She’d left a trail of blood and dead bodies in her wake already. Why? What was she that inspired such determination to destroy her and everyone around her?
“Jay.”
She found Damen watching her, concern lining his face. It eased the rage threatening to boil over inside her. She couldn’t take responsibility for the attack that had injured him. Unless the guild had worked out that Jayleia had both stolen the Silver City data store and been the one to issue the contagion alert for the station. If the guild council had sent the ore scouts after the Kawl Fergus, then she was culpable.
Until the thirty-day quarantine period expired or an outbreak-response ship arrived to diagnose and lift the alert, Silver City would be a ghost station. No one would land there. No ships, no customers, no income. How long could Silver City survive that kind of economic siege? Jayleia swallowed a smile of spite-filled glee.
Pietre scooted out from under the deck plates to grab the bag of data chips. “Ready to begin pulling your backup array. How neat a job do you want?”
Damen shook his head. “I don’t. It won’t matter.”
Because they were out of options and wouldn’t likely need the backup systems.
Jayleia scowled, but she went to kneel at the edge of the open compartment to examine his handiwork.
He’d wired his handheld to the glowing crystal fused to the engine feed.
“Why do we still have particle flow? The drive is shut down,” she said.
“Energy production on a ship of this size relies on the main drive reactor.” He crimped another wire to the crystal clamp. “Even with engines off, we need power for ship’s systems.”
“No room for redundancy.” She nodded. “What are you doing, and where did you learn how to redesign handhelds?”
He smiled. “The Ki. This crystal is more than a data store. It’s an entire library, the history, art, and literature of a species, save that it was incomplete. It was still being written when I recovered it.”
Jay listened to a whisper in her head. “Ah. Confirmation that the Chekydran-ki knew you had it.”
“You’re hearing them,” he said.
“I’m hearing something,” she hedged. “I gather the queen is shoving knowledge into my brain but it can’t seem to find anywhere to land or settle. Mostly, my mind is full of buzzing.”
He tipped his head, considering. “Yes.”
“You seem to have an easier time integrating and accessing whatever it is,” she noted. “Do you suppose that’s biologically based? Or does your experience with telepathy provide your brain with pathways mine lacks?”
“Great.”
“What?”
“Now you’re going to want to dissect my brain,” he said.
“I’d give it back when I was done,” she offered.
“You can have it after I’m done using it,” Damen countered.
Pietre barked a laugh from beneath the deck plating. “Ready.”
“Powering up,” Damen said.
The light in the crystal flared, drawing her attention. It changed color from yellow to orange to red, then back again as data flooded the handheld screen.
She gasped. “You’re writing the Silver City data store to the crystal!”
“It’s a much faster process than stealing it. Stand by to swap out the data chips,” he said, satisfaction in his smooth voice.
“Is that safe?” she asked.
He started and stared at her.
“We’ve never found a way to shield the crystal, have we?” she said. “Everything you dump on that rock will be broadcast.”
“The Chekydran will have access to every scrap of data,” he mused.
Pietre emerged from beneath the deck plating and glanced between them. “I, personally, have a problem with giving the Chekydran anything, even these Chekydran, but shouldn’t we be worrying about the UMOPG military? If they’ve been using crystal in their ships, it’s a good bet they’ve got a line on reading it.”
Damen shook his head. “The Chekydran-ki aren’t a danger to us.”
“How do you know that?” Pietre demanded. “Because they say so? Damen, they modified you!”
Jayleia shifted, unsettled by Pietre’s assessment. His argument made sense, but her gut said to trust the aliens who’d altered her and then sliced her open so they could engineer their species. “They did save our lives when they didn’t have to. They healed us and it seems like they’ve tried to give us reason to trust them. The Chekydran that declared war on humanoids certainly never bothered.
“If my sources are correct,” Damen said, “this data directly impacts the war in our favor.”
“It’s a calculated risk, then?” Pietre mused, peering into Damen’s face.
“And the only device with sufficient processing capacity,” Damen replied.
Pietre nodded. “All right. Let’s do it.” He ducked under the deck plating. “Say when.”
“Verifying load,” Damen called. “Looks good. Go.”
“Few minutes!” Pietre replied.
Damen turned and wrapped his warm hands around Jay’s. “When all of this is over, whatever it is we’re wrapped up in, you tell me where. We’ll go. Together.”
He surprised a smile from her as her heart melted. “If anyone will have us, you mean? Our only option may be Kebgra.”
He shrugged. “You’re comfortable with their tradition of taking more than one partner?”
“Depends on the partner,” she said. “If you wanted Pietre, we could negotiate.”
He blinked, looking stunned.
It made her grin.
“At least the citizens of Kebgra have seen biomechs before,” she said.
“They’d know how to handle them,” Damen agreed, still smiling.
Jayleia’s brain stumbled and froze.
“What?”
“My mother said, ‘Seek refuge someplace that knows how to deal with these monsters.’”
“The Citizen’s Rights Uprising? Why?” Damen demanded.
“I am an idiot,” she breathed. “I didn’t put it together until now. Every last one of my bodyguards was CRU. My father is on Kebgra or on a CRU missionary ship.”
