Gabriel's Ghost

by Linnea Sinclair

  I sat in the chair I’d been swiveling. “But you have, in the past.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “On the Karn, when Ren was dying?” he asked when he opened them. “Yes. And on Dock Five, to protect you from Trel. Circumstances left me no choice. But I told you on Dock Five, as soon as I could. To do otherwise would be repulsive to me. And as much an insult to myself as to you.”

  I nodded.

  “So,” he said, “did you accept his offer?”

  The ready-room doors swooshed open as I started to answer. Jodey Bralford strode in, a datapad in his hand, a grim expression on his face.

  “This just came in.” He held up the datapad. “Phil—Captain Guthrie said you should see it.” He darted a glance to Sully. It was the first time he’d looked at him since coming into the room. “Both of you.”

  “Trouble?” I swiveled, stood.

  “Darius Tage, First Barrister Darius Tage, just released a statement.” He stressed the man’s title but he didn’t have to. I knew the name. Everyone in the Empire knew the name of Prew’s venerable senior adviser. And a longtime family friend of the Guthries. The man who could clear my name. Who might even be able to return to Sully his rightful inheritance.

  Jodey shoved the datapad toward me. “Son of a bitch has come out in solid support of Hayden Burke.”

  38

  “Tage?” I plopped back down in the chair, disbelief and dread churning through me.

  “Cousin Hayden’s pulling in favors.” Sully’s voice held a distinct sneer.

  “So it seems,” Jodey said. “You’d better read it.”

  Tage’s statement quoted an independent investigation confirming rumors that the mercenary outlaw, Gabriel Ross Sullivan, had faked his own death two years prior. Sullivan was described as dangerous and delusional, and new information now revealed he was a known honeylace addict with violent tendencies.

  It was believed he was behind the recent terrorist activities on Marker, not only assisting the Farosians but in a personal vendetta against his cousin, Hayden Burke.

  There was no mention that Sully might also be a Kyi-Ragkiril. It was possible Tage and Burke didn’t know. Lazlo, Berri Solaria, and most of the other Crossley Burke operatives were dead or in custody. There was no one to inform Burke of his cousin’s abilities.

  But Burke owned people, possibly people still on Marker. He’d damned near owned my brother. It was also possible that Burke knew but was just waiting for the right time to reveal it.

  “They’ll be looking for you,” Jodey said.

  Sully arched one dark eyebrow. “Hayden’s been looking for me for two years. He’s found me only because I felt it was time.”

  “But Tage?” I turned toward Jodey. “Why would Darius Tage ally with Burke?”

  “We don’t know.” Jodey sounded distinctly troubled. I knew he was speaking for Philip as well. “But maybe it’s time to tell you what we do know.” He paused. “Something very ugly is happening in the Empire. It’s one of the reasons I accepted the command of the Nowicki. We need the right people in command of the Fleet.”

  Jodey’s tone disturbed me almost as much as my frisson of fear had earlier. “What are you saying?”

  He sighed, ran his hand through his short-cropped dark hair. “I’m saying that one of the first things Philip told me when I saw him in Marker’s med-station a few hours ago, was: ‘It’s started.’ ”

  “But he didn’t know about Burke. When Thad told him—”

  “We didn’t know who. Or rather, we didn’t know which of several ‘whos’ have been behind an undercurrent we’ve been aware of for some time. Burke was on the list, yes, but there were others we felt would make a move first.”

  Sully nodded, clearly understanding more than I did.

  “What kind of move?” I thought of the usual political power struggles that had dotted the news vids over the years. Ego contests, in my opinion. Nothing like this, nothing like Jodey was intimating.

  “It goes back to the Boundary Wars. Promises were made about mining rights, trade rights, succession in power that would in effect remove much of the control from the councils. Some of those promises were kept. But some weren’t.”

  That I had seen. It was something my mother often commented on. The councils had become ineffectual. It was something Sully had noted: the Rim Worlds were disproportionately rife with suffering.

  “Burke’s charged with enforcing those promises?” That didn’t seem possible, not even for Hayden Burke.

