Enemy Within (7 page)

“You agree. I know lies.”

She started to shake. Bastard. “Then you know I’m not lying. I have not seen any ship but this one.”

“Transmit array data!”

“Complying,” she said, sending the sensor array readings that Seaghdh and his men had circumvented, disabled, or altered.

Offscreen, another creature gabbled at the captain she’d called “Hicci.” Human vocal apparatus couldn’t approach the Chekydran language at all. “Hicci” was the best she’d been able to do with his name. That she could get even that much had always annoyed him.

“Hmm. Game you play, I wonder.”

Wonder all you want, you sadistic freak. Wonder right up to the day I kill you
. “Course change for Occaltus’s star upcoming,” Ari said aloud.

“Standard. Hmm. Afraid of bugs. Hmm.” Hicci’s tentacles shifted again. He smoothed them with one foreleg. “Destination.”

“Not plotted yet, and Dad’s not talking to me after I scrambled his command codes,” she said. “TFC space, I assume. He’s going to want his samples and his data in the university lab’s containment system.”

“Bugs.” Hicci chortled.

Ari frowned. What so amused him about decontamination and containment procedures?

“Go.”

“Course change initiated,” she replied. “Can’t say it’s been nice, Hicci.” Every nerve and muscle fiber screamed to cut the connection. She didn’t. She’d learned the hard way. Let him get the last word.

“We play.” He made the same set of sounds again and the screen went black. The cruiser turned and flashed out. The energy wash from their engines hit the
Sen Ekir
. The science ship rolled hard.

Ari stabbed a finger at the button to cut the com connection. Shaking so hard she could barely focus her eyes, she hit the wrong one. An alarm rasped across the bridge. She gulped for air. Her chest felt like it had been clamped in a vise. A hand appeared on her panel. The alarm died.

“Turrel!” Seaghdh shouted, rounding the panel and reaching for her. “Get the medi!”

“No,” she gasped. The restraints across her torso released. She sank to the floor and squeezed her eyes shut. No one could see her like this. She didn’t want to see herself like this. Still affected by what that bastard had done.

She flinched away from the touch on her arm, until she realized it was warm. Human and warm. Seaghdh lifted her and backed into the command chair. He drew her onto his lap, tucked her head beneath his chin, and wrapped his arms tight around her. The chill of terror loosened its grip.

“Come on back, Ari,” he breathed into her ear. His voice coaxed her to respond. It promised safety. And damn it all, so did his arms. “I need your help. You’re breathing too fast. Slow it down. That’s it. Good.”

She forced in a deep breath and held it. When she couldn’t stop shaking, Ari cursed. It sounded weak. She loathed herself for indulging in a breakdown. She loathed him for witnessing it. She pushed herself upright.

“Feeling better?” Seaghdh inquired, brushing hair from her face.

The caress left a tingling trail on her skin and brought her forcefully back into her own body. She met his gaze and stilled, captured.

He didn’t flinch when he looked her in the eye. She saw concern there, yes, but it was pure, with no trace of judgment or pity. She stared into the molten gold of his eyes and saw acceptance, wonder, and the veiled shimmer of attraction. It touched off a surge of longing she couldn’t afford. She struggled out of his grasp. How could he be attracted to her when she couldn’t stand what she’d become?

Seaghdh let go, his gaze watchful.

She stumbled, caught herself, and stood at parade rest, her hands clasped behind her back.

“My apologies, Captain,” she said, damning the quaver in her voice and the shame heating her face. “I request that you belay the order for the medical officer. I would like to return to my post.”

Seaghdh rubbed a hand down his chin as he studied her. “Return to your post,” he finally said, “after I have a medical scan on you. No one needs to know what happened here. I’ll tell them . . .”

The bridge door opened. Raj, Turrel, and the other two crewmen bolted onto the bridge. Turrel went instantly to the panel to watch the cruiser departing.

“Ari?” Raj asked. “What’s going on?”

“Captain Idylle took a tumble when that damned Chekydran hit us with his wash,” Seaghdh said.

