“I appreciate the promotion,” she said to Turrel. “Now let’s get off this rock. Give your captain the gun and report to medical. Decontamination will sting like hell unless you get that cut sealed up first.”
Seaghdh nodded at his crewman. He traded her pistol for Turrel’s rifle. The Shlovkur quit the tiny bridge.
“He’s wrong, you know,” Seaghdh said from behind her the moment the door slid closed. “I felt the fire in that kiss I stole. Pietre has misjudged you. Your father has, too, hasn’t he?”
She sucked in a shallow, damnably audible breath both at the observation and at the brush of Seaghdh’s hand against the nape of her neck. Cursing her body’s reaction, Ari snapped, “Strap down or I’ll flatten you against a bulkhead.”
His chuckle made it clear that he knew exactly how his touch affected her. Without a word he buckled into the nav seat beside her. She woke his panel and shunted data to his screens.
“I’ll take us out of atmosphere on manual. We’ll exit here,” she said, struggling to tap the plotter as increasing g-forces pressed her into her seat. “I need a thirteen-second brush with Occaltus’s sun.”
“A radiation bath?” he surmised.
Nodding, she cast covert glances at the data readouts showing on her panel, the inputs and results of his calculations. The man handled ships for a living, no doubt about it. But what kind?
“Were you in a shuttle?” she asked.
“No.”
“You put it down on the dark side, then.”
“No. It put us down on the dark side,” Seaghdh corrected. “Landing is too generous a word for our introduction to this moon.”
No information about his ship, nothing to tell her what weapons he might have had or what sort of enemy or emergency had driven him to crash on Ioccal, Occaltus’s eleventh moon. Still. If he’d had weapons systems on his ship, he didn’t deem them worth salvaging.
She opened intraship. “Clear six thousand meters. All personnel cycle through decon and report to medical for radiation exposure boosters. Shift to star drive in ten minutes. Thirteen-second skip, two hours out.”
Seaghdh glanced at her. “I’ll take it while you report to medical.”
“No need,” she said. “Raj will bring the shots to us after he’s been through decon.”
“Raj?”
“Dad’s medical officer and our local genius. The radiation sterilization was his baby. Saved us from having to fly into a star five years ago.”
Seaghdh’s brain stumbled and his fingers paused on his keys. Ari turned her silver eyes on him. He frowned and saw she wasn’t just pushing his buttons.
She shrugged. “Can’t fly an infected ship to an inhabited world.”
“Ari?” Her medi-tech’s voice sounded tinny coming over the intraship.
“Yes, Raj?”
“One dose of Ioccal IX, one full gamma dose, and one booster?”
“Affirmative. I don’t have a final destination yet, but is there any medical reason to postpone sterilization?”
“Not unless our ‘guests’ are symptomatic.”
Seaghdh cursed under his breath. How many more ways could a simple find and retrieve mission become such a group baxt’k?
Ari glanced at him. “How long were you on Ioccal before taking the ship?”
“Fewer than forty-eight hours.”
Speculation lit her eyes and softened the haunted shadows of her face. She caught his perusal and bristled. “How’d you get past my sensor array?”
Grinning, Seaghdh tucked a caress of power into his voice and said, “Trade secret.”
She crinkled her forehead and looked away, but not before he saw the telltale shiver run through her body and felt his own tighten in response. Gods, he should never have accepted this mission. From the moment he’d become aware of Alexandria Idylle climbing the Blade Ranks within TFC so many years ago, Seaghdh had harbored a secret crush. It hadn’t mattered that they’d never met, much less crossed blades before today. He shook his head. She had no idea she had him at such a disadvantage.
The medi cleared his throat. “We’re well within incubation limits. We’ll dose them and toast them.”
Derailed by the man’s tone, Seaghdh stared at the com speaker. “He sounded gleeful.”
Ari ducked her head but couldn’t hide her smile. “Hasn’t gotten to test his plague cure, yet.”
“What?” Even better. Not only were he and his crew infected, they were captive test cases to a shipload of righteously pissed-off scientists.
