Devoted Deceptions, A 4th Millennium Adventure, Book 3

by Cherie Singer

  Lyon boosted her over a fallen beam in the corridor, then hauled himself across to join her. They ran the length of the passage, coughed their way through the smoke, dashed around smoldering debris. The fitful red-colored alert lights gave everything the appearance of being bathed in a blood-red haze.

  They finally reached the doorway to the shuttle bay.

  "Secured by emergency protocol," Lyon's fist thudded a futile tattoo against the offending portal while he cursed. His dark blonde hair fell across his face when he turned away, but not far enough to hide the outward signs of his escalating concern.

  Cat scanned the blinking readout panel set flush in the bulkhead. She forced back the useless panic threatening to overwhelm her as the facts sank into her awareness. "The bay--the bay lost atmosphere. Anybody outside a sealed shuttle--gods, did I secure the hatch on the Righteous behind me? I can't bloody remember. Sweet Creator, spare the little ones!"

  She beat her fists against the door. "Help me, Mykal!"

  A grinding noise filled the corridor. Lyon looked upward. He lunged for Cat, knocked her backward in the same instant part of the structure from the level above crashed down. A support strut slanted over their bodies, keeping all but the smaller pieces of debris off them. The Falchion rocked under them, then righted herself.

  By the gods, this couldn't be happening!

  Lyon jerked Cat to her feet, helped her clear a new pathway to the bay door. "Emergency fields generating in the bay, Commander." He flung the final larger pieces of rubble behind them. "Oxygen and pressure levels rising. We'll be able to get inside any second."

  How many seconds too late will that be? Her mind screamed the question, gave voice to the panic she worked so hard to subdue. She felt cold all over. Her insides shook uncontrollably.

  Lyon grabbed her arm. "I have every faith that you secured the shuttle's hatch, Commander." He spoke in a cool, calm voice. "You must believe this."

  Cat nodded numbly. She held no such illusion. Her jaw trembled too hard to let words out.

  "Commander Culver?"

  Cat didn't recognize the voice. She turned to stare at Frank Ellery, who stood behind her in a torn and dirty uniform. Freckles popped out against a face even paler than normal. His corkscrew curls plastered to his forehead with sweat.

  "What?" She took a deep breath, then managed to ask, "Status?"

  Ellery shook his head. "I got out through the panic tube in the control room after my arm got broken. The captain--" He wouldn't meet her eyes.

  Her heart froze in her chest. "What about the captain?"

  "In the bay. Seconds before--before--I couldn't do--"

  "No! No, you're wrong. He must have been on the bridge." But the truth ravaged her heart, raped her mind, extinguished her hope. The mental link between them had vanished during the chaos of the attack, as though Wulfe no longer existed. And now she couldn't reforge that bond. "He can't be in there, too."

  An emergency repair team rushed down the corridor just as Lyon managed to release the bay door. The panels parted reluctantly only to reveal a nightmare of destruction and lurking grief. Harsh, glaring emergency lights snapped on, gave the bay a ghastly, surreal appearance. Bulkheads and struts, twisted, blackened by smoke and splattered with blood, surrounded them.

  Cat clambered over a collapsed beam; the raw edges cut her hands and legs. She fought her way through a morass of charred and jagged rubble. She found Wulfe, crumpled on the floor beneath fallen supports, lying in a slow-growing, red pool of death.

  No! Not Wulfe! Screaming her defiance, Cat lodged her shoulder under the strut wedged over Wulfe's chest and lifted until muscles threatened to tear. Lyon heaved against the struts along with Cat. Ellery used his good shoulder. They raised the beam off Wulfe with their unified exertions.

  Cat knelt beside this man she loved beyond all reasoning. She searched for signs--gods, any sign--of his precious life. Still unable to sense his presence, she grabbed a fistful of his long hair, come loose from the confining leather thong. "Don't you dare do this to me, Wulfe! You promised you'd never leave me again! Don't Abandon me again! Don't break your vow to me!"

  Bellon instinct, her heart, everything in her, demanded she go to Garrett and Morgan. Cat lurched to her feet. Her head spun. She nearly fell face first. "The children--"

  "No." Lyon steadied Cat then pushed her back down to her knees. "Stay with the captain. You may be his only chance of survival."

