The head of operations uncrossed her arms, scowling. “Predators every one, perfectly capable of drawing her blood, thereby spreading a messy disease all over Silver City.”
“This blood must be tested, then,” Eudal said, closing his fist around the vial.
“Agreed.” Altu nodded and held out a hand. “I will return to medical . . .”
“Nonsense,” Eudal said. “You have the perfect test case right here.”
He looked at Damen and extended the vial to the medi.
Jayleia scrambled to her feet.
“No!” Damen shouted, straining against the bindings holding him.
Grinning, Altu took the vial.
Behind him, Janka shifted, his face and his posture telling Jay how uncomfortable he was with the situation. She’d use that. Somehow.
The medi set his kit on the table before rummaging through it. He snapped the vial of her blood into a wicked-looking device and faced Damen.
“Fastest results possible?” the medi inquired, his tone avid.
“I suggest that’s wise,” Eudal said, smiling.
Sweat stood out on Damen’s face. From the motion of his chest, Jay detected the change in his respiration from measured to rapid and shallow.
She stared at the contraption in the medi’s grasp. Her blood ran cold. “That’s a needle. A barbaric antique! He can’t . . .”
Altu slammed the needle into Damen’s chest, slightly left of center.
Damen uttered a strangled cry and convulsed.
Vala’s breath hissed in between her teeth and she whimpered.
“Baxt’k,” Kebbin growled.
Jay’s heart beat so hard, it hurt. She had to get him out of there. No matter the cost. She glanced over her shoulder at the pack holding her uniform.
The medi withdrew the needle and returned to his gear.
Jayleia’s throat constricted at the sight of Damen limp in the chair. It took several seconds of watching to realize he was still breathing.
Damen groaned.
Gerriny Eudal laughed, a high-pitched, unhinged giggle that raised the hair at the back of Jayleia’s neck.
“There you are,” Eudal said, rubbing his hands together. “A marriage made in Hell. Her blood is your blood and if it’s not infected, you’ll live your entire life mated to a woman whose only intent has been to use you.”
“Marriage?” Jayleia burst out. “I meant to seal a truce and ended up proposing?”
Vala lifted her tear-streaked face from her hands. “You didn’t know?”
“Twelve Gods,” Kebbin rasped. “You read a file or some dusty research report about Autken traditions, didn’t you?”
“And assumed I understood them,” Jay gulped, shame raking the inside of her skin. What had she done?
Indulging her childish attraction to him and believing that intellect would never lead her astray, she’d endangered Damen as surely as if she’d dropped him into a nest of infected kuorls.
“If it’s her heart you want,” Eudal offered on-screen, “I’ll give it to you.”
Jay sneered at the man’s image. “I may deserve a place in the lowest level of Hell, Eudal, but if I’m going, I’m taking you with me.”
She stalked to the bag she’d dropped against the bulkhead. “I’m going in . . .” She broke off as her brain presented her with a memory from her training.
The Swovjiti had rules.
Good ones like never attack directly that which can be diminished with a thousand tiny cuts. And that gave her an idea.
She spun on Vala and Kebbin. “How many people does Damen claim as his?”
“Including dependents?” Kebbin asked.
“Yes.”
“Just over forty,” Vala answered.
“I can’t do this alone,” Jay said. “Muster everyone you can trust with Damen’s safety. The rest, I need on this boat. We’re leaving the station the moment he’s free.”
Eyeing the doubting expressions on Vala’s and Kebbin’s faces, she said, “If I can’t go in and get him, I have to make them want to let him go.”
“How?” Kebbin demanded.
“Didn’t they say Tahem had left Silver City?”
Kebbin and Vala traded a confused look, but the young man shook his head. “Yes, but . . .”
Jayleia waved off the protest. “I know. It’s supposition, given that they have no proof of his departure, only proof that they can’t find a man who’s become a spymaster in his own right. Am I correct in thinking he’s also the Silver City computer-security expert?”
