Shades of Dark

by Linnea Sinclair

  That would be a start. “Thank you. I mean that.”

  I turned for the door to the corridor then stopped and glanced back at Ren. “Can you at least tell me if there’s anything I should be worried about?”

  “I hope not, Chasidah,” he said, his voice carrying echoes of a twilight storm. Distant thunder fading but yet a slight chill to the wind. “I hope not.”

  I didn’t have much time to ponder Ren’s remark. Our slippery space was making the Karn very annoyed. Marsh and Verno needed me back on the bridge. Autoguidance, seeking fixes that weren’t there, kept sending us off course. It had been a long time since I’d had to handfly a ship in jumpspace, but that’s what I ended up doing. And doing it solo. Normally two pilots would take shifts. But our other pilot was facedown and snoring. If I ended up spending an entire shipday in this seat, I’d be of little help when we reached Narfial. But if I didn’t, we might not reach Narfial at all.

  Sully sat at navigation, frowning, running data from other similar transits through the computer, trying to give me whatever edge he could. He kept a light—very light—mental touch with me. It was reassuring without being distracting, and it kept my thoughts my own. Because they did on occasion wander back to Ren’s I hope not.

  I would never view Sully as impulsive. For all his flamboyant reputation, he rarely took action without planning, without knowing his escape routes if things went wrong. I considered that one of his strengths. But he could be careless of his own safety, push himself too hard, justifying the end as worth the means. I saw that when we were trapped in the shuttle bay on Marker and he revealed his Ragkiril side to Berri Solaria and Zabur Lazlo. His diversion kept me and Philip alive. It could have just as easily gotten Sully killed.

  Sometimes Gabriel—the Kyi-Ragkiril—forgot that Gabriel Ross Sullivan was also human.

  “Try this.”

  Sully’s voice drew my attention off my console screen and made me glance at navigation. He pointed to my console so I split the screen and watched his latest snippet of data scroll across. It took a moment for me to see what he’d created. A bit of code that just might trick autoguidance into thinking the abnormal was the norm.

  It could also veer us dangerously deeper into slippery space.

  “I need a fail-safe, on both ends.” I highlighted the areas of the program I wanted him to work on and sent it back to him.

  “Slave driver,” he murmured sufficiently loudly to garner a short bark of laughter from Marsh.

  “Don’t encourage him,” I told Marsh and he grinned. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Even though Aubry could spell him, he wasn’t any happier with our current location than I was.

  Bootsteps sounded in the corridor behind the bridge. I felt Ren before I saw him. Ren’s mental presence always held an element of water. Most times it was like a light mist, like the spray of water off a stream cascading down a rocky hillside. Now, however, the stream was more forceful, the mist colder. Sully must have felt it too, because he turned just after I did.

  “Coming to join the party?” Sully asked. His tone was light, but because I knew him or maybe because of the link we shared, I could sense a tension. Its source could be anything on a growing list, including the fact that the usually placid Ren was somewhat disconcerted. If I could feel that cold mist, so could Sully—perhaps more so. I hoped Ren’s renewed relationship with Dorsie hadn’t hit a bump.

  “Finished with galley duties?” I asked him.

  The cold mist abated, warming. So what troubled him wasn’t Dorsie.

  “Pie’s baking. It’s the best one yet, Dorsie said.” Ren nodded to Verno, who’d angled around. There was no need to define what kind of pie for Verno. “I can hold a station if someone needs a break.”

  Ren usually worked communications, which was fully integrated with a voice-prompt interface that also allowed him to monitor basic functions at nav and helm.

  “Autoguidance is misbehaving,” Sully told him. “Chaz and I are stuck here until we can patch in a fix.”

  “Aubry’s due on in half an hour.” Marsh looked at Sully. “But I can stay longer, if you need help. Damned bad time for Gregor to turn up sick,” he added.

  Sully shook a finger at Marsh. “Now you know why I’m always harping at my crew to keep their immunizations current. You never know what’s been crawling around Dock Five or Ferrin’s.”

