Prologue

CAPTAIN’S OFFICE: UNITED COALITION

HUNTERSHIP REGALIA

“You might want to sit down.” Admiral Cayla “Ace” Edmonds’s countenance on the Regalia’s comm screen was serious. But Sass—Captain Tasha Sebastian—had known the admiral since Ace was a captain with the U-Cee Fleet and Sass was a fast-talking rim runner with questionable associations and excellent reflexes. That was sixteen years ago—long enough to recognize a slight twinkle of mirth in the older woman’s dark eyes.

So it wasn’t something galaxy-shaking serious. With a half shrug, Sass sat behind her desk and played along. “The Triad rescinded the peace agreement?”

Alarm flared briefly in Ace’s eyes. Then the admiral clasped a hand over her heart, obscuring the United Coalition insignia on her khaki uniform.

“Don’t do that to an old woman. Not after what we’ve just been through.” Grueling was a good word to describe that. There were times Sass wondered how she and Ace had survived four months of negotiations with the United Coalition’s one-time enemy—negotiations that were taxing to diplomats and senior military personnel on both sides. But peace and cooperation were things the technologically superior Triad said they wanted, even more than the rich U-Cee resources they’d chased for years.

The U-Cees agreed: the Illithians were a growing threat neither of them could handle, and an alliance with the Triad was preferable to the annexation the Rebashee suffered more than sixty years before.

“So what’s the gossip?” Sass asked.

“Not gossip. Fact. I’ve put my official signature to it.”

“Then we are talking about the Triad? Or the new Alliance?”

“The Alliance. And I’m pleased to report you’ve been demoted.” Ace grinned broadly. “Commander,” she added, stressing the title.

A spike of fear flashed through Sass’s gut but quickly subsided. Hell, Ace was probably more responsible for the existence of Tasha Sebastian than Sass was. And that was a secret both would take to their graves. So this wasn’t a demotion due to the lies that created a U-Cee officer named Tasha Sebastian out of a rim runner named Sass. This was something else.

Another one of Admiral Edmonds’s secret missions?

“So I’m demoted. What else am I?”

Ace paused for a half a breath, then: “The new first officer on the Vaxxar. ”

Sass jerked upright in her office chair. “I’m what?” Her voice, much to her consternation, squeaked.

“New first officer, reporting directly to the Tin Soldier himself. If you behave, in six months—maybe less—you’ll have your rank of captain back.”

“You’re transferring me to the Vax?”

“Admiral Kel-Paten specifically requested your transfer as part of the Alliance Personnel Integration Program. You know he’s still acting captain on board? I gather it was a nonnegotiable issue. What I did negotiate is fifteen of your officers to be transferred within two weeks of your arrival.” Sass leaned back in her chair and clamped her lips shut before her mouth could continue its fish-out-of-water imitation. The Vaxxar was more than just Kel-Paten’s flagship. It was arguably one the best hunterships on either side of the Zone. Her wildest dreams during the war included its capture so she could explore its technical perfection. But she figured the chance of that happening ranked right up there with her personally solving the mystery of McClellan’s Void—that mythical location that down-on-their-luck spacers used to cadge a free drink.

Now she was actually going to be on board the Vax. But her thrill of anticipation wavered as the impetus for this windfall registered. Admiral Kel-Paten—the Triad’s biocybernetic admiral—had requested her transfer.

Requesting her head on a platter would make more sense. Had he guessed that the mercenary Lady Sass wasn’t really dead? Ace would never take that risk. Yet, last she heard, the APIP hadn’t reached the final stages.

Why did Kel-Paten want her on board, and ahead of schedule? What game was her former nemesis playing?

“My choice of officers. He agreed to that?” she asked warily.

“I’ve already logged in Doc Fynn, Cisco Garrick, and Perrin Rembert.”

“And Tank. I’m sure Kel-Paten has a dozen regulations prohibiting pets on board, but Tank goes or I don’t.” She didn’t anticipate a problem with the others. Eden Fynn, the Regalia’s chief medical officer and Sass’s closest friend, was a top-notch Healer. Garrick was one of the sharpest chiefs of security she’d ever worked with, and Remy was a science officer so thorough that she felt even the Triad’s biocybe admiral would be hard-pressed to find fault with him.

But Tank was her furzel. Fidget, really, as he was not yet full grown. A ten-pound fluffy bundle of long black and white fur with an unstoppable curiosity, an insatiable appetite, and a heart full of unconditional love.

“Already approved.”

Kel-Paten approved a furzel on board? Warning bells blared through Sass’s mind. “This is not a good idea, Ace.”

The admiral’s grin widened.

“We’ll end up killing each other,” Sass continued, “if he doesn’t dump me out in McClellan’s Void first. Gods’ blessed rumps, he eats, lives, and breathes regulations. Plus, if he ever finds out I’m—”

“It’s been seven years since Lethant. He won’t.” On the comm screen, Ace waved one hand dismissively. “Look at the positives. You, my dear, will have one of the Triad’s best hunterships at your fingertips. There are things that ship can do that our best intelligence agents could never confirm. All the pretty talk of this new Alliance aside, I never thought we’d get even a U-Cee ensign on board the Vaxxar. Then I get this.” Ace held up a thin datadisk. “Your transfer, scheduled for three weeks from today.

Kel-Paten obviously has no idea who you are, what you can do, or he’d never let you on board.”

Actually, he did know what she could do, though it was almost twelve years ago, just before the war...

Twenty-four-year-old Lieutenant Sebastian sits at the helm on the Sarna Bogue under command of Captain Rostikov. Both captain and ship are years past their prime, relegated now to patrolling the Far Reaches and hauling supplies to places no decent U-Cee crew wants to go. But for Sass, it’s the best chance she’s had. Reinvented with the help of a crafty U-Cee captain named Edmonds almost four years prior and legitimized by the United Coalition Intelligence Division, she’s working her first shipboard posting as Lt. Tasha Sebastian. She covers for Rostikov when he’s too drunk to make it to the bridge, tweaks illegal patches into the faltering drive systems, learns to play a mean game of Starfield Doubles from the leathery-faced Tsariian chief engineer.

Then the Vaxxar shows up on short-range scan—the long-range gave its last gasp only an hour before—and all hell breaks loose. Sleek, fast, and deadly, the Imperial huntership is universally feared. But despite its superior tech and its subjugation of the Rebashee’s Danvaral sector, the Keltish Triad is running out of resources. And with both sides battling for possession of the Staceyan asteroid belt, U-Cee supply freighters are a favorite Triadian snack.

The Bogue is apparently on the menu, but Captain Rostikov is deep in a bourbon fog and snoring. The two techies are green ensigns fresh out of the academy. One wets his pants when the red-alert siren blares and the comps ID just who is on the Bogue ’s tail.

She catches the look in the chief’s yellowed eyes—a mix of hopelessness and anger.

“We can’t outrun the Vaxxar, Tasha.”

“I know that, Chief.”

“Can’t fight ’em neither. Starboard lasers are locked up. I can get ya maybe half power on the port ones, but it’s just pissin’ in the wind against that one.”

The remaining techie shivers at the comm panel. He dutifully sent out the SOS and dutifully reported back an ETA of one hour for the rescue team from Garchan-3. “But we’re being hailed by the”—he gulps—“ Vaxxar. ” He says the Triadian huntership’s name in a hushed voice.

Maybe hoping if no one hears him, it’ll go away.

She gives the techie the order to open the comm and—for what will be the first of many times to come—hears the voice of Captain Kel-Paten.

The Kel-Paten. But only his voice. Visual’s out. In order for short-range scan to function at all, it has to be.

“Sarna Bogue, this is Captain Kel-Paten of the Vaxxar. Cut your drives immediately or you will be fired upon. Prepare to be boarded.” With a nod to the chief, she seats herself in the command sling, takes a deep breath, and activates the comm mike: “ Vaxxar, this is the Sarna Bogue. Fuck you and the equinnard you rode in on. Sebastian out.” She slaps the mike off and turns to the chief, ignoring his wide-eyed expression. “We’ve got work to do.”

She knows from personal experience what Kel-Paten needs: maximum haul, minimal time. You board a U-Cee supply freighter, it’s all there at your biocybernetically enhanced fingertips. Logs. Manifests. Locations and entry codes. Scan the data, locate the desired cargo, compute location coordinates, and transbeam the stuff out. Simple. Easy.

Efficient. Quick.

Lady Sass’s raids always were.

So she tweaks everything—the comp codes, the nav codes, the security locks. Hell, most of the stuff malfunctions as a matter of course. All she really does is let the Bogue be herself.

We can’t outrun you, but we can slow you down.

She comes back to the bridge just moments before the Bogue is jolted by unfriendly laser fire. Her drives are dead. Garchan-3 rescue sends word they’re thirty minutes out.

She lets her acknowledgment of Garchan-3’s ETA go through the unsecured comm. Just in case the Vaxxar ’s high-tech descramblers weren’t listening the first time.

Transbeams slice through the hull, setting intruder alarms wailing.

She leans back in the sling, crosses her legs, and watches a wide shimmer of light coalesce in front of her. Four Triadian crew—no, three crew and one cybernetically enhanced captain, aloof in demeanor yet oddly handsome, disconcertingly so. She expected someone—some thing

—less human in that black uniform and trademark black gloves. And definitely not as male.

She stares into a pair of ice-blue eyes, notes his slight frown of confusion. He scans the bridge quickly and she knows what he sees: two young pimple-faced boys shaking in their seats; one grizzled, balding old Tsariian with rheumy eyes and stooped shoulders; and one pint-size female whose short-cropped blond hair is partly covered by a ratty-looking red cap bearing the logo of a Kesh Valirr nighthouse.

He steps toward her, his gaze briefly on the single bar above her name patch. It’s the only part of her attire that’s remotely regulation. When he speaks, there’s clearly a warning tone in his voice: “Lieutenant Sebastian.”

She doesn’t need to see the three diamond-studded stars affixed to the gold lightning insignia. She acknowledges him without a hint of emotion: “Captain Kel-Paten.”

Twenty-nine minutes. Twenty-eight...

With six minutes to spare, the tall, dark-haired biocybe captain turns away from the Bogue ’s data station, the only evidence of his frustration in the clenching and unclenching of one gloved hand. As his officers stand rigidly beside him, he wastes an entire minute with his gaze locked on her.

“Sebastian,” he says, but nothing more. Just a pause. An intense, heavy pause.

“Kel-Paten,” she replies, and then—knowing she courts his wrath by doing so—lets her mouth curve into the barest of smiles.

When the boys and girls from Garchan-3 arrive, the Vaxxar has gone away, empty-handed—but the image of Kel-Paten’s heated gaze stays with her for many years to come...

I’m the new first on the Vax. Oh, bloody damned hell. Sass watched the triple ovoid rings of Triad Imperial Station 12 grow larger on the transport’s small screens and felt the hand of destiny tighten around her throat. A black-gloved hand...

In spite of her fascination with the ship, she didn’t see this whole thing as quite the coup that Edmonds did. More likely this was Kel-Paten’s expertly crafted revenge for not only the Sarna Bogue but all the other run-ins she’d had with him since: more than fifty intercepts in the Far Reaches, another twenty off the Staceyan Belt. And in the Zone... she’d lost count.