  “We don’t have all the facts yet. Our sources,” and he grimaced wryly, “keep mysteriously dying. But Burke’s father was on one of the original committees.” He shot a glance at Sully. “So was Winthrop Sullivan.”

  “I don’t share my father’s political allegiances.”

  But Hayden Burke did. And had the money to fund his beliefs. Starting with the jukor labs. Which both Crossley Burke’s and Tage’s statements referred to as illegal weapons laboratories created by Farosian supporter Zabur Lazlo. No mention of jukors. No proof of jukors, thanks to Sully’s firebombs.

  Only the data on its way to Drogue—data that my brother and Philip also had. But data could be altered, faked. I knew that firsthand from my trial. Odd that the very people who’d ruined my career would now use the same defense I’d tried to. I had a feeling they’d be much more successful than I had been.

  “This list of yours.” Sully pulled the datapad toward him but didn’t look at it. “I take it Darius Tage wasn’t on it.”

  Jodey shook his head slowly. “Not only was he not on it, he knew about it. He knew about our suspicions. He was one of the people we thought we could trust.”

  Silence followed Jodey’s pronouncement. The ready room felt suddenly cold, as if wrapped in sheets of ice. Tage had also been one of the people Philip had talked to about my transfer off Moabar. A sick feeling settled in my stomach.

  Sully clenched his right hand into a tight fist. “How much does Tage know?”

  “We thought he shared our goals. A more equal distribution of power, more control to the councils.”

  “How much does Tage know?” He leaned toward Jodey.

  Jodey’s mouth was a tight line. “Everything.”

  The only good piece of news came about an hour later. The Boru Karn responded to one of Sully’s coded hails. At top speeds, she was less than an hour from us. Using the ready room’s main screen, Sully briefly brought Marsh up to date. Gregor was off shift.

  “We were tagged but we lost them,” Marsh said. Two ships of unknown origin, bristling with weapons, had challenged the Karn but were unable to complete a capture. I remembered the feeling. Sully’s ghost ship had a well-earned reputation.

  Sully uploaded the data he’d taken from the jukor labs to the Karn’s banks, then we traded coordinates and set up a meetpoint.

  Marsh signed off with “Good to know everyone’s in one piece.” I wished Sully’s telepathy worked over long distances. It seemed to me that some of Marsh’s antagonism was gone. But I knew I might just be reading more into a perfunctory phrase than was actually there because returning to the hostile environment we’d left on the Karn was more than I wanted to handle right now.

  Jodey’s broad face furrowed in worry as he stood by the ready-room door. “I’ll inform navigation, code the course change myself. I have bridge crew stripped down to a minimum. There’s too much at risk.”

  More than just my life, Sully’s, Ren’s, or Verno’s. Everyone who’d helped us, if Tage was able to convince the Admirals’ Council that Philip Guthrie and the Morgan Loviti had assisted Farosian terrorist Gabriel Ross Sullivan.

  That was the only thing Jodey felt fairly sure Tage didn’t know yet. They’d intended to contact the first barrister’s office once we came on board, but Philip would have to be the one to do that, and he was in sick bay. The Loviti’s departure had been unremarkable, and—other than the fact that her captain and a pinnace pilot had been injured in a “shuttle-bay explosion”—without i
ncident.

  We could only guess at what Burke knew from his sources on Marker. Which meant Thad’s life, too, was in danger.

  “Your brother’s a smart man, Captain Bergren.” Jodey stopped in the opening doorway. “But you know Captain Guthrie and I will do all we can. There are still people we can trust.”

  Then Sully and I were alone for the first time since Jodey had burst in with news of Tage’s defection. Or, perhaps, revelation of which side he’d been on all along.

  “Did we accomplish anything, other than placing more innocent people in harm’s way?” I asked after the doors closed.

  “Guthrie’s far from innocent. He knows how this game is played. He’s tracked it probably as long as I have. Just from a different angle.” He shook his head slightly, his mouth twisting as if the thought for some reason amused him. But not pleasantly so.

  “But did we accomplish anything? There’s a second lab somewhere.”