  That launched a dialogue of horror stories that I tuned out while I kept the Karn on course and worked on bits of the guidance override program Sully sent over to me. Forty minutes or so later, I felt we had something feasible. Something that would at least permit me to get out of this chair for a while. The Karn might wander off course, but alarms would start screaming. And she wouldn’t, thanks to Sully’s magic, be permitted to wander too far.

  Aubry was now at Marsh’s station. Ren was at communications. I let Verno take the command sling and then showed him the basics of the guidance program while Marsh—reluctant to leave—watched over his shoulder.

  “We’ll handle her, Captain,” Marsh said.

  “Not to worry, Captain Chasidah. Sully-sir,” Verno added as Sully stepped up next to me.

  I looked from Marsh’s dark face to Verno’s dark-furred one. To Ren’s blue-skinned visage. To Aubry’s confident smile. And it hit me for the first time since I’d put my boots on the Karn’s decking. I was their captain. Not because I was Sully’s lover, but because I had earned their respect and the right to be their captain. It was something I thought I’d never regain after the court-martial. After the dissolution of my career that, for years, was the most important thing in my life. Chasidah Bergren, captain of the Imperial Patrolship Meritorious had become Chasidah Bergren, captain of the Boru Karn.

  I functioned fine on starports. At times, I even enjoyed being dirtside. But I was born to be at a stellar helm, to be a captain.

  Perhaps it was time I started acting like one.

  Strong fingers threaded through mine. “We need tea,” Sully said.

  We did. And we also needed to talk.

  “The ‘need to know’ dictum doesn’t apply here, Sully. They will know, probably sooner than later. You have no control over that. How they view that knowledge, however, is something you can control.”

  Sully stood at the darkened viewport in our quarters, his back not quite to me. But he wouldn’t look at me as I tried to make him see what needed to be done. He had to tell the crew his story his way. Before Tage and Burke gave the facts an ugly twist.

  “Marsh and Dorsie have been with you for years,” I persisted. “They—”

  “Exactly. Years, Chasidah.” He glanced at me, his mouth a thin line. “I’ve lied to them for years. That’s going to be foremost in their minds. Then they’ll wonder how much I’ve manipulated them. And whether they’ll live long enough to jump ship when we hit Narfial.”

  “Ren, Verno, and I will be there to tell them you’re not some kind of monster.”

  “And they’ll believe you?” He huffed out a hard sigh of frustration. “They’ll think I’ve planted those words in your minds. And if they’ve heard the usual stories about Ragkirils, the fact that we’re lovers will only make things worse.”

  “You’ll have a chance to counter that. You won’t have that option if they hear it from the news feeds or on the docks. And if they hear it on the docks, we might not have a ship to come back to.”

  His shoulders slumped slightly. “I can lock down the primaries when we leave.”

  “Then we’ll come back to a ship and no crew.” I stepped closer to him, wanting very much to touch him, let him feel how much I loved him, but I could also feel that barrier between us. A barrier of fear. And of shame. “Would you rather have them believe the lies?”

  He said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice hard. “They’re not all lies.”

  “No, of course not. But—”

  “You’re not listening to me. They’re not all lies.” He swung to face me, his eyes dark, fathomless. A
familiar silvery haze flickered over his skin.” You don’t know what the truth about me is. I’m not even sure I know the truth about me. But I do know that this is in me.”

  He jerked his right hand up, palm out, and a ball of light flared blindingly bright from between his fingers. The energy flowing over his skin, black shirt, and pants intensified, like a sparkling silver wave.

  I sucked in a hard breath before I could stop myself. I’d seen him manipulate Kyi energy only once before, in the Marker shuttle bay, and it had been nothing like this. It took all my training not to lunge back. But I knew to do so would shatter him. Something was happening—I didn’t know what or why, only that it was important. And I wouldn’t get a second chance.

  “Ren said to tell you everything,” he continued harshly. “How in hell can I do that when I don’t even know what everything is?”