If you behave, in six months—maybe less—you’ll have your rank of captain back, Ace had said in that fateful conversation three weeks ago.

Didn’t the woman realize Kel-Paten’s definition of behave was vastly different from Sass’s?

Case in point: her arrival on IS-12 via transport shuttle, not via the Regalia. The last thing she wanted was the pomp and circumstance of an official send-off with herself and her crew in their starched tan U-Cee dress uniforms. Starched uniforms played hell with a hangover.

Sass only half-listened as IS-12’s traffic control acknowledged the transport’s approach. Yuri—Captain Yuri Ettoran, an old friend from her days working the rafts around Kesh Valirr—answered with the standard verbiage. Red docking lights flashed to life around the black maw of Shuttle Bay 27.

Sass had never been to IS-12, but she’d listened to the gossip from itinerant freighter crews who held no political allegiances but went where the money was.

All spit and polish—pure function. Don’t find no potted ferns prettyin’

up the corridors there.

So she was prepared for that.

But not for him.

Admirals—especially Triadian admirals, even if they were acting captains—didn’t serve as official greeters to arriving crew, even if the arriving crew was the new first. That’s what the gods made lieutenants for.

But his presence was just another preemptive move in whatever game he was now playing with her and the U-Cees. A familiar ice-blue gaze sized her up as she stopped in the rampway’s airlock. She knew what he saw: the Vaxxar’s newest officer in civvies, half-empty wine bottle stuffed haphazardly into her knapsack, and a furzel kennel on an antigrav pallet riding close to her left hip.

Footsteps thudded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder as the transport pilot sauntered down the ramp. Oblivious to the Tin Soldier’s presence, Yuri affectionately slapped her on the rump for luck. “Give ’em hell, babe.” He tugged at the brim of her ratty red cap—newer but with the same nighthouse logo—then, whistling, headed down the corridor.

The Tin Soldier’s gaze never wavered. His only response was one word, a warning tone in his voice: “Sebastian.”

She stepped off the ramp. The three diamond-studded stars had recently been topped by two more; five stars in all riding the slash of gold lightning on his impeccable black uniform. She presented him with her cockiest stare, waited the requisite pause, then let her mouth curve into the barest of smiles: “Kel-Paten.”

Let the games begin.

1

SHIP’S GYMNASIUM, TRIAD HUNTERSHIP

VAXXAR

“Captain, we have a problem.”

It took a moment for Sass, toweling the sweat off her face, to acknowledge the comment voiced by the tall woman striding down the locker room aisle toward her, her black and tan Alliance uniform partly obscured by a blue lab coat, her shoulder-length blond hair uncharacteristically mussed.

Captain. Gods’ blessed rumps, after five and a half months of being called “commander,” she finally had her rank back. That was the only good news Admiral Branden Kel-Paten gave out during the senior staff meeting earlier—though the definition of “captain” on board the Vaxxar was, in Sass’s opinion, still up for grabs.

However, Sass had a feeling that the admiral’s announcement—at that same meeting—of the Vaxxar’s departure from Lightridge Station within the hour was solely responsible for the grim expression on Doc Eden Fynn’s face.

“You’ve given Lightridge some decent leads—”

“Leads?” Eden came to a halt in front of her, then flung her arms wide in exasperation, narrowly missing smacking her hand on a metal locker door. “People are dying of fright in the space lanes, Tasha. No one knows how or why. And now we have eighty-seven more dead bodies exhibiting abnormally high levels of dopamine and serotonin.” The deaths on the freighter Degun’s Luck were the sixth such incident in Triadian space in the past four months. Lightridge had promptly alerted Alliance HQ, requesting a forensic medical team. The Vaxxar, chasing down reports of an Illithian mother ship in the sector, had been diverted to Lightridge, pending the team’s arrival. But only temporarily.

Sass draped the towel around her neck. Three of the dead were Zingarans, Eden’s people. That only made the incident worse for the CMO.

“The med team from HQ arrives in ten hours. They’re best equipped to handle this. We’re a huntership, Eden. We need to be out there stopping the Illithians from breaching our borders, not sitting on station performing autopsies.”

Eden didn’t seem to hear her. “I’m the only empathic doctor to come on scene in the first thirty hours after one of these incidents. There are still emanations. But I need time to work with them. Only now he pulls us off Lightridge. All because some damned pirate-turned-informant decided to go on an unscheduled vacation!”

“That damned pirate was gathering intelligence on the Illithians,” Sass pointed out. “HQ and the admiral feel it’s imperative we locate him.” Border breaches and a missing undercover operative did not make for a happy Admiral Kel-Paten. Sass figured that was why he denied Eden’s request to stay behind on Lightridge. He needed Eden’s expertise when they captured Jace Serafino. Sass just wasn’t sure if he was referring to Eden’s empathic talents in discerning falsehoods or her medical ones in putting Serafino back together after the admiral wiped the floor with him.

Their mutual animosity went back years.

It was years as well since Sass had seen Serafino. He was a charming rogue, always hip-deep in some kind of trouble. According to the staff briefing, he had changed little.

But Tasha Sebastian—the woman Serafino knew as Lady Sass—had changed. Though she prayed he wouldn’t remember her. She didn’t need Admiral Edmonds’s warning ringing in her mind to know that there were parts of her past that the Triad—and especially Kel-Paten—must never know.

“Since he won’t grant the medical investigation critical-mission status,” Eden was saying, “then I’m asking for a two-week leave of absence. It would take me only six hours to get back there by shuttle.” They were still in the inner-system lanes and at sublight speed. A shuttle launch would slow them down twenty, thirty minutes at most.

If Kel-Paten agreed to it. And he might, if Sass couched it in the proper terms. For all of Kel-Paten’s aggravating qualities—and they were legion—he encouraged her input. Sass enjoyed testing the depths of his cybernetically perfected mind. His cybernetically perfect form wasn’t half bad either, she grudgingly admitted. Except for his attitude and that damned perpetual scowl...

But she’d brave that for Eden, even though she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of losing her CMO—and closest friend—for two weeks. “Let me see what I can do.” Her comm link trilled as if to punctuate her words. It took her a moment to find it under her towel, clipped to the neck of her pink workout shirt. “Sebastian.”

“My office. Five minutes.” The admiral’s familiar deep voice brooked no argument. She wondered what crisis he uncovered—again—to occupy what was left of her free time.

But, hell, she’d just agreed to talk to him on Eden’s behalf.

“By your command, sir.” Sass clicked off the link and caught Eden’s wry grin. “What?”

“Good shirt.”

Sass looked down. My name’s No, No, Bad Captain! What’s Yours? was clearly visible now that she’d removed her towel. She grinned back as she tossed the towel into a nearby hamper, remembering the day her officers on the Regalia gave her the pink T-shirt. Remembering more the wide-eyed expression on Kel-Paten’s face the first time he saw her wearing it as she left the Vax’s gym. Gods, she so enjoyed rattling his cage.

“Want to try double-teaming him?” she asked, heading for the door.

Eden fell into step with her. “He can dock my pay for the cost of the shuttle fuel if—”

The red-alert sirens erupted as the corridor doors slid open, stopping Eden in mid-sentence.

Damn. What now? Sass flicked on her comm link. “Sebastian to bridge.

Status, Mister Rembert.”

“Incoming interstellar thermal wave. Eight-point-two on the Graslan scale. McAbian residue readings—”

“On my way! Sebastian out.”

Sass bolted down the wide gray corridor for the lifts, her heart pounding. She didn’t have to hear the residue reading figures. An 8.2

Graslan wave was more than enough to tear a huntership the size of the Vaxxar apart.

Oh, gods. Tank. She stepped into the lift, gave the command for the bridge deck, and tapped her comm link again. “Sebastian to captain’s quarters. Tank. Kennel, now!”

She knew her voice would sound in her quarters. She prayed her black and white fidget wasn’t sleeping so deeply he couldn’t hear it. No, he’d be awake. The sirens would have accomplished that. Chances were good he’d clambered into the small safety pod even before she barked out the order.

The pod was rigged to dispense one of his favorite treats when it sensed his presence inside. The fidget might not understand emergencies, but he was never one to miss a meal.

“Bridge,” the tinny autovoice announced.

She lunged out of the lift, almost colliding with a tall, dark-haired man in a black Triad uniform. Kel-Paten. He slanted her one of his infamous scowls before guiding her through the double sliding doors that led to the upper level of the bridge.

The two-tiered, U-shaped command center of the huntership was already frenzied with activity, black-uniformed senior officers moving efficiently from station to station, specialists glued to their chairs but swiveling quickly as new information downloaded to a nearby screen.

Voices were terse, commands clipped. Every screen streamed with data.

Kel-Paten released her arm. “You’re out of uniform.” She was also off duty, but the possibility they were at death’s door prevented her from reminding him of that fact. She offered him a brief

“noted” as she headed for the closest scanner station to check incoming data.

What Sass saw on the screens wasn’t pretty, but they had time. Five, maybe ten minutes to try some fancy dancing that could either save their lives or send them to their graves in infinitesimal pieces. She glanced over her shoulder. Kel-Paten slid into the left command seat. She watched as, with a practiced familiarity, he thumbed open a small panel covering the dataport in the armrest and linked into the ship’s systems through the interface built into his wrist. He frowned slightly, then his eyes flared with that eerie, luminous hue that signaled his cyber systems were at full power. He was spiked in, as much a part of the huge huntership as the drives, scanners, and bulkheads.

Except, unlike the drives, scanners, and bulkheads, he could talk.

She turned back to her console, knowing he could hear her just as well from there as if she were seated next to him.

“Admiral, my data shows a major energy disturbance at oh-five-seven-point-four.”

“Oh-five-seven-point-four-three-two,” the voice through her comm link stated. “No damage from preliminary residual shock waves. Ship integrity is sound. Secondary waves—”

“Damn!” Sass swore as she was thrust abruptly sideways. She clung to the wide console with both hands and considered sitting down and strapping in.

“Forward shields down to eighty-five percent,” a crewmember’s voice announced below her.

She opted to remain standing, working at the console. Kel-Paten was no doubt eons ahead of her calculations in his inner journey through the data, but he looked for the known, correlating and synthesizing, while she looked for the unexplainable. Granted, his cybernetically enhanced thought processes were a million times faster than hers, but he was linear, where her analysis tended to do pirouettes and somersaults.

“Tell me what we don’t have, Kel-Paten,” she said tersely under her breath, forgetting for a moment that—spiked in—he could hear her. The huntership shuddered as another line of shock waves impacted its shields.

“Energy signature is not indicative of ionic-storm formation,” he replied. “No indication of interstellar gas cavity. No known binary-collision region in this sector.” And no comment as to the inappropriateness of her sarcastic tone.

“Space–time rift?” she ventured, her fingers rapidly tapping instructions into the sensor pads.

“Highly improbable, with no previous black-hole activity recorded in this quadrant.”

“We might just be making history, then,” she quipped, scanning the results of her latest data request. She frowned. “We have abnormally high levels of McAbian particle residue.”

The Vax heeled hard to port, and Sass’s stomach made a corresponding lurch to starboard. “Admiral, look at those levels!” The few seconds of studious silence from the admiral were filled by the sounds of voices around her: reports of minor hull damage on Deck 7, another fluctuation in shield integrity portside, two crewmembers with broken arms on Deck 10. Down in sick bay, Eden would be up to her eyes in contusions and broken bones. After this, they’d both need a pitcher of iced gin.