Kebbin’s hazel eyes lit. He grinned. “Why, yes, he is. And now he’s vanished.”
“What an unfortunate time for an attack on the station’s system, then,” Jayleia said, shoving her handheld at Vala. “I need the items on this list within the hour. Who’s your best code runner?”
The pair traded an uncertain look, but Kebbin lifted a finger.
Jay nodded. “You’re going to hack Silver City.”
“Objective?”
“Twofold. One, make them send Damen in to stop you because, two, . . .”
“I’m going after every last one of the guild’s secrets?” Kebbin finished for her. He sounded eager.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure this will work?” Vala asked.
“No,” Jay replied, “but I’m certain we have to try. Now. Who knows how to milk oozes for their venom without getting stung?”
“Bring him around,” Gerriny Eudal said from the screen, his tone laden with pleasure. “I’d like to put a few questions to our handsome, young guest.”
CHAPTER 21
DAMEN sat still, letting agony drain from his body.
“Neural enhancers,” Gerriny Eudal noted, as he set down the control unit. “Medical devices, useful, I’m told, for quelling the pain of surgery. Unless, of course, someone breaks the security protocols . . .”
“And modifies the design spec to cause pain, make it feel as if surgical lasers were dissecting him from the inside out,” Damen growled, muscles trembling and sweat drenching his shirt. “I’m familiar with the hack.”
The man smirked. “Major Damen Sindrivik, loyal soldier of the Claugh nib Dovvyth, liege man to Admiral Cullin Seaghdh, assigned to Colonel Kirthin Turrel’s command, you’ve had Jayleia Durante in custody for nearly two days. Don’t tell me you’ve failed to break her in that time.”
“She broke me.”
Janka barked a laugh. “Did that gal of his really seduce a man then try to kill him?”
“Yes.”
The security chief chuckled and met Damen’s eye.
Damen smiled.
“You finally met your match, son?” Janka asked, grinning.
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Damen replied, then jerked his chin at Eudal. “This plant-eater mated me to her.”
Janka sobered, a troubled gleam in his eyes.
The blare of intrusion alarms jolted the room.
Janka stalked to the com panel and silenced the noise. “Report!”
“Station core under attack!” Calmin’s voice responded via the com.
“Show me,” Janka ordered.
A holo-image lit one brushed-silver wall.
Damen studied the orange-lit, skeletal walkways punctuated by conduits and cables.
“Replay from six minutes ago,” Calmin said. “Security cordon Core-716.”
For several seconds nothing happened at the guarded checkpoint designed to restrict access to the life support functions of the station.
Then a black and crimson shape dropped in front of the camera eye. It landed and resolved into human form. Lithe. Agile. Female.
The guards started. Before they could snap to attention, much less draw weapons, the woman rushed the cordon, leaped from the walkway to the top of the six-foot-high security barricade, and kicked one guard square in the jaw. His head jerked to one side before he fell like a bag of sand. The other guard stumbled back, struggling to draw his gun. It cleared the holster
and he began firing as he brought the weapon to bear on the woman perched atop the barricade.
She wasn’t there anymore.
She’d executed some kind of flip that carried her up and over the guard, his shots following her arc in bright flashes until she landed behind him and struck, kicking his legs out from under him, and then pouncing. The barricade and cordon control panel blocked the camera eye. Damen couldn’t see what she did, but the audible crunch followed by silence drove ice through his chest.
The woman stood. Recognition and realization swamped Damen.
Jayleia.
She’d dressed in snug black fatigues. The trousers, padded at the joints and thighs, were supple-looking hide, stitched in scarlet. The garment made no sound as she moved. The top outlined every curve of her nimble body with what looked like buttery-soft, black Skeppanda silk.
The tiny, wiry, sentient Skeppanda created strands that when woven into fabric displayed ballistic properties matched only by military-grade armor. They never sold their silk, but they did occasionally award it when someone met with their favor. Something Jayleia must have done to merit a Swovjiti warrior’s uniform woven from the precious threads.
