Authors: Marcella Burnard

Enemy Within (43 page)

BOOK: Enemy Within

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“Would you excuse us?” Eilod asked.

Bad.

“By your will, Your Majesty,” Dr. Annantra answered and left the room.

“Half-light,” Ari muttered in Claughwyth. The lights responded grudgingly, the glow coming up as if she might change her mind.

“Good,” Eilod said. The relief in her voice confused Ari.

Via a monumental effort of will, Ari forced her fingers to search out and press the bed controls to raise her head. Ari studied Eilod. The skin of the queen’s face looked too tight. Dark circles marred her eyes and lines of stress and unhappiness ringed her mouth.

Sympathy wrung through Ari. What the Three Hells had come apart while she’d slept? For all Ari knew, Eilod had come to tell her the Claugh, TFC, and Chekydran were busy fighting a three-way war.

“Empire safe?” Ari asked.

The tense set of the queen’s shoulders broke and she slumped.

“After everything that’s happened,” she replied shaking her head, “that’s the first question you think to ask me?”

Ari blinked.

Eilod sighed and slouched against the wall, a smile touching her features. “I don’t want to like you, Captain,” she said, “but you aren’t leaving me much choice.”

Ari’s grin felt weak. “Sorry.”

“Given that we both knew I’d contemplated having you assassinated, you’ll forgive me if I doubt it.”

Past tense. How nice.

“I’ll brief you,” Eilod said, the formal note vanishing from her voice. “We don’t have much time. It won’t surprise you that not even I can keep secrets from my spymaster and there are things the Councils are not prepared to apprise him of just yet.”

The queen shifted. “The strike team failed.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Eilod’s shrug said she’d accepted the loss of crew and subjects, but that she obviously still felt it. “The sonic disruptor wasn’t planted correctly. Our ship couldn’t hold station well enough to allow precision placement.”

“Didn’t matter,” Ari said. “They knew. Angelou was working with the Chekydran. They knew about my transponder and had anticipated us.”

Eilod nodded as if Ari had confirmed what she’d already suspected. “We were reeling when your father’s second in command insisted we try again.”

“Pietre?”

“He and Sindrivik bicker like an old married couple, but they are a formidable pair. They used the
Sen Ekir
.”

Of course. The
Sen Ekir
had been designed for precision station keeping. Granted, it had originally been for aerial surveys of research sites. It had never occurred to Ari that her father’s science ship might one day save her life.

“Colonel Turrel took in a recovery team,” she said. “He reported the Chekydran commander dead. You and Seaghdh?”

No. Some foreign and unwelcome part of her that had delighted in Hicci’s pain. Ari swallowed hard and croaked, “Yes.”

“Very thorough work,” she replied. “All mission objects were achieved, but we hadn’t gotten our people out when the second Chekydran cruiser brought weapons to bear on the ship we’d conquered.”

Ari grimaced. She should have known the aural net connected ships as well as individuals. Damn.

“The
Dagger
engaged, but with barely one quarter of the ship’s crew complement manning stations, we were ineffective.” She shook her head in remembered frustration. “Then your friends arrived to save the day.”

“My friends?”

“The
Balykkal
.”

That surprised a smile from Ari. “Xiao.”

“You’ve been in regen for several days,” Eilod warned. “I gather some drastic changes have taken place within the government structure of Tagreth Federated.”

The glance Ari shot the queen felt sharp, even to her. Before she could demand detail, Eilod’s gaze turned inward and she frowned.

“Acknowledged,” she said.

That’s when Ari noticed the tiny headset she wore. Eilod’s focus shifted back and she straightened and changed the subject.

“Information regarding your unique status has been brought to our attention, Captain,” she said.

Twelve Gods, she was back to queen-speak. “Unique status?” Ari scowled.

“The Empire of the Claugh nib Dovvyth wishes to extend a formal offer of sanctuary. As we are a collection of varied races and misfits, we are best qualified to offer both the protection of the Empire and . . .”