  He closed his fingers over the glowing ball. The energy surged up his arm like a dozen angry comets streaking under his sleeve. A tremor shook his body. He clenched his fist tighter, then let his arm fall by his side, his gaze downcast. The sparkles faded to the familiar haze.

  “God.” His voice rasped. “Chaz, I’m sorry.”

  “Sully.” I said his name softly and reached for him.

  But he was shaking his head, turning away.

  “Sully, don’t shut me out.”

  “Sometimes I think you should have stayed with Guthrie.”

  That stopped me, my heart constricting, and for a moment all I could do was stare at his back as he walked toward the bedroom, at the silver haze pulsing around him, at the stiff set of his shoulders. Something was wrong—more than Thad’s defection and Tage’s threats and Burke’s jukor labs. More than whatever this stronger energy was. It had to be a different form of the Kyi. I’d seen his Kyi form dozens of times in the past few months. I’d made love to him. All that I am is yours. Once I’d accepted what he was, there had never been this anguish. This shame.

  “You hate Philip,” I called after him.

  He slowed, took one more step, then turned. His chin lifted. “I hate that he is the better man for you. And that I’m too selfish to give you up.”

  I don’t know why, but his words frightened me. And when I get frightened, I get angry. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He raised his hand again, palm up, and looked at his fingers as if he’d never seen them before. The blaze of energy erupted into existence, growing larger, coiling sinuously through his fingers and around his wrist like a glistering snake. He stood there frozen, glowing, breathing hard, the mist around him thickening into a miniature, self-contained starfield. Our mental link was closed but the power around him was palpable, moving through the air between us like a hungry beast. I held my ground, ignoring the warning tingle from the Grizni dagger-bracelet wrapped around my wrist. This was Sully. He’d promised he’d never hurt me. Even though every muscle in my body tensed for flight, I believed that.

  Suddenly, he closed his fist. The energy surged back into him, like lightning blazing through the hard muscled planes of his body. He stared at me the whole time and only as the brightness dissipated, dissolving into a mist, could I see the damp trail left by tears running down his face.

  It tore my heart in half.

  “Are you all right?” I stepped quickly toward him.

  “Physically, never better,” he said hoarsely. He swiped at his face with his sleeve but this time didn’t back away when I grabbed for his arm, bringing his body against mine. The energy of the Kyi faded. He was just Sully, leaning heavily against me, his face in my hair, his arms circling my shoulders. When his rapid, choppy breathing steadied, I dragged him over to the sofa and pushed him down into it, then knelt on the cushion beside him.

  “What’s going on?”

  He leaned his head back and looked at me. His lashes were still wet. “I can’t separate fact from legend,” he said after a moment. “For all I know, I’m losing my mind.”

  Not unless it was a shared hallucination. “Does Ren have any answers?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Maybe humans aren’t supposed to be Ragkirils. Maybe our bodies don’t adapt well. Or adapt too well.” He gave a small, mirthless laugh. “It seems like I’m getting stronger. I could also be dying.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “It’s like I’m on overload. I don’t know how else to explain it. It won’t stop. I can’t stop.” He closed his eyes.

  “Did you run a medistat?”

  “Useless.”

  “Do you know what triggered it? When did it start?”

  His eyes fluttered open but he stared past me. “A few months ago,” he said after a long silence.

  A few months…Moabar. The hellish jump into the gate, cold hypers and hot sublights torquing my ship. We were knocked unconscious—at least, I was. Then the second accident. The Meritorious almost ramming the Karn, exploding far too close off her flank. Ren had almost…No, Ren had died. Sully—Gabriel—had brought him back to life. Just as he’d fed life into Philip on Marker.

  Ragkirils can kill, Sully had admitted to me before we hit Marker. But they can also heal.

  Had those actions stressed him, changed him somehow? It didn’t make sense. Sully was more than a Ragkiril. He was a Kyi-Ragkiril, more powerful even by Philip’s own admission.

  What price power? ran through my mind. But it was only my own thoughts, not Sully’s. He was still blocking me.

  “A lot’s happened in the past few months,” I said.

  “Ren and I have discussed that.”

  “Has it been getting better or worse?”

