleet was in charge of equipment aboard the ship. Ash would still likely have to go hover over someone’s shoulder to get them to move their asses, but at least they’d have a chance to get started with the formwork while Ash met with her team. She was about to log out and head to the conference room when a red icon caught her eye: she had an urgent, private message.
She glanced behind her. The few spacers who passed weren’t paying attention to her, so she clicked the icon. No text. No image. Just audio that her profile-linked algorithm unlocked. The second she heard the voice, she closed her eyes in a grimace.
“Trick’s up, Ash,” her contact said in Glory’s native language. “Someone confirmed you’re alive, and the boss is pissed. He’s out for blood. I’m disappearing along with everyone else who has half a brain left in their heads. I’m sure you can guess who’s running empty on intelligence. She won’t last a week. Wish I had better news, but the whole scheme lasted longer than I’d expected.”
Ash cursed. Of course the Known Universe couldn’t deliver one problem at a time. No, when it threw one asteroid in your path, it threw a whole motherfucking beltload of them right in your face.
“Damn it, Mira,” she whispered.
Her cheeks puffed out when she exhaled. All right. The universe had spoken. She wouldn’t ignore the multiple forces pushing her back to her home world. As soon as this op was over, she’d request leave.
Someone had to save Mira’s ass. The Coalition wouldn’t send help. Neither would the aid organization because Mira was too strong willed to request it. It’s a waste of money, the woman would say. Make too many financial requests, and they’ll shut down our relief mission.
Mira would listen to Ash this time even if Ash had to put her in restraints and carry her off planet. The normal sizzle of Glory’s violence was creeping up to a full boil. When Ash got there, it was going to get worse because Ash wouldn’t arrive quietly. No, when she arrived, she would cause a shock wave strong enough to rattle Neilan Tahn out of the stars.
Ash logged off the terminal. If the mission to Ysbar Station didn’t kill her, her little trip back home just might.
One problem at a time. Right now she needed to get to the conference room and prep with her team.
The guys were already there. By the number of coffee mugs and crumb-filled plates scattered about, they’d been there for a while.
“Nice of you to join us,” Liles said.
“It’s been a hell of a week.” She headed straight for the beverage bar, filled a mug with what passed on the ship for coffee, then turned and faced her team.
All three men stared at her. She didn’t understand why until she noticed the ugly yellow bruise under Hauch’s left eye. Hauch had kicked her ass, but thanks to a booster and the little twist of DNA that made her an anomaly, her wounds had all healed.
After taking a sip of coffee to hide her smile, Ash sauntered to the table, sat down across from Hauch, and in the most serious tone she could muster, she said, “Stop by my bunk tonight, and I’ll introduce you to my beauty routine.”
Mandell’s laugh reverberated off the walls.
“Laugh it up, kid,” Hauch said, and Ash felt something loosen in her chest. She missed the banter. She missed it almost as much as she missed her old team.
“What have we got?” she asked before her thoughts lingered too much on the past.
Liles tapped on the data-table, and the Sariceans’ space station appeared in its center. It was an old design, small, gray, and ring-shaped. The Sariceans shut it down several decades ago due to a once-a-millennium meteor shower that had torn through its section of space. They claimed it was still functional, but despite the declaration, they hadn’t remanned it yet. Supposedly.
Another tap on the table, and a cross section of the station appeared above it, projected in 3D.
Ash leaned forward to study the design. “Where did we get this intel?”
“From the minister prime,” Liles said. “Apparently she made it part of the deal to meet.”
“The first intelligent thing she’s done in a while,” Mandell said.
“So the Sariceans handed these to us?”
“Yeah.” Liles’ tone paralleled Ash’s thoughts: the schematics weren’t worth shit. They couldn’t trust anything that came from the Sariceans.
“I-Com checked them out,” Liles continued. “They say they look legit.”
“Look legit based on what?”
“The mockups they drew.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “And info from deserters, however reliable they might be.”
Ash looked around the 3D image. “Exactly how many deserters do we have?”
Liles shrugged at her question. “According to the Sariceans, none. All their citizens are happy with their heavy-handed government. According to us? The Coalition won’t release official numbers, but we know defections are increasing. Based on that intel, I-Com thinks there’s a ninety-eight percent chance this thing is accurate.” He nodded toward the 3D rendering.
Ash rested her arms on the table. Taya’s Saricean, Cullo, was a deserter. Taya and her colleagues were in contact with enough others that they had a good drug-smuggling business going on. At least they’d had a good one until recently. If Sariceans were desperate enough to leave their home worlds and their lifesaving trips to Saris, then they’d likely be desperate enough to answer all I-Com’s questions. Unless they were saboteurs.
“We have nothing better to go off of,” Mandell said, rocking his chair back on two legs.
Ash refocused on the schematics. Nothing better but their gut instincts.
The conference room door opened. Ash’s back was to it, but the prompt and respectful way her teammates rose told her who it was.
“As you were, gentlemen,” Rykus said.
The only empty seat at the table was beside her. Rykus sat and unhooked the comm-cuff from his wrist.