  "Garrett--Morgan--they need--"

  "I will see to your children myself, Commander. Trust me."

  Natural instinct and learned reaction waged a violent war within her until she couldn't breathe. Skilled training finally surfaced, drove her mind to focus even when her body tried to shut down from shock. "Go then, Mykal." She slapped at her comm tag. "Culver to Albright. Priority message. We need a trauma team in the shuttle bay. The captain is down."

  `How bad--'

  "Get a preservation field down here, now!" Cat rechecked for any signs of life from Wulfe, a sense of his mind. "I can't find a pulse! He's not breathing! Move it!"

  `Already halfway there. Hang on.'

  Cat labored to save her husband's life. She breathed for him, compressed his chest to force his great heart to move blood. She gritted her teeth, determined to keep him from slipping away. Everything except Wulfe and her fear for Morgan, Garrett and the other children receded.

  Time blurred.

  Lyon hunkered his big body down next to her, took over the chest compressions. "Everyone on the Righteous will come through this, Commander. Fallon, bless the Creator, had all the children and herself strapped in, so injuries from the shuttle's flip and impact are practically nonexistent." He spoke in rhythm to his work and Cat's efforts to breathe air into Wulfe. "The pilots and support crews in the other two shuttles didn't survive. The captain?"

  Cat met Lyon's dark green gaze and for that split second wanted to lose herself, to let her mind wander lost in the calm refuge his eyes offered. But she couldn't hide from this. Everyone needed her more than ever before. Not simply Wulfe and Garrett and Morgan, but the entire crew. Duty and honor demanded she act.

  "Stand aside," Albright ordered as she plowed her way through the debris to Wulfe's side, pushing against Cat's shoulder with her thigh to move Cat aside. The doctor activated the medical scanner in her hand and gave a detached, professional report of Wulfe's injuries. The medical team worked with every drug and piece of equipment available to stabilize their captain and prepare him to be moved.

  "He's ready to go, Doctor." Moira set the anti-grav gurney into motion. "I'll have teams work with security to check for additional casualties on all other levels of the ship."

  Cat stood, found her legs shaking from reaction and dread. She wiped blood-sticky hands on the front of her uniform. Her stomach rolled only when she realized most of the dark red fluid belonged to Wulfe. He'd lost far too much. She watched them take her husband away. Would he be alive when she saw him again?

  "Mykal, once we know we're space-worthy, if we have a chance in the Underworld of taking that Mallochon vessel down, do it! I want that ship's commanding officer!"

  "Aye, Commander. Shields are already back on line. Our weapons will be soon. Life support is at minimum function."

  "Help Wheeler coordinate other emergency repair efforts."

  "Aye."

  "The children--" She wanted to see them herself, hold them, comfort them, kiss away the bruises and the fright.

  "Two of my security people are assisting Nurse Fallon. The children are unharmed and quite calm. You have no cause for concern, Commander. Go with the captain. He needs you the most right now."

  No. Cat shook her head. She wanted a few minutes to reassure herself that Garrett and Morgan, the other ten children and dear Fallon, had come through unscathed. They needed her familiar touch, her familiar voice. She needed them even more.

  ALBRIGHT SCRUBBED a hand over her tired-looking blue eyes and blinked a couple of times before meeting Cat's steady
gaze. "I'm not going to kid you. If we hadn't had the most sophisticated equipment available, the captain never would have survived. Then again, you and Mykal are the ones who kept him alive long enough for me to do my job."

  "Tell me everything."

  "The autohealer is mending his broken leg and shoulder. The surgihealer is repairing the damage to his internal organs. The liver, spleen, his lungs and a kidney all received grave injuries. Most of the head trauma has been treated to my satisfaction."

  "Most?" A little word with painfully huge consequences.

  "I've done everything possible for the head injury, but the captain isn't responding the way I feel he should be."

  Cat took an unsteady breath. Could brain injury be the reason she couldn't sense Wulfe? No, their connection was as much emotional as mental, and Wulfe's trauma couldn't begin to explain why she no longer sensed Garrett's emotions or presence. Though her connection to her son hadn't had time to deepen as the one with Wulfe had, the loss created a void all its own.