The door opened. Without so much as a greeting, the medi, Raj, strode up and popped Ari full of medication. She rubbed her arm.
“Thanks,” she said.
Seaghdh forestalled him when Raj turned to him. “My men . . .”
“We’ve been treated,” Turrel said from the doorway. “No one’s keeled over yet. Even if he poisons you, there’re too many of us for your commando, there, to take.” He gestured at Ari from his spot lounging against the doorframe.
“That’s all right, then,” Seaghdh said. He sat perfectly still while Raj administered both medications.
“Your man is quite right, of course,” Raj said. “There is the minor matter of my oath, that and I value Ari too highly to endanger her. You’ll test positive for Ioccal IX for a few days yet, but none of you should experience any symptoms.”
“You are a miracle worker, Raj,” she said.
“Always nice to have one’s work appreciated,” he replied. “Jayleia and I stowed your samples, Ari. Come see me when you’re ready to get started. I have a few tricks up my sleeves.”
Seaghdh frowned at the solicitude in the man’s voice. It bordered on condescension. Or pity. His information indicated that Raj Faraheed knew Ari well enough that he should comprehend the mistake he was making with that tone.
Raj quit the bridge with a wave, calling, “Must return to mending a broken arm.”
Turrel shadowed Raj down the companionway.
Ari turned back to the piloting console. Strapped in so close beside her, Seaghdh could hear her breath tighten. He shot her a covert glance. The lush, white curls of her hair were long enough to hide her eyes, but not the thin line she’d made of her lips.
Sympathy wrung through his gut, forcing him to turn his eyes front. He gathered she’d heard the same thing in Raj’s voice that Seaghdh had.
He’d seen her file. She’d been held by the Chekydran for three months, been accused of spying, and then, unaccountably, released. Another three months in a TFC military hospital hadn’t produced any evidence that she’d been turned or controlled by the aliens. Her people lauded the woefully thin woman as a hero while her commanders stripped her of everything but rank. Armada was hanging her out to dry.
From a tactical standpoint it made sense. She’d survived three months with the Chekydran, something that had never been done. Her commanders had to believe the enemy controlled her in some fashion—assuming she was still sane.
Rage and denial shoved hard against his insides, protesting the thought. Seaghdh let the instinct pass. He couldn’t afford to let his personal interest in her interfere with duty. If he found that she couldn’t be trusted, whether the Chekydran controlled her or not, he would kill her. Regardless of what it might cost him personally.
His cousin had warned him that the damage done to Ari extended far past the horrific physical damage he’d seen catalogued in the file he’d had his spies steal from her government. She’d been little more than skin holding together shattered bits of bone. He had only to look into her eyes to see the stain the Chekydran had left on her soul. It tore at some vital part of his gut. He’d felt sympathy for a subject before, not that he’d let it get in the way of doing his job. He’d never wanted to save anyone. Until now.
“Hey, Ari?” a woman’s voice hailed via the intraship speaker.
“You stowed my stuff,” Ari replied. “Thanks, Jayleia.”
“You’re welcome,” Jayleia said. “You want any sequencing hel
p, make them let me out of my cabin.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m going to cut all of the communications lines and lock the bridge door,” Seaghdh grumbled, noting the tension in her jaw. He eyed her. Intelligence data had indicated that Captain Idylle would respond if he used Raj Faraheed and Jayleia Durante as points of persuasion. Certainly, it had worked in cargo, but her inability to accept the concern in her friends’ voices made him wonder. “I have your coordinates for the radiation bath, Captain Idylle.”
When she signed off the com and glanced at him, he winked. The troubled light faded from her eyes and pressure he didn’t realize he’d been carrying eased in his chest. Irrational. He had no reason to feel like he’d won a blade match simply because he’d made the woman smile.
“Running out of blue sky,” she noted. “Bringing interstellar drives online. Watch the harmonic on the starboard atmospheric. We had trouble with it when we set down.”