“McAbian levels are increasing at the rate of seventeen parts per nanosecond,” Kel-Paten reported. “Probability of vortex formation is eighty-seven point six-five percent in the next ten minutes.” At his words, a chill surged up Sass’s spine. A vortex—a hole violently torn in the space–time continuum. It could be anything from the universe farting to the birth of a major black hole as the result of a dark-star implosion perhaps hundreds of thousands of light-years away. But there were always warnings. For a vortex to just suddenly appear was...

impossible. Yet there it was. And here they were, stuck at the wrong place at the wrong time with nowhere to go but down the galactic shitter.

And no time to figure out the whys and hows.

“Can you spike out? We have to do some fancy dancing. I need you at the con.”

“Agreed. Acknowledged.”

“Remy!” She called to the lanky, amber-skinned man—the Regalia’s former science officer—two consoles down. “Monitor this station—we’ve got a rift coming.”

She took the seat next to Kel-Paten, raked a safety strap across her chest, then stabbed at the intraship comm link on her seat’s armrest.

“This is the captain. Secure all decks. We’re on a rift horizon. Sebastian out.” She turned to him. “Shields were down to eighty—”

“Corrected.” His pale eyes were losing their eerie luminescence. “They’re back at optimum.”

“Well, praise the gods and pass the peanut butter,” she said, noting the undisguised superiority in his tone. “Remind me to tell you how much I love you, Kel-Paten. If we live through this.” The ship lurched sickeningly again. Alarms wailed. Data on her screen relayed everything she didn’t want to know. This was a different kind of reminder, a deadly one.

One that stated that when huntership met vortex, vortex usually won.

CAPTAIN’S CABIN

Friend? Friend? Tank hunkered in the rear of the kennel-pod and called out plaintively to the older furzel a few cabins away. The alarm—what he termed “Loud High Noise”—blared constantly, making his furry ears twitch. Big Ship shuddered and pitched. He was in Small Safe Place and shouldn’t be worried, but worried he was. And it wasn’t because of the way Big Ship moved. Friend? Bad Thing here!

Friend. Reilly’s mental contact was reassuring to the fidget. See. Smell.

Know. Have time. Be safe.

Go Blink now?

No Blink now.

We stop Bad Thing?

A sense of pride filtered through his mind. Our job. We protect.

Big Ship shimmied and Tank bumped against the pod’s side. Protect MommySass. He paused. Thirsty.

A mental sigh sounded in his mind, then an image of two small glowing circles. Remember! Blue light, blue light water, Reilly instructed. Blue light, yellow light food.

Tank ducked his head slightly, even though he knew Reilly couldn’t see.

Remember! So much to remember, and he was only a fidget.

Standing a bit unsteadily, he found two blue lights on the side of Small Safe Place, then recognized the pattern of sticklike markings above it: WATER. There was a small round spot. He nosed it and a slender tube slid down. The tube dripped a cool wetness onto his tongue.

Thirst quenched, he closed his eyes, ignored Loud High Noise, and reached carefully through the neverwhen.

Yes, there it was with its ugly smelly light. Bad Thing. Bad Thing was here.

When Reilly gave the word, Tank would be ready.

2

Remind me to tell you how much I love you, Kel-Paten.

Something in Kel-Paten’s chest tightened sharply at her quip. He had wanted to hear those words for so long that even now—laced with sarcasm and in the midst of an emergency—they still had the power to send a wave of heat rolling through his body.

He automatically locked down emotions Psy-Serv would dismantle him for experiencing and forced his gaze away from the woman next to him.

The data on the screen on his left showed him that Tasha had already dropped power on the sublight engines.

Good girl. The mistake most novice—and nervous—captains made when encountering a rogue energy field was to buck it full bore. It was better to ride the field, navigate the energy waves. But that took very delicate handling.

Civilized space was littered with debris from ships whose captains had tackled Lady Nature head on. His ship, he knew with complete certainty, would never be one of them.

Not as long as either he or Tasha Sebastian was in command.

He checked the status in engineering on the wide command monitor angled out from his armrest. “Fifty-five seconds to primary flare.”

“Great,” Tasha intoned, following the same data on her monitor. “The galaxy decides to fart while we’re sharing its undies.” A ripple of nervous laughter sounded from nearby crewmembers seated at the navigation, engineering, and defense stations ringing the upper bridge. He wondered if he should chance a commiserating smile, but she’d already swiveled around to nod at several officers in Triad black and Alliance black and khaki.

“I love you all, you know that,” she announced blithely.

“Yes, ma’am!” came back several replies.

A high-pitched beep returned his attention to his screen. “Thirty-five seconds.” He glanced again in her direction, opening that hidden part of his mind that her presence triggered, letting technologically impossible emotions spill forth. She regarded him questioningly. The words he ached to say died in his throat. He turned back to his comp screen and wondered, not for the first time, if he was going to die without ever being able to tell her how he felt.

“Ten seconds,” she reported.

“Switching helm control to manual.” He keyed in his clearance code.

She finished hers, nodded. “Helm control on manual. The admiral has the con. Hang on, boys and girls. It’s going to be a rough ride.” He watched the primary flare explode on the ship’s forward viewscreen like a thousand suns colliding in some crazed dance, streams of energy suddenly spiraling outward. Without thinking, he grasped her hand and, when she turned to him, called up all his courage and said her name.

“Tasha, I—”

The Vaxxar collided with the full force of the expanding vortex. His words—and grasp on her hand—were lost in the wailing of alarms and groaning of metal bulkheads straining under impact as the ship lurched violently, first to port, then to starboard.

Bridge lights flickered and went out, though it was only microseconds before auxiliary emergency lighting kicked on, bathing everything in a murky green glow. The ship lurched again; two crewmembers went sprawling across the deck. A pressure vent ruptured in a lower bulkhead panel, sending a mushroom of hot, moist air across the upper bridge.

Kel-Paten coaxed the huntership through a series of snakelike maneuvers.

The Vax seemed to glide for a moment before another shock wave sent her careening to port.

“Damn it!” Tasha swore. Her safety strap had just enough give that she bounced against his shoulder. For the second time he grabbed her, and for the second time what he wanted to say refused to pass his lips.

“Sir?” she asked with a slight frown.

He released his hold on her arm. “I want to try feathering the aft braking vanes.”

There had to be forty different edicts prohibiting the feathering of braking vanes in the Triad Fleet’s operational manuals. He had probably authored thirty of them. Feathered vanes were known to shear off, taking sections of the hull with them. Or create vibrations that threatened the stability of a ship.

At least that’s what they did under normal circumstances. But the eye of a vortex was not a normal location.

“Retract forward vanes,” he ordered.

“Vanes retracted,” she replied, and the ship began to shimmy in response.

Immediately, reports of structural slippage were heard around the bridge. Kel-Paten ignored them.

“Invert aft vanes, fifteen percent.”

She tapped at her screen. “Fifteen.”

“Start with a five percent pitch, Sebastian, then give me a two percent increase on my marks.”

“Affirmative, Admiral. At five.”

He watched twenty seconds click by on his vision field.

“Mark.”

“At seven.”

Twenty more seconds.

“Mark.”

“At nine. Must be jelly ’cause jam don’t shake like this,” she added.

At nineteen percent, the shimmying noticeably subsided. He could feel the helm responding to his commands. At twenty-seven percent, the Vax seemed to find her space legs again. Overhead lighting flickered back on, and at least five of the fifteen-odd alarms ceased to wail.

It was an encouraging sound. Almost as encouraging as... Well, he’d think about her words later. Right now he had an illogical appearance of a vortex to decipher, a damaged ship to deal with, and two of his engineering officers requesting his input. All on top of more reports from First Fleet captains detailing Illithian attacks in the Zone, and the threat of yet another Rebashee uprising in Danvaral.

He pushed himself out of his seat and headed for the lower bridge. They had lived through the worst of the vortex. He took it as an omen to mean he had time yet to tell her how he felt. And time yet for her to say the words he had waited almost twelve years to hear.

She was on his ship. With him. For the rest... there was time.

UPPER BRIDGE, COMMAND SLING

It took almost two and a half hours for operations on the bridge to return to some semblance of normalcy, with only the never-ending litany of damage reports hinting at the severity of the encounter. What they’d experienced—a rogue vortex, for the lack of any more-accurate classification—Sass left to Kel-Paten and the science team to unravel. The ship and her crew were things she could contend with.

“Sebastian to sick bay. Come up for air yet, Doc?” Sass could almost see Eden’s responding grimace to her question.

“I think we’ll make it,” said Eden’s disembodied voice over the command-sling comm. “Briefly, we have four concussions, fifteen broken arms, eight broken legs, and more bumps and bruises than I have space in my medical logs to record.”

“And the furzels?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“Cabin monitors show them back to their usual mischief.” Knowing Tank, that could be good or bad news. Sass allowed herself a small grin. “Sounds like you earned this week’s pay. Keep me informed.

Sebastian out.”

She flicked off the comm, leaned back in her seat, and let out the sigh she’d held in for she didn’t know how long. The sound must have drawn Kel-Paten’s attention. He turned from where he stood near the upper-bridge railing.

“I’d like to do a physical inspection of ship’s damage,” he told her after a lengthy moment of silence.

Why not? she thought. Hell, it was only 0145 in the morning. She glanced down at her pink sweatpants and realized she still wore her No, No, Bad Captain! shirt. A hands-on of the ship would probably take another two hours. After that she could fall directly into bed and wake up two hours later for her ritual workout with Eden Fynn. Still in her sweats.

How convenient! She grinned in spite of the dull ache between her shoulder blades.

She pushed herself out of her seat. “Want to start in engineering?” He was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Sick bay.

Engineering after that.”

The suggestion surprised her, though she said nothing as she followed him down the corridor to the lifts. Sick bay was where she started after any trauma on board the Regalia. But Kel-Paten... it was well known he rarely showed up in sick bay except under the direst of circumstances.

Maybe, she mused, all that shimmying finally shook some compassion into that cybernetic system of his.

If it did, he might be willing to give credence to Eden’s request to take a shuttle back to Lightridge. They may have bested a vortex, but those unexplained deaths still worried her. If only they didn’t have that damned runaway pirate to find.

SICK BAY

Eden Fynn was too tired to hide her surprise when Kel-Paten showed up in her ER. His dislike of medical facilities was well known. She didn’t blame him. If someone had cut off her arms and legs when she was a teenager and replaced them with biocybernetic limbs, she wouldn’t have pleasant memories of the place either. However, any comment she might make was preempted by an emergency call from the bridge.

Again.

Kel-Paten swung around to the intraship vidscreen on the nearest bulkhead, with Tasha only steps behind him.

“An unidentified ship, sir,” Commander Kel-Faray informed him, his dusky face creased with concern. “Seems we dragged her out of the vortex with us. She’s badly damaged and breaking up.”

“Life forms?”

“Four humanoid, and one’s fading fast,” the Vax’s new first officer said.

“But it won’t matter if the ship—”

“Transport all survivors to sick bay. And send a full security team.” He glanced to his left. “You’re about to have a few more visitors, Doctor.”

