Even Philip had liked him.
Had.
“But you read Gregor after our systems failure. How did you miss that he was working for Tage?”
Sully let out a short sigh. “One, I read him through Ren, if you remember. A fine example of my cowardice at the time. Two, we’re not talking a zral or zragkor here. We’re talking a basic truth scan. Three, I was specifically looking for information on Lazlo, Burke, or Ilsa. Four, out of all my crew, Gregor has the most knowledge about Ragkirils. He also was the most agitated when Ren and I interviewed him. I thought that his agitation was because he’d seen Ragkiril interrogators. Which was to a great extent true. It never occurred to me to ask if he knew Tage. There was no reason to.”
I still couldn’t see it. “How did he hook up with Tage?” If I’d thought Gregor and Burke were a mismatch, Gregor and Tage were even more so.
“He didn’t. He’s never met Tage. He works peripherally for Pol Acora, who for quite awhile now has specialized in recruiting Fleet dissidents for the Legalists to put on parade as examples of why the Council should be disbanded. Probably the only reason Acora didn’t get Dalby is that the Farosians got to her first.”
I didn’t know Acora but I knew of the groups he purportedly fed information to. If an ensign ends up in a bar fight on liberty, then Acora’s group releases data showing the mass brutality rampant in Fleet ranks. The free medical clinics established and run in the rim worlds by the Admirals’ Council are ignored until one med-tech out of hundreds is caught stealing illegal drugs. Then all Fleeties are thieves and addicts, preying on the poor at the behest of the Council.
His people were all over my arrest and trial. I was the perfect example of the mindless killer mentality fostered by my military family and encouraged by Fleet. Another stellar example of the failure of the Admirals’ Council to police its own.
“I didn’t know Acora worked for Tage,” I said. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if I found out he was part of CCNN. They echoed his opinions almost verbatim.
“There’s no proof he does. Tage isn’t that stupid.”
“So what do Acora and Tage want with you?”
“You have to understand I only know Gregor’s beliefs in this. Not unlike Aubry, he does what he’s told—to an extent. And Acora isn’t going to confide in the likes of Meevel Gregoran. Tage sure as hell isn’t even going to talk to him. But Gregor’s recollections tell me that he came to Acora’s attention when I decided to play dead two years ago, on Garno. I buried the Karn in a salvage depot on the rim. Gregor, Marsh—they all knew I needed four to six months of not existing, of letting things quiet down so that I could reestablish a relationship with Sophia, my mother.”
And with me. Ren had revealed that and Sully had confirmed it. After our brief encounter in Port Chalo, Sully knew a mercenary and pirate had no chance with the likes of Captain Chasidah Bergren, pride of the Sixth Fleet. So he faked his own death, giving him a chance to reinvent himself for his mother and for me.
“My father was dead,” he was saying, “And, yes, there was an enormous amount of money involved—an inheritance my father denied me. Did I want that? Of course. But not to be like Hayden, not to live like Hayden. I wanted it for different reasons, not the least of which was to reward Marsh, Dorsie, and Gregor for their loyalty. Or what I thought was their loyalty.”
He shook his head. “They didn’t know that, of course. I told them to have patience. I continued to shift funds to their usual accounts. I just asked for some time. Gregor thought I was running out, selling out, so he decided to do one better. When Acora’s people found him, looking for information on me—apparently about a week before I faked my death—he knew that was his way to do it.”
Pieces began to fall into place. “That’s how station security knew Nathaniel Milo was waiting for us on Moabar Station.” Gregor told Acora’s contacts who told Tage who alerted the Ministry of Corrections.
Sully nodded. “And that’s how Burke’s people knew we were headed for Marker. Gregor to Acora to Tage to Burke. Berri Solaria was just Burke’s little bit of extra insurance. It might also be that Acora doesn’t fully trust Gregor. For good reason.”
Gregor was also now working for the Farosians. Greed was one hell of a motivator.
“Did he know Berri beforehand?”
