“Don’t tempt me,” Damen grumbled.
Grinning, Jayleia slid off the diagnostic table.
He shot her a warning look. “Was I unclear about your penchant for stoicism?”
“You’re bucking cultural conditioning, Major. You know TFC values.”
He grimaced. “Yes. Go forth and conquer or die trying. Tagrethians are so perverse.”
“Says the man who has done little more than kidnap Tagrethian women for the past year,” she retorted, smiling at his sour expression. “Look, the swelling is nearly gone. I can bend my arm.”
“And stand upright,” he said, as he turned to a control panel on the wall. “Do you need another rehydration packet?”
“Just water and lunch, if it’s still on offer.”
“Recon ships don’t rate fancy commissary units,” he warned over his shoulder.
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Your notion of manipulating me with pleasure includes disclaimers?”
He laughed outright, a rich, vibrant sound that enfolded her and tempted her to join in. She wondered how something as simple as his amusement could reach so far inside and make her forget he’d pushed her perilously close to the edge of her control in the cockpit.
“Go on. I’ll bring a tray,” he said. “I was too busy getting us to Chemmoxin to manage breakfast and V’kyrri was too hungover.”
She laughed all the way into the cockpit.
V’kyrri glanced over his shoulder, a long-suffering look on his face.
“I’m never going to live that party down, am I?” he grumbled.
She dropped into the seat behind him.
“People make captain and get drunk all the time,” Jayleia said. “I suspect your recovery rate is at issue.”
He shrugged. “I slept it off.”
“Most humanoids require twenty-four to forty-eight hours to process the effects of alcohol,” she replied. “And they suffer from headache and nausea the entire time. Your body must detoxify the metabolites differently than other races.”
Damen strode in bearing a tray laden with sandwiches and drinks.
“The good-natured ribbing you will endure is called ‘masking the barb of envy in humor,’” she told V’kyrri.
“Speaking of masking, did you avoid asking for painkillers on purpose?” V’kyrri asked in a nonchalant tone.
As he secured the tray in such a way that all three of them could reach, Damen shot a speculative look between V’kyrri and Jayleia, but said nothing.
“Why?” she asked, sudden caution warning her to choose her words carefully.
“If you had, it would mean you were deliberately using pain to keep me from reading you,” V’kyrri replied without looking at her. He snagged a sandwich from the stack on the tray.
Surprise stopped her in mid-reach. She blinked, aware that, if she admitted to blocking him, the telepath would have reason to really go digging through her head. Great. Tag-team interrogation. Never answer what you could question.
“That works? Using pain?”
Damen chuckled. “Never did for me.”
She didn’t like the sardonic ring, much less the distress in V’k’s face at Damen’s statement.
“Just this once,” V’kyrri said, meeting her gaze. “I can force my way past a pain shield if necessary. Is it?”
“No,” she said, picking up a sandwich of dense bread and what looked like a shelf-stable protein substitute. Simple fare, but nutritionally complete. It had the added bonus of offending as few dietary restrictions among the known humanoid species as possible. She hoped neither of the men noticed that her hand shook. “You must have picked up what I felt to have interrupted Major Sindrivik’s interrogation.”
She glanced at Damen.
He looked not the least discomfited by her classification of their conversation in medical.
V’kyrri nodded. “As it happens, that burst of anger and frustration aimed at your father was the first clear impression I’d gotten from you since we picked you up.”
“It can’t be. You reacted when I flinched at the mention of Omorle Lin.”
“You didn’t flinch. You jumped like you’d been burned. Anyone would have reacted to that, telepath or no,” he countered. “Even Sindrivik felt that, though he might not be able to tell you why.”
“I can,” Damen said, his gaze intent, as if he expected to catch her at something.
It shook her confidence. She struggled for something to say.
“You speak of me reading you as if I could open you like a file,” V’kyrri went on, his tone saying he’d gotten down to business. “It isn’t that easy. My crewmates train to work with me on a nonverbal level. Developing openness and trust takes time.”