Raj cast a probing glance at her. She sat down at piloting and scanned her screens.

“We’re on course, Captain Idylle,” Seaghdh said. “An hour out from the radiation bath. Let the doctor do his job. Then you can do yours. Until then, you’re relieved. Sindrivik?”

The tall young man with red blond hair put a hand on the back of her chair. Ari nodded and stood. Every muscle in her body hurt and her head would feel much better if it would explode and get it over with.

“The ship is yours. Until the radiation bath is complete, any attempt to alter course will result in engine shutdown,” she said.

Turrel swore. Seaghdh frowned, but his eyes danced.

“Captain?” Raj said. “If you will come with me?”

“Damn it. I’m fine.”

“Now, now, Captain,” Seaghdh countered, laughter in his tone. “That’s his line.”

Raj gestured Ari into his tiny medical bay and blinked at the empty hallway behind her. “No guard?”

“The Chekydran cruiser is still out there,” she said. “They’re a little more worried about it. So should we be.”

“Good point. You know the drill,” Raj replied and nodded at the exam table. “Hop up.”

“I’d rather not.”

Raj narrowed his eyes. “I would have happily let it go, until you said that. You know I’m a stubborn bastard when I think you’re hiding something from me, Ari.”

She got on his stupid table.

“You fell. Is that the story?”

“I fell.”

“Want to explain the strap bruises, then, Captain?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Raj left her side. A click. “Dr. Idylle. Secure medical channel. I am not initiating quarantine. Repeat. I am not initiating quarantine.”

Ari closed her eyes. She should have thought of this, of the secure com channel from medical that did not route through the bridge communications panel.

“Acknowledged, Dr. Faraheed. What is the nature of the emergency?” her father asked.

“I have Ari in medical. We are secure.”

“What the hell is going on up there?” her dad demanded.

She opened her eyes, sat up, and faced the screen. Her father sat before his room screen, his hands clenched on the desk, his knuckles white and the muscles in his jaw rigid. Furious. She caught the pucker between his silver eyebrows. Correction. Furious and worried.

“We were intercepted by a Chekydran cruiser,” she told him.

He blinked. “Those pirates are running from the—?” He broke off, looking discomfited.

“Apparently. Our sensor logs were empty, fortunately.” She shrugged. “Seaghdh and his men crash-landed on Ioccal’s dark side. They must have gotten a lock on the
Sen Ekir
during descent. Haven’t had time to get anything more useful.”

“Do you want to explain to me what you’re doing?” her father asked.

“Right now, I’m obeying orders and getting checked out after . . .”

“You’re siding with those damned pirates!” he accused.

She stared at him, openmouthed. “I am not siding with anyone!”

“Doesn’t that strike you as a problem? Your duty is to this mission and to this ship! Another twenty-four hours and those men would be dying. We would have had this ship back in our control. We could have spaced the corpses and radiation bathed in Tagreth’s sun.”

Raj whistled. “Your cortisol levels are through the roof, Ari. You have got to be feeling like your head is going to explode.”

She shot the doctor a dirty look. “My father is advocating murder and you sound surprised about my levels of stress hormone?”

“Grow up, Alexandria. Billions of lives depend on the data we’ve collected. We haven’t had time—” Her father hesitated, and Ari could see him weighing the wisdom of something.

She shook off Raj’s hold and slid to her feet. “What?”

Her father sighed and looked at her. The lines around his pale blue eyes deepened. “We sequenced a unique set of markers in Ioccal IX. The plague was seeded.”

“Chekydran,” Ari concluded, beating him to the punch. She crossed her arms. “When are you going to stop treating me like a brain-addled invalid? Yes, I was captured by them. Yes, I was held for three interminable months. Yes, I was tortured. Your silence about it isn’t going to make it go away. I am not going to melt at the mention of them.” No. She’d melted at being forced to face her tormentor and had been sent to medical because of it.

She caught a glimpse of her father’s reddening face. He looked like a man struggling for something, anything, to say. A hint of anguish slipped into his expression. Ari froze. What the hell was going on?

