Carnevale and Subterfuge (11 page)

Doctor Titheniel leaned a hip against the bed. “You owe me dirty, filthy details, woman. I want to know it all—every lascivious thing you did on Il Doge.”

Ana frowned up at her friend, unsure what to say. “Dr. Titheniel.” She began.

“Don’t, Dr. Titheniel, me. You did do something, didn’t you?” She flipped her long dark hair over her shoulder, settled on the bed and leaned forward. “What did you do? Oooh, this is so exciting! I wish my love life was this fantastic. The only thrill I get nowadays are when Dorian and Lex fall into bed with me. I haven’t had sex in universe knows how long.” She reached out and gripped Anarrae’s arm. “I need details. Need them.”

Ana laughed. “How about dinner at my quarters, a girls’ movie night?”

“Bless you! May the heavens open up and rain dildos upon us. Not hurting you, of course. Ugh, gotta get back to work. Here.” She shoved the box of chocolates at Ana and slid off the bed. “I keep telling the captain the earlier we start doing the flu shots, the better things will be. I hope this is a new rule from now on because I’m not going to go through that snarlbit stomach virus again.”

Ana had just shoved another chocolate into her mouth when she swallowed and started choking. Her eyes watered as she watched the ambassador, accompanied by the captain and head of security, enter the med deck.

Dr. Titheniel rushed back over and began patting her on the back, hard. “Ana, breathe honey, breathe.”

Anarrae watched in horror as the chocolate flew out and landed right on the ambassador’s jacket, just as he’d come to stand at the end of her bed. The smile on his face contorted to one of shock.

“Oh, universe, kill me now.” Ana snuggled under the sheets and pulled the covers over her head.

“Oh my God, the ambassador!” Several women exclaimed. Ana peeked out to see a swarm of nurses, all armed with towels, rushing at him.

The ambassador just brushed the chocolate off and smiled at Ana. Her belly did a flip. Heat flooded her body. He moved forward, putting his hands on the railings of her footboard.

“You must be feeling better. You’re eating chocolate.” His grin widened as his eyes narrowed. Fire burned in the blue depths. “I should have my assistant send you flowers.”

Ana’s nerve endings flared to life as memories of her time with Dodger bombarded her. Heat extended from her stomach outward. Her body tightened as her breasts became full. She sucked in a breath and squirmed as her pussy and inner thighs began to tingle. She struggled to shove the arousal away.

Ana couldn’t understand her reaction to this man. It was almost as if Dodger were standing before her. Only, he wasn’t. Ana had never seen Dodger’s face, but the man in front of her had thick, wavy blond hair and dark sapphire blue eyes. Her body told her Dodger was in front of her, but his hair was all wrong. And Dodger—his eyes were blue, not green. An ache started in her stomach and she looked away. Ana wanted Dodger here with her now.

“Ambassador,” Captain Drogan snapped. “We should continue with your tour.”

The ambassador scowled. “Of course.”

Ana looked up and sucked in a breath. It was as if a wall had slammed shut between them. Heat burned in his eyes as he gave her a curt nod of his head before moving off. Confusion flitted through her mind. The air became thin. It was hard to breathe. For a moment, she struggled with her emotions. She knew she shouldn’t be feeling this.
The two of them had no connection. This wasn’t normal. Why was she feeling like this?

Dr. Titheniel’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Wow, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he wants you. Lucky! I’ll send these to your quarters and get your discharge papers ready. You’ll have much more privacy there than here, where everyone will gossip like Earth Betties.”

Ana nodded. She needed to gather her thoughts and understand what she was feeling. A glance toward the other end of the med deck made her sigh as the arousal continued to sizzle through her veins. She turned away again and struggled to get out of bed. She was back at work now. She had to forget Dodger, and forget Il Doge. There was no use in pining for a man she couldn’t have. Besides, he was a criminal. There was no hope there. Her heart ached at that thought and tears stung her eyes. She shook her head and slid out of bed. She pulled on her standard issue boots and stood up.

“Ms. Lavender?” a soft male voice asked. She glanced back to see the man that Dodger had been talking to at the café back on Il Doge. Ana blinked. “My name is Roberto. I’m the ambassador’s assistant. I also assume you know my brother?”

Ana looked at him confused. “Brother?”