And what? Asylum in the form of another prison? Given what Ari was, what she’d done, wasn’t that the safest place for her? For everyone else, she meant. Plague carrier, mental assassin, experiment. She was a genetically engineered species of her mother’s making, but it was Hicci who’d forced Ari to destroy her last claim to humanity.

Eilod broke off and turned her head slightly to the side where she wore the headset. Listening. “Send him in.”

Ari’s heart jumped in anticipation, then crashed when the door opened.

V’kyrri, good humor notably absent from his expression, stared at her as he edged in the door. Everything Ari had picked from Angelou’s mind about the double agent played in her head.

“You’re still alive.” Surprise pulled the words from her before she could stuff them back down her throat. Dread pounded through Ari. Damn it all. She liked him. She’d trusted him.

He paled. “I’d prefer that not sound like a problem.”

Ari closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, grateful to find she could. “Twelve Gods, V’k.”

“You dreamed,” he said in a rush. “Damned horrific nightmares. I had to ask them to move you to a shielded bay. Point is I think I starred in a few of those dreams.”

Opening her eyes, Ari stared at him. He’d read her while she’d been in a medically induced coma and stuck in regen? Given what she knew, why was she still alive? Shielded bay. Meaning that if she tried mentally to reach Seaghdh for help, he wouldn’t hear. Ari glanced at Eilod, who watched the byplay with an assessing gaze.

She’d stationed her bodyguards outside the door. If Ari told her that V’kyrri had supplied Angelou with inside information, what would keep V’k from harming the queen? Unless Ari could reach and stop him while they were both inside a shielded bay.

“You know my CO was colluding with the Chekydran?” she asked.

V’kyrri’s expression lightened the tiniest bit. “He’s been captured. His court-martial is scheduled for next month, but there’s some argument coming out of TFC about his fitness to stand trial. Go on, please.”

“He was captured because I got inside his head and made him send his entire data store to Intelligence Command.”

Looking staggered, V’kyrri shot a glance at Eilod. “Inside his head? While . . . ?”

“While I laid on the floor of a Chekydran interrogation chamber bleeding? Yes. I learned a great deal while in his head, V’kyrri. Do I have to say it? Or . . .”

Eilod and V’kyrri traded so discomfited a look, Ari shut her mouth and forced herself to reparse her information. She had to factor in the roar building outside her door. Seaghdh. Eilod’s Auhrnok Riorchjan. Shielded room or no, Ari felt him. Her pulse thumped and her breath came faster.

The door snapped open and Cullin Seaghdh, thinner, a new scar lining one cheek, barreled into the room. “Twelve Gods!” he swore, his voice trembling as he stared at her, raw anguish and need stark in his gaze.

“You Carozziel slime-bats,” Ari growled, glaring between Seaghdh, Eilod, and V’kyrri as pieces suddenly shifted in her head and fell into a new pattern.

Seaghdh drew up short, desperation and fear growing in his golden eyes.

“You let me think V’kyrri was a traitor!” she shouted.

CHAPTER 30

V’KYRRI
burst out laughing.

Eilod shook her head.

Swearing, Ari glared at Seaghdh’s cocky grin. It made complete tactical sense. When an enemy looks for inside information, plant someone to provide it in controlled quality and quantity. Seaghdh’s execution had been so flawless, not even Angelou had suspected he’d harbored a double agent.

Lesson one for the newly aware telepath. Just because you’re inside someone else’s head doesn’t mean he or she or it has any better a lock on the truth than you.

V’kyrri regained his composure, crossed the little bay, and patted her hand. “Very nice work, Captain,” he said, his humor firmly in place. “We’ll get you some training once you’re back on your feet. First thing, we’ll teach you how to shut it all off when you don’t want to read or be read.”

Ari studied him, seeing the traces of long recovery in his shadowed eyes and nodded. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, V’k. Alive or dead. Glad I was wrong.”

