“We just have a few questions,” Galar told her.
“Why bother? You’re not going to believe anything I say anyway.”
Dyami lifted a dark brow. “Try us and see.”
She sighed. “I am not Xeran. I don’t work for the Xerans. The Xerans have tried to kill me twice. I’d think that pretty well says it all.”
Galar folded his powerful arms. “Then why is there Xeran genetic material in your cells?”
“I have no idea. I was born in 1983, and I’m pretty damn sure neither of my parents were Xerans.”
Galar leaned forward and fixed her in a hard, flat stare. “Did you tell the Xerans about our combat plans?”
Jess met his eyes without flinching. “No.”
He lifted a brow. “That’s it? Just no?”
“Well, I could point out that I have no way to contact the Xerans, even if they weren’t trying to kill me, and even if I didn’t think they’re all a bunch of psychos. I could also point out that I warned you yesterday’s mission was going to be a bloody disaster, and you ignored me.” Jess snapped her mouth closed to stop the flood of angry words.
Considering she was currently in a cell with a target painted on her back, she really couldn’t afford to vent her furious hurt.
He glared back at her. “You said you had a ’feeling.’”
“I told you,” she snarled back. “I saw you covered in blood. I begged you. Hell, I even seduced you trying to get you to stay with me. And all you said was that humans aren’t clairvoyant.”
“They’re not.” His golden eyes narrowed. “But maybe you did know. Maybe you knew because the Xerans told you.”
“Do you really think that?” She felt her chin begin to tremble and fought to steady it as she glared at him through stinging eyes. “Do you really think I could betray you and your people and let you walk into a buzz saw like that? You think I could know that your people were going to die—and do nothing? What the hell kind of monster do you think I am?”
“Jessica . . . ,” Dyami began, his tone placating, his eyes uneasy.
She ignored him, too angry and hurt to care what she revealed. “I made love to you, Galar. I don’t know what that means to your people, but I know what it means to me!”
“What did it mean to you, Jessica? Tlain and I made love dozens of times, and she still tried to kill me.”
“I’m not Tlain! Tlain was a sociopathic bitch, and she deserved what she got.”
“All right, enough,” Dyami growled, pushing away from the wall with an expression of distaste. “This isn’t an interrogation—it’s a lover’s quarrel.”
“For us to have a lover’s quarrel,” Jessica snarled bitterly, not looking away from Galar’s hot gaze, “he’d have to give a fuck.”
“Maybe if you’d given a fuck, Jiri and Ando wouldn’t be dead.”
Dyami clamped a grip on Galar’s shoulder and dragged him through the door. “I said enough.”
Dammit, Jessica thought as the two men vanished behind the trid field, I am not going to cry. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.
But he was, and she knew it.
Dyami hauled Galar into the corridor under the astonished gazes of Jess’s two Enforcer guards. “Dismissed,” he snapped, pushing Galar back against the wall.
The men turned and fled, apparently recognizing the chief’s dangerous expression.
Instinctively, Galar braced to military attention under his commander’s gaze. Heat flooded his cheeks. Kill that, he ordered his computer. His face cooled again, despite the shame scalding his thoughts.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Dyami said, with a slight, surprising smile. “I want my ice-cold Galar back.”
Ignoring that sally, Galar forced himself to meet the big man’s gaze. “She didn’t do it. She’s not a spy. You saw her reaction to what I said.”
“Yeah.” Dyami sighed. “You can’t fake sensor readings like that. So you were trying to goad her?”
“I wanted to eliminate any possibility she might be dissembling. ”
“Well, you did that.” The Chief Enforcer studied him. “You’ve established her innocence to my satisfaction—and presumably your own. Especially given that Chogan is now convinced that the psychically active parts of that foreign DNA are more alien than Xeran. So now what?”
“That’s up to you. Are you going to let her out?”
“And do what with her? It’s for damned sure she’s not going to want to go back to your quarters with you.”
Galar flinched slightly, knowing his commander was right. He’d hurt Jess badly. She might never forgive him for this night’s work. “There are other quarters than mine.”