“I spoke with Tersa,” he said. “Mission is a go. We’ll exit the time-bend in an hour. As long as the Sariceans don’t attempt to shoot us out of space, we’ll proceed to Ysbar Station. Tersa emphasizes this is not a combat mission.” He paused. His gaze moved from Liles, to Mandell, to Hauch, to her. He was a pure professional. He gave no sign that Ash had spent the night in his bed. No sign that he’d confessed his feelings for her. No sign that she was anything to him other than a member of a team under his command.
But she recognized his silence. She’d experienced it dozens of times on Caruth. He executed it with all the precision of a top-ranked sniper, and she’d learned to brace for the kill.
“What else did the prime say?” Ash asked.
He held her gaze. “She insists on no lethal weapons.”
“What?” Mandell’s chair thumped down hard. Hauch cursed, and Liles closed his eyes in a grimace.
“I don’t like it either.” Rykus faced the center of the table. The move was deliberate, but Ash didn’t understand why until he added, “The best I could do was to get her to agree to pulse-pistols.”
The statement didn’t suppress the others’ protests, but it suppressed Ash’s. Nonlethal electronic pulse-pistols were used for civilian crowd control or on ops where you didn’t want casualties. Security officers tended to carry them, and they were the typical weapon issued to the few spacers Fleet deemed appropriate to carry weaponry, but soldiers hated them. When they shot a target, they intended for that target to stay down permanently. They at least wanted to know how long they’d have before they needed to watch their backs again, but the recovery time from a pulse varied from individual to individual. You might have ten minutes. You might have five seconds. More than one soldier had been killed by a pulsed bad guy.
But there was one pulse-pistol that had a little-known flaw. With a small modification, one shot became lethal. You gave up accuracy over long distances, but they’d be operating on a space station. Close quarters, most likely. Ash would give up what little accuracy she’d lose to have a round put a Saricean permanently down.
Rykus didn’t look at her. If she brought up the modification, he’d be obligated to order her to keep the weapon nonlethal.
“Well,” Ash said. “I guess it’s a good thing the prime’s one hundred percent certain shots won’t be fired.”
“Her confidence could get a person killed,” Mandell said.
“It could get her killed,” Hauch agreed.
“We work with what we have,” Rykus said. “Our primary mission is to get the minister prime in and out of that station alive. If the Sariceans turn on us”—the men at the table snorted at the if—“then we get the prime out and destroy the station.”
Mandell’s eyes lit up. “Brim-4?”
“Brim-4,” Rykus said.
Ash smiled at her teammate’s enthusiasm. Brim-4 was a mixture of three powerful explosives. The claylike substance was stuffed into tubes the size of Ash’s pinky and was one of the most stable substances in the KU. But a dispersed charge could ignite the material, setting off a powerful reverse shock wave that crumpled ships like they were made of paper. The thing that made Brim-4 extra useful though was that you could break apart a portion of the clay, leaving behind two chemicals that combusted into an intense, hot fireball that would destroy people and electronics, but—hopefully—not the structure of the ship or station you were on.
“The Sariceans might blow our ride,” Rykus continued. “If they do, be prepared for extravehicular
activity. You have access to the armory and supply locker. Equip yourselves, prep your weapons and armor, then meet in the docking bay for final orders. We’ll be exiting the time-bend at 0220, and if all looks well, we’ll board a shuttle and head toward that resort of a space station. I’m making sure the prime is prepared, but if you have questions, call me.”
They stood when Rykus did. Ash watched him leave, wondering if he’d already made that little modification to his pulse-pistol. He usually carried a Covar, but she’d seen him with a Syra60 before.
Liles scooted his chair under the data-table. “Compression body armor, soldiers.”
Hauch cursed. “It’s a war getting those things on.”
“I’d love to watch.” Ash grinned, imagining the big man struggling on the floor, trying to wiggle his massive body into one of the tight suits.
“We’re going to a Saricean-controlled space station,” Liles said. “Better to struggle into compression armor than have the enemy tap a cuff and decompress the whole damn thing around us. Everyone will have injectable O2 as well.”
“Awesome,” Mandell muttered.
Hauch’s scowl deepened.
Ash wasn’t any happier. If things went to hell, a shot of the O2 compound was designed to keep their bodies oxygenated without breathing for ten minutes. But the panic and discomfort of not having air in your lungs coupled with the reality that you’d likely be in a situation where you were under attack or hauling ass to safety shortened its effectiveness. Ash had injected O2 numerous times in battle sims on Caruth, and as a Special Forces soldier, she was required to re-up that training biannually to remain accustomed to the stuff. She—and pretty much every sane soldier in the KU—despised the injectable O2, but it sure as hell beat suffocating to death.
Liles stood. “Make your preps. Prepare for trouble.” He paused, his mouth pinching together. “But don’t look like you’re prepared for trouble. We need to go in looking ‘diplomatic.’”
Ash rolled her eyes. The prime’s confidence in this meeting going as planned better not be misplaced. If it was, getting back to Coalition space alive would be one hell of a challenge.
Shades of Honor (An Anomaly Novel Book 2) Page 21