“We can handle it” was her professional reply. Already her med team angled equipment into position.

Four broad beams of light coalesced into human forms on top of the emergency diagnostic tables. Blue-coated personnel swarmed around them, with Eden heading her own team at the first diag bed. She ran the medicorder briefly over the still form of an elderly man who had died from his injuries minutes before being transported. Real injuries, not fear.

Nothing like Degun’s Luck.

She recorded time of death and moved automatically to the next bed, her scanner parading the important data before her eyes: Male.

Humanoid. Approximately forty-one years of age. Six foot three and one-half inches. Two hundred twenty-two pounds. Respiration was rapid but not life-threateningly so. Blood pressure elevated.

The medicorder categorized his injuries: concussion, broken left wrist, some minor internal bruising to the left side. She was about to move on—he’d make it on his own for now—when her patient stirred and groaned softly.

Immediately she reached out and laid her hand gently against his face, which felt stubbly from several days’ growth of beard.

“Shhh,” she crooned. “You’re safe. You’re on board the Alliance ship Vaxxar. ”

Jet-dark lashes fluttered against bruised cheekbones.

“Admiral.” Kel-Faray’s voice filtered through the vidscreen behind her.

“We have a positive ID on the ship that broke up.” The lashes parted, revealing startlingly deep-blue eyes. Not pale like the admiral’s, but dark like the jeweled waters of the Isarrian Ocean.

Something buried under several layers of professional medical training exclaimed, Damn, but this guy is gorgeous! Right from the tips of his scuffed boots to the gray pants that hugged well-muscled thighs, to the torn shirt that revealed a flat, hard stomach, to the square jaw with that damnably attractive cleft, to his night-dark long hair that escaped its careless tie and now lay against his shoulders—he was unequivocally gorgeous.

Quickly, she shook herself back to reality and mentally readjusted her

“doctor’s cap.” “Just lie still. You’ve been injured—”

“The Vaxxar?” the man’s voice rasped painfully. He licked at dry lips.

“Go ahead, Kel-Faray,” Kel-Paten said from where he stood at the screen.

“You’re on the Vaxxar, ” Eden repeated calmly.

The man’s gaze seemed centered on her chest. Eden belatedly realized her lab coat hung open and the front zipper on her black and tan Alliance uniform jumpsuit had somehow snaked down, revealing the sheer blue lace of her bra. She hurriedly yanked on the zipper’s tab.

“We believe the ship destroyed was Captain Serafino’s ship, the Novalis,

” Kel-Faray’s voice informed sick bay.

Kel-Paten turned, and a low, bitter expletive escaped his lips. The sound drew the man’s attention, and slowly, painfully, he turned his head in Kel-Paten’s direction.

The admiral cut through the throng of med-techs and strode up next to Eden. “Serafino.” He spat out the name, anger tingeing every syllable.

Jace Serafino responded with a cocky, lopsided grin. “It’s good to see you too, Tin Soldier. And you are... ?” He grasped Eden’s hand and brought it to his lips.

Eden stared in shock. This was the damned pirate? The agent gathering intelligence on the Illithians? The staff meeting outlining the mission to find him had clearly detailed all his sins and the specs on his ship—but hadn’t provided, she realized with a start, one clear holo-image of the man. She wasn’t sure even a clear one would’ve done him justice.

She drew her hand away immediately as Tasha stepped up next to her.

“I’m Dr. Fynn, Chief Medical Officer.”

He laughed softly at her discomfort, then coughed from the effort.

“Captain Serafino,” Eden said sternly, “you really must—”

“Wait. Don’t trank me out yet, sweetling,” his voice rasped. “No, No, Bad Captain!” he read out loud. “Of course. This has to be Sebastian.” He winked at her.

It was Tasha’s turn. “Captain Serafino—”

“Damn, Kel-Paten, I really have to compliment you,” he said, turning away from her. “A truly creative and inspiring choice of uniforms for your officers.”

And with that pronouncement, Jace Serafino promptly passed out.

3

CORRIDOR, SICK BAY DECK

Sass lengthened her stride in an attempt to keep up with Kel-Paten, who barked orders into his comm link on their way back to the bridge.

“I want every bit of debris you can find. Do you understand me, Lieutenant?”

They turned the corner. Two black-clad maintenance crew dove out of their way.

No need for my morning jog with Eden, Sass thought as she trotted alongside, listening to the salvage-crew lieutenant try to reason with Ol’

No-Excuses Kel-Paten.

“I don’t care what the current equipment limitations are. If you have to, Lieutenant, you get out there with every godsdamned sieve from the godsdamned galley and bring me everything that may have been even remotely connected to the Novalis!”

She understood his insistence, even if she didn’t much like his method.

Illithian border breaches had become more plentiful of late, casting serious doubts on the efficacy of the Fleet—something Kel-Paten took personally. Serafino’s mission could have provided answers to that problem. But Serafino had turned the tables or turned tail, she wasn’t sure which. Whatever answers Kel-Paten couldn’t wrench out of “the damned pirate” might be found on his ship—or what was left of it. Sadly, a sieve might be the only useful tool.

They reached the lifts, breathing hard. Sass considered taking her pulse and jogging in place. She certainly was in appropriate attire but doubted that Kel-Paten, standing with his hands shoved in his pants pockets and scowling fiercely at the closed lift doors, would find her actions the least bit funny.

That she found them downright hysterical only told her how bloody tired she was.

And relieved. Sebastian, Serafino had called her. Not Sass and, thank the deities, not Lady Sass. So he didn’t recognize her. At least, not in his semiconscious state. There was always the chance he might when his injuries healed. She hastily threw together a few facts—and a handful of rather pretty lies—that would work as a cover story for the dealings she had had with him when she was part of Gund’jalar’s mercenary cell and working arms runners like Serafino had been her job for the UCID. If she was lucky—and she prayed she wasn’t over quota on luck this week—she wouldn’t deal with him again. She’d gladly relegate that duty to Kel-Paten and knew the admiral would have it no other way, not after the embarrassment Serafino and the Mystic Traveler—his ship back then—had caused Kel-Paten years ago out by Fendantun on the Vaxxar’s shakedown cruise. The sneak attack had not only taken out the Vax’s aft shields but launched a jammer drone up a missile tube, rendering all on-board communications systems useless. More annoying than dangerous, had there not been three top Fleet admirals on board. Ever since then, Serafino was Kel-Paten’s personal nemesis. His attitude in the staff meeting had made that abundantly clear.

Still, she didn’t want to stir up old memories. She had no desire to spend the next few weeks in the Vaxxar’s brig if someone like Kel-Paten started poking holes in her past and realized that Sass wasn’t the simple derivative of Tasha that people often assumed it to be. It was the only name she had for the first twenty years of her life and—for a period of time after that—it had acquired a small bit of notoriety.

Notoriety that could put her career—and her life—in serious jeopardy if the Triad found out that the new captain of the Vax had started hijacking Triad supply ships when she was sixteen. That was one of the many things Gund’jalar had taught her.

The deck numbers on the lift panel before her crawled by. She propped herself up against the wall next to the doors. The metallic sheeting felt pleasantly cool through her thin T-shirt. She closed her eyes, longing for five seconds of peace and quiet. Well, as much peace and quiet as one could expect after what the Vaxxar had just gone through. But after all her years in space, the continuous chatter over shipboard comms—requesting Lieutenant So-and-So to report to Such-and-Such or advising Team Whatever that the Who-Gives-A-Lubashit Drill was about to commence—no longer registered in her mind.

Kel-Paten’s deep voice did.

“Hypothesis, Sebastian, since I gather you do not find the sudden appearance of the Novalis disturbing.” Sass opened one eye and peered up at him. His gloved hands were crossed over his chest. Classic defensive posture. My, we’re a bit testy this morning, aren’t we? And gods, it was morning—about 0230 or later if the aches in her body were correct.

She closed her eye. “I find,” she said, after a deep breath and the requisite counting to ten that was supposed to help but never really did,

“the sudden appearance of the Novalis and Captain Serafino to be just one more damned thing to deal with.”

“Sebastian—”

Pause.

There was always the pause after her name. The glare. It was a small ritual she’d most times found humorous, almost endearing. But right now it only fed her annoyance.

Reluctantly, she shoved herself away from the wall. “With all due respect, Admiral, the appearance of Serafino at our doorstep certainly saves us the time and expense of going to look for him. Do I find that a bit odd?” She rephrased his question. “Yes. But disturbing?” She shook her head. “Not yet, not without further information.”

“You don’t find it disturbing that, within twenty-four hours of when we were commissioned to find Serafino, he suddenly shows up, along with an inexplicable vortex?”

No, I don’t have your paranoia, she thought. A second later she chastised herself. Just because their leadership styles were different—vastly different—and she was at the moment tired and cranky, didn’t mean she had to be so critical. She understood the pressure he faced to recover Serafino. It wasn’t so much the two hundred fifty thousand credits that Serafino had allegedly absconded with. It was the fact that those two hundred fifty thousand credits were part of the Alliance’s payment to him for undercover services that apparently were never rendered. The Triad Ministry of Intelligence was having furzel fits over it. No doubt they’d want Serafino delivered for interrogation and prosecution, most likely to Fendantun or Panperra. That meant, again, going in the opposite direction of the Degun’s Luck mystery on Lightridge.

Eden wouldn’t be happy. But Sass suspected an unhappy Doc Eden was easier for Kel-Paten to deal with than an unhappy Ministry of Intelligence.

The lift signal pinged.

Kel-Paten allowed her to enter the empty lift first. He gave the voice command for the bridge as the doors closed, then glanced down at her, probably wondering if she was going to answer his question.

She sighed. “I will not jump to conclusions before I have all the facts. If you’re suggesting that Serafino or his ship somehow caused that vortex, I can’t even guess how that would be possible. Unless the Triad has some kind of secret weapon project you’ve decided not to share with us.” Dark brows slanted down. Pale eyes narrowed. Hmm, he didn’t like that suggestion one bit.

“Okay, okay. Hypothesis withdrawn.” She gave a tired half wave of one hand. “So let’s look at the facts. We are in a quadrant Serafino is known to frequent, according to HQ’s report. You suggested at the staff meeting a few hours ago that it was your opinion we weren’t far behind him.

Actually, it seems we were in front of him, because somehow he got piggybacked to our—oh, never mind.” He was giving her one of those sideways warning looks. She decided to ignore him before her tired mind fueled her temper.

She was still ignoring him when the lift pinged again to signal they’d reached Deck 1. She barged past him and strode down the corridor.

“Sebastian!” he called after her.

She stopped just short of the bridge doors and turned. Was that a glimpse of a smile just now leaving his face? She must be more tired than she thought. Ol’ No-Excuses Kel-Paten never smiled.

“Let’s get some coffee,” he offered. “I need to do some thinking aloud about how the Illithians are getting past our patrols. You know I work better if you’re there to punch holes in every hypothesis I come up with.”

“Sure,” she said, unable to hide the note of surprise in her voice at his sudden change of tone. “I desperately need coffee right now.” He activated the comm link clipped to his shirt. “Kel-Faray, the captain and I will be in my office. I want an update on all damage reports in fifteen minutes. And everything and anything that salvage comes up with on the Novalis as soon as you hear from them.” ADMIRAL’S OFFICE

Tasha had her back to him, leaning one hip against his office wall while she waited for the galley panel to kick out two cups of coffee. Kel-Paten permitted himself a few moments of pleasurable indulgence at the sight, then clicked open the comm link on his console before he totally forgot why the Triad bestowed the rank of admiral on him. “Dr. Fynn, what’s the status on Serafino?”

