The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy (14 page)

the four view screens showing front, back, left and right of the craft.

Status lights flashed as the ship performed its systems checks. The instruments on the left monitored engineering, showing fuel, shields, hull integrity and life support readings. All green and ready to go. The last journey had hardly dented the supply of anti-matter. On the right she recognized sensor data, short range and long range, and what looked like weapons. At least, she’d seen missiles on holovids.

Brad glanced over the console in front of him. “Allysha, can you initiate engine ignition?”

“Um… More information?” Way out of her comfort zone. She went over to the engineering station.

“There’ll be a warm-up for both engines. Shouldn’t be more than one button. Ah, here it is.” He leant over her and turned a dial. The engines began to hum. He squeezed her shoulder, sat down again and

started setting the navigation systems.

“This thing is armed,” Allysha said, sitting down in front of the weapons arrays.

He glanced at her. “Yes. Armed luxury cruiser. At least we’ll be comfortable.”

The harness clicked into place over her shoulders and knees. While he scanned the outside screens, she stared at his profile. He looked hard and uncompromising; probably the sort of look his soldiers were used to. Or maybe it was reserved for unsuitable married women. Oh, buckrats, she hoped it wasn’t.

The ship lifted off the pad and gained height rapidly, rising through the thick cloud into clear air. To the right, the galactic core blazed, surrounded by its corona of attendant stars.

“They’ve launched pursuit,” he said. “Move over to the engineering station and try to follow my

commands.”

She shifted, hanging on to the seat backs to compensate for the angle of the deck.

“Put maximum power on the aft shields. That’s the top row of controls. Push them up. And then find the rear thrusters and set them to full.”

Boy, was this a fast learning curve. Allysha pulled up the schematic of the control panel from the ship’s user manual. Aft shields… yep, top right. Push the little lever. Rear thrusters… bottom right. The power gauges surged.

She turned to look at the view screens. The rear view showed Tisyphor, a shadow with an arc of

brightness where the sun still shone, hanging against the black of space. A red dot approached from the darkness, coming fast and gaining. Van Tongeren’s R-400, complete with missiles. The front view

showed a yellow rectangle hanging in orbit beyond the larger moon. The jump gate. Her heart began to

thump a little harder.

“Return to the landing platform or be destroyed.”The voice hissed over the speakers, not someone she

knew. Nerves sparked through her. Destroyed?

“Talk to them,” Brad said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. I don’t think they’re wanting to destroy you.”

She opened a channel. “The job’s finished. I’m going home.”

“Is thatMiss Marten?” She’d startled them. He sounded uncertain.

“Who did you think? The festive fairy?” But tingles raced up and down every nerve in her body.Please

be right, Brad .

Brad grinned. “We’ll be fine. But put all power on the rear shields. Top left levers.”

She pushed the levers up, hoping he was right. Though how he could be so sure she didn’t know. Either way, the R-400 was closing the distance. But the gate was closer. She could even see it, glittering in the rays of Tisyphor’s sun.

A status light flashed and words snaked across the bottom of the screen. “Approaching Jump Gate.”

The markers on the perimeters of the gate began to blink; two flashes, a pause, two flashes, red to the left, green to the right, white pulses along the top and bottom.

Status changed. “Gate entry locked on.”

The ship swept between the lights. All sense of movement ceased. The view screen displayed nothing.

“Jump successful.”

The harness withdrew from her shoulders and legs and her seat tilted to upright.

Brad let out a deep breath and smiled at her. “That’s as close to flying manually as I ever want to get.”

“We were lucky to get away,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t think so. I doubt they’re in such a hurry to destroy you after going to all this trouble to collect you.”

“So what does that mean?”

“That we need to be careful. But more of that later. Tell me about Sean O’Reilly.”

Oh, buckrats. His face might as well have been a mask. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he approved, disapproved. But then, why should she be embarrassed? Lots of people had failed

marriages. “He’s my husband. You know we’re estranged. Marriages don’t last forever.”