“But she’s probably safest in the ones she’s in.”
“Granted, but do we want to leave her thinking she’s still facing espionage charges?” Galar hated the thought of her spending the night wrestling with that particular fear, especially on top of all the others she was dealing with. He remembered the bitter betrayal in her eyes and felt sick.
“Good point.” Frowning, he gave his jeweled braid an absent tug, eyeing Galar. “All right. I’ll turn her loose and get her a couple of bodyguards for the night. In the meantime, go get some sleep. You look like hell.”
Galar hesitated, then nodded wearily. He wanted to apologize to her, but he knew he’d probably be better off giving her some time to cool down. “Thanks, Chief Enforcer.”
Dyami waved him off. “Go. Sleep. And give yourself a break from the guilt. We’ll get this mess figured out and make those bastards pay.”
He managed another nod and turned away, knowing even as he started down the corridor that he’d be getting no sleep this night.
“Jessica?”
She looked up warily as Dyami stepped back into the cell. Tensing, she waited for Galar to follow.
The chief’s perceptive black eyes studied her. “I sent him back to his quarters. He looks like shit.”
Jess slumped in relief. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with another verbal acid bath from her former lover.
“You owe him, you know.”
Her head jerked up as she stared at Dyami in astonishment. “For what?” Ripping my heart out of my chest?
“Convincing me you’re not a Xeran spy, DNA or no DNA.” He leaned a brawny shoulder against the wall. “That was the whole point of that ugly little show of his, by the way. He knew if he goaded you enough, you’d demonstrate your honest outrage beyond even my capacity to doubt.”
“Wait—you’re saying he didn’t really mean those things?” The icy needle of pain lodged in her chest began to melt. “He doesn’t believe I’m a spy?”
Dyami shrugged. “I’m not saying he didn’t have his doubts. But he figured if he pissed you off enough, you’d show us the truth. And you did.” He shook his head. “Besides, the Xeran explanation never quite played for me anyway. Especially since Chogan now thinks that foreign DNA of yours isn’t just Xeran.”
Knotted muscles began to relax as relief flooded her. “So I’m no longer under arrest?” And Galar doesn’t believe I’m a spy!
“No, you’re cleared. As soon as your bodyguards get here, I’m sending you off with them.” He searched her face. “Would you like them to escort you to Galar’s quarters?”
She swallowed, contemplating the gossamer thread of hope growing in her heart. Yes, he’d hurt her, said things she was going to have a hard time forgiving. But if he’d been motivated by a desire to prove her innocence, she could understand that a bit better. “Let me think about that.”
“He’s a good man,” Dyami said softly. “A hard man in some ways. Certainly hard on himself. But I consider him someone I can count on. I think you can count on him too.”
“I think . . .” She took a slow, deep breath. “I think maybe you’re right.”
“Chief Enforcer?” The soft alto voice sounded as Dona Astryr stepped into the cell. “Reporting for duty, sir.”
“Ah, there you are.” Dyami nodded at Jes
sica. “Please escort Ms. Kelly wherever she wants to go.”
She rose to her feet. “I think I want to go to Master Enforcer Galar’s quarters, please.”
Dona nodded. “Of course.”
Her big, redheaded partner stepped into the cell, looming at her back. “It would be our pleasure,” Ivar Terje told her with a broad, charming smile.
Jessica, feeling almost giddy now, returned his grin. She stepped between the two agents and headed eagerly into the corridor.
She and Galar had a lot to talk about.
Jess strode along the hall, scarcely aware of the Enforcers trailing her.
The real key to this whole thing was Charlotte. Charlotte, whom Jess knew was a Xeran, Galar’s sensor readings notwithstanding. It was Charlotte who’d planted that Xeran genetic material in her cells, Charlotte who had been Marcin’s primary target. “Blood—I can smell her blood on you,” the Xeran had growled just before he’d stabbed her. “She’s made you one of them!”
Blood. That was where the Xeran genetic material had come from. But why had Charlotte given her that material? And what was its connection to Jessica’s new abilities?