She stepped up to the control panel and accessed it. Not a stray wisp of hair, not a sliver of skin showed through the black and crimson cloth covering her. Only dark eyes rendered colorless by the camera glinted in the wan light.
Jayleia looked into the camera eye, lifted her right hand, touched the fingers to her forehead, and flicked them out in a sort of ironic salute before she ordered the camera off-line.
The screen went dead.
Pride swelled in Damen’s chest. He made certain it didn’t show on his face.
“Get it back!” Janka commanded.
“We’re trying,” Calmin snapped. “Neither Ops nor your sec teams can access that panel or that surveillance feed.”
Another alarm wailed.
The security chief snarled. “What?”
“Market ring!” Calmin responded. She pounded a panel. The alarm died. “Losing atmosphere! Power to the vice decks off-line! Gods baxt’kal damned freeloading space jockeys!”
Damen could guess that ships were blowing dock en masse. Gods knew that if he could get to the Kawl Fergus, he’d do the same. But not yet. Not until he’d done his best by the woman who’d just hijacked Silver City.
“These are tricks,” Damen said. “Distractions.”
Eudal whispered a curse. “Jayleia Durante.”
Damen glanced at him. What did it mean that Eudal recognized her almost as readily as Damen did?
The man stood, stiff with tension. He stank of fear and rage.
Janka spun, fists clenched.
Shards of glass dug at Damen’s nerves. Manipulating Gerriny Eudal, a man without enhanced Autken senses, was one thing. Playing the station’s security specialist was another.
“Explain,” the big man snarled.
Damen shrugged. He and Admiral Seaghdh had learned a hard lesson a year ago when they’d hijacked the Sen Ekir. The guild was on track to learn the hard way, too.
Never underestimate a righteously pissed off scientist.
He had no intention of warning the guild.
“She attacked the cordon to clear a path to the core,” Damen said.
“Obvious,” Janka said.
“She’s controlling environmental systems,” Damen pressed. “Inciting panic, creating so much havoc that you won’t realize until too late that she’s after the Silver City data store.”
“Unless,” Damen hedged, sliding his gaze sideways to IntCom’s second-in-command, “he has agents running a decoy while his personnel steal Guild secrets.”
Janka’s nose wrinkled, and Damen knew he scented the man’s biting worry.
Gerriny Eudal started and laughed. “He’s Murbaasch Tu. A Claugh spy!”
“And you’re a turncoat from Tagreth Federated,” Janka mused, his lip curling. “A spy crazy enough to think he can cut a deal with the Chekydran while stabbing his chain of command in the back.”
“All true,” Eudal said, his tone oily. “But it is for the betterment of Tagreth Federated and of your people, should my discussions with the guild mistress bear out.”
“His aren’t the only agents on station,” Damen tossed into the silence.
Janka glared at him.
“Director Durante’s people are here,” Damen said. Spiteful satisfaction crawled through his chest at the sour expression on Eudal’s face at the mention of Jayleia’s father. “If they have a location on the director, they may be attempting contact using Silver City resources.”
“Source?” Janka demanded.
“A mercenary betrayed IntCom to render Ms. Durante aid,” Damen answered as if he didn’t care in the least.
He thought he heard Eudal growl. The burnt rubber smell of the man’s rage heightened.
Captain Trente and Edie had seemed capable of looking out for their own interests. Damen trusted they’d left station hours ago.
Over the open com channel, another alarm claxon blared.
Growling deep in his throat, Janka spun and stomped to his panel. The claxon fell silent.
“Janka, here.”
“Looks like Sindrivik called it!” Calmin’s gravelly voice responded. “Someone’s in our systems! Counter-intrusion measures . . .”
“Access point!” Janka barked.
“We don’t know. Trace routines are being diverted all over the station!”
That piqued Damen’s interest. Jayleia wouldn’t know how to do that. Would she? He frowned. Jay, what are you doing, and how are you doing it?