“Help me to understand, Allysha. Why were you here with him at all?”

“He was in trouble – financial trouble. I agreed to do this one last job with him and then that was it, divorce.”

Still nothing. He’d steepled his hands, one elbow on each armrest.

“We’ve been married for seven years. It was fine for a time, then a couple of years ago he started

staying out, drinking too much.”

He’d always drunk too much. She’d been sure she could change him. So sure.

“I found out a while ago he was gambling. I paid off his debts and he swore to me he’d stop. I told him if he kept on the way he was, I’d kick him out. And as far as I knew, he did stop gambling and if he had affairs he kept them secret. Then, to cut a long story short, I came back from the job I did on Brjyl a day early. I caught him in bed with some blonde bimbo—in my bed, in my house. I threw them both out.”

Just the thought of it made her blood boil. Two-timing, devious bastard. After all she’d done for him.

“But you came here with him,” Brad said.

“Yeah. He came back three days later and said he’d gotten himself into debt with the local ptorix crime boss, a very nasty gangster called Bronx. The debt was huge, much larger than I could have managed.

So then he said what about that Tisyphor job? He’d mentioned it before, you see, and I hadn’t been

interested. It seemed easy enough, stuff I’d done before.”

She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. How could she have been so bloody gullible?

“Allysha, why didn’t you just leave him to it? It was his debt, not yours.”

“No. You don’t understand. Ptorix law doesn’t work like that. Sean owed so his family owed.

Especially if you’re talking about a thug like Bronx. You owe him and you don’t pay, they fish your body out of the Ull river. Possibly in a variety of locations. He might be a lost cause but I didn’t want to see him dead. Or me.”

“Do you still care about him?”

“Are you kidding me? Do I look like such a complete dimwit? He used me. I’ll never forgive him.

Never.” And if Brad Stone thought he was helping by making her admit she’d been a naive idiot he could think again. He’d dropped his hands, looked a little more relaxed.

“I noticed him a few times at the tavern with various women. I find it hard to imagine why you would

marry a man like him. He’s superficial, self-centered, a liar.”

Funny he should say that. Her father had said the same thing and so had Xanthor. But she’d fallen for him straight away and wouldn’t listen to a word against him.

“Do you? What do you know about him? He was good looking, charming, a great dancer, a damn good

engineer and he was good in bed. Things changed.” She found herself kneading her arm with one hand

and stopped.

“They do. And now he’s sold you. Like a commodity. You really have no idea what this Tepich person

wants of you?”

He didn’t have to be right, damn him. “No. Never heard of him.”

“When we reach Chollarc I’ll see what we can find out about him. And about O’Reilly.”

The way he said the name sent a tremor through her. “Sean? Why do you need to know about Sean?”

“You can’t marry me until you are no longer married to him.”

Allysha’s heart gave a little fillip. He still wanted to marry her. At the same time a tingle of doubt rose in her gut. Brad was ruthless with people who got in his way, like the guards. He hadn’t killed them but she had little doubt he would kill if he had to. She was over Sean but she didn’t want to see him hurt. Or dead.

“It just means a divorce.”

A slight smile. “Of course.”

She stared at him. Dark skin, black hair, eyes like black holes. When he was like this she couldn’t even begin to read him. What did she know about this man, after all? He could be an assassin, a murderer. He was certainly an agent of some sort; he’d said so. Except when he made love he was different. Then he was gentle, passionate and not very good at it; although he was very willing to learn. Warmth rose to her face at the memory. What words could she use? A contradiction, an enigma?

She connected to his implant. Brad Stone, retired Sergeant, never married, date of birth, service dates, promotions. She’d seen it all before. And you’d need an InfoDroid to change this sort of information on a human cranial implant. “Maybe it’s time you told me a bit more about you. Is your name even Brad

Stone?”

The background hum of the life support systems suddenly seemed very loud.

“For the time being, it’s best if we leave it at that. The less you know about me, the less you can tell.

Should it come to that.” He spoke softly and his eyes had lost that impenetrable hardness.

