Enemy Within (33 page)

“It’s important.”

Taking a drink of soup, she sighed as the warm liquid soothed the shredded feeling in her throat. She stared at the panel a moment, recalling the pattern of Seaghdh’s code and then entered it. She shrugged when she looked up to find him staring at her.

“Spawn of a Myallki bitch,” Turrel muttered. “Recruit that woman or I will.”

“Ari,” Seaghdh said. “I think you speak Chekydran.”

The entire room held its breath. She let hers go. He hadn’t asked why or how she could remember so much.

Cold sweat gathered on her skin. She shook her head. “No one speaks Chekydran.” She was being deliberately obtuse, but she didn’t like being herded into Cullin Seaghdh’s snare.

“Three months, Ari. Three months to lie in a filthy, cramped, cold hole and hear them, to tear apart grammar, to codify structure and intonation. You understand their spoken language without need of a translator.”

“You do know that not every language is comprehensible by our species base,” she countered. “We simply don’t have the same sensory range as other life types.”

That gave him pause. He frowned, decided she was distracting him, and that he’d better stick to point.

Ari smiled, amazed that she’d become such an authority on the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s impenetrable expression.

Her smile seemed to fluster him, but he insisted. “You understand the Chekydran.”

“Sometimes,” she allowed and swallowed hard.

“Sometimes?”

She rubbed sweaty palms against her fatigues. The line of conversation made it difficult to think straight. “Not via com,” she said. “Only in person.”

Seaghdh swore.

“Why?” Sindrivik asked.

“Their language encompasses more than you hear.”

“Explain,” Seaghdh ordered.

She glanced at the hard lines of his face and saw the concern in his eyes. “There’s hum and vibration as well as the clicks and whistles you hear. The language is felt as much as heard. Humanoid com technology is calibrated to filter extraneous, nonauditory noise.”

“Like vibration and low-level hums,” Seaghdh finished. “Baxt’k. Can we recalibrate com systems to accommodate a fuller range?”

Sindrivik nodded.

“Ask whether you should,” Ari prompted.

They looked at her without comprehension in their faces.

She shivered. “It’s been nearly four months since I lay in a cell, captive audience to everything they said and did. Just saying that . . .” She broke off and forced a slow, measured breath out through pursed lips. “Brings it too close.”

“With your permission, Captain,” Seaghdh said slowly, his voice telling her he was reluctant to continue, “with Nwyth Okkar, I could implant a block triggered by a word or a gesture, something we agree upon. You need never suffer another flashback.”

“You could do that?”

He met her gaze with trouble behind his eyes. “I could.”

“Thank you,” she said, touched by the offer. “No.”

He frowned.

“I’ll find my own way out.”

Lights flickered and the
Dagger
shimmied. Ari stared at Seaghdh. Weapons fire? Who would be stupid enough to take a potshot at the
Dagger
? No one. The
Dagger
bristled with weapons and fighters. But the
Sen Ekir
? It had to be in range. She swore and spun to the control panels. She’d logged into the computer systems with Seaghdh’s access code. Convenient. She punched up a communications panel.

“Ari.”

“I read the language, Seaghdh,” she said, keying in her father’s com codes. “It took me a day to remember that I did, okay? Should I have said so? Sure. Just like you should have told me from the outset who you were. Where’s my father?”

“Get that ship inside the shields! Now!” Eilod commanded, marching into the room. “And get that woman off of my ship and out of my computers before she finds my middle name.”

“Incoming com, Your Majesty,” Sindrivik said.

“On-screen,” Seaghdh commanded, nudging Ari to one side.

She gave him her seat.

“On your screen, Auhrnok.”

The screen flashed. Ari raised her eyebrows. Scales and teeth. Ykktyryk mercenaries. Nice.

“Give us the girl,” the Ykktyryk hissed. “We split two million FedCreds and let little ship live.”

She whistled through her teeth. “With a million Federated Credits I could buy my own ship. Do you provide Wrate Leaf on that tub?”

It sounded like Seaghdh sighed.

The Ykktyryk eyed her. “Who are you?”

