Enemy Games (40 page)

“Your Majesty,” Ari interrupted, her tone sharp.

Alarm jerked Jay to attention.

“Developing tactical situation,” Ari said. “Mercenaries. My best guess is they’re on approach to your location,
Kawl Fergus
. Edge of our sensor range, just leaving the reach of the last marker. Ignoring us.”

“Dad? I activated the order to dismantle Eudal’s network,” Jayleia said.

“Yes. I did wonder what had taken so long,” her father said.

“I was under the impression I ought not lead the enemy straight to your door,” Jayleia snapped, knowing she was cementing Damen’s belief that she’d used him. Maybe she had. “Do you have results for the dragnet?”

“The Claugh aren’t our enemies . . .” her father started, his voice rising.

“Results!” she barked. “Tactical situation, Dad. Or have you decided that my crewmates and I are expendable? You’ve been using the
Sen Ekir
and its crew without their knowledge from the moment you had the ship built!”

“What?” Rage rang in Dr. Idylle’s demand.

“Yes, we used you,” her father finally said, sounding weary. “Jayleia most of all. You and your ship were in a unique position, Dr. Idylle to benefit . . .”

“In the entire span of my life,” she said, “has it escaped you that I’ll do anything when you ask and nothing when you order? Captain Idylle, I surrender the debriefing to you and Major Sindrivik. It appears I’m an impediment.”

“Understood,” Ari said.

From the tone of her voice, Jayleia knew her friend did. She rose.

Damen had to swallow a growl. Snarling at his mate’s father fell under the heading of career-limiting moves. Especially when he contemplated dragging Jayleia to his bed, where he’d strip her of every secret she’d kept, every lie, every omission, every defense she’d ever imagined protected her from him.

An ache grew in his chest and in his lower belly.

Looking more alone than he’d ever seen her, Jayleia rose and made for the cockpit door. She glanced at him.

Damen met her guarded gaze, trusting she could detect his desire for retribution.

She sucked in a sharp breath and pressed her lips tight, but she didn’t turn away. Holding his gaze, she nodded once as if accepting his judgment. The fire went out in her eyes. She lifted her chin.

The ache in his chest intensified. Damen stomped on the guilt rising within him. He’d asked her for honesty, damn it. She’d handed him a vial of her blood and evasion instead.

Jayleia strode down the companionway.

Bleak and empty, Damen closed his eye.

“Mr. Durante?” Ari prodded.

Damen swung back to piloting, opened his eye, and forced himself to pay attention. Survive first.

“Durgot and Eudal escaped. It was Gerriny Eudal who uncovered the agent assigned to him. Her body has yet to be found,” Zain Durante said. “When she missed an assigned check-in, I went underground. Durgot has implicated his religious advisor, Ildri Bynovan. She’s been sent to the front lines, accused in his attempted assassination.”

Damen did growl. From the information the Murbaasch Tu had amassed on the elegant, statuesque woman, she alone, of all President Durgot’s inner circle, might be innocent.

“Can she be cultivated?” Damen asked.

“Durgot’s got something on her,” Durante said. “Something so compelling, she’s unreachable. I’ve spent the past four years doing my damnedest to find out what it is.”

“Wasn’t he grooming her for his office?” Raj asked. “She was a sure thing, next election. If she’s out of the running, who will he put forward?”

“He won’t,” Damen said. “He’ll use the assassination attempt and the war to declare martial law.”

“Yes,” Jayleia’s father said. “He and Gerriny Eudal have seized control of the government. It is our worst-case scenario defined.”

“Exile is sounding better all the time,” Dr. Idylle noted, his tone wry.

“It didn’t come from Durgot’s office,” Jayleia’s father said. “When he orders someone contained and silenced, it’s permanent. Over and above your undisputed value to humanoids the known systems over, Jayleia is happy aboard your ship, sir. She all but worships you. I couldn’t let the spawn of a Myallki bitch destroy that. She’d have been annoyed, too, if anything had happened to her cousin.”