Understanding dawned. “You need to build a baseline?”
“Something like that,” V’kyrri allowed. “Telepathy is a layered ability. At the very top is awareness of the conscious minds around me. I have an innate knowledge of where everyone is in spatial relation to me.”
“You really do have a sixth sense,” she mused, then took a bite of her sandwich. The rich, hearty flavor startled her.
Damen’s gray eyes danced with suppressed mirth at her murmur of appreciation.
She awarded him a bland look. Of course she valued the motivational power of pleasure. Especially after the swamps of Chemmoxin. What he didn’t seem to comprehend was that as her morale improved, his chances of winning information from her diminished. Did he think feeding and healing her would put them on even footing?
“If I pay attention,” V’kyrri went on, yanking her back to the fact that the resident telepath had admitted he had a bead on her, “I can pick up emotion. In most cases, it has to be strong, primal stuff. Subtler feelings require more work.”
“You’re working up to tell me about diminishing returns versus escalating resource costs,” Jayleia said.
V’kyrri’s sea-green eyes widened in surprise before he laughed.
“I’d never thought of myself as a resource with a price,” he said, grinning, “but yes. To access someone’s thoughts, I have to shut out everything else. It isn’t as useful as you might think.”
“I imagine your greatest utility is as a lie detector.”
“Even then,” V’k said after he’d eaten half his sandwich in two bites. “I don’t look for a lie. Emotions conflicting with words are usually enough.”
She nodded. “When I said I didn’t know where my father was, I wasn’t conflicted.”
“You weren’t, but it was hard to get a clear read through the noise of your physical pain.”
“Go count your medical stores. You’ll find a packet of painkiller missing because I drank it. I didn’t use physical pain on purpose,” she said, then picked up and downed a container of water. “I’d heard of the technique, but I had no reason to expect it would work.”
“Because TFC member races don’t produce telepaths even as mutations,” V’kyrri said, sounding like he might be quoting someone.
“Right.”
“Why is no one aboard the Sen Ekir afraid of him?” Damen asked.
Jayleia snagged another container of water and shrugged. “We fear on a much smaller scale.”
V’kyrri’s grin widened.
Damen nodded. “Microscopic.”
“Precisely. Watching people die radically adjusts one’s phobias.”
The communications panel chimed a tri-tone.
Jayleia noticed that Damen and V’kyrri both stared at the board as if it had sprouted horns. Buttons lit up, three different colors, one for each note. The sequence repeated.
Damen touched a control.
Claughwyth, rendered in script she couldn’t decipher, ran across the holo-display.
“Queen’s Rhapsody hailing,” Damen said.
“What?” V’kyrri asked, concern and surprise in his tone.
Damen opened the channel. The background hiss of interstellar radiation filled the cockpit as the audio systems went live.
A
woman’s voice speaking Claughwyth broke across the static. Damen replied in kind. Jayleia caught only the name of the ship. Kawl Fergus.
V’kyrri faced the communications panel, tension in the set of his shoulders. “Commander Parqe, this is Captain V’kyrri,” he said in Jay’s language, “are you comfortable speaking Tagrethian?”
“Yes, sir,” the woman responded, her words accented and musical.
“We’re twenty hours from rendezvous at Silver City’s space dock,” Damen said.
“My apologies, Major,” the commander replied. “We’ve received new orders and are on intercept to your location.”
“Report,” V’k interrupted, frowning.
“A cloaked contingent of Chekydran broke through the defense lines and attacked the Dagger,” the commander said.
V’kyrri flinched.
Damen’s hand clenched on the panel.
Alarm rocketed through Jayleia. Her heart rate picked up speed, making her aware of the headache building behind her eyes.
“They’re alive,” the commander said, “but the Dagger is disabled. Captain Idylle spotted the ambush just before it hit. The body count is low because of that fact. Our orders are to pick you up, Captain V’kyrri, and return to the front lines with all haste to protect the Dagger’s flank while the crew affects repairs.”