  “Not somewhere.” He tapped the datatab in his pocket. “We know where. Or rather, I know its most likely route.”

  I hadn’t had the chance to study the information Sully found. Didn’t know it was so specific. So workable. Hope blossomed. We could stop them. “A hospital ship?”

  “Not yet completed. With the Marker lab gone, they’ll put more energy into this. That’s how we’ll get them. And we will.” He covered my hand with his own. A tiny warmth trickled through our contact, fluttered up my arm.

  “Do we know who ‘them’ is, Sully?”

  “Some, though most names I saw were coded. I was more interested in the data on the second lab. We already know Hayden’s involved. But it might be worthwhile to compare lists with Guthrie. Though he might not like what he’d see on my—” He turned, the sound of the door sliding open stopping his words.

  I turned too, expecting Jodey with confirmation of our position relative to the Karn. But it wasn’t Jodey leaning in the doorway.

  “Philip!”

  He was in Fleet’s generic brown workout sweats, the soft sweatshirt unzippered, revealing a thin medimesh hugged to his torso. I couldn’t see the trail of med-broches on his arm covered by the long sleeve, but I suspected they were still there. His silver hair was mussed, his eyes shadowed. His mouth was a tight line, reflecting his physical pain.

  “You shouldn’t be out of sick bay!” I shoved myself to my feet, pulling my hand out from under Sully’s, and reached for him.

  “Doc Draper’s already tried that line. It didn’t work.” But he accepted my hand. I helped him into the chair next to mine. He waved me back down into my seat. “My first officer informs me we’re less than forty-five from meetpoint with your ship, Sullivan. That doesn’t give us a lot of time. You know about my error with Tage.”

  That was typical Philip. I highly doubted it was solely his error to trust Darius Tage. But I was surprised when Sully echoed that sentiment as well.

  “It’s one anyone would have made. He wasn’t on my list either.”

  “I think Thad Bergren and I have sufficiently muddied the Marker incident so that it will reflect only what Burke’s release stated: Farosian terrorists and an unstable Englarian nun attempted to sabotage Marker’s core and were killed when trying to use a Fleet pinnace to escape. There’s no record of your visit to Commander Bergren’s office. No record of your transfer to my ship. It will take Tage a lot of work to prove you were on Marker.”

  Because Philip had been our escort. There was no record of us passing through the security checkpoints in the corridor, only people’s memories. We could have easily been any two of the more than three hundred on board the Loviti, accompanying their captain back to the ship.

  But that had never been my worry. “How many people saw Sully in the shuttle bay?” Besides Thad and two of his officers, I could remember seeing at least three med-techs and a half dozen or more security. The word soul-stealer echoed viciously in my thoughts.

  “Enough. But there’ve been rumors of Stolorth support of the Farosians. That’s most likely how it’ll be remembered.”

  Sully leaned his forearms on the table. “Those same people saw Ren there,” he added in agreement.

  Philip nodded solemnly. “Now we have to talk about what will happen when your ship gets here.”

  Sully sat back slowly. “I take it you’re not interested in the navigational mechanics of its arrival.”

  “Chaz stays with me.”

  “Philip—”

  He held up one hand. “I’m asking you to let her go. I’m asking you because, first, the woman has her own mind and the right to use it. But second, I’m asking because you must know she’s safer with me. Burke knows you’re alive. He may even know what you are by now. Your family’s wealth aside, that gives him two reasons to kill you.”

  “The first has always been sufficient. He’s never managed to accomplish it.”

  “You’re willing to risk her life on that?”

  “Philip!”

  He ignored me. “You can offer her nothing but heartache. You’ll be fugitives. Welcomed only in places like Dock Five or the rim. My family has properties, places she’ll be safe. She’ll lack nothing.”

  I’d many times visited the Guthries’ palatial estates. He was right. Every luxury was there. But I’d walked away from luxury before. Wealth was a very cold bed partner. Besides, too much had happened to Chasidah Bergren since Moabar. Hell, since she’d been in command of the Meritorious. Even if Sully and I had never been more than partners in a cause—jukors breeding, Takas dying, and now the Empire I’d committed my life to infested with a vile corruption—that cause would make Philip’s silk sheets and expensive wines a mockery of everything I believed in, everything I was.