“Me, too,” he said. “It was a near thing. For both of us.” He turned to go but paused at the door. “Your Majesty.”

“Dismissed, Mr. V’kyrri,” Eilod said. “Thank you for your service.”

Service? What service? Confirming that she’d influenced and nearly destroyed a man two sectors away? Baxt’k.

Seaghdh closed in beside her and covered her hand with his.

Warmth eased through her tense body. She glanced at him. All traces of emotion had vanished. He’d shuttered his expression with a studiously neutral mask that told Ari nothing. There was so much she still needed to know.

“Ari.” The caress he made of her name sent a tremor through her before he pressed even his tone under iron control. “IntCom has hounded us every hour of every day since the destruction of the two Chekydran cruisers.”

She felt a grim smile on her face. “Did you let them debrief you?”

“I let them try.”

Laughing hurt and made her cough, which hurt worse. She wrapped her arms around her aching ribs and gasped for breath.

“Get the doctor,” Ari heard Eilod instruct.

Ari tried to wave her off.

She ignored it.

Dr. Annantra strode into the room, shoved Seaghdh to one side, and pressed a series of buttons.

Pain vanished, but so did most of Ari’s motor control. She collapsed back against the bed and huffed.

“I could put you back in regeneration,” Dr. Annantra threatened, studying readings and the tubes running to Ari’s left arm. “Your father would love the opportunity to put in another nutrient tube. He’s out of practice.”

“Stop. You’re scaring me,” Ari grumbled, suppressing the question of just how Dr. Annantra knew so much about her father’s technique.

Seaghdh’s expression remained impassive but his eyes danced.

“Can she talk to IntCom?” Eilod demanded.

“Yes,” Ari said over the top of Dr. Annantra’s considering expression. It had occurred to Ari that the past several minutes had been a test to see whether or not she represented unacceptable risk. The Claugh needed to know whether she could be trusted. She had no way of knowing how she’d scored. Ari didn’t trust herself. How could they?

She needed data. Just so happened, that was IntCom’s specialty. Could she trust her own government to give her anything useful?

“One more thing, Captain,” Eilod said, “before I patch Director Durante of Intelligence Command through. Captain Xiao of the
Balykkal
has asked for status regarding your investigation into the attack on Kebgra.”

Swearing, Ari nodded. Yet another test of what she’d accomplished or of what she was willing to admit? “Target ID’d and neutralized.”

Eilod scowled. “Angelou gave the order to murder those colonists.”

“I was his target, but yes.”

“I’m sorry there’s anything left of him to court-martial,” she growled. “I will inform Captain Xiao. IntCom on your screen in three.”

“May I see my father for a moment first?” Ari hesitated. “Alone?”

Seaghdh’s head came up and she glanced at him. His gaze searched her face, but still he gave her nothing to see, no hint of what he thought, what he wanted, and every tendril she sent out to sense his emotions bounced right back to her. Was that the room? Or the medications?

“Of course, Captain,” Eilod said. “Auhrnok? Will you join me?”

The queen stood in the open doorway, waiting pointedly for Seaghdh.

“Ari . . .”

“Cullin,” his cousin cut him off.

He blinked, pressed his lips tight, and stalked from the room. Eilod, her expression unsettled, followed him as Ari’s father strode to her side and took her hand.

Dr. Annantra smiled. “I’ll leave you. Exercise some judgment, Captain, please? You are not cleared for duty. Of any kind.”

“She will,” her father said.

Ari rolled her eyes.

“Oh. Captain.” The woman paused in the doorway. She held up a bit of round metal.

Ari couldn’t identify it. Frowning in confusion, she shook her head and glanced at the woman’s face for a clue. The sparkle in the doctor’s brown eyes and her self-satisfied grin set off a burst of awareness.

“The transponder?” Ari breathed.

“The very thing,” Annantra replied, beaming, and quit the room.

After everything, Seaghdh had authorized the removal of the last fail-safe he might have? Or did he simply not realize what she’d become?

BOOK: Enemy Within

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