  His gaze flicked to mine. “Is it better that I can read people’s thoughts at a greater distance? Is it better that I didn’t even have to be on the same deck as Gregor to set an infection in his body? I had no idea I could do that. I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or disgusted.” He turned his face away.

  “I can make the crew stay with us, Chaz,” he continued before I could respond. “Sitting right here, without even moving, I can hear—feel—every goddamned one of them. I can essentially enslave them to me, and it won’t matter what Tage discloses.” He flexed his fingers, closing and opening his fist. “Part of me wants to do that so badly, it’s like a hunger. The other part,” and he paused, his mouth tightening for a moment, “the other part wants to throw up.”

  He shoved himself upright, his arm sliding through my grasp as he stalked away from the couch. I rose, mind whirling. I had to talk to Ren again. But more than that, I had to get ahold of Philip’s family’s research on Ragkirils. When things go wrong, I’m a veritable demon for gathering information. And things, I had a bad feeling, were going very wrong.

  Sully stopped at the galley counter and turned. No silver mist wavered over his form but his eyes had snapped to that infinite darkness that I knew signaled that he was accessing the Kyi.

  “I’m not telling the crew anything at this point,” he said. “When we hit Narfial, I’ll deal with whatever Tage has told the media. But I’m not going to throw Dorsie, Marsh, and the others into a panic, knowing they’re trapped on a ship in jumpspace with a hell-spawned soul-stealer.”

  “You’re not—”

  “But I am, angel-mine.” His mouth quirked into a sad smile. “That’s exactly what I am.”

  I wanted to throw something at him in frustration, but I didn’t get a chance. The wail of an alarm erupted through the ship. Slippery space had just grabbed the Boru Karn.

  “One minute we were on course, the next we weren’t,” Aubry said in a strained voice as I grabbed the pilot’s chair armrest and swung around into the seat. Sully, inches behind me when we left our cabin, sprinted to navigation. I checked the data streaming in from the nav comps. We were more than off course. We were way off-course, streaking through slippery space.

  I disengaged the guidance program, turning my controls and Verno’s back to manual.

  “Get me our last true fix signal,” I told Sully.

&nb
sp; “Already working on that,” he answered. Then: link with me?

  He had to ask? It had been automatic, as natural as my own breath to me these past few months.

  Yes. I have to ask.

  Because of what had happened in our quarters just now. Don’t be an ass, Sullivan. I still love your filthy, soul-stealing self.

  Emotions flooded me—passion, acceptance, relief. Stow that, I warned him. I can’t handle the distraction and handfly this beast. I’d slowed our slingshot ride into the nether regions of the neverwhen, but we were far from out of trouble.

  Perversely, the Karn herself had never handled better. Other than the angry data spilling down the nav screens, the ship was performing at optimum plus ten, as Sully liked to say. Hypers purred in contentment. Enviro whispered sweet cool air through the ship. Comps executed the data even before the commands left my fingertips.

  Coordinates flashed on my screen at the same time as an analysis flashed into my mind. Sully thinking into me was the only way to describe it. His knowledge was mine, and mine his. My expertise at problem solving. His experience with older gates and slippery space. Scenario, solution, application, or rejection. I knew, now, what slippery space felt like, what it did. I’d lived through it because Sully had. I wasn’t integrating his experience. I had it.

  Marsh and Ren streamed onto the bridge, but it was more for moral support or in case something unexpected erupted. Dorsie even came by, wiping her hands nervously on her long overblouse, asking if anyone needed water or tea. Only Gregor was absent.

  He woke when the alarm went off, Sully told me. He’s back to sleep now.

  I didn’t ask how he’d accomplished that and he didn’t volunteer.

  I worked through a series of fixes with Verno, triangulating our position from where we’d been and where we were trying to go. It was like bucking a current, being buffeted by waves that came unexpectedly from different directions. It was nothing you could feel; the Karn never shimmied, not like entering or exiting a gate. It was strictly guidance data—numbers and headings whipping this way and that like that proverbial polecat’s tail.