“This is it,” he said. “This is the grab.”
“How do we stop it?” Calmin demanded.
Janka uttered a strangled sound.
“You can’t,” Damen said. “This is an organized attack by either IntCom or Murbaasch Tu agents. No offense, but if Tahem really has left station, you don’t have the skill to shut down a full-on data grab.”
“But you do?” Eudal sneered.
Janka studied Damen, then strode across the room and unlocked the neural cuffs.
“Are you mad?” Eudal protested. “This man . . .”
“Has family on this station,” Janka retorted. “He’s got no reason to protect us, but he will protect them.”
Damen levered himself to his feet, nodding.
“Stop them,” Janka commanded. “Or I’ll hunt down every man, woman, and child in your organization.”
“Understood.”
“Call the guild mistress,” Eudal demanded. “She would never permit . . .”
“Permission to teleport to my office, Mistress?” Janka said to the room at large. “The panels here aren’t enabled for this kind of work.”
“Permission granted. Teleport the lieutenant director to my location.” The guild mistress’s voice flowed over the room com, sounding amused. “We don’t expect you to understand us or our ways, Lieutenant Director Eudal, the major won’t break faith. He can no longer afford the price. Lock him into the office with you, Janka.”
“Acknowledged.”
“We’ll be watching, Major,” the guild mistress said. “Every move. Every thought.”
Teleport distortion saved him from giving away the shock and the first tendril of hope ripping open his insides. He’d expected to die in Janka’s prison.
Jayleia had gotten him out. It shouldn’t have been possible.
Damn if he hadn’t underestimated her. Again.
Biting back a grin, he strode for the chair beside Janka’s as the security chief shot him a wary look.
“Send a team to that core panel you can’t recover,” Damen said as he sat down.
“Done. It was rigged with a handheld running a feeder loop,” Janka said.
“ID on the unit?” Damen asked as he accessed the computer system under Janka’s watchful eye.
“Wiped.”
Damen nodded, unable to suppress a smile.
&
nbsp; Someone had been thorough.
“All right,” Damen said. “They aren’t smash and grabbers. That shores up my theory that we’re dealing with trained agents. The question is whose? What about your other cordons?”
“Secure. Guarded and monitored.”
“Like the one on video?” Damen asked.
Janka shook his head and keyed in his authorization code, before waving a hand at the display and stepping back.
Damen watched alerts and commands scrolling past before he dove into the code, aiming for the system’s heart. He could guess what was being done and he could guess how.
How had she broken through the lock on the station’s core?
Behind him, Janka ordered the mobilization of three security teams. He sent them to manually check each of the security cordons.
“Nothing on monitors, sir,” a young security officer protested.
“You know for a fact we still own those cameras, Chiekal?” Janka demanded.
Damen dropped into the station’s system programming and faltered. She wasn’t there. No one was there. He blinked. The hard way, then. He came up out of the system operating code. The counter-intrusion alerts were still firing off rapid-pace.
Working quickly, Damen picked up one of the trace-back routines. It was a clunky piece of code, but it gave him a glimpse of someone’s real-time input before the trace was shunted into an infinite loop. He grimaced.
Looked like Jayleia had recruited half of his trainees on station, most of them inexperienced code-runners. It was their first major mistake, one that could end their party before it had started.
“How do I shut down counter-intrusion?” Damen demanded.
“What?” Janka yelped. “You can’t!”
“I’d better. Whoever’s handling this attack is about to crash the entire station by routing your counter-intrusion assaults into infinite feedback loops. It’s overloading your array.”
“Baxt’k!” Janka growled. “Guild Mistress?”
“Do it.” Kannoi’s voice filtered over room speakers. “It will not leave us entirely defenseless.”
Janka charged to Damen’s side, activated another panel, and entered an override code.
Access alerts continued to fire from points all over the station. Damen thought he’d begun to detect a pattern. If he was right, the team was pulling the station’s complete data set. No handheld could handle files of that magnitude.
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