  She felt isolated and, for one of the few times in her life, uncertain what to do next or how to solve the problem. To make matters worse, her empathic abilities seemed to have forsaken her, as well. She'd come to realize, bit by bit after leaving the shuttle bay and shock had worn off, that she couldn't sense surface emotions from any of the people around her, something she'd relied upon most of her life.

  Cat debated telling Albright, decided against doing so. The doctor already had enough on her plate with the influx of crew injuries on top of Wulfe's critical condition. "How soon before my husband wakes?"

  "He should have done so by now."

  "Thought so." The doctor's words made her face what she feared the most. Wulfe might not wake up at all.

  "How about you? You didn't come through this unscathed."

  "I think one of the medtechs patched up my knee and the cuts. I can't remember for sure. I'm fit for duty, and that's what counts." Cat pressed her left forearm under breasts grown full and painful with the need to nurse Garrett.

  Albright, ever observant, noted the gesture. "Catherine, why don't you go see to Morgan and the baby's needs? I'll find you if the least little thing changes here. I promise."

  Cat found Morgan huddled in her bed, the forgotten doll clutched to her chest. Garrett's restlessness and Fallon's inability to soothe him confirmed his need to nurse. Cat held Garrett in her left arm to feed him, pulled Morgan close to her right side so that they all touched. She looked deep into Garrett's eyes before he grew sleepy and almost whimpered when she failed to reforge the mental connection that had been lost.

  After a half hour with the children, Cat sent them off with Fallon. Outwardly, the young nurse seemed to be handling the aftermath of the attack well enough, but her tortoiseshell-colored eyes held elements of lingering fear. Cat hoped adherence to routine would reassure Morgan and keep both the girl and Fallon calm. With his stomach full, Garrett somehow managed to sleep through chaos.

  Physically, Cat felt better after nursing Garrett, but the missing connection left her emotionally bereft. Her failure to reestablish the budding link with Garrett infuriated and unnerved her.

  Maybe routine wasn't such a bad idea. Cat decided to return to her own duties.

  Erich Wheeler showed up at the door to the family quarters as she was on her way out. She'd never seen his compulsively short brown hair appear so disheveled. Even in the last few weeks when his behavior seemed to go from simply unique to eccentric, he'd maintained the regulation-cut style. "How rough are things looking for us, Erich?"

  "All the injuries have been managed; reports indicate up to seventy-five people on that list. We lost fourteen people in the launched shuttle, six more from the shuttles still in the bay and one technician who was crushed in a collapsed maintenance tunnel on the starboard side." His eyelids flickered over hazel eyes, his gaze roaming the common area of the captain's quarters.

  Cat guessed he looked for the children's nurse. "Don't worry about Fallon. She's fine and is with the children, keeping them calm."

  "Good, good. Sickbay tells me the captain is still out of commission. No sign of the Mallochon vessel after she shrouded. Ghosting ships are impossible to find. Repair crews have patched everything together. Everything but the shuttle bay, that is. We're looking at a lot of repair time. What a mess."

  Cat remembered her first panicked glimpse of the damage and shuddered. She had no desire even to think about the horror. "Maybe now is a good time to reconsider our plans for the bay."

  "What do you mean, Commander?"

  "We planned to convert the bay, and several of the lower levels, for that matter. Most of the dismantling has been done for us. Instead of stopping at battle cruiser ability, we should do a complete refit, go straight to warcruiser status. It'll come to that, anyway. Doing so now makes the best use of our enforced downtime and will save us days in the long run."

  "That's not your decision to make, is it?" Wheeler's lips trembled with his anger. "You may be the captain's wife, but don't forget I am his first officer. I'm in charge until Captain Kincade is ready to resume his duties."

  Wheeler had seemed insecure in his position as first officer since her arrival. Now that lack of confidence aggrandized. His attitude chilled her, especially when she had no way of knowing what he truly felt about the situation. Like trying to read without knowing the language. She'd relied on her empathic talent, reading surface emotions, more than she realized.

  "Wulfe won't be standing down long enough for you to get comfortable in the position, Erich. You won't have time to lower the big chair enough so your feet can reach the floor."

