Warrior (6 page)

Thus, instead of getting cashiered for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty, he'd received a commendation.

Yet Galar had known he could no longer serve in Vardonese Military Intelligence. He couldn't risk another mistake that might destroy his parents' careers, so he'd sought a post as an Enforcer in the Galactic Union's Temporal Enforcement Agency. He'd spent the last decade working his way up the ranks.

Atoning for his gullibility.

As Galar strode
along the labyrinth of corridors toward the main briefing hall, he downloaded the Outpost's DNA results on the Xeran. He'd be expected to present a report on the night's events, and he needed to pin down a few more details.

A moment later, his heart sank. Seven Hells, it was worse than he'd thought.

He stalked into the main briefing hall with five minutes to spare. After ordering a cup of stimchai from the wall vendser, Galar dropped into one of the seats mounted on curving risers surrounding the central stage. The dark blue cushions shifted around his body, adjusting to his height and weight until the chair cradled him comfortably. He sipped his stimchai and brooded.

Fifty Enforcers of various ranks filled the seats around him. Most were either human or close enough to the root stock to fake it. A few, like Frieka, could pass themselves off as Terran animals. To work undercover as a time traveler on old Earth, you couldn't appear visibly alien.

“I did it! I finally got the murderous son of a bitch!”

Galar looked up as Enforcer Jiri Cadell half-danced up the aisle and threw herself into the seat next to him, a broad grin on her long, elegant face. Senior Enforcer Ando Cadell, looking tolerant, dropped beside her.

“It took me six hours of interrogation, but Usko Vappu finally admitted he killed all those women. The prick.” An expression of catlike satisfaction lit her tilted green eyes.

“She's going to be insufferable for at least a month.” Cadell rolled his eyes, but there was love in the smile he sent his wife. He was a big, broad-shouldered cyborg, a patient investigator who was painstaking rather than brilliant. Gray salted his brush-cut cobalt hair, though at seventy he was just barely middle aged.

“Nah.” Jiri folded her arms behind her head. “I figure this is worth a good two months of insufferability. At least.” She was fifteen years younger than her husband, fit and strongly muscled. There was no gray at all in her own long sable braid.

“All right, folks, quiet down.” Chief Enforcer Dyami stepped up to the massive transparent podium. “I want to get this briefing on the road.” He couldn't have had much more sleep than Galar, but he looked as fresh and bright-eyed as a recruiting trid.

Dyami ticked through the agenda with his usual efficiency. The Outpost mainframe spent its considerable computing power chewing over reams of data on historical crimes to determine which ones were likely to have been committed by time travelers. Each week it generated a list for Dyami's consideration. He, in turn, used the daily briefing to assign the most likely of those cases to various Enforcers, who would investigate further to determine whether some morally challenged Jumper had indeed been responsible. If not, it was up to officials of that particular time period to catch the perpetrator.

Next came the reports on confirmed temporal crimes. Jiri stood up to brief the group on her Jumpkiller investigation. Galar couldn't blame her for the obvious triumph in her voice. She'd worked the case for over a year before finally tracking Vappu down.

The Itaran, who made historical documentaries, had confessed to killing fifty-two women during Jumps spanning four centuries and three continents. Jiri curled a disgusted lip as she recounted the sick bastard's smug description of his crimes.

“The Galactic Union Temporal Prosecutor tells me Vappu'll spend the rest of his life on the Gorgon penal colony,” she finished with grim satisfaction. “May he rot there.”

As Jiri seated herself, her husband rose to recount his own progress. Ando was working a string of fires he believed had been set to cover up jewel heists. “I've found traces of twenty-third-century accelerants at each scene,” the Senior Enforcer said with a grim smile of satisfaction. “When I finally catch the dickhole, I should have no problem getting a conviction.”