  “He doesn’t control me, Philip.” My voice was soft, but I remembered that tone of command Fleet had insisted we adopt, and I used it. “I am going back to the Karn.”

  Warmth, hope, relief surged through me. Sully wasn’t touching me, but it was as strong as if he was. I realized, suddenly, that he’d been totally absent from my thoughts, from my senses, save for that brief spike of fear when I’d talked to Philip in sick bay. And even then it had been withdrawn as quickly as it had appeared.

  That’s what had made me suddenly light-headed. Not that Sully was in my mind. But that he wasn’t. I’d become used to his reassuring presence, and when it hadn’t been there, I felt off balance.

  There was no way I could accept captaincy of the Loviti, though I doubted Darius Tage would approve of that now. There was no way I could accept Philip’s offer of protection, and all the luxuries as well. Because I’d lack the one thing I knew I could no longer live without. That wicked, wicked Sully smile.

  And the man, the Kyi-Ragkiril, it belonged to.

  “Chaz, listen to me.” Philip’s voice was strained.

  “Listen to me, Philip. The time has passed where any one person’s safety is more important than what we know has to be done. And you know this is me talking, not anyone else, because it’s a failing you’ve said I’ve had all along. I will not suffer injustice quietly. We’re faced with more than injustice, my friend.” And, yes, I felt Philip was my friend, perhaps for the first time in a very long time. “We’re faced with corruption, with a heinous misuse of power and with blatant murderers. And they’re running the government we know as the Empire.

  “I will not and cannot let that continue. And I won’t be shuttled off to one of your estates, like some fragile but useless piece of sculpture. There are things I can do. There are things Sully and I will do.” Destroying that second lab topped the list. “And we will do them best because we’re not a part of that government. We’re ghosts, Philip. They may think they see us, but they’ll never truly be sure. Because we’re ghosts.”

  Philip stared at me a long time, studying me, seeing again, perhaps, the young recruit he’d mentored in boot camp, the lieutenant he’d commanded on the Loviti. The woman he’d loved, married, and divorced. The woman he’d watched go to prison, who’d never once
looked back, never once flinched.

  And who had never backed away from what had to be done.

  He rose slowly, unsteadily, the pain on his face more than physical. But when he turned toward Sully, his blue eyes narrowed.

  “Anything happens to her, Sullivan, and I will tell Hayden Burke all I know about you. Hell, anything happens to my wife, and I’ll help your cousin kill you.”

  He turned, lurched unsteadily for the door, then plowed doggedly out into the corridor.

  39

  “Thank you,” Sully said softly, a heartbeat or two after the doors closed behind Philip. “For your faith in me.”

  I turned. I’d been staring at the closed doors, Philip’s parting threat in my mind. His words hadn’t seemed to bother Sully. He still leaned back in his chair, but his posture had changed from a defensive one—arms crossed over his chest when he’d been speaking to Philip—to a more relaxed one, with one elbow propped on the arm of his chair.

  “You don’t make it an easy task.” I thought of all the half-truths, the almost-lies that Sully layered around himself as a protective wall. And I reclaimed his hand when he offered it because, if I expected him to be honest with me, then I had to be honest with him. For all that I loved him—and I did, beyond all measure, as he’d once told me—part of me was angry over his deceptions and his usurping of my choice when he’d made me ky’sara to him. I wouldn’t have refused, but it would have been nice to have been asked. He needed to feel that, read that from me.

  He did, holding my hand, watching my whirlwind thoughts. “I tried to explain that what I offered you, what I wanted with you, was a very deep link. To say more … to have said I’m not only a telepath but a genetic mutant who can manipulate energy fields … For very selfish reasons, Chaz, I couldn’t. Not until I felt you knew me better. The legends of Eng’s soul-stealers are still too prevalent in our culture.”

  And frightful, like the paintings in the Englarian temples. “They’re not legends, are they?”