V’kyrri sat upright, rage lighting a fire in his sea-green eyes. “The Chekydran?”
“One destroyed, two made a run for it. They got away. Last known course has them headed into United Mining and Ore Processing Guild space.”
Jayleia frowned. An attack on the UMOPG would cripple fuel supplies for the Claugh and TFC militaries.
Uneasiness fired against the inside of her skin. Had Damen been right? Was she better off betraying her father and her people to the Claugh in order to save them from the Chekydran?
“Increasing our speed to maximum,” V’kyrri said. “We’ll be in teleport range within the hour. I’ll transfer to the Rhapsody . . .”
Jayleia’s attention jerked to the conversation. She gaped at V’kyrri. “Absolutely not.”
“Stand down,” V’kyrri ordered, awarding her a hard glare. “Her Majesty is in danger. I have a job to do.”
“So do I,” she said. “You’re on a plague ship, Captain. I’ll be damned before I let you teleport out of here to infect your entire command, much less your queen.”
CHAPTER 8
SILENCE. Except for the pounding in Jayleia’s head keeping time with her pulse.
Damen and V’kyrri stared.
“Two things,” she said into the weighted quiet. “First, Queen’s Rhapsody, do you have a quarantine advisory for this vessel? The flag would have come across the alliance pipeline. Second, does the Kawl Fergus have the capacity to initiate teleport as well as receive?”
The men blinked in unison.
“Both ships must be able to initiate teleport for the biofilters to work in synchronous and thereby detect infection,” Jay pointed out.
“Identify,” the commander said.
“Jayleia Durante of the TFC science ship Sen Ekir,” she replied.
“Stand by.”
Damen closed a hand around hers.
Awareness lit every nerve. She met his gaze.
“The Kawl Fergus has teleport,” he said. “Why would we be quarantined?”
Ah, military personnel, so intoxicated with guns and warships, they never considered the power of a pathogen or of a single-minded scientist to bring them to their knees.
She shrugged. “Depending on how pissed off Dr. Idylle is, he may have flagged us.”
V’kyrri examined her with disbelief in his face. His brows lowered. “You’re serious.”
“Very,” she replied.
Damen swore, then pinned her with a look that said he’d caught her lying. “He wouldn’t endanger you.”
“To prevent an epidemic, he would,” she countered. “Stop looking at me like I’m speaking Chekydran. Even if he has issued a quarantine alert, it will be a ‘detain and treat.’ We won’t be shot out of the sky.”
“Kawl Fergus?” the woman’s voice interrupted. “We have no quarantine alerts linked to your vessel ID. May I request a status summary?”
“We’ve been exposed to a blood-borne pathogen, Commander Parqe,” Damen replied, releasing Jayleia and running his hand down his face as he paused for thought. “Without adequate medical personnel aboard, we cannot verify infection status.”
“Blood-borne?” the commander echoed, her tone stating she didn’t see the problem.
Weary, Jayleia rubbed her aching forehead. “He fails to mention that I bled all over his ship and all over him. I can’t take chances, Commander. The health of Claugh nib Dovvyth personnel is of vital concern to Tagreth Federated and to me personally.”
The commander snorted. “If only because we’re fighting the war for you. This is one group baxt’k of an alliance.”
V’kyrri’s eyes widened at his commander’s comment.
“I’m a scientist,” Jayleia said, keeping her tone even. “Not a politician. As such, it’s not my job to give a damn what you think of the alliance. It’s my job to keep you alive to fight that unbalanced war and to protect my friends aboard the Dagger. With that established, how recent are the biofilters aboard these two ships?”
V’kyrri pinched the bridge of his nose as if pained. “Biofilters for all vessels in the fleet are updated via broad dispersal burst on an as-needed basis. The only delimiter is distance and the speed of the carrier wave. Since the Rhapsody was recently in contact with the Dagger, the filters should be no more than a few hours . . .”
“Thirteen hours, sir,” Parqe interjected.