Enforcer Clar Vanda was next, describing the murders of fifteen temporal tourists who'd gone to Philadelphia for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. All fifteen had been shot with a shard rifle—not exactly a weapon common in the eighteenth century. Their tour guide had gone on the run after looting their respective financial accounts. Vanda was working with Galactic Union Interstellar Investigations on tracking the woman down.

Finally Dyami gave Galar a faint nod, and he stood to report on his own case. He outlined the events of the night before in terse, pointedly unemotional terms. Even so, an angry mutter rumbled over the Enforcer crowd when he described the Xeran's knifing Riane.

Regen or no regen, nothing pissed off TE agents like an attack on their own. One rule had remained the same over the centuries: you kept your hands off law enforcement. If you didn't, they'd hunt you down like soji dragons after a snakebird.

“The Outpost computer has completed its analysis of the subject's DNA.” A three-dimensional image of the Xeran appeared in the center of the stage, twice life-sized, rotating slowly in the air as Galar spoke. He was a big bastard, of course—that went without saying. He had the aggressively masculine kind of face Xeran genetic engineers favored, all cheekbones and chin, so that his head sat on his thick neck like a stone block. His eyes were a demonic red, with thin slit pupils. Two sets of skull implants jutted from his shaved head, a larger pair curving out like a bull's horns, two shorter ones protruding from his forehead. Both were heavily engraved with fine, intricate designs in a glittering blood red.

Xerans had a taste for melodrama.

“Colonel Cyrek Marcin is a heavy combat battleborg with Xeran Interstellar Intelligence,” Galar said. “According to our own Galactic Union Interstellar Intelligence, he specializes in the assassination of political and military targets. GUII has been sending agents after him for years, but he keeps killing them.”

Dyami lifted a brow. “Yet our little artist stopped him in his tracks. Smart girl.”

“Lucky girl. Unfortunately, that kind of luck doesn't last. And I have a feeling he's not after her because she paints very expensive, very pretty pictures. This isn't a simple art theft. Something else is going on here.”

The chief's expression turned grim. “I suspect you're right, Master Enforcer.”

The meeting wrapped up ten minutes later. Galar gestured to catch Dyami's attention, then walked over to join him off to the side for a low-voiced conversation.

“We can't afford to send Kelly to the Rehab Center,” he told the commander. “Security at that facility won't have a prayer of stopping Marcin if he comes after her again.”

Dyami folded his powerful arms and frowned. “And he's not the kind to give up on a target.”

Galar nodded. “He'd find it a lot more difficult to get to her here, behind the Outpost's shields.”

The chief gave him a sharp, cool look. “This isn't a halfway house, Master Enforcer. We need to bounce this one to GUII. Let them protect her.”

A chill of pure, elemental fear crept down Galar's spine, not for himself but for Jessica. With an effort, he managed a cool tone. “They've lost a dozen agents to Marcin, Chief. Kelly would be dead inside a week.”

“You think you can do better?”

Galar blinked. “Me?”

“We can't let her run around loose. And if you're right, Marcin's going to try for her.”

He shifted uneasily. “I thought Dona Astryr and Ivar Terje could keep an eye on her. Given their cybernetic enhancements . . .”

“Sorry, Master Enforcer, this is your job,” Dyami interrupted. “From what I saw in that house when we Jumped in last night, you already have a rapport with the girl. She's going to need a friendly face to help her get through this with her sanity intact.”

Every instinct Galar had howled a warning, but he knew a direct order when he heard one. “Aye, sir.”

Dyami sighed. “You're a damned good investigator, Galar. Steady, coolheaded, disciplined. And there's no other officer I'd rather have leading my people into a combat situation.”

Galar's brows flew up as he stared at his commander. Where had this conversational detour come from? “Thank you, sir.”

“However, you do have one serious flaw. A good leader engages his people's loyalty, and you don't. In fact, you've got a reputation for being an icy son of a bitch.”

He stiffened. “I wasn't aware winning popularity contests was part of my job.”

“No, dammit, but you do have to be open enough to your people to understand what makes them tick. You've got emotional shields three feet thick, and until you can learn to drop them, you'll only be half the leader you could be.”