“Me?” Ari shrugged. “The one you’re offering to buy. You do know that FedCreds have no value in the Claugh monetary system, right?”

Turrel chuckled. “Recruit her.”

Ari grinned. This was not how she’d imagined an interrogation by the Auhrnok Riorchjan ending.

“As you were, Colonel,” Eilod growled. She strode across the room. “Confine the spy to the brig, Auhrnok, before I order her gagged or rendered unconscious. Weapons control?”

“Weapons standing by, Your Majesty,” a voice responded via com. “Targeting Ykktyryk mercenary. Requesting permission to fire.”

The Ykktyryk hissed and began barking out urgent stand-down commands.

Ari had to suppress the urge to cheer.

Seaghdh took her arm. “Captain Alexandria Idylle, you are under arrest for crimes against the Claugh nib Dovvyth Empire.”

“No Wrate Leaf. Again,” she said, noting the distinct lack of anger in his tone. They were playing. To what purpose?

He marched her out of the conference room, his lips twitching. He stopped and tapped his badge.

“Prep the
Lughfai
. Intraship teleport. Two at this signal to the
Lughfai
cockpit,” Seaghdh ordered.

Confusion rocked her. “Wait,” she protested.

“Acknowledged, Auhrnok. Two for teleport. Stand by. On your mark, sir.”

“What the . . .” Ari squawked.

“Mark.”

Teleport distortion always made Seaghdh dizzy. He shook it off the moment the shuttle cockpit solidified around them. Before she could pull away, he swept Ari tight into his arms and pinned her against the bulkhead so she couldn’t slug him. He wouldn’t blame her if she tried.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I am sorry. Three system failures and so many bits of partial information aligned . . .”

She nodded. Her arms crept around his waist. “I know. I’m sorry, too. I should have asked first.”

A tightly bound-up place within him unknotted. Need rushed in to fill the void. He kissed her, ruthlessly launching an assault on her senses. Her body arched against his. He broke the kiss. She murmured a protest.

“Tell me again,” he commanded, desperate to hear the words. “Please.”

Fear shot into her eyes. It didn’t carry the edge of senseless terror that glazed her eyes during a flashback. It was simple, comprehensible fear that drove a jagged stake into his heart. Her uncertainty stung.

This is what the Chekydran had robbed her of; her ability to trust herself, to anyone or anything. Yet she’d accepted food from him when she’d refused it from anyone else. And then the transponder. He closed his eyes. She’d trusted him. With her life. With her body. With her nascent emotions. Then, when it mattered most, he’d failed to return the favor. He swallowed a bitter knot of regret and prayed he hadn’t destroyed her trust.

“I—” she essayed.

“Get that shuttle off this ship!” Eilod’s voice ordered from the com panel.

They leaped guiltily apart and bolted for the helm.

“What the Three Hells is going on?” Ari demanded.

“The arrest was for show,” he said as he buckled into the pilot’s seat and woke panels.

She fastened in next to him. “I gathered. Mercenaries must be on the run, too, or I doubt you’d let me off the
Dagger
.”

“Damned right,” he answered. “You’ve got too much vital information in your head, and I have specific interest in keeping you alive for our next rematch.”

She flushed and spent a moment scanning her console, before keying the instruments to standby. “Awaiting authorization codes.”

Seaghdh smiled. A thrill rippled through him whenever she spoke his language. Time to begin rebuilding whatever trust he’d broken. “Authorization, yellow-kawlth—no, here.” He made sure she was watching and punched in the code. “It describes a sound sequence. Yellow-kawlth-885.”

“Authorization code, yellow-kawlth-885, acknowledged and accepted. We’re green across the board.”

“Green across the board, aye,” he said, powering the engines hard and fast. “No time for a checklist. We want your father’s ship inside the protection of the shields and you working on that lieutenant of yours.”

“Dad’s got Tommy? Good.”

“Unless he’s broadcasting in some fashion we can’t detect,” he said, throttling up. “If he is, then we have to work faster than the Chekydran.”