Sully shook his head. “But once she came on board, she identified herself to him. We thought they were getting cozy. They were just comparing notes.”
“But he was threatening to leave the ship at that point.”
“Evidently Berri told him a big move was being planned against me. He had no desire to get caught in the crossfire.”
“So why did he come back for us after leaving us on Marker?”
“Orders. If we’d been captured on Marker, he was to deliver the Karn and my crew to Acora’s people. We weren’t. He was told to stay with us.”
“Goddamned son of a lousy bitch!” I muttered harshly under my breath.
Sully smiled ruefully. “It’s no excuse, but maybe now you know what made me lose control with him.” His mouth thinned. “I wanted him terrified. I wanted him to suffer. To a Kyi, revenge is almost as seductive as pleasure.”
“The desire for revenge is nothing unique—”
“No, but my methods are. Unique and dangerous. Because he has been holding back one nice tidbit of information. A fail-safe, if you will. And this fail-safe information will be released if it appears something’s happened to him.” He paused then answered the question before I could ask it. “He has proof that I killed my mother.”
“No.” The word came from my lips hard and definite. I could believe many things about Gabriel Ross Sullivan—being a Kyi-Ragkiril came with both power and price. But I could not see him being in any way responsible for killing his mother.
It’s not that Sully had never taken a life. He had. So had I. And both of us would again. But each death pained him, diminished a part of him, as it did a part of me. Duty and protection made it necessary. It didn’t make us like it.
But I could never see him killing his mother, even if she attacked him first. There was always something in his voice when he spoke of her, in spite of the fact they’d never been close. Sophia was the socialite, Gabriel the obligatory heir. But he admired her. That wasn’t hard to do. For all her wealth and glitter, Sophia Rossetti Sullivan was an admirable woman. From what I’d heard, she’d been highly intelligent, scrupulously fair, and unfailingly kind. Sully’s charitable streak was all Sophia. Her servants worshipped her. Her rivals grudgingly respected her.
There was a lot of Sophia in Sully.
He could never kill her.
He was watching me with an odd mixture of emotions on his face, his gaze zigzagging as if he was reading lines of data between us. Which he was, I realized.
“No,” I said again. “That I will not believe of you.”
A long exhale, a thinning of the invisible wall between us. It hadn’t shattered yet—there was still anger, shame, and fear—but it wavered. “Thank you,” he said, his voice catching. He studied his hands for a moment, cleared his throat, then looked back up at me. “Unfortunately, most people won’t share your sentiments.”
“What kind of proof does Gregor have?”
“Circumstantial, courtesy of my own stupidity. My mother died in a shuttle accident on her way to keep an appointment with her barrister. That was fact. Investigators stated she was going to change her will to name Hayden as her legal heir. That’s not fact, but I can’t disprove it. ‘Client wants to discuss inheritance issue’ was what was in the barrister’s logs.
“It was right before I put the Karn in salvage. I’d opened a dialogue with her a few shipdays earlier, for the first time in years. Then in her next transmit she tells me,” and he hesitated, his gaze drifting to a distant, undefined point somewhere, “that she needed to talk to Halli Rillman. Rillman was head legal counsel for the firm that had handled Sullivan matters for decades. Sophia already had an upcoming app
ointment scheduled weeks prior. She’d use that to discuss what she’d recently found in my father’s personal effects. It disturbed her. She wouldn’t tell me what it was and as we were conversing via transmits, I couldn’t read her. But she was very adamant that I not be involved. She was frightened.” He shook his head as memories washed over him, some I could see: his mother’s face on the deskscreen, elegant brow furrowed, mouth pinched. A beautiful woman under a terrible strain. And there was nothing Sully could do. He was on his ship. She was in her estate on Sylvadae in Aldan.
“She said she couldn’t deal with this issue and with me at the same time. It was too stressful. I tried to tell her I could help, I had sources and resources she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I couldn’t tell her, yet, what I was. But if what I was could help her, then I wanted to be there.