Galar had said Xerans didn’t have such powers any more than humans did. And in truth, Jess had never seen any evidence that Charlotte had powers either. She’d always seemed like a perfectly ordinary person.
Yet Marcin had called Charlotte a dangerous heretic. He’d feared her, though presumably he could have broken her in two, at least physically.
Questions, Jess thought, frustrated. All I have is questions.
Questions. Charlotte had said something about questions once. What had it been again? Jess frowned, fighting to remember. They’d been looking at the painting Jess was working on. Charlotte had turned and given her an odd, piercing look. “This is the kind of painting you’ll find answers in, when you’re ready to look for them.”
She froze as her heart began to pound. It hadn’t been a casual comment. Charlotte had meant it literally.
There were many ways to store a message in a painting in the twenty-third century. Ways Charlotte, as a Xeran, would be fully aware of.
Jess needed to get her hands on that painting. Literally. Even if it meant she had to travel in time to do it.
Dona Astryr frowned in unease as she followed the primitive. The woman seemed lost in thought, less aware of her surroundings than Dona would have been in her shoes. Had she forgotten the Xerans wanted her dead?
But if Jessica was taking the threat lightly, Ivar definitely was not. Dona slanted a look at her lover. The big man strode along, his face impassive, but her sensors told her he was drawn tight as a bow under that professional facade. She’d fought alongside him long enough to know he was preparing for an attack.
What’s wrong? she commed to him, alarmed. Have you picked up something?
What? He shot her a look. No, nothing like that. Just making sure I’m ready if a threat does materialize.
Dona heaved a sigh of relief. Good. She turned to scan the approaching corridor junction.
Ivar struck in a merciless blur. One huge fist slammed into the side of her head, detonating an explosion of light and pain. Dona went flying, slamming headfirst into the wall in another burst of agonized stars. She hit the floor with a thud she barely felt.
His armored boots rang on the deck as he walked toward her. Get up get up get up! Tears of shock and pain stinging her eyes, Dona fought desperately to scramble away.
Ivar fisted one hand in her collar, grabbed her weapons belt with the other, picked her up, spun around, and rammed her headfirst into the opposite wall.
Everything went black.
Jess stood frozen in shock as Ivar dumped the body of his lover on the floor. Suddenly all too much was all too horribly clear. “It was you,” she blurted. “You’re the spy! You hacked the Outpost and the combot.”
He bared his teeth at her in a wild, chilling grin and flexed his massive hands. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been working for the Xerans for years.”
“You bastard, you got those Enforcers killed!” Her lips peeled back from her teeth as pure and bracing rage punctured her paralysis. Her hands curled into fists. “You sold out Galar!”
“And I’m going to kill you.” He lunged for her.
Jess tried to duck away, but he was just too damned fast for her. He swatted her like a mosquito, sending her spinning to the floor, stunned. Blood rolled hot from her nose, her mouth. Her jaw went numb.
“Galar!” She screamed it, roared the name in her mind, a desperate, terrified howl.
“Sorry, sweetheart, he can’t save you.” Ivar drew back a huge booted foot. “You’re dead.”
14
Jess watched that enormous boot swinging at her head, and knew it would shatter her skull. She threw herself into a roll and flung up her hand, focusing her fury, her desperation.
Crack!
The blast knocked Ivar stumbling backward to fall flat on his back.
She rolled to her feet and scrambled away. Her head swam.
“Bitch!” He reeled upright, blood covering his handsome face. Good. “You’re going to pay for that!”
He took a menacing step toward her. . . .
Dona grabbed his legs, wrapping herself desperately around his ankles. He went down again with a howl of fury. “Run!” the woman yelled, scrambling astride him to aim a furious punch at his face. “Get to safety!”
Safety. Was anywhere on the Outpost safe? What she needed was that damned painting. . . .
The flare of hot white light filled her eyes with a thunderous crack. Oh, shit, Jessica thought, realization dawning. What did I just . . .
Galar! The raw terror in the mental scream froze Galar in his tracks.