“He regained consciousness briefly,” Fynn told him, an undercurrent of exhaustion in her voice. Sass pushed a steaming cup across the desk toward him, then sat. He nodded and focused on the CMO’s report. “I’m not totally happy with some chemical changes in his bloodwork. But he’s resting comfortably. His injuries are serious but not life-threatening.”

“Good. Your orders, Doctor, are to keep him alive, but that’s all. Just keep him alive long enough so I can have the pleasure of killing him.

Kel-Paten out.”

He sifted through a short line of messages from various division commanders that blinked on his screen just as he finished with Fynn. He could’ve spiked in through the interface in the armrest of his chair and downloaded the information directly into his memory, but Tasha was there, sitting, sipping coffee, watching him.

He knew what he was. She knew what he was. But he didn’t like reminding her of it. Spiked in on full ’cybe power, his eyes would take on a luminescent hue. He had no choice on the bridge earlier, when they encountered the threat of the vortex. But he had a choice here.

Damage reports were encouraging. Reports on the vortex and Serafino’s appearance—both unexpected and illogical—were less so. Tasha’s offhand suggestion of a Triad secret weapon hovered in his mind. Leave it to her to come up with something so wildly crazy it just might be true. Except that, if it was, he would more than likely be involved with the project, and he wasn’t.

Unless... He brought up one of the mental filters he’d created years ago to circumvent what Psy-Serv programmed into his mind and made a note to do some discreet poking around later. He couldn’t chance—during his routine uploads and downloads when spiked in—that Psy-Serv wasn’t also doing some less-than-routine poking around in his personal databases at the same time.

He cleared his screen, then turned away, reaching for his coffee. “I apologize for the delay. But there were a couple—” and he hesitated, stopped in his mental and verbal tracks by the enigmatic grin on Tasha’s face.

The grin faded and Tasha pulled herself upright in her chair. “Oh, sorry.

When I’m tired, the mind wanders.”

“A new hypothesis?” The look on her face was absolutely blissful—like a furzel licking fresh cream off her whiskers. He hoped her mental wanderings had nothing to do with the security officer who often partnered her in racquetlob. He’d be duty-bound to kill the man. Or at the very least transfer him to the farthest reaches of the galaxy where nothing, human or otherwise, would ever wish to be.

And while he was at it, he’d send that bastard Serafino with him.

Serafino. A thought occurred to him, so chilling that even the mouthful of steaming coffee he took did nothing to melt the rock-hard feeling that suddenly lodged in the pit of his stomach.

Had Tasha been thinking of Serafino?

Serafino’s effect on women was legendary. Kel-Paten hadn’t missed the wink Serafino gave her, saw the way Serafino’s gaze raked over her half-naked form... .

He didn’t realize he’d spoken the name aloud until he heard Tasha’s voice.

“What about Captain Serafino?” she asked. “Besides the fact that he’s here and our house guest for a while.”

House guest? He’d prefer to see him an occupant of the morgue. He tapped at his screen, bringing up a series of folders Triad Intelligence had gathered on the man over the last decade.

“Just what do you know about Serafino? Not,” he touched the screen,

“what’s here. But what do you know?”

She shrugged. “What makes you think I know anything more than you do?”

He answered with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’ve worked the Zone almost as long as I have.”

“And the Regalia, under my command, was a warship. Small time smugglers are handled by local patrols.”

He knew that. But that’s not what he was asking, and he told her so.

Something dark and tense flickered briefly through her eyes. He saw it not so much because he’d been progr—was skilled in detecting human facial nuances. He saw it because he spent years memorizing every line of her face, the curves of her mouth, every light that danced in her eyes. The lights had stopped dancing. Something about Serafino bothered Tasha Sebastian. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. She ran one hand absently through her short hair.

Was she just tired or was it something more?

“Our paths may have crossed,” she said finally, with a casual shrug.

“You’ve met before.”

“My life’s full of interesting characters. It’s part of my job description.”

“You find Serafino interesting?” He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and peered at her from over their black-clad tips.

She sighed. “I thought you wanted my hypothesis on the Irks?”

“I do. But first tell me why you find Serafino interesting.”

“Why not? You find him disturbing,” she challenged. “I think interesting might fit right in there. Especially when you consider the circles he’s run around the Triad and the U-Cees when we’ve tried to stop his smuggling operations. Then there was that double cross he pulled on the Irks over that shipment of Zonn-X rifles six years ago. In some ways, I admire his creativity.”

He closed his eyes briefly. Creativity? Unorthodox methodology was more like it, and not unlike his own Tasha in that. But past associations with a known smuggler wouldn’t sit well with Fleet HQ on Prime. Better he find out before they did.

“Where did you first meet him?” He fired the question at her. “And how well did you know him?”

Anger flared in her eyes. She sat upright. “You think that because the Novalis shows up right after we’re ordered to find him that I leaked that information to him somehow? So he could stage a repeat performance of his infamous ambush on the Traveler out by Fendantun?” Before he could reply, she rose and pointed her finger at him. “That’s what you meant when you said you found his ‘sudden appearance disturbing,’ isn’t it?”

He tamped down his annoyance at the mention of Fendantun. That wasn’t at all the issue here. “Sebastian—”

“Why would I do that,” she continued, leaning her hands on his desk,

“and drop him oh-so-pretty in your lap, if I were working with him? That would make no bloody sense!”

“Sebastian—”

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

No, but he began to wonder about his own mental faculties. Somehow he’d lost control of this discussion, and he wasn’t quite sure how or where.

His meetings with Tasha often contained heated exchanges, though not the kind of heat he’d have liked. They had clashed, amicably, for years. Yet there was something different in her forcefulness this time. An element of hurt or fear?

“I don’t think you’re stupid. Sit down.”

She sat, though he could tell by the way she folded her arms across My name’s No, No, Bad Captain! that she was none too happy about it. Or with him.

“I need to know how you know Serafino. In case HQ questions me about it.”

“From Sookie’s” came the tense answer after an equally tense silence.

The name had a faint ring of familiarity but he couldn’t place it.

“What’s Sookie’s?”

“Sookie Tawdry’s. A nighthouse and casino on Kesh Valirr.” She leaned back in her chair. “Don’t look so shocked, Kel-Paten. I spent two years with UCID doing undercover work.”

He knew about her stint with the United Coalition Intelligence Division.

He’d damned near memorized her personnel file.

“And Serafino was... ”

“A player. I doubt he remembers me. That was years ago. Plus, even if he did, he wouldn’t remember me as Sebastian. No one—” And she stopped, gave her head a small shake. “We used nicknames. You know how covert work goes.” She drew a deep breath. “Have we cleared up any possible charges of treason against me? Or should I anticipate spending the night in the brig, just to be safe?”

“I don’t think the Vax’s brig could hold you,” he answered truthfully.

He’d never doubted her loyalty to the Alliance or her crew for a moment. It was her allegiance to himself that had him worried.

But his comment finally evoked a small smile from her. “Not for long,” she agreed. “Now, are you finally ready to give me your theories on the Illithians?”

He shook his head, closing his eyes briefly. Those damned yellow numbers still glowed in the lower left corner of his vision: 0342.15.20. No matter how many numbers were attached, it was still very late. Or very early.

He always had the option of switching to his surplus power supply to stay awake for another thirty-six to forty-eight hours. Under normal conditions, he rarely slept for more than four hours a night.

But Tasha had no auxiliary cybernetic power supply. And he could tell from the shadows under her eyes that any productive time for discussion had long passed.

“It’s late, Sebastian. Your temper’s sharp and my mind is not right now.” He waved her off. “Get some sleep.”

“You sure? I’m sorry I popped off at you like—”

“I doubt it,” he said, and forced his mouth into what he hoped looked like a smile. It wasn’t an expression he was used to wearing, and it felt as if his mouth fought him every time he tried. “If you ever stopped arguing with me, I’d know there was something wrong.”

She eased herself up out of the chair and headed for the door. “We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow morning—today. Morning. Hell, you know what I mean.”

“Oh-eight-thirty, this office,” he told her as the door slid open.

“Oh-eight-thirty?” she squeaked.

“Oh-nine-thirty, then. In uniform. And on time.”

“Who, me?” she asked in mock innocence, then saluted him, hand over her heart. “By your command, Admiral.”

“Dismissed,” he replied, and then, ever so softly and only after the door had closed, added a gentle benediction: “And may the gods keep you in their care.”

That had been his private blessing to her for years, so much so that it was almost automatic, though rarely spoken out loud. Yet this time he added extra energy to the plea. Something about Serafino’s appearance troubled Tasha. Something more than just the fact that the man was a pirate, a rogue—and a decidedly romantic figure.

Therefore, that same unknown something about Serafino troubled him deeply. He steepled his hands in front of his mouth and tried to identify the source of both their disquiet.

He couldn’t. And that troubled Admiral Branden Kel-Paten, the infamous Tin Soldier, even more.

He pulled down the wrist flap on his glove and lined up his hand with his chair’s dataport, spiking in. Data pathways—Triad, U-Cee, Psy-Serv—scrolled through his mind. He accessed Tasha’s personnel file.

Maybe it was time he reviewed her undercover assignments again. Sookie Tawdry’s. Yes, there it was. He merged with the data and looked for things he might have overlooked before. Things that perhaps the U-Cees, and especially UCID, might not want the Triad to know.

4

SICK BAY

The ship was twenty-eight hours out of Lightridge Station, not quite twenty from Serafino’s unexpected arrival. During that time period, Kel-Paten twice denied Eden Fynn’s requests to return to Lightridge and her work on the Degun’s Luck investigation. Serafino’s capture did not mean the mission was completed. It was, in fact, only just beginning.

And, no, she could not take a shuttle and return to Lightridge alone.

“Depending on how Serafino responds to interrogation, your services, Doctor, might be needed.”

Eden was about to point out that her medical team was quite competent in dealing with whatever torture Kel-Paten chose to inflict on his prisoner, when she realized it wasn’t her medical but her empathic expertise Kel-Paten wanted. She was the only certified empath on board.

She’d function as an unerring lie detector when Serafino was questioned.

So, yes, she was, uniquely, needed.

Eden left the admiral’s office and found Tasha in the corridor outside her ER doors. Meal break—dinner for them—was in less than an hour.

“Said no again, did he?” the captain asked.

“Won’t play Truth or Lies without me.”

“Ah. How are our house guests?”

“Come into my office and I’ll show you the latest reports. Then we can get a bite to eat.”

Tasha followed Eden to her glass-fronted office and sat, reading quietly while Eden uploaded a copy of her report to Kel-Paten’s in-box. Well, perhaps reading quietly wasn’t quite accurate. Eden came to the conclusion that there must be a racquetlob game going on somewhere in sick bay. A silent racquetlob game, which only Captain Tasha Sebastian could see.

The booted foot propped against the edge of Eden’s desk rocked the captain’s chair back and forth, back and forth. It was a motion, Eden noted, that was in direct relation to the sound of sick bay’s doors opening: Phwoosh.

Tasha tilted back, head turned slightly for a second.

Thwip. The doors closed and Tasha sat forward.

Phwoosh.

Tasha tilted back.

Thwip.

Tasha sat forward.

Given the amount of traffic through sick bay on a normal day—and they were less than twenty-four hours after the vortex-rift incident—there was always a lot of phwoooshing and thwipping. Most of which Eden long ago learned to ignore.

But after all the stress of the day before and the disappointment at Kel-Paten’s final refusal, the captain’s seesawing movements were just a bit more than Eden could take. But she at least waited until Tasha was in the thwip stage before she reached over her desk and grabbed the older woman’s boot.

Startled, Tasha almost went ass over teakettle right out of Eden’s office.

“Hey! What are you—”

“What are you doing?” Eden chimed in. “Are you rocking yourself to sleep down here? Or am I missing Fleet finals in racquetlob in my ER?”

“I’m—Oh, sorry.” Tasha grinned sheepishly and dropped her foot to the floor. “It’s him. ” An upward wave of her hand delineated something larger and taller. “If I go down to engineering, five minutes later there he is. If I’m in the wardroom having coffee, he shows up. But today he’s driving me—how do you like to put it? Nucking futz?”

“This is something new?” Eden asked in obvious disbelief.

The answer was preceded by a sigh. “No, just worse. Or maybe I’m just getting less tolerant.” She tossed the report back on Eden’s desk, then rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “I really popped off at him last night. This morning. That was unprofessional. But he seems to feel that being captain is a two-person job: his and mine, together. You know that’s not SOP. He’s admiral of the First Fleet. I’m captain of this ship. Granted, he’s technically, mechanically, part of this ship, and he’s certainly capable—being what he is—of handling both responsibilities. But then,” and she hesitated, frowning, a dark look in her eyes, “why am I here? If I’m not to function as captain, then what kind of game—” She shook her head.

“Never mind. I’m rambling. His paranoia is getting to me.”

“Paranoia?”

“Questioning everything I do, everyone I talk to. As if I’m going to wholesale Triadian secrets to the Cryloc Syndicate or some such lubashit.”

“Like what?”

“Like what?” Tasha repeated. “I don’t even know what secrets the Syndicate would be interested in. Or don’t already know.”

“Not that. What makes you think Kel-Paten is paranoid?”

“You mean besides the fact that he insists on personally reviewing just about every damned report I write? Or tries to fill up what little spare time I have doing this-that-or-the-other-thing with him where—and I know this is true—he can keep an eye on me?” She raised her gaze in a pleading gesture. “Like yesterday after the staff meeting. ‘I’ll require your attention for a moment longer,’” she mimicked, lowering her voice in a bad imitation.

Eden chuckled, but she understood Tasha’s frustration. She also had theories about Kel-Paten’s behavior, derived from watching him over the past few months. But she so rarely had a chance to focus her empathic talents on Kel-Paten without others’ emotions swirling around as well that she wasn’t confident enough to voice her theories. It could be, as Tasha surmised, a basic but expected distrust of anything U-Cee. But a few times she felt something that—if true—might require her as chief medical officer to file a Section 46 on him. She didn’t think that would go over well in the Triad part of the Alliance. Then the puzzle of how—and why—the freighter crews were inexplicably frightened to death would be the least of her problems.

“Then when he found out I knew Serafino—”

“You know Serafino?” The information surprised Eden.

“Gods, not you too!” Sass groaned. “Yes, I knew Serafino. Past tense. I worked at Sookie’s, years ago, remember?”

“And Kel-Paten knows this?”

Sass glanced quickly over her shoulder, then turned back, dropping her voice. “He does now. I figured I better bring it up in case Serafino says something... stupid. It’s in my personnel file as an undercover assignment.

As long as no one goes poking further, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I didn’t know Serafino worked for the U-Cees.”

“He didn’t. He was a player at Sookie’s with arms-running connections that UCID and Gund’jalar wanted information on. We had some minor dealings—even played a couple hands of Starfield Doubles.”

“Would Serafino remember you?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“I’m a little worried about his condition,” Eden admitted. “He should be fully conscious by now or at least be showing signs.”

“You don’t ride through a vortex flare and come out smelling like a blossom,” Tasha pointed out. “And the Novalis wasn’t the Vax. ”

“True, but—”

“But what?” Tasha leaned forward. “You’ve picked up something and you don’t like it. I’ve known you too long, Doc. What do we have here?”

“It’s nothing I’ve encountered before,” Eden said truthfully, folding her hands. “But whatever it is, it’s keeping him unconscious. I just thought that if he heard a familiar voice, it might draw him out.”

“I could stand next to him and say, ‘Place your bets, please,’ but I don’t think that’s going to help.”

“Probably not,” Eden admitted. “I—Uh-oh.” She reached for a stack of reports to her left and quickly dragged them to the middle of her desk. Her voice, when she spoke, was a bit louder than normal and almost authoritative. Eden did many things extremely well. Acting was not one of them.

“... and I think that if we can make the crew understand the importance of proper nutrition—oh, hello, Admiral. Can I help you with something?” For a moment, hope blossomed. Maybe he’d reconsidered and would let her take a shuttle back to Lightridge.

“Doctor.”

He spoke her title but didn’t look at her. He watched Tasha, or more accurately, the back of the captain’s head.

Seeming to realize she was the object of scrutiny, Tasha raised her eyes in a pleading gesture before turning in her chair.

“Sebastian,” Kel-Paten said. Pause. “I didn’t realize the doctor needed to report to you on the crew’s nutritional requirements.”

“We were covering a number of topics,” Tasha told him blandly.

Eden quietly replaced the report in the stack. There was no way the admiral could have overheard their conversation—the noise level in her sick bay was too constant. But his appearance seemed anything but coincidental. Tasha was right; he was following her, but was it because she was U-Cee or something else?

“You’ll be off duty shortly, Doctor.” It was a question, but as with many questions posed by Admiral Kel-Paten, it was issued in the form of a statement.

Eden glanced at her watch, using the movement to give her time to open her empathic senses. It was just the three of them in this relatively small area of her office. This was her best chance to try to read Kel-Paten’s aura—if a biocybe could be accurately read by an empath. Damn, she hadn’t considered that. “Shift ends for me in half an hour, sir.”

“Then I’m sure you have things to attend to before leaving.”

“Actually, the captain and I were—”

“I’m afraid I’ll be requiring”—and at this point Tasha turned her head, so only Eden could see, and exactly mouthed Kel-Paten’s words—“Captain Sebastian’s attention at this time.”

Tasha’s glib action caught Eden by surprise, and she tried to cover her gurgle of laughter with a coughing fit.

Tasha winked, then turned and faced Kel-Paten. “I don’t suppose it can wait until after dinner? I made plans to—”

“You’ll have to cancel those plans. I’ll have something to eat brought to the ready room.”

Tasha sighed theatrically as she stood. “Dining by starlight, Admiral?” The Vax’s ready room had large floor-to-ceiling viewports set into the outer wall. “How can I resist such an invitation?” And with that she waltzed out of the office.

The mask dropped. Eden—waiting for something exactly like this—saw it and felt it. Kel-Paten’s usual impassive expression blurred into something heavily tinged with emotion when Tasha coquettishly turned her face up to his. And Eden saw an aura that only she or another empath like her could see.

Kel-Paten’s aura pulsed with an intensity not unlike the hot flare of the vortex he fought yesterday. He was fighting a surge of emotion, Eden realized. But was he fighting to suppress it or fighting whatever was keeping him from experiencing it?

Either way, it was a problem. A properly functioning biocybe was not supposed to experience emotions.

He looked back at Eden for a brief moment as if he were about to say something, then caught himself as if he knew what she was thinking: Section 46.

The mask fell back into place.

“If you’ll excuse me, Doctor.” He inclined his head slightly.

“Of course.”

Eden leaned back in her chair after he left and tried to analyze what had happened. Something about Tasha Sebastian sparked a change in Kel-Paten. An emotional change. She wondered who put it there: Kel-Paten himself—responding to years of games with the U-Cee captain—or Sellarmaris Biocybernetics and Psy-Serv, looking to add another layer of complexity to their cybernetic creation now that the U-Cees were part of the Alliance?

Either possibility was valid. And both could very well be dangerous.

EDEN FYNN’S QUARTERS

Issues other than Tasha’s continual run-ins with Kel-Paten gnawed at the back of Eden’s mind all through dinner with navigation officer Dannar Kel-Minra, but she couldn’t quite place what they were. It wasn’t Dann’s obvious interest in her. He’d never made her feel uncomfortable.

But he didn’t make her feel anything else either. She couldn’t truly remember a man who had in the years since her divorce. She prowled about her quarters after dinner and wondered if that was why she felt so restless. Her life was fulfilling in all areas except one: romance.

But then, she didn’t sign on with Fleet because she was husband-hunting.

She thought about taking a sedative—she had the night before because of sheer exhaustion. But tonight, other than that odd restlessness, the usual aggravations of a huntership CMO were her only concerns. The comfort of Reilly, her large black furzel, nestled against her was all she needed. She fell asleep shortly after her head touched the pillow.

Or she thought she did.

Over the years, she’d tried to figure out if the space she now occupied—this gray, hazy, yet palpably solid space—was real or just a dream.

It never felt like a dream. It felt as if she stood in a large, dimly lit room.

She had no sense of walls, but she had a definite sense of floor, and, as she did for years, she took a few steps forward once she realized where she was.

She wasn’t afraid. This was a place of immense peace. It calmed her mind. Often, when she was troubled before sleep, she would wake—if that’s what she did—to find herself here. And she knew that if she waited long enough, the thoughts or images needed to solve her problem would come into her mind. She wouldn’t physically see them—she never physically saw anything here except for the soothing gray mists.

Except now.

She stumbled over him in the fog, sensing his presence only moments before they collided—she, moving dreamily forward, and he, just rising from his seat. And then there was the warm and very reassuring pressure of his hands on her arm and about her waist as he drew her against him, then back down to the bench.

A bench. A stone bench.

And a man.

Jace Serafino.

“I’m sorry, I—ohmygods!” she gasped. She had to be dreaming. But her hand, now pressing against the soft fabric of the shirt covering his chest, felt the presence of a heartbeat.

He studied her face. “I... know you.” Like Kel-Paten—it was a question yet a statement.

She nodded. “Dr. Eden Fynn, CMO on the Vaxxar. ” And winced when she heard the formality of her own tone. Why the hell didn’t you just add

“reporting for duty”? she chastised herself mentally.

Jace was smiling at her. “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

“Why didn’t I—” And she stopped, frozen by the realization that he heard her thoughts.

You’re a telepath. She whispered the words in her mind.

Yes. Like you.

Like me? I’m not a telepath. To be a telepath meant you were either a government agent with TelTal or Psy-Serv, or you were declared—based on the Intergalactic Psychic Concordance and Protection Statutes enacted when she was a child—legally insane. I’m a Healer, an empath.

You’re here, aren’t you? His question was as gentle as the hands that now rested against her waist. She knew she should object to this sudden familiarity, except that it didn’t seem all that sudden. The way he held her, the way he guided her to the bench, even the way he now used that light, teasing tone in his voice—his mind voice—seemed so natural, so normal.

Here? she questioned.

In Novalis.

She shook her head. That’s not... the Novalis was your ship.

Novalis is a place. This place. I named my ship after it.

How did you know the name? Did you name this place?

His soft chuckle was audible. The ancients named this place, I think. Or maybe the gods did. It depends on which legend you’re taught. Don’t your people have songs about it?

Not that I remember. But I wasn’t raised... my father was human.

Ahhh. He touched his fingers lightly on the left side of her face, first at her temple, then twice on her cheek, about an inch apart. His thumb came to rest under her chin.

She was trembling. She knew what he’d done and she suddenly knew who—no, what—he was. She felt his touch beyond her mere physical existence, though the physical sensations were admittedly pleasant. It was an ancient benediction, a blessing of a Nasyry warrior–priest that denoted safekeeping. May the gods keep you in their care were the words that often accompanied it.

Innocuous words, but said by a Nasyry, they carried power.

A power that, decades before, severed relations not only with the U-Cees and the Triad but with the empathic Zingarans who worked with them.

Saj-oullum, they termed her mother’s people. Consorts of dead minds, a damnation against an empathic people who willingly associated with non-telepaths.

“Who are you?” She spoke out loud now, afraid what her thoughts would reveal. More afraid of how he might judge her, half Zingaran, half oullum. Dead mind.

He looked at her quizzically and withdrew his hand from her chin. “I’m Jace Serafino, last time I checked.”

“But you’re Nasyry.”

His eyes narrowed for a moment. “Your studies have not been totally lacking, Doctor.”

“There were things I wanted to know.” Her father never encouraged her interest in her deceased mother’s Zingaran heritage. It took her years to learn the little she had.

“Self-taught, Healer?”

Was he reading her thoughts? “Mostly, yes.”

His hand was back, cupping her face. She felt his feather-light touch in her mind, the sensation almost soothing if it weren’t for the fear she kept tamping down. But that was silly. This was only a dream.

Relax. Jace’s voice was soft. I won’t hurt you.

“But you’re a telepath.”

So are you, came the answer, still in her mind. A touch telepath, Doctor. At least, you are with me. You can link to my thoughts by touching me.

I’m an empath, she repeated.

He seemed amused by her stubbornness. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You experience your strongest empathic readings when you touch your patients, don’t you?

It was something she always knew but never admitted, not even to her examiners in med school. Especially not to her examiners. But in sick bay, I tried with you. There was nothing.

A small smile. You underrate yourself. Especially in that delightful outfit—do you always work half undressed in sick bay? I found that touch of blue lace rather memorable... .

Eden saw what he’d seen as he flashed the mental image to her: her less-than-cooperative uniform zipper and the blue lace—gods, that bright blue bra of hers!

That’s not what I meant!

You blush beautifully. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

Captain Serafino—

Jace. There was a firm but friendly insistence in his tone.

She sighed. Jace, I received no telepathic readings from you in sick bay.

A waft of negative emotion now; a slight tension from him that quickly faded. That’s courtesy of Psy-Serv.

Psy-Serv? You’re an agent for them? The fear that abated from his light teasing returned full force.

No! His answer was emphatic and, she knew through her empathic senses, the truth. May the gods strike me dead if I ever...

He drew her against him, fitting her against his chest, his face resting in her hair. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck, and it was calming, reassuring, like the gray mists around her.

And there was something else: safety, protection. Eden imagined that she couldn’t feel more protected were one of the gods to suddenly come down and cup her in his hand. There was a tremendous power in this man called Jace Serafino. And a tremendous benevolence.

Suddenly he tensed, his breath catching hard as sharp pains, thin and cutting as microfine wires, laced through his body. He thrust her from him, but she grabbed for his hand.

“Eden, don’t! It might kill you,” he rasped.

“What’s wrong?” Where they touched, her flesh stung and tingled like a thousand insects dancing a fandango of death on her skin.

He managed a pained smile. “Psy-Serv. Four years ago.” He gulped for air. “An implant. There’s an implant. It inhibits telepathy. That’s why you can’t—”

He slid to the ground, his body shaking. “Oh, gods. Eden—!” Then he disappeared.

She bolted out of her bed, rudely dislodging the sleeping furzel. She pulled on her uniform, fumbling with the zipper, then grabbed for her boots and comm link. It trilled just as she exited—still in her stocking feet—into the corridor.

“Sick bay to Fynn! We’ve got a Code Red on Captain Serafino!”

“I know, gods damn it, I know!” she barked back at the tiny transmitter.

“I’m in the lift and on my way!”

5

SHIP’S GYM

Sass was upside down, grasping her ankles in a spine-popping stretch, when she saw Eden walk into the gym. Well, perhaps walk wasn’t the right word. Even from Sass’s inverted perspective, the CMO’s method of perambulation was better categorized as trudge.

A tall, full-figured woman of a comfortable beauty, Eden Fynn had sparkling blue eyes, honey-gold hair, and, as heard more than once from the lips of various male crew, “legs that don’t quit.” But that reference had nothing to do with the act of walking—an act that Eden wasn’t performing with her usual bright gait. Especially not at 0630, when she normally bounded in to the gym to accompany Sass on their morning jog.

“Captain, we need to talk,” Eden said as Sass slowly straightened out of her stretch.

Sass took an intuitive leap based on the fact that Eden was still in her sick-bay scrubs: “Serafino.”

A confirming nod.

“He’s still alive?”

“Don’t ask me how or why, but yes.”

“Kel-Paten didn’t—”

“This has nothing to do with Kel-Paten. At least, not at this point,” Eden said with a tired sigh.

“Then what does it have to do with?”

Eden’s answer was barely audible. “Psy-Serv.”

“Oh, damn.” That wasn’t a term Sass wanted to hear. Psy-Serv was—in her opinion—a vicious, insidious, power-hungry agency that was far beyond the control of any rational governmental authority. Its proponents lauded it as the great protector, an eradicator of the unscrupulous. Sass doubted any Psy-Serv agent would know a scruple if it bit him in the ass.

She grabbed her friend by the elbow. “My office. No. My quarters.” The latter was the only place she could be sure Kel-Paten wouldn’t barge in to unannounced.

Sass pulled a bowl of lushberries from her small galley’s refrigerator as her cabin door closed behind Eden. A plaintive cry sounded at her feet.

She glanced down into a pair of pleading golden eyes. “You’ve already been fed,” she told the long-furred fidget, hearing Eden chuckle knowingly.

The golden eyes didn’t waver.

“Oh, all right.” Sass filled a small saucer with sweet cream and put it in its usual place on the counter. The fidget stretched his pudgy body against the tall stool and made several snuffling noises.

“Still can’t jump that well, can he?” Eden asked as Sass put down the bowl of lushberries and picked up the soft creature, placing him in front of the saucer.

“Not when there’s someone around to save him the trouble.” Sass retrieved the bowl of fruit and plopped it in the middle of her dining table.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. Then she sat, hands folded, and listened to Eden’s recitation: her inability to use her empathic senses to diagnose Serafino, her nagging feeling of something being very wrong, and her inexplicable encounter with Jace Serafino in a place called Novalis and, no, it wasn’t on his ship.

“This isn’t just a dream?” Sass asked.

Eden plucked one of the plump lushberries from the bowl in front of her. “I guess you could liken it more to an out-of-body experience. You’d have an existence there. You can touch and feel things.” Sass sat back in her chair, popped a large purple lushberry in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully. “And you can access this dream place because you’re Zingaran. Makes sense. How did Serafino get there?” Eden didn’t reply until Sass swallowed the berry. “He’s a Nasyry telepath.”

Sass felt her jaw drop open. “Oh, damn.”

“I know.”

“But the Nasyry don’t associate with us. With non-telepaths. What’s he doing here? Other than the fact that we found him, that is.”

“I don’t quite know yet.”

“You mentioned Psy-Serv.” Sass’s words came quickly, her brain pumping out worried thoughts even faster. “If Serafino’s a telepath and the Triad—I mean, the Alliance—ostensibly hired him for the Illithian mission, that means he’s on their payroll, which means he’s also on Psy-Serv’s payroll... Am I right on this? Are you following me?”

“Yes. I mean, no, he’s not on Psy-Serv’s payroll. He’s on Psy-Serv’s shit list.”

The proverbial light of knowledge clicked on in Sass’s brain. “A rogue telepath.” The very thing the Intergalactic Psychic Concordance and Protection Statutes were designed to hunt down. The illegal use of telepaths to acquire inside information in the business and legal sectors had wreaked havoc in the trade markets and the courts in both the Triad and the Coalition. The Concordance ensured all telepaths were identified, properly trained, and monitored. The Protection Statutes went after those who weren’t.

Serafino’s rogue abilities were probably one of the reasons—now that she thought about it—why he was so damned lucky over the years, always one step ahead of the competition or the law. Or the card dealer.

“I think that’s probably correct.”

“You think—?” Sass asked as a thump-thump-thud behind told her Tank had finished his cream and jumped down from the counter with his usual lack of grace.

“We weren’t that far into an explanation when his physical body had a seizure. There’s an implant in his brain, courtesy of Psy-Serv. It doesn’t show up on any of my med-scans—that’s how treacherous it is. I had to use resonance imagery to find out what little I know.”

“But how could he meet you in this Novalis place if he has this implant?”

A sigh of frustration blew through Eden’s lips. “He seems to be able to override it for short periods of time.”

“It could be a behavioral implant. They’ve been used with homicidal psychotics.”

“That was outlawed over sixty-five years ago. I checked my medical journals.”

“Lubashit.” Sass held Eden’s gaze with her own for a moment, then looked away. “There were cons on Lethant with them. You know what I went through there.”

“Ten months of hell,” Eden said quietly.

Hell it was—a desolate, lawless wasteland populated by what the legal system adjudicated to be human filth. Even now, years later, it wasn’t easy to talk about.

“Were they recent implants?” Eden asked, bringing Sass’s thoughts back to the present.

Sass smiled thinly. “If you consider seven years ago recent, yes. They have a med facility on Lethant.”

“I don’t suppose they’d risk doing them on Varlow,” Eden mused.

“Right next door to HQ? The public outcry would topple the government faster than a fleet of Triad hunterships. Oops, sorry. I forgot; we’re one of them now. But where were we?” she asked, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment. Talking about Lethant invariably gave her a headache.

Something soft and warm brushed against her pants leg. She reached down and ruffled Tank’s furry ears, her headache receding. “Oh, yes.

Serafino. Are we sure we’re not dealing with some serious psychosis here?

I take it you want to remove the implant.”

“I think if I don’t, it’ll kill him.”

“Are you sure if we do, he won’t kill us?” Sass challenged.

“At this point, relatively sure.”

“Kel-Paten’s not going to like ‘relatively,’” Sass said as Tank butted his head against her shin.

“Kel-Paten... Sass, I need a favor.” Eden leaned over the table toward her. “I don’t want the admiral brought in yet.” Someone else wanted a favor. Fat paws poked her thigh. “I understand your concern, but he despises Serafino pretty thoroughly already,” she said, drawing the pudgy fidget up into her lap. “I don’t see how telling him Serafino’s a telepath will add to that.”

“It’s not just Serafino,” Eden answered quietly. “I’m a telepath too.” This time Sass’s mouth gaped all the way open. “How?” she finally managed. Granted, TelTal—the U-Cee’s Telepathic Talent Regulatory Agency—wasn’t as overzealous as the Triad’s Psy-Serv. But they still routinely scanned the populace, starting in grade school, for the slightest twinge of telepathic ability.

If there were rogue telepaths—and there were always rumors—it was because they grew up on desolate rim worlds and were never exposed to formal schooling. Or regular medical exams.

Sass knew what that was like. But Eden didn’t. “You’re from Glitterkiln, not the Far Reaches. Do you mean TelTal never scanned you?”

“Same as my classmates, yes,” Eden said. “But I was recognized as an empath when I was still small. Whatever they sensed from me they probably just chalked up to empathic talents.

“Plus, I don’t really remember experiencing what Serafino calls Novalis until I was in my teens. The telepaths I heard about developed their talents much younger, around four or five.”

“But when you went for your Fleet physical, didn’t they scan you again?” Sass asked as Tank, after much insistent kneading, finally curled into a ball and sought sleep.

“Yes. But it appears my telepathy is touch-induced. That might be something they couldn’t detect as easily.”

“But you’re sure?”

Eden nodded slowly. “Gods help me, yes I am. Though obviously not well trained, or I wouldn’t be running into the problems I have now.”

“With Serafino.”

“I’m hoping I can contact him again. I’m hoping he may have the answer to the implant.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Keep Kel-Paten out of sick bay as much as possible, for one,” Eden replied.

“That means you won’t be seeing much of me. Where I go, he goes these days. What else?”

Eden took a deep breath. “As you said, Kel-Paten may be the Triad’s most loyal officer, but he has no great love for Psy-Serv. I have reason to believe he has an extensive personal library on Psy-Serv. I need access to it.”

“You think it might hold the answer to Serafino’s implant?”

“Maybe not Serafino’s specifically, but at least its medical pedigree.” Sass pursed her lips and regarded her friend carefully. Her fingers absently stroked the fidget’s soft fur. “You’re asking me to break into the admiral’s secure locked datafiles. Files that are probably loaded with every defensive hacker trap he could create with his megamillion-credit mind.

Files that probably have more security devices, hidden alarms, and fail-safe programs than anything else in civilized space, Psy-Serv’s own databanks included.”

“Yes.”

“Files that are located in his quarters, which are again no doubt the most secure location on this ship—hell, probably in this Fleet.”

“Yes.”

Sass shrugged. “Piece o’ cake. Anything else?”

“If you get caught we’ll both be court-martialed, you know that.”

“No,” Sass replied. “We won’t be court-martialed. If I get caught, I go down alone.”

Eden shot her a look that clearly stated she disagreed. “It’s not an issue,” Eden said, “because you won’t get caught, right?” At the optimistic pronouncement, Sass grinned broadly.

“And number two, if you are, I bet you Kel-Paten won’t tell a soul.” Sass burst out laughing, eliciting a murrupf of annoyance from Tank.

“Lubashit! He’d be so righteously pissed that my biggest problem would be talking him out of jettisoning me into McClellan’s Void just so I could be formally court-martialed.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Eden countered with a grin.

“You’re right. I am. Ol’ Rules and Regulations Kel-Paten would definitely opt for a court-martial. If for no other reasons than to prove to us U-Cees how far superior the Triad military justice system is to our own.”

EDEN FYNN’S QUARTERS

Eden trudged a little less wearily back to her quarters.

Sass—Tasha—would find the answers. She had faith in her friend’s unorthodox talents and knew that when Tasha put her mind to something, that something inevitably cooperated.

But Kel-Paten—now, there was a puzzle. Focused on Serafino, she didn’t have time to chase down any gossip concerning recent emo-program changes to the biocybe admiral. Still, her gut—and her empathic talents—suggested that the first thing that would come to Kel-Paten’s mind upon finding Tasha in his quarters would have nothing to do with the mythical void. Whether by accident or design, he had a measurable, almost palpable emotional response to Tasha’s presence. Almost...

romantic?

Not a court-martial but a formal courting? Or perhaps not so formal if he found Tasha in his quarters. Maybe...

No, No, Bad CMO! she chided herself. Her tired mind was producing silly speculations. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and told the computer to wake her at 1330 hours. That would give her about six hours.

And with Serafino sedated, she felt safe that she wouldn’t be meeting up with him in Novalis.

They both needed a good night’s sleep—even if it wasn’t technically night.

The last thing Eden remembered was Reilly snuggling against her arm, purring loudly. Then Jace was rising from the stone bench, hand outstretched to greet her.

“I hoped you’d be here.” He took her hand in his as they sat down. “I thought I might have scared you away.” He smiled, but it was a smile touched with a nervous tension.

“You shouldn’t be here. I don’t know if I can pull you back from another seizure.”

“I overstayed my limit last time, I’m sorry. But—”

“Your limit?” Then he did have a way of temporarily bypassing the implant.

He nodded. “Twelve minutes and fifteen seconds is the max at the moment. I try to keep an internal clock running, but it got away from me last time. It’s just been so long.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I have so much to tell you. I don’t know if there’s time.”

A feeling of deep loneliness emanated from him, as well as a sadness over the injuries—and loss of life—his crew had experienced battling the vortex.

“You haven’t been in touch with another telepath in quite some time.” It wasn’t a guess. She was primarily an empath.

“Not since Bianca and Jorden.”

“Bianca?” she questioned, and immediately an image flashed into her mind: a woman, dark-haired and beautiful. She recognized the azure-blue eyes. They were like Jace’s. She felt the bond of strong affection he had for his older sister and her young son. And she also realized how much more could be transmitted telepathically than through words.

And then she felt Jace’s fear and his anger and knew that the implant had something to do with Bianca.

“It was a trade,” he said out loud. “Psy-Serv made it clear. My life, or my talents, for hers and Jorden’s. He’s a lot like me, you know,” he mused sadly. “Scares the hell out of her sometimes, she used to say.”

“Used to?”

A feeling of loss. “I haven’t seen her in more than four years. I don’t even know if she’s alive, although I was promised as much. No one dictates to Psy-Serv. Not even Captain Jace Serafino.” He squeezed her hand, and she knew he needed just to feel her warmth right now.

She squeezed back. “You said you needed my help. What can I do?”

“In eleven minutes? Oh, Eden, I do need your help, but you may have to take a lot of furzel-naps to get the whole story.”

“Couldn’t we talk in sick bay? The seizure was serious, but unless we mistime this meeting now, the implant shouldn’t activate again. I hope to have you responsive by tomorrow.”

A sad smile crossed his face. “The implant does more than just prohibit telepathy. It blanks parts of my conscious mind. The Jace Serafino you have in sick bay is only part of the person I am. And he’s not my better part.” He brought her hand to his lips and lightly brushed them across her knuckles. “Gods, woman, you are a gorgeous creature. I think I’ve told you that, haven’t I? And, yes, you are blushing beautifully again.

“The man you know out there as Captain Serafino,” he continued, with an upward nod of his head as if sick bay were off somewhere in the distance, “is a rake and a scoundrel, who has only one use for beautiful women—and it’s not friendship. And right now I really need a friend. I just wish you were ugly. It would make dealing with you so much easier.”

“Captain Serafino,” she said, gently withdrawing her hand from his, “we are both professionals. There’s no reason we can’t work together in that atmosphere.”

“No, of course not.” He laughed. “You underestimate yourself, Doc. But then, you probably have a fleet of men who tell you that daily.”

“Jace.”

“All right. Back to business. We have seven minutes. I’ll talk or transmit, whatever is easier. You listen.”

She nodded.

He was, as Tasha had termed it, a rogue telepath. He and his sister were the products of a liaison between a Nasyry priest and a rebellious daughter of a wealthy Kel family.

Why aren’t you with your father’s people? Couldn’t they help you?

A twinge of anger mixed with shame. We were, for many years. But the Nasyry have no love of weakling half-breeds. Saj-oullum, we’re called.

She recognized the term. Consorts of dead minds. It startled her to realize that Jace was very much like her.

Then you and Bianca—

She’s all I have. She and Jorden. He has my talent, by the way—his mother doesn’t. To the Nasyry, she’s oullum. An outcast. Which may be how Bianca made the one big mistake in her life: her Psy-Serv lover, Galen Kel-Rea. Jorden’s father. That’s how this whole thing started.

Eden saw and felt how the quiet, methodical woman, living with her mother’s family on Sellarmaris, was totally unprepared for the handsome Psy-Serv agent who’d swept her off her feet—solely to gain access to Jace.

It had taken the agent ten years of pretending to love Bianca for Bianca to trust him enough to arrange for him to meet with her brother, who by then had already established a reputation for himself as a daring mercenary.

Jace had hated the man on sight and later blamed himself for Bianca’s marriage. He’d spent little time with his sister over the years, the nature of his career keeping them out of touch for long periods. The first time he ever saw his nephew was the first time he met with Bianca’s husband. The agent’s talents were so strong that Jace didn’t pick up on the fact that he was a telepath. Not until it was much too late.

And then he learned something else: the Psy-Serv agent was an officer on the Vaxxar and was recommended for the mission by Captain Branden Kel-Paten.

The agent gave Jace the choice—work with us, permit the implant, or your sister and her son will die.

That was a little over four years ago. Jace made the only choice he could.

You’re the only non-Psy-Serv telepath I’ve found since that time, he told her. There is so much you need to know. It’s almost providential you’re on the Vaxxar, on his ship, and that you have access to everything this ship can do.

Did the admiral... was it on his orders that this agent seduced your sister? Military personnel follow orders, often not knowing the end result of their acts. Eden knew that was possible in this case, and yet the fact that Kel-Paten was party to Bianca Kel-Rea’s betrayal sickened her.

I don’t know. But it’s no secret he has a lot of influence at the Ministry of Intelligence and has been the brains behind a number of their operations. It’s also no secret I’ve been on his hit list ever since I made a fool of him out by Fendantun.

I do know that because of him, someone I love has been hurt. As much as I’d like to make that my sole focus, though, I can’t. There are bigger problems here. That’s why I had to take the risks I did. I need your help, or else more than just the Triad and this new Alliance will suffer.

She felt his pain, but she also felt his sincerity.

He raised her hand to his lips, then spoke out loud. “I’m about at my limit here. Trust me, Eden, but keep your bedroom door locked. My evil twin, you know.” He grinned wryly.

“I’ve asked Sebastian to help,” she said, ignoring the pleasurable little chills that ran up her spine at his touch.

“Excellent decision.”

“I think Kel-Paten has some med-files from Psy-Serv. They may give me some insight into your implant. Do you have enough time to tell me what you know about it?”

In a microsecond, an image of a small red and silver device flashed into her mind along with the words: That’s all I know.

It’s a start, she told him encouragingly.

He drew a deep breath. I have to go. His lips brushed against hers in a feather-light kiss just as he disappeared.

Next to her, Reilly shifted his considerable furry weight, demanding space that she automatically granted him. He rubbed his soft face against her arm, sensing that his mommy was not quite asleep and not quite awake. If he nudged her a bit more, perhaps a can of food might appear.

But she only sighed and settled deeper into the coverlet. Reilly sighed also, purred for a while, and snuggled closer, only to be dislodged a bit later.