Seaghdh let out a breath that whistled between his teeth. “I’ve never seen an engine config like this. You do the custom work yourself?”
Ari shook her head as she brought the star drive online to warm up. “The atmospheric engines are unique to the Sen Ekir. Dad demanded close-in maneuverability, slow speed, even hovering capability and station keeping, but wasn’t willing to sacrifice interstellar speed to get his samples back to his labs for it. He made enough noise, and consistently turns up such impressive results that Tagreth Federated Command had IntCom design and build this ship for him.”
“TFC handed you a science ship built by Intelligence Command?” Seaghdh echoed, stunned. How had his team missed that detail? Who knew how many taps and wires IntCom had on board?
“Not me, Captain. They handed it to my father.”
“You think the distinction matters?” he prodded.
She glanced at him, pushing a strand of hair out of those silver eyes, seemed to note his perusal, and looked away, flustered.
He watched her clasp her long, elegant fingers together. The precision and skill with which she’d handled the energy blade had him imagining her touch on his skin.
Cursing under his breath, he shifted, discomfited by the suddenly too tight fit of his trousers.
“What I think is immaterial,” she said, dragging his attention back to the ship and the question of who actually controlled it. Calculation shifted behind her eyes and she scanned the cockpit as if seeing it for the first time. “The question is whether the distinction matters to IntCom.”
Seaghdh nodded.
“And you’re manipulating me,” she said, her tone mild, “trying to make me question the integrity of my ship.”
He froze at her summation. Where had she learned the espionage techniques she’d so accurately identified? Nothing in her files indicated that she’d received training from IntCom, and his spies inside the Armada hadn’t been able to identify the manipulation when it had been turned upon them.
“Your attempt to undermine and switch my loyalties does not negate the validity of your observation. If IntCom has the Sen Ekir in its clutches, I can’t trust the Sen Ekir,” she finished and then slanted him a sly smile. “Point to you. One to zero.”
She’d heard and accepted the invitation to play he’d issued with his last use of power on her. The two of them seemed uniquely susceptible to one another, though he prayed she didn’t know about his weakness yet. Savoring the want dancing through his blood, he answered with a lazy grin. “What does my point get me?”
Every inch of her exposed, pale skin flushed in reaction to his innuendo.
The visible rush of her reaction drew him. He shifted, wanting closer to test the heat of her skin with his lips.
She opened her mouth, but a single, urgent beep from her panel snapped her attention away from him.
He mirrored her move, scanning his panel. Time to switch from atmospheric engines to interstellar drive.
“We’re on,” she said, her voice all business. Ari opened intraship and nudged the star drive output higher. “Secure for transition. Change over in five, four, three, two, one. Mark.”
He focused on procedure and drew down power on the atmospherics.
“Atmospherics at eighty,” Seaghdh said.
“Acknowledged. Cut by fives every ten seconds, mark.”
“Seventy-five.”
“Seventy.”
The ship trembled.
“Damn it,” she muttered. “Cut to fifty percent. That starboard atmospheric is coughing. I knew it wasn’t tuning.”
Alarm drove through him and he grimaced. She’d corrected their angle of ascent and balanced engine output without so much as blinking. He admired her gifted piloting, but cutting power like that was flat risky. Against his better judgment, he shook his head and did as she asked. “Atmospherics at fifty percent. Altitude gain decreasing.”
“Aye. We’ve got a little arc. That’ll give us enough momentum to make escape velocity,” she said as she worked on starting the interstellar drive. “Come on, you radioactive hunk of tin. Wake up.”
“You spoke so nicely to the atmospherics,” he said.
She flushed. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
The rumble of the interstellar drive gave him a much-needed distraction from watching her every reaction to him. “There it goes.”
The starboard engine gave up the ghost. They lurched sideways. The two of them swore in unison as she fought the controls.
“Restart?” he demanded.
“Negative. Cut the port engine. We’ve got enough thrust in the star drive to clear atmosphere.”
She hadn’t even glanced at the nav or engine equations.