“You call him Dodger.” The man gave her a gentle smile. Ana stared at him in shock. She licked her lips and tried to form the words. “I see I’ve surprised you. Yes, he’s told me about you. He spoke highly about you. He wished for me to give this to you.” Roberto handed her Dodger’s spiked collar.

With a shaking hand, Ana took the offered gift. “Th-th-thank you. How…how is he?” She clutched the collar to her chest as her heart rate sped up.

Roberto smiled. “He’s off creating mischief. I would like to say thank you. You made him happy.”

Tears stung Ana’s eyes again.

“Did you take the mask he left for you?” the man went on. “Die—Dodger wanted you to have it.” He continued to smile but there was caution in his eyes.

Ana nodded. “Yes. When you see him again, thank him for me.”

“Of course. I hope you feel better. I would have introduced myself earlier but I’m an aide to the ambassador.”

“Of course. Busy. If you’ll excuse me?” Ana bowed her head and left the med deck as fast as possible.

* * *

Diego watched Roberto return to him. His heart ached to go after Ana but he stayed where he was.

“Happy now? I gave it to her.” Roberto’s lips quirked into a small smile. He had a teasing glint in his eyes but he didn’t say anything more.

Diego gave him a nonchalant shrug.

Roberto shook his head. “You’re torturing her. Hell, you’re torturing yourself.”

“Let’s focus on what we’re seeing here.” Diego brushed off Roberto’s comments. The collar had two purposes: It was a gift and it had a tracker in it. Also, one of the spikes detached to become a floating camera. If he couldn’t watch over her in person, he’d do it from afar. His attention turned to the officers getting the shots. So far, the secondary testing that Drogan had ordered had come up clean.

He leaned over to Roberto. “Can the cyborgs manipulate their blood to make it pass for normal?”

Roberto was silent for so long that Diego feared the answer. “Honestly, no. It’s not totally implausible, but that would take a lot of planning on their part. They’d have to know ahead of time if blood testing was going to happen. This is impromptu. Not enough time, I’d guess.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for Diego. “Find out for sure. Too many lives are on the line for this.”

“Like Anarrae’s?” Roberto shot out.

“Like yours, if you don’t find out.” Diego’s stomach contracted in worry for Ana’s safety.

Roberto chuckled. “To hear is to obey.”

“Not funny.”

“
I
thought it was.”

“Ambassador, this could take a while. Perhaps we could continue our tour elsewhere? Perhaps the cafeteria? It’s dinner time.” Roberto gestured toward the door.

Diego’s stomach rumbled. “I would love to.”

* * *

Anarrae entered the security code for her suite of rooms and waited for the computer light to turn green. Instead it beeped, the red light blinking at her, mocking her. “I didn’t change my code while I was out,” she said.

She tried again. Again the soft buzz floated up to her. Ana hit her wrist com. The ship’s AI didn’t respond, so she put in a message to tech support.

“What seems to be the problem?” Lieutenant Anders asked.

“My security pad is malfunctioning. I tried the AI and got no response.” Ana glared at the pad.

“We’re doing some maintenance on the AI mainframe right now. We should be done in a few seconds. Sorry for the delay. I could send someone to you who’s in the area.”

Ana blew out a breath and let her head drop forward. “So thankful that the captain didn’t do a full AI integration.”

“What?” Confusion filled the speaker.

Ana rolled her eyes. “Sorry, yeah. Please send someone over.”

“It will be a few seconds. I’ll stay on the line just in case.” The speaker started to play what was termed on Earth as elevator music.

Ana leaned against the wall next to her door and relaxed. Her arm no longer throbbed and her headache was almost gone. All she wanted to do now was crawl into bed for some much-needed shuteye. She wasn’t scheduled for duty until tomorrow.

“Lieutenant Lavender?” a deep male voice asked.

Ana looked up and up and up until her gaze caught moss-green skin, a lipless mouth, a flat nose, and large black eyes. She blinked. She was pretty sure she had never seen this person before, and she knew almost everyone. Ana pushed off of the wall and straightened up.

“Yes?” Worry filled her. Had she done something wrong? Still new to the
Hades’ Helmet
, she was getting used to the ins and outs of the ship.

The man smiled; at least that’s what she thought as she watched the sides of his mouth curl upward. The mystery man wore a standard-issue uniform for the
Hades’ Helmet,
complete with epaulets to show his rank as a corporal. He held out his hand.