The statement stung just enough to show it had an element of truth. “What does this have to do with guarding Jessica Kelly?”

Dyami gave him a slight, wintry smile. “You'll figure it out. Now, I suggest you swing by the infirmary and check on your new charge.”

Galar gave him a stiff nod, turned on his heel, and stalked away.

Just what he didn't need. Too much time with a woman who was already too far under his skin.

4

Sometimes he liked to entertain himself by imagin
ing how they'd all react if they knew what he was. That rigid fuck Galar, for example, or Chief Enforcer Dyami.

He could just imagine their incredulous rage, their fury that he'd fooled them all so throughly for so long. Just the thought of it put a grin on his face.

They'd destroy him if they could, arrest him, charge him. Shame him. He'd be paraded before the public, branded a traitor and a spy. If, that is, he survived to go to trial. The Xer would do their damnedest to see him dead in an effort to protect both themselves and the spy ring they'd so painstakingly created.

His life balanced on a knife blade. And he loved it. The hot exhilaration of spying, of knowing that he could be discovered at any time, that his life could be dashed apart if he wasn't quick enough, clever enough, strong enough. . . . It was all sweeter than any drug.

They'd assume it was the money—the truly outrageous sums the Xer funneled into his carefully buried accounts. But money had nothing at all to do with it.

So it was that when the courier 'bot appeared at the door to his quarters that afternoon, he relished the familiar kick of excitement that stormed through his blood. Wearing an expression of no more than mild interest, he ordered the door open and let the little globe dart inside.

He knew who it was from, of course. Given this morning's briefing, he'd been expecting it.

The courier was a nondescript little device with just enough juice to manage a time Jump. It could as easily have been carrying a message from his mother.

It stopped in front of his eyes and floated there while it scanned his retinas and confirmed his identity. A moment later, a slot opened in its belly and a tiny capsule dropped into his waiting hand.

He popped the capsule between thumb and forefinger and smeared it across his forehead, leaving a streak of cool liquid on his skin. In seconds, the nanobots in the liquid seeped into his skin and started their voyage to his brain. The 'bots were keyed to his DNA; they would disgorge their message to no one else.

He moved to the bed and lay down, anticipating the disorientation the message would bring. Soft, sibilant, a voice began to whisper in his mind—his spymaster, the mole buried high in the upper echelons of Temporal Enforcement. He had no idea who the mole was, though he meant to find out.

He could use the insurance if everything went to the Seven Hells.

Holt has infected the primitive Jessica Kelly,
the mole began in that sexless, unidentifiable mental voice.
You've got to kill her now before she activates. Try not to reveal yourself if you can help it, but take care of her regardless. Our Xeran friends consider it a priority.

He opened his eyes as his eyebrows rose in interested surprise. They wanted him to kill the girl right under Galar's nose?

A slow, deadly grin of pure anticipation spread across his face.

The infirmary took
up one entire level of the Outpost, and there were times it needed every centimeter of the space. The offices used by the doctors and nursing staff surrounded a soaring open central ward, softly lit and filled with gentle, soothing music. When Galar walked in, he counted fifteen glowing globes arranged in the ward's center. An unusually high patient count, though admittedly there'd been more after that tourist group had gotten caught in the earthquake.

Each globe held a bed inside a sterile field designed to both protect its occupant from infection and maintain privacy. On the outside of the globes, shifting three-dimensional images displayed the patient's vitals.

He found Chogan standing in the center of the ring of globes, sipping a cup of stimchai with the greedy relish of a woman who has been craving one far too long.

“You seem to have a full house.”

Chogan curled a delicate lip. “Two stagecoaches full of tourists collided while being chased by an Apache raiding party. Both of 'em overturned. I was just barely able to dispatch a team to get them back before the whole lot got kacked. It's like I always say . . .”

Galar grinned and finished the sentence for her. “. . . Time travel is not for morons.”