“No margin for error,” Seaghdh warned, scanning both panels and running a rapid set of mental calculations. She was flying the ship by feel. He shook his head and bit back a grin. Damn, she was good. Why the hell had her career been stalled piloting this piece of scientific space debris?
“I suspect we’ve got a fuel interrupt on the starboard side,” she said. “It’s not going to restart.”
Seaghdh scowled and eased the port engine back. “A bleed?”
“Twelve Gods, I hope not,” she replied, her attention pinned to velocity readouts, “or this will be one short trip.”
He punched the intraship. “V’kyrri?”
“V’kyrri, here. Feels like a fuel supply issue in your starboard atmospheric, Captain. Arm’s all healed up. Want me to go have a look?”
“You’re a mind reader, V’k.”
“Not on purpose, sir.”
“Go practice your magic on the machinery, V’k. Turrel?”
“I heard,” the Shlovkur answered. “We’ve secured the scientists in their quarters.”
“Acknowledged. I need you and Sindrivik up here.”
“Transition complete. Port atmospheric off-line in three, two, one, mark,” Ari said.
“Affirmative,” Seaghdh answered. “Laying in course for the radiation bath. Nicely done.”
She reddened and made a show of studying the nav numbers as Turrel and Sindrivik hustled onto the bridge and strapped in at the life sciences and geo-scan stations.
She couldn’t accept commendation. Was that a relic from her captivity? Or had her entire life been bereft of praise? He frowned.
“Clearing ionosphere in three, two, one, mark,” she said, then scanned her panels while the rest of them stared at the view screen.
Seaghdh cursed. She was right. Instruments were far more sensitive than humanoid eyesight. He’d obviously been away from the pilot’s chair too long if he’d fallen back into bad habit.
The sky darkened from indigo to black. Stars leaped into view. The arc of the gas giant warming the moon they’d left lit the lower quarter of the screen and silhouetted a sharp-edged moon where there shouldn’t be a moon.
Ari swore as sensor alarms blared. She shut them off.
“Friends of yours?” she snapped.
Seaghdh uttered a single, vile oath and
joined her in demanding identification from the computers.
She froze, her fingers still poised in mid-command.
He glanced at her. Recognition stood out in her wide-open eyes. Terror lined her lips in white. Seaghdh felt a tremor move her. It didn’t look like she was breathing.
“Ari.”
Nothing. Not even a muscle tic to indicate she’d heard. Turrel turned from glaring at the view screen, his face grim, and eyed her.
From her file, Seaghdh knew she suffered flashbacks, and when she did, she hurt people. Touching her could easily trigger an episode, but damn it, he couldn’t abandon her to the nightmare of her memories. He didn’t know that he could help; only that he had to try.
He unbuckled his restraints, turned, and put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped. He knew the moment she saw him and registered that he peered into her face, seeing the horrors of her memories in the hard shine in her eyes. Defenses slammed into place shuttering her expression and locking him out.
“Chekydran,” she rasped. “You escaped a Chekydran cruiser?”
Seaghdh met her gaze, his own searching, seeking assurance that she could perform. “That’s up to you, now, isn’t it? Get us out of here.”
She uttered a harsh laugh. “This boat has two speeds. Slow and slower. We will not outrun a Chekydran battle cruiser. They’re on us.”
Turrel spun back to his readouts. “Confirmed. They’re changing course. Coming around to intercept.”
Seaghdh saw her lips moving as she stared at the ship growing on the view panel. When he finally made out what she was saying, a chill of foreboding gripped him.
“Any other ship, any other ship.”
He turned front. The iridescent yellow script that comprised the ship’s name resolved. He recognized it. The Chekydran’s premiere soldier-ship. It had found and fired on his ship as if laying in wait for his arrival. Fury swept him. He’d lost his ship and most of his crew in that fight. Because the Chekydran hadn’t followed Seaghdh’s disabled ship into Ioccal’s atmosphere, he’d figured they’d assumed the ship had been destroyed. Yet here the Chekydran were again.
He shot a glance at her. Were they after him? Or her?
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