“You’re sure?”
“No, but it stands to reason,” she said.
Damen stared at her, his expression unreadable.
“Your father is running the CRU?” He sounded different. Assured. In command.
Shock rippled out from her core slowing both her heart rate and her breath. Her feral Azym, code runner and Silver City sex worker had vanished, transformed into a damnably attractive but far more lethal creature—a Claugh nib Dovvyth spy. In his expression, the predator’s pure, uncomplicated drives had been replaced by lines of astute cunning and by the weight of responsibility.
A thrill of desire ran headlong into a new twinge of fear within her. He’d spent years being groomed by the Empire’s spymaster. How much choice had she had when she’d surrendered to the spymaster’s prodigy? After all, why interrogate when he could seduce her into disclosure?
She choked on a bitter laugh.
She eased her hands out of his grasp and straightened. Ignoring the sudden flexing of the muscles in his jaw, she said, “Not running. Cultivating a series of loyal undercover agents. Their missionaries and CRU fact finders are scattered across Tagreth Federated. They’re viewed as harmless crackpots. Dad realized years ago they represented an invaluable source of information. One thing led to another, I gather.”
She blew out a slow, steadying breath, trying to ease the sense that she’d maxed out synaptic capacity for sorting and rebuilding data matrices. “I need to send a message to the nearest CRU ship or facility. How long will V’kyrri take to achieve orbit?”
What did Damen see in her face to soften the hard edges in his expression as he moved to a control panel? “A few hours. At least he’s in com range. Here. Recording.”
Jay nodded. “Jayleia Durante for Augustus Ortechyn. Augie, New Scripture. The Bo
ok of the End Times. Chapter, the last. Verse, the last. Judgment. May the Gods bless the righteous.”
The muscles in Damen’s jaw flexed and thunder threatened in the glint of his eye. “What does that code phrase accomplish?”
“What I presume you’ve wanted all this time,” she said. “Dad had more than IDs on the traitors. He’s spent the past decade infiltrating the network. It is the command that will start the takedown.”
He rocked back on his heels and growled, “You shared research data with your dad?”
“You never asked what he shared with me,” she muttered.
Damen swore. “I am required to notify Admiral Seaghdh of your father’s suspected whereabouts.”
“Why? I’ve given you what he would have. Are you going to send the message?” she asked.
“It’s away. Anything else I should know?”
She considered as he narrowed his eye at her. “I’m not certain this was the right thing to do. Nothing in my training ever accounted for this circumstance.”
“Being marooned on a planet full of Chekydran?”
“Considering you an ally,” she corrected. “Common opinion among TFC citizens is that the Claugh covets our territory and our resources.”
“I certainly covet your—resources.”
A flush burned her cheeks.
His roguish grin died. “You didn’t expect to be in enemy hands.”
She shook her head and rose. “Not even when I like those hands and what they can do.”
The smile returned. “Where are you going?”
“Into the field,” she said. “I have a complex, sentient species and no data in the scientific literature about them.”
“Chips are in!” Pietre called. “Go!”
Damen glanced at where Pietre crouched, then back at her. “What is the Sen Ekir’s standard field op protocol?”
“Depends on the field,” she quipped, heading for the door. “Ten-minute check in? Sen Ekir coordinating?”
“I will take command at the first sign of threat,” he countered.
“Good,” she said. “That’s worked out well for me so far.”
He winked.
She strode down the ramp, aware she’d have to follow her several-kilometer trail back to the queen and to the nest chamber where her genetic daughter developed. Dr. Idylle would be fascinated. If she told him.
“Powering up!” she heard Damen yell as she angled for the Sen Ekir.
On board, Dr. Idylle and Raj’s voices drifted to her from the labs. Still dealing with the bloodworms, she assumed.
She headed for her cabin, intent on changing to a set of clothes that hadn’t been sliced clean through.
“Jayleia,” Dr. Idylle said from behind her as she opened her cabin door.
“Sir?”
“I won’t have you blaming yourself for the accusations made against the Sen Ekir and its crew,” he said.
“I don’t. I blame my father.”
His brow furrowed. “Speaking as a father who has born both his fair and unfair share of blame, I can point out the deficiencies of that strategy.”
Jayleia smiled. “The foremost being that it impacts my father not at all?”
“Certainly not at the moment.”
“No, sir,” she corrected, old sadness stirring behind her breastbone. “Not at all. It’s the price of being what he is. Other people’s opinions can’t matter to him. Not my mother’s. Not mine.”
“I hope for his sake that isn’t true,” Dr. Idylle said, leaning one shoulder against the door frame. “If it is, he will be a bitter and lonely man. I would like to think it isn’t too late for him.”
“I’d like to think it isn’t too late for me,” Jay breathed, staring at her closed closet door.
“You will always have a family here, aboard this ship,” he said. “I apologize if this is inappropriate, my dear, but I have thought of you as an adopted daughter. Perhaps I’m guilty of treating you . . .”
“A-adopted?” Jay choked. Heat flooded the backs of her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to distress you,” he said, straightening, the lines around his blue eyes deepening in alarm. “My apologies.”