“When my next two transmits bounced back to me, I got angry. I sent another. ‘Shutting me out is the most dangerous thing you could do. You’re forcing my hand here,’ is what I think I said. I gave her a planetary day to return my transmit, ‘or else.’
“I was in the ready room, the door to the bridge open, when I sent that ultimatum. It was just a short transmit, a few seconds. I left the ready room right after because, well, I have a hard time sitting still when I’m angry. Anyone else overhearing it would have no idea where the transmit went or who it went to. But Gregor was on duty. He archived it, saw who it was sent to, made a copy as a fail-safe.” He shook his head. “It was his insurance policy should I ever find out about his deal with Acora. And later, with the Farosians.”
“That transmit doesn’t prove you killed her.”
“It puts me high on the list of suspects. I had motive, means, and opportunity. And I’d made a threat. Couple that with her purported change of will, and it looks very convincing.”
“But your father disinherited you years ago!”
“From the Sullivan monies, yes.” He looked pointedly at me. “My mother was a Rossetti.”
And the Rossettis were almost as obscenely wealthy as the Sullivans.
“My grandfather died about six months earlier,” he continued. “Natural causes. He was in his nineties. She’d come into a large inheritance from him. Part of it was specifically earmarked for me.” A small smile found its way to his lips. “He was a bit of a rascal. He found my mercenary lifestyle amusing. But the Rossetti estate wasn’t why she was going to see Rillman on that particular day, even though that’s what was originally calendared.”
“Did Rillman know the real reason your mother was coming to see her?”
“We have no way of knowing. It was Rillman’s private shuttle that crashed. She’d gone along with her pilot to pick up my mother. When you’re a Sullivan and a Rossetti, you get that kind of special treatment.”
And someone also makes sure you can’t testify that Sophia Sullivan’s appointment had nothing to do with changing her will.
“Sully, your mother was murdered.”
“Quite obviously. But if I ever tried to open an investigation, I guarantee that all evidence would point to me. Especially now that I may have sealed my own death warrant with what I did to Gregor.”
“He’s not dead. You just wiped his mind.”
“But whoever’s holding a copy of that transmit will know something’s happened to Gregor. I was not,” and he closed his eyes, his mouth thinning in self-condemnation, “kind to him.”
“You don’t know who has the copy, do you?”
He shook his head. “I missed that one vital piece of information. A small matter of a very sharp knife at the time.”
“Do you know where the copy is?”
“Dock Five. I assume we have a fairly decent window of time before whoever has it releases it. It depends on how often Gregor checked in. I doubt it was daily. When I get a chance, I’ll go back over his personal transmits, see if I can’t find a pattern.”
I hoped it was monthly. But Dock Five. We’d just come from there, and were now less than seven hours from Narfial. I sagged against the edge of the bed and blew out a loud sigh of frustration.
“Don’t relax yet,” he said, sarcasm clear in his voice and the pursing of his mouth. “It gets worse.”
I straightened. He pushed himself off the bed.
“We know that before we left Dock Five, Gregor sold the fact we’re headed for Narfial to someone. And that we’re going to be meeting with an informant who will help us stop Hayden and Tage. I’m guessing now that was sold to one of Acora’s contacts. That’s why Tage hasn’t released what I am to the newshounds. I guarantee you he wants us on Narfial. We’ll lead him right to Del. He’ll have us all, nice and tidy.”
“Then we abort the mission. We have to.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? What do you intend to do?”
“Give Tage what he wants. He’s just going to get more than he bargained for.”
Gregor, like Aubry, was locked in the brig, sleeping under light sedation, mental faculties rearranged courtesy of Gabriel Sullivan. But unlike Aubry, who would wake when we hit Narfial with memories of being on a commercial transport on his way to find work on the rim, Gregor would not have such an easy future. His older memories were intact. Everything from the past fifteen years was gone.
Sully, with Ren’s help, interlaced in basic current events. Gregor wouldn’t remember how to pilot any ships of newer design, but at least he’d know who’d won the Baris Cup in the past several years, and which slender but buxom woman was this year’s hot vid star.