  Wheeler scowled at her. "Under the circumstance, I think it best for everyone if I relieve you of duty, Commander Culver."

  "You truly don't want to do that." She'd lost her empathic abilities and her links to Wulfe and Garrett. Without duty to keep her sane, Cat doubted she'd be able to hold everything else together. If one more disaster occurred, she'd go irretrievably space mad. A possibility, under the circumstances.

  "I've already done it. By the way, two other Space Corps ships are searching for the Mallochon vessel that attacked us, so keep your Bellon buddy, Lyon, off my back."

  "If I'm relieved of duty, I can hardly issue orders to Lieutenant Lyon, now can I?" Anger drove her now, hot and volatile. How dare he endanger the people around him? She could handle Wheeler's animosity, but when his actions affected the crew or the ship, she knew she needed to be ready to step in. And squash Wheeler in the process, if need be.

  "Don't get cute on me, Catherine. Keep Lyon at a distance, a far quiet distance, or I'll transfer him out on the next freighter doing deep space duty and he'll never see the inside of the Falchion again. Do you understand me?"

  "Every word, Commander Wheeler. Every single word." She couldn't allow this situation to get out of hand. Cat softened her tone, hoping to foster some sort of an understanding between them, if only for the sake of the crew. She needed Wheeler to take care of Wulfe's ship while she tended to Wulfe and their children. "Have you given thought to a memorial service for the people we lost?"

  "What? Oh, right." His trim, athletic body seemed to shrink in on itself, sweat beaded his brow. "I'll arrange for some kind of observance at the beginning of day watch."

  "Good. With Wulfe out of commission, it's your responsibility to send personal condolences to their families, too."

  An expression of dismay flashed across Wheeler's face and disappeared. "I don't need you or anyone else to remind me of my duties."

  "I didn't say you did."

  Cat resigned herself to the fact she couldn't bloody trust Wheeler to handle the crisis with any degree of competency. She stuffed her anger and resentment toward Wheeler into a hard little ball in the pit of her stomach, then tried to ignore the lump. Wheeler might be reacting out of fear or shock, but without her empathic ability to rely on, she had no way to be certain. She couldn't take the chance.

  Cat waited only until the door
closed behind the executive officer. "Computer, open secure channel, authorization Culver-epsilon-omega, match and verify voice print. Establish communication link with Admiral Roy Flemming, scrambled, his eyes only."

  Stand by.

  `Catherine?'

  "Roy. Glad I caught you."

  Flemming, one of the highest ranked Covert Specialists operatives in the Corps, smiled at her. The deep, familiar creases in his ebony face immediately made her feel better.

  `I haven't had the opportunity to tell you how pleased I am that your parents were safely rescued from their Mallochon kidnappers. Cass and Hawke did an excellent job with that. Nor have I had the chance to offer my congratulations on the recent birth of your son.'

  "Your sentiments are appreciated."

  `How's the proud daddy?'

  Cat buried her pain, hid the worry, and filled Flemming in on the facts. All except the severed links and her missing ability to read emotions. She kept her voice steady and inflection-free. Cat valued his input--after all, that's why she'd recruited him to Covert Corps--and didn't want to influence his opinion.

  `Wheeler actually relieved you of duty? Ridiculous! That explains why I haven't seen a report detailing the attack. Wheeler's afraid someone like ol' gray-haired me will step in.'

  "Maybe. I'm not sure exactly what Wheeler's up to."

  `I believe you're right about the warcruiser status, but it'll be a scramble to pull all the loose ends together. The League hasn't had two-man fighters for more than a century. The fighter pilots are slated for several weeks of training yet.'

  "After this last attack, do you truly think we have weeks? I don't. Give us the pilots. Lyon and I will train them while the Falchion is refitted and repaired. We could well have to give them on-the-job experience." War: an ugly word, an uglier reality. A blasphemous thought from a Bellon, but heartfelt.

  Flemming paused, his brows scrunched together. `Well, they're your people, a mixture of Fullbloods, Halfbloods, or even less, but all Bellons to one degree or another. They'd probably shape up faster with you and Lyon rather than with our instructors here. That leaves a problem by the name of Wheeler.'