“Corporal Froggie. And yes, that’s my real name. I just transferred into the tech department from the Goliath. What seems to be the trouble?” He gave her a small smile that did nothing to ease her nervousness.

Ana reached out and shook his hand. As soon as their palms touched and he had a firm grasp, she felt a sharp prick breach the skin of her hand. The world grew fuzzy and she felt light-headed.

“Don’t struggle. It will be worse if you struggle.” Corporal Froggie’s voice had become hoarse.

Ana’s body felt heavy as she sank to the floor. She tried to fight it. She brought up her free arm to hit him. The spikes of the collar hit his leg; he howled in pain and jumped away. “Stupid bitch.” He shouted.

Ana had a second before his hand came into view and her head hit the floor. Stars bounced in front of her eyes.

“Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” Someone yelled. She heard a scuffle and then felt herself being rolled onto her back.

“Med deck, I need a doctor on level four ASAP. We’ve got an assault. Victim doesn’t look so good. Damn, Lavender, what the hell just happened?” Ana recognized Corporal Dorian’s voice. She groaned. She tried to speak but couldn’t feel her lips. Her tongue felt huge in her mouth.

“Don’t talk, just close your eyes. They’re sending a medic here ASAP,” Dorian murmured.

Ana closed eyes, feeling very tired. Again.

* * *

“Damn it to hell! What the fuck are we doing? Why wasn’t security put on Ana?” Diego paced back and forth and tried to ignore the urge to punch a wall—or a certain captain.

“The security I’d assigned never got the message. Apparently our AI was being upgraded.” Tigress flipped her wavy chestnut locks over her shoulder and continued to shift from one foot to the other.

“Not an excuse,” said Drogan. “Find out what the hell was going on in tech support. I was told the upgrade wouldn’t be until next month.”

“Shit.” Tigress left the room.

“What about the real Corporal Froggie?” asked Roberto. “He was found tied up and gagged in a supply closet not far from Lieutenant Lavender’s quarters.”

“He can’t remember a thing.” Drogan answered. “Said he was poked in the neck with something and passed out.”

“This freak knows where her quarters are. She needs to be told.” Diego watched Drogan open and shut his mouth.

The captain let out a sigh. “Yeah, she does. I’ll tell her as soon as she’s awake. For now she needs to rest. I’ve taken her off the roster until I can guarantee her safety. How the hell did they find out? Also, how did they infiltrate tech support? That was one of the first places we upgraded the security.”

Diego shook his head. “They have to have an intricate web of informants, it would seem. A background check on the crew, anything that could make a person a good target for blackmail, that’s what’s needed here.”

“You’re a con artist. How would you proceed?” Drogan collapsed in his chair and ran a hand over his face. He looked tired and Diego didn’t blame him. It had been a long two hours.

Diego took a seat in the visitor’s chair. “I’d look for the people with gambling debts first. Next would be the people who have questionable family members. Then it’s the people who have hit rock bottom. After that, I’d work my way up the food chain, using weaknesses and a few other tricks.”

“I can see this is going to take time, which we don’t have. There has to be a faster way. The cyborg could look like anyone by now. Besides that, they’ve probably healed and burned the uniform they stole.”

Diego racked his brain. “What about the AI?”

“I don’t trust the computer system at the moment. If tech support was compromised, the AI could be too. No, there needs to be another way.”

The doors opened to reveal a petite woman with long waves of dark brown hair, wearing a standard uniform. Drogan’s eyes lit up. He leaned forward. “Rena, this is the ambassador.” Drogan gestured toward Diego but kept his eyes on Rena.

“Captain, sir. Ambassador.” Rena nodded her head first toward her captain and then to Diego.

“Sir, this just came through to communications. There seems to be a ship in distress on our route to Veritas 10. High priority.” She slid a thin work tablet toward him across the desk.

Diego watched their body language. Rena kept herself distant, all eyes on Drogan. Meanwhile, the captain scooted closer to the table, one hand under the desk, while using his free hand to scroll through the message on the small panel.

Drogan shook his head. “We can’t. There’s a situation going on here. No stops.”

Diego came out of his people watching to protest. “No, no. Stop. Help. That should throw the situation for a loop.”