Raj barked a laugh. “You ordered us exiled so we wouldn’t end up in an IntCom black hole? Thanks, Uncle Zain.”

“It wasn’t a pleasure, Raj, but you’re welcome. Our operation was a marginal success,” the man went on. “The bulk of Durgot’s network fell to my agents. We did arrest some operatives who may yet prove to be of interrogation value. They have vanished into CRU custody. This vessel is in pursuit of another suspect, the former United Mining and Ore Processing Guild Mistress, Kannoi.”

“She’s built a standing army. There’s a base on the edge of this system,” Damen said. “They have cloak tech that doesn’t register on scanners. Their weapons punch through our shields as if they don’t exist.”

“Captain V’kyrri indicated he was investigating a hot spot at the edge . . .” Admiral Seaghdh began.

“I issued a recall,” Damen interrupted. “Two, three hours ago. He acknowledged but has yet to report in.”

“Com, raise the
Rhapsody
,” Ari ordered.

“Aye, Captain.”

“
Kawl Fergus
,” Ari went on. “We’re coming to get you off that rock.”

“ETA to your location, six hours, Major,” Admiral Seaghdh said. “The mercenaries will get there first, but not by much. Don’t make it easy for them.”

“No, sir.”

T
HE moment she cleared the
Kawl Fergus
’s doorway, Jayleia stopped and pressed the heels of her hands against stinging eyes. From the gorge behind the ship, an animal hooted, the sound carried on the anemic breeze. She lowered her hands and wandered around the aft of the vessel, pausing long enough to slide her pack inside the
Sen Ekir
’s airlock.

Mist blanketed the foliage below and the humid, spice-scented updraft seemed to have died.

She perched on the edge of the cliff, peered into the mist-shrouded foliage below, and tried to breathe around the sore spot where her heart had once been. Numbness settled over her. Was it the same emotionless state she’d cultivated most of her life? Or was it merely confusion over which feeling to allow to rise up and overwhelm her until she broke?

Damen had seduced her out from behind her shields.

Now that she desperately needed solace, she found that her defenses no longer offered shelter. Had they ever?

Maybe what she’d said to her father was true. Maybe she was the wrong tool for the job. Or simply a poorly designed one. If none of what had happened over the past several days had ever been about her, why had so many people died on her behalf? Why did her parents still seem to believe they had the right to use her as a pawn in their game? Why did her boss fear her? Pain expanded in her chest.

Why did Damen hate her?

She knew the answer to that. She’d lied to him. Not outright lied, but omission qualified, didn’t it?

And what didn’t seem to matter was that she had committed treason for him. And was still doing so.

She sensed his voice inside her head and heard the crystalline music of his wings, before she looked overhead to see the queen’s consort dive from the bottom of the cloud layer. He lit in a musical whir of wings.

The wind from his landing buffeted her.

For no good reason, it made her smile.

He brushed her face with one feathery antenna in greeting.

Jayleia sensed it again, the emotion she hadn’t been able to identify. Acceptance. Welcome, but more complicated than that. She knew what it was now.

He’s accepted her not only as an ally, but also as kin, related to him by the desire to protect the queen and her progeny.

Great.

Acknowledged by the insectoid species, outcast and alienated by her own kind.

She sighed and looked back into the gorge.

A single, winged creature fluttered above the mist layer.

“I can’t protect your mate,” she said. “I can’t even protect mine.”

Her com badge beeped.

The drone settled into the soil beside her, his antenna quivering in the faint breath of the wind.

She activated her badge. “Jayleia.”

“Jay,” Ari said. “I need your take on our situation. What’s going on?”

Jay scrubbed her face with her hands. A year ago, even after months in Chekydran captivity, she’d trusted Ari implicitly. Now?

She blew out a measured breath. How far had her friend’s allegiance shifted since she’d switched sides? Jay found she couldn’t judge the woman’s reactions or her thought processes anymore.