He was Meevel again. That’s who he’d been fifteen years ago. He’d probably spend the rest of his life as a dockhand, loading cargo. His coworkers would find him brash, if a bit simple. And he had a comfortable bank account to fall back on if he couldn’t find work right away, courtesy of his recently deceased great-uncle Ross.
Sleep was impossible but I was dozing, cabin lights dimmed, when Sully came in. We had only a few more hours until Narfial. He slipped off his boots then sat in the armchair kitty-corner to the couch, head in his hands. I knew he wasn’t coming to bed.
I sat up, hugging the pillow against my chest. “He tried to kill you, Sully. He’s lucky to be alive. People get shot on Dock Five all the time for less.”
“I had no right to torture him.”
“That wasn’t you.”
“Don’t be naive, Chasidah.” He raised his head but didn’t turn toward me.
“Your failing, Gabriel, is not in what you are, but that you don’t know how to properly use what you are. You almost killed Gregor. But a few months ago, you saved Ren’s and Philip’s lives. And you just spent two hours putting Meevel Gregoran somewhat back together. That is a huge gift.” I paused. “Did you ever think of going to Stol for training?”
“Getting there is a bit of a problem when the government wants your head on a platter.”
“We’ll put it on our to-do list. Come to bed.”
“I need to send Drogue another note. Then I want to see if I can pick up who Gregor’s fail-safe partner is on Dock Five. I’ll close the doors so it won’t bother you.” He padded to the wide opening, tapped at the door sensor, then padded back, a gray, indistinct silhouette fading into the shadows of the cabin as the closing bedroom doors slowly obscured him from view.
I woke, hungry and thirsty, realizing I couldn’t remember when I last had a real meal. I looked at the clock. It was near the end of third shift. Four more hours and we should be picking up the signal from the Narfial beacon.
I rolled over, reaching for Sully mentally and physically.
The bed was empty.
I thought I knew why. I was having a hard time pushing that luminescent image of a lightning-edged Kyi-Ragkiril from my mind. My rational mind had shoved him into yet another of those mental duro-hards and sat on it until it closed securely. But my emotional self still saw flickers of him in the shadows. I loved Sully. But there was also Gabriel.
My mental duro-hards were not Ragkiril-proof.
<
br /> Which was also why I’d wanted him to come to bed. Yes, I knew he was hurting. Yes, I knew he felt my uncertainty. Showing him I loved him would help him get past that. But it would also help me.
There’s the first time in every fighter pilot’s life when her ship betrays her, skitters out of control, systems failing. God willing, it happens in simulators where there’s no loss of life, no property damage. But God isn’t always willing and many a green pilot has wrecked out in a bay or dirtside landing strip, very sure she’d never be able to have the courage to sit in the pilot’s seat again.
I’ve been there. I had to force myself to climb back in and throttle up for launch, convinced I’d clip off much more than a wingtip and forward landing strut this time, taking bay crew with me, ending my own life in a ball of flame.
The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes.
At least if you wreck-out in bed, nothing will catch fire, I told myself sagely as I threw the sheets off my bare legs. Then again…
When I came out of the shower, the bed was neatly made. An angel of heart-stars card rested on my pillow.
Sully? “Sully?” I poked my head into the main salon area. Empty. I grabbed underwear, pants, shirt, and pulled them on, then went back for the card. I palmed it, warmth spiraling up my arm.
If Tage, Acora, and their minions didn’t gun us all down on sight when we made Narfial, I’d work on motivating my Ragkiril with a little pleasure when we got back on board. We needed to find each other again.
I was in the pilot’s seat when we approached the Narfial beacon. Sully was in the ready room, having been fussed over by a concerned Dorsie who offered to poison Gregor, this time for pulling a knife on Sully. Too bad the bastard didn’t die when Chaz shot him. Obviously, we’d had to change the story a little, adding that Verno and Ren would transfer Aubry and Gregor to Narfial lockup once we docked. It was all settled.
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