“So you can know all about me but I can’t know anything about you?”

“But I don’t know everything about you. Although I’m willing to learn. You constantly surprise me with new little tricks. Believe me, you’ll know everything about me. At the right time. All I’m asking is that for now, you accept me as I am. Brad Stone. Please, Allysha, trust me. I would never, ever hurt you. I love you.”

“What were you doing there, then? On Tisyphor?”

“What I told you. Trying to find out who is providing weapons to terrorists. I have a contact on Chollarc who got me the job on Tisyphor, tipped off that something was going on there. But he had no idea about the virus. That was new.”

“But why can’t I know who you are?”

“You do know who I am. More than any other woman. My name—if the worst happens and we are

captured, the less you know about me the better. When this is over, I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”

Riddles. Questions without answers. But he’d destroyed the virus. And without him, she’d be a prisoner, waiting to be taken off to wherever. Damn Sean to hell. Bastard. She wondered if he’d known about the virus.

“Allysha?”

She focused back on his face. His eyes pleaded now. He leaned toward her, palms visible. “Trust me.

Please. I love you.”

She rubbed her hand up and down the arm rest, aware of the flutter in her breast. She felt safe with him.

He’d promised to reveal all. What the hell. She had to trust somebody. And she could really use a

cuddle. She stood.

“I’m going to bed. Want to come?”

He cleared the space between them in a single stride.

Allysha slept, her head on Saahren’s shoulder, her arm draped across his chest. He listened to her

breathe and savored the scent of her hair. And that idiot O’Reilly had given her away? For the dubious delights of the likes of the tarts on Tisyphor? The man had to be stark, raving mad. Then again, perhaps he ought to be grateful. Without O’Reilly he wouldn’t have met her.

She stirred, muttered in her sleep and settled again. One of these days he’d have to tell her his name and maybe then his love life would be over.Face it, Saahren, you’re frightened. Yes, true. He’d have to find out what the problem was and try to fix it. But not just now. He still had the Qerran Crisis to resolve.

And he was beginning to think she might be able to help with that.

He awoke to the insistent beeping of an alarm. Allysha sat up, eyes wide. The sheet slipped off her

body, revealing her breast. He enjoyed the view.

“What’s wrong?” she said

“Nothing. We’re coming up to the jump gate for Chollarc. We have an hour. Plenty of time for a few

moments to ourselves.”

She smiled and lay down beside him again, her fingers sliding down his breastbone. “Oh, good.”

****

Once the ship had entered shift-space, the IS had taken over. An alarm would have sounded in the event of problems.

“I can’t understand why they wouldn’t have a talking IS,” Allysha said. She’d sat down at the

engineering station, fresh from the shower. The clean smell of her filled his nostrils.

“Too close to an intelligent machine, I suppose.”

“But it isn’t intelligent. An IS is programmed to put on an act to make people feel comfortable. It can’t really think. What’s really stupid is this ship could easily have a talking IS. The tech’s there, it just hasn’t been connected. All this stuff with buttons and dials is idiotic. The IS does all the work anyway.”

“Agreed, my love. But that’s their dogma. They call us machine men.”

She swiveled the seat to look at him.

“Why?”

“Because of our implants.” He pointed at his skull behind his left ear. “And our improved genome.”

She frowned, digesting that.

“I can sort of see why some people would have a thing about an implant, although I can’t imagine what I’d do without mine. But… who’d be against preventing diseases?”

“Them. They say it’s unnatural, against the will of God.”

“God. Right.” She shrugged. “Oh, well. To each his own.”

“But you can do much more with your implant than most, isn’t that so?”

She covered the wariness quickly. “What makes you say that?”

“You don’t need a keyboard, do you? You work with the IS with your mind.” He pointed a finger at his

own head.

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not possible.” But he’d seen the flicker in her eyes.

“Your eyes change when you’re working with the machine,” he said softly. “The keys you press are just for show. I’ve been watching you. When you’re looking for something your eyes lose focus. It’s as if