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and barked a laugh. “No. I’m honored and pleased. Ari has so much going for her. Looks, brains, strength of will, a really bad temper, and yet the one thing I most envied her was that she had you for a father.”
A delighted smile lit her boss’s face. “Does this mean I might succeed in persuading you to use my given name upon occasion?”
She nodded. “Yes, Linnaeus. Thank you.”
“Then, if I may go on presuming to treat you as one of my own,” he said, still smiling. He left the doorway to put an arm around her shoulder. “About Major Sindrivik. Am I losing yet another of my family to the Claugh nib Dovvyth? Or gaining a new crewmember?”
Jayleia’s heart kicked hard. “Neither.”
He said nothing for a moment. “Of your possible answers, I admit that was not the one I’d hoped to hear.”
She blinked. “My government may have kicked me to the airlock, but I won’t give up on TFC. There’s too much worth preserving. Damen can’t carve away the part of him that belongs to the Claugh, not without cutting away who and what he is. There’s a vast expanse of increasingly unfriendly space between our two worlds. I can’t bridge that.”
“Do you love him?”
She sighed. “I’m running for my life, ruining everyone else’s lives, failing to find my father, and now I’ve been changed in some fundamental way by the Chekydran. I can’t even begin to contemplate love.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me that my xenobiologist would be afraid of love,” he said.
“Not of love.”
“Loss?”
She nodded.
Dr. Idylle’s arm tightened around her shoulders briefly. “My dear, life is a risk in and of itself. Isn’t the act of loving someone an enriching enough experience to sustain you through the pain of loss?”
“Not in my experience,” she said.
“Ah. Your parents,” he said, pulling away and returning to the doorway, his head down and his hands clasped behind his back.
“They were so unhappy, so hurt, using me as a weapon against one another. The gulf between them was so wide,” she murmured.
“And you spent your childhood trying to close it?” he asked.
She nodded. “I couldn’t, of course. I swore I’d never get into a situation like it. And here I am. I’m not enough to bridge the divide between Damen and me.”
“If you will accept unsolicited advice from an old scientist,” he said, looking back over his shoulder, “I’ll say this—only you can decide if what you feel now is worth the potential for pain.”
“Do you regret your wife?” The words were out of Jay’s mouth before she could stop them.
He turned, a wistful look in the shine of his eyes. “Not for a moment.”
Stillness settled inside her. Even knowing that his wife had broken the law and genetically engineered his youngest daughter, knowing she’d lied to him up to the day she’d died, he had no regrets about having loved her?
Jayleia drew a deep breath as her heart seemed to settle into place inside her. “Thank you.”
Dr. Idylle smiled. “Of course. Another unsolicited piece of advice? You might change that shirt before your cousin sees it and realizes you’re carrying three new scars.”
“Would you be willing to meet the reason for them?” she asked.
His expression darkened.
“These aren’t the same creatures that hurt Ari,” she said. “They don’t look like the Chekydran we’re accustomed to seeing. They certainly don’t behave the same way. I have assurances that you will not be infected or modified.”
Curiosity won past the distrust and remembered rage in his gaze. “I can’t see that it will matter at this point whether the Chekydran keep their word in that regard. I’ll gather my equipment.”
CHAPTER 34
“FASCINATING!” Linnaeus Idylle breathed as they stood beside the nest chamber of the Chekydran infant bearing Jay’s DNA. He glanced at the nursery attendants working nearby, and then at the queen. “Splicing DNA from three parents indicates a level of sophistication and control that we cannot yet match. Have you been able to determine the purpose of the changes they’re making?”
Jayleia shrugged. “Vision is the obvious outward manifestation, but I suspect the primary purpose is to diversify immunity.”
Frowning, Dr. Idylle backed away from the nest chamber as the nurses began covering it with fluffed web.
Jay activated her badge. “Damen? Do you have a complete data set?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“It’s stunning,” Pietre said. “With the right hardware, you could walk through the records on this crystal as if you had been there when the files were captured.”
“Reliving history?” Jayleia asked. The notion both tickled and repelled her.
“Another non-humanoid species’ history,” Damen answered, “as experienced by them.”
She shared an avid grin with Dr. Idylle, who immediately tapped his badge to join the channel.
“That data may be priceless,” he said, “from both a scientific and tactical point of view.”
Jayleia gasped. “We could define the progression of Chekydran biological warfare if it’s encompassed in the time frame covered.”
“I don’t have the time for speculative searches through the Chekydran material,” Damen said. “We’re combing the Silver City data store.”
“We already have confirmation that the United Mining and Ore Processing Guild made first contact with the Chekydran long before they admitted they had,” Pietre said.
“Any mention of what happened?” Jay demanded.
The Chekydran-ki queen warbled. “Death.”
Dr. Idylle jumped and spun to face her.
“She says, ‘Death’,” Jayleia translated, frowning. “Whose?”
A memory that wasn’t hers unfolded inside Jay’s mind. Bodies. Blood. Terrible, wracking pain. Everyone and everything she’d ever loved, dead. The music of life dimmed and fell silent over the nest plains.
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