“Stop it and drink,” Raj said, handing her a cup. “You’ve been through something none of us can understand, Ari. We’re trying to be considerate.”

They couldn’t understand what she’d been through. No one could. Not even she. Whose problem was that?

She swallowed the medication. Instantly, the throbbing in her head eased. She sighed. “Thanks, Raj. My head was going to blow. Am I fit to return to duty?”

“Nothing wrong a month’s leave on Betalla wouldn’t cure,” Raj replied.

“Damn it, Alexandria. Tagreth Federated Command and your commanders at Armada are watching every move you make,” her father said. “Don’t screw this up, too.”

Was it footsteps she heard? Or some sixth sense that alerted her? Ari leaped to cut the connection, leaving her to wonder what her father thought she’d already screwed up. The bay door opened. Turrel stood looking between her and Raj. She handed the cup back to the doctor.

“Thanks again.”

“Time the bath very carefully, Ari,” Raj answered, as if the radiation exposure had been the topic of conversation all along. “Go for longer, not shorter. We picked up indications of a new strain.”

“Chekydran nanotech has never mutated on its own before,” she protested. “It would need reengineering.”

“I know.”

“Could it compromise our immunity?”

Raj’s grim expression spoke volumes. “Finding out is right at the top of our agenda.”

Turrel pointed at her. “Bridge. I’ll be snugging the doc up in his cabin, but don’t try anything. I’ll be at your back.”

She wasted no time. She had a radiation bath to handle. From what Raj had said, too much rode on getting the ship sterile. It had also occurred to her that Seaghdh might have insisted on her jaunt to medical so he could alter the ship’s codes and lock her out. It would take time, but it’s what she’d have done in his place.

“. . . Just a change of venue, gentlemen,” Seaghdh was saying as the door opened. “Objectives . . . Captain Idylle.”

He glanced at the screen on the command console. The expectant look on his face died when it became apparent Raj hadn’t sent a medical report to the command chair. Maybe she wasn’t the only military op on board.

“I’ve been judged fit for duty,” she said. “Raj’s assessment of my health ended in a prescription for a month on Betalla.”

Seaghdh’s eyebrows climbed and he grinned. “Betalla? Boy’s got good taste.”

“Betalla, where pleasure is an art,” Sindrivik said, his voice wistful. His gray eyes dancing with mirth. Or nerves? “From the conversation in the cargo bay, it sounds like you could learn a few things . . .”

“Mr. Sindrivik!” Ari cut him off, pleased by the iron ring of command in her tone. At least she hadn’t lost that. Apparently, during her incarceration and recovery, junior crewmen still hadn’t learned to trade successful jests with their officers. “We are currently on a collision course with a star. I invite you to contemplate whether you prefer being burned to a crisp or crushed by gravity. Both are possibilities unless I unlock the engine. You are relieved.”

The young man stared at her, his expression remote and chilly.

“You heard the captain,” Seaghdh said, his tone silky and dangerous. “Navigation. And Mr. Sindrivik, mind your manners.”

“Aye.” Sindrivik sounded grudging, but he shifted seats.

She strapped into piloting, aware from the quiver running through the ship that the gravity of Occaltus’s sun had them in its grip. They’d begun final approach. She checked her screens, unlocked the engines, and nudged the nose of the ship higher. “I need a line to Raj.”

“I haven’t started cutting cords, yet,” Seaghdh replied.

“Terrific. You’ll want to strap in. Solar storms in this system have one hell of a reach.”

“Sage advice.” He punched a button. “Secure all personnel. Doctor, your services are required on com.”

“Faraheed, here.”

“Initiating entry, Raj,” Ari said. “Shunting external readings to your location. I’m not happy with those particle levels. What do you think?”

“Particle density is too low. Take us deeper.”

“Acknowledged.”

The
Sen Ekir
bucked. Sindrivik swore and worked his panels feverishly. “You can’t do this. Your atmospherics aren’t even online. No way we’ll get out of the gravity well. Give me the ship,” he said. “Give me the ship!”

“I did not come up here to die, Mr. Sindrivik,” she replied.

“No! Just to kill us.”