“Excellent,” Jayleia said, relief easing the tension gathering in her shoulders. “The markers for the Chemmoxin pathogen were released a month or more ago. The Rhapsody should have them. We’ll synch the biofilters and teleport you to your ship, then, Captain.”
“If he’s infected the teleport won’t go through?” Damen guessed. He matched her nod. “Then we each teleport.”
“What?” V’kyrri demanded. His cautious tone and the way he eyed her told Jay he’d picked up her hesitation.
“Primary symptoms are setting in,” she said. “I doubt I’ll teleport.”
The muscles of Damen’s jaw knotted. “We’ll try.”
“We could decontaminate the ship the way we did aboard the Sen Ekir last year,” V’kyrri suggested. “Wouldn’t a radiation bath work? The Kawl Fergus would handle a slingshot.”
“Undoubtedly, on both counts, but we wouldn’t have the pre-exposure vaccine to shield us. We’d take a full dose of radiation,” she said. “You’d both be sterile, even after months of gene therapy.”
They cringed.
“The Rhapsody could send three doses . . .” V’k began.
“It’s radioactive,” she said.
“Then it won’t teleport,” Damen concluded, his tone grim.
“Captain, if I may?” Commander Parqe interjected.
“Go ahead, Commander,” V’k said.
“I’ve taken the liberty of briefing our medical officer,” she said. “Jowun suggests stasis for your infected passenger.”
Something dark and cold gripped Jayleia’s chest. She couldn’t draw a full breath. She didn’t comprehend the sensation and grappled for control of her runaway heart rate and blurred vision. When her eyesight cleared, she found herself on her feet, staring at the companionway outside the cockpit door.
Confusion and deep uneasiness swept her.
She drew a slow, purposeful breath, just to be certain she could. Air slid easily in and out. Frowning, she turned back.
Damen half stood, one hand braced on the back of his chair, the other on his panel, as if she’d caught him in the act of rising. He eyed her, his gaze searching. Whatever he saw drew him to her side.
He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her against him.
“Easy,” he murmured. “It’s ok
ay.”
Was it? Resting against the solid warmth of Damen’s chest, she relaxed. The last remnants of cold fled her body. A sense of safety crept over her and she sighed.
“What happened?” Jayleia asked. Her voice sounded thin and scared. She focused on V’kyrri’s dazed expression. “Did you do that?”
He turned his head toward her, though his eyes didn’t quite focus.
“He didn’t do anything,” Damen said. “What happened?”
Panic spiked into her chest. Her vision hazed.
“Breathe,” he commanded at her ear, tightening his arm around her. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Breathe, Jayleia.”
She sucked in a ragged breath.
Her vision cleared in time for her to see V’kyrri grimace.
“Are you sure you aren’t trained in telepathic ambush, Jay?” he grumbled. “Cause that hurt.”
She gaped at the telepath. The pounding in her head made her queasy. “What? No. You did something. Are you telekinetic? Or did you influence me mentally? Take over and drive me out of the cockpit? Why would you do that?”
“Explain this if you can,” Damen said to V’kyrri as he led her to her chair. “Or I’ll refuse you painkillers for that headache you’re broadcasting.”
V’kyrri sat upright. “Am I broadcasting? Sorry.” His gaze turned inward.
“Sit down,” Damen urged, his voice pitched to soothe and reassure.
It worked. She obeyed, embarrassed by how badly she’d needed his arms around her.
“Thanks.”
“Is that better?” V’kyrri asked.
The ache in Jay’s head had diminished. She blinked. How could she, a non-telepath, have been picking up V’kyrri’s physical pain?
She wished his ability accounted for the entirety of her discomfort. She distracted herself from the throb in her head by mentally cataloging a set of experiments to define how much a non-telepath could sense from a telepath. Could she pick up other physical sensations? What about thoughts? Or feelings?
“I’m sorry, Jayleia,” V’kyrri said, calling her attention back to her aching body. “I had nothing to do with your run from the cockpit. As far as I can tell, you reacted to the suggestion of stasis . . .”
“Stasis?” she interrupted, startled. “No.”
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