Then he whirled and started to run, racing down the corridor back toward the brig.
It had been Jessica’s voice in his mind. Jessica, who didn’t have a com implant, yet had just touched his thoughts with that mental howl.
Galar didn’t even bother thinking that telepathy just wasn’t possible. He’d already realized that terms like “impossible” did not apply to Jessica Kelly. Assuming she was still alive, since it sounded like somebody was trying to kill her. Again.
He rounded a corner to find two uniformed figures writhing on the floor, fists and feet swinging as they fought in the middle of the corridor.
Ivar and Dona? What the hell—? And where was Jess?
“Galar!” Dona yelled, her voice choked. “Ivar’s the spy!”
“No, it’s Dona!” Ivar’s fist cracked into her face with such violence, her head banged against the floor with a thud that echoed down the hall. The female Enforcer went limp under her partner’s big body. “She just tried to kill the primitive!”
Ivar rolled off her, panting. Galar’s sensors told him she’d been knocked cold by that last double impact of fist and floor.
“Where’s Jess?” he snapped.
Ivar shrugged his massive shoulders. “Ran off, I guess.”
Galar threw himself into a vicious spinning kick that slammed into Ivar’s jaw. The redhead went down like a felled ox. Before he could recover, Galar dragged him off the floor by his collar, drawing back a fist.
“Fuck.” The big man spat blood, staring at him, dazed. “How’d you know it was me?”
“I didn’t.” Galar slammed his fist into his face again. “But I do now.”
“How did you know?” Dona asked as they waited for the medtechs.
Galar shrugged, shaking his stinging hands as he sat astride the big man’s unconscious body. He’d just worked out quite a bit of frustration on Ivar’s rock-hard head. “I figured one or the other of you was the spy. Since you were already unconscious, I decided to knock Ivar out and sort out who was what later.”
“Ruthless of you,” she grunted, probing her swollen face delicately. “But effective.”
He pulled a set of force cables from his belt and started tying Ivar’s thick wrists together. “Did you see where Jess went?”
“I think—maybe she Jumped.” The female Enforcer frowned, looking uneasy.
“What?” Galar stared at her. “Where’d she get the T-suit?”
“She didn’t have one.” Dona shrugged. “Last I remember, Ivar was about to hit her. I tripped him and screamed at her to run. There was a flash and a sonic boom, and she was gone.”
“That’s . . .” He closed his teeth over the word “impossible. ” “Never mind, we’re talking about Jess. Apparently anything’s possible where she’s concerned.”
The question was, where the hell had she gone?
Jess’s legs buckled as she materialized, and she collapsed, knees hitting the thinly carpeted floor with a tear-inducing crack.
“Jesus H. Christ!” a female voice yelped, but Jess was otherwise occupied with the violent nausea and thundering headache that were currently vying for domination. Squeezing her eyes shut, she concentrated on breathing.
“Jess?” Ruby’s voice quavered with both stark terror and dawning hope.
Swallowing hard to contain her rebelling stomach, Jess opened her eyes.
Her sister was staring at her across the width of the single-wide trailer, half-cowering against the scarred, woodpaneled wall. Ruby was pale as skim milk, her red-rimmed eyes wide, her bloodless mouth pulled into an O of shock. Her painfully thin body trembled. For once, Jess didn’t think it was withdrawal.
“I’m not a ghost,” Jess rasped. “If that’s what you’re worrying about.”
“Where . . . ?” Ruby stuttered. “How . . . ? There was lightning. In my house!”
Oh, yeah. It wasn’t just the ghost thing. Ruby had just gotten her first up-close-and-personal taste of a temporal Jump. Between the sonic boom and the light show, it was a wonder she hadn’t run screaming from the trailer.
This was going to be a bitch to explain.
Jess cleared her throat. “Sorry about that.”
Ruby took a cautious step closer, her muscles coiled, as if ready to bolt. “Jess, the cops said . . . they said you were dead.”
“They were wrong.” Deciding her stomach was going to stay put after all, Jess rose wearily to her feet.
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