And she had no idea where to start.

“We’ve been modified,” she said.

“Raj gave us the files,” Ari replied. “I have Dr. Annantra on it.”

“You know Damen has the Silver City data store,” she said.

“Yes. He told us about the crystal.”

“And the UMOPG military.”

“Naturally, because what you and I both need is another problem,” Ari said.

Jay tried to smile. “The Chekydran attacked Swovjiti.”

“Not of their own volition they didn’t,” Ari countered. “The order came from TFC.”

Rage uncurled inside Jayleia.
The traitors.

Head buzzing, Jayleia sighed, looked up at the pale sky, and said, “Ari, there are two Chekydran cruisers in orbit around this planet. Do not fire upon them. They won’t fire on you.”

“I don’t believe it,” her friend breathed. “When TFC accused you of collaborating with the Chekydran, I laughed. But it’s true?”

Frustration cut through Jayleia. “Damn it, Ari, we’ve stumbled into the middle of a civil war. The Chekydran-ki are a different race than the Chekydran you’re fighting.”

“And as far as I’m concerned, the entire species can take a short orbit into their central star,” Ari snapped. “I can’t believe you’re defending Chekydran to me.”

“The Chekydran-ki saved our lives, Ari, Major Sindrivik’s and mine.”

“They modified you! In fact, how can I trust anything you tell me? They’re in your head, Jayleia.”

“You’re holding an entire species responsible for the actions of a portion of its population?”

“The damned majority of the population,” Ari snarled, “which is killing people as we speak.”

“And this set of Chekydran want it stopped,” Jayleia retorted. “They need our help.”

“As if we aren’t spread thin enough? No. I can’t ignore the possibility that you aren’t even Jayleia anymore. You’re asking me to bring Her Majesty into a situation that is, by your admission, overwhelmingly hazardous. How do I know that isn’t the real aim? To get at Eilod?”

“It is,” Jay gritted. “The Chekydran-ki queen requests an alliance with the Claugh nib Dovvyth.”

Ari breathed a curse. “Absolutely not.”

“They can heal what would normally be mortal wounds, Ari,” Jay said.

“Something you found out because they inflicted a mortal wound upon you,” she countered, her voice rising. “I saw Raj’s medical report.”

Jayleia blinked. How had Raj known what had happened? She hadn’t told him.

“It was a misunderstanding! These creatures are the last remaining source of knowledge and information acquired from a unique point of view that could swing the war in our favor! We can’t throw that away!”

“You know what I can’t throw away?” Ari demanded. “The lives truncated by these monsters, either by death or by modification. I can’t throw away the sacrifices made by soldiers from either side of the zone in the pursuit of their duty. I can’t throw away the hope we represent to the people cowering in fear on the planets in the path of this damned war.”

“No,” Jayleia replied, bitterness choking her. “You’d rather throw away a potential ally because of the configuration of their DNA. Is it just insectoid species to whom your prejudice extends? Or does it include the rest of us who aren’t like you?”

She cut the connection and buried her face in her hands, her eyes achingly dry while rage and fear and grief carved her apart from within. What had happened? She’d thought she knew Ari.

Yes, Ari had been held prisoner by the Chekydran and tortured for months before they’d finally released her. Jay had naïvely thought her friend had gotten past that.

Maybe it was impossible to get past something like that.

Where had it happened? She thought she’d wanted her life as a scientist back. Yet in order to achieve that goal, she’d had to become something else. As it stood, if she turned her back on being a Swovjiti warrior and her father’s fledgling spy, she could still be a scientist, but the Chekydran-ki would die. She’d lose Damen and the war would grind on.

It would be easy. Safe. Cowardly.

Determination stirred to life within her. She couldn’t give up. Damen had been right. She was a Swovjiti warrior. She wouldn’t give up. Not on the Chekydran-ki. Not on herself. Not on Damen.