She grabbed a headset and requested bay door clearance. The bulkhead rumbled open and the shuttle shot out into the darkness.

“Ever piloted a Claugh fighter shuttle?”

She glanced at him, a wary look in her eye. “No, but the specs look similar to TFC’s midrange interceptor.”

He nodded. “You have plenty of hours on that ship. Good. Take over. I want to make sure the Ykktyryk five man keeps a respectful distance.”

Ari’s head jerked up, and she shot a look at sensors, then at the view screen as she covered his controls, waiting for him to turn them over. Her accomplished hands took the helm.

Blood rushed straight for Seaghdh’s lower body, recalling her skilled touch from the night before.

“They’re still here?” she asked, yanking his attention back to the view screen. “A five man? They can’t hurt us. Are we sure this isn’t a lure? Something designed to get us out from under the
Dagger
’s shields and guns?”

“Damn it.” He bolted for weapons.

Ari swore. “I need to tweak sensors. You okay with it?”

“Advise the
Dagger
to scramble her fighters and you can do anything you want,” he countered.

The anticipation in the sly grin she tossed him shorted out his brain. He blew out a shallow breath and forced his attention back to weapons. Grabbing a headset, he patched in to Eilod on the bridge of the
Dagger
. “Full scan!” he said. “All sensors at maximum. That five man . . .” He spun. “Ari! Missiles incoming!”

“Acknowledged.” She slammed the shuttle’s engines to maximum and wrenched the controls. The ship dove hard. Gravity generators whined in protest, then failed. An alarm warbled, then fell silent when Ari slapped it off.

Seaghdh grabbed his harness and fastened himself to his chair. His lasers read hot, and the targeting system chirped as it homed in on the missile.

“Save your ammo,” she said. “The
Dagger
’s shields took the steam out of it. It won’t catch us, which means they’re trying to drive us.” She flipped the throttle hard to starboard.

Seaghdh felt as if his stomach had torn free of his body and hit the bulkhead behind him. She pulled out of the dive and the
Sen Ekir
hung before them, shields flaring as a missile impacted.

“Clearing the
Dagger
’s shields in three, two . . . Right on cue,” she grumbled. “Incoming. We’ve got an Erillian Aggressor on intercept. Cravuul dung. They were hiding behind Dad. Their weapons and shields read hot. They’re firing! I thought they wanted me alive! Get our shields online!”

“Returning fire,” Seaghdh said, then cursed as the shuttle jounced. Sparks blew forward from a panel on the aft bulkhead. An alarm shrieked. “Fighters are scrambled!” he hollered above the din.

“Damn it!” Ari shouted and silenced the alarm. “Direct hit to the shield generator.”

Something cold uncurled in his stomach. They’d been had by someone who knew the
Dagger
’s sensors couldn’t read through the
Sen Ekir
’s energy exhaust and who knew the precise layout of the
Lughfai
’s systems. “Firing missiles.”

The
Lughfai
took another two hits. Cabin lights died. Emergency lighting winked on. Seaghdh lobbed a barrage of laser fire at the mercenaries.

“Gods damn it!” she snapped as a missile hit them dead center.

Laser fire and another missile jolted the ship. The panel in front of Ari exploded. She ducked and cursed. Several alarms wailed at once.

“Sen Ekir! Sen Ekir!”
Seaghdh bellowed. “Clear the shields! Clear the
Dagger
’s shields! The fighters will close on the attackers.”

“Captain Seaghdh,” Ari’s father answered. “Our sensors indicate that you’ve lost life support. We are lowering our shields. Prepare for teleport.”

“Negative!” Ari shouted. Blood ran down her face from a cut in her forehead. “It’s a trap, Dad! It’s exactly what they want!”

“Ari,” Seaghdh said.

Something in his voice jerked her around to face him.

“The aggressor is powering their tractor beam.”

She glanced at the panels and shook her head. “We won’t make it. We’re hemorrhaging air. It’ll be a body recovery.”

Teleport distortion broke the rage exploding through Seaghdh’s chest but not before he heard Ari’s “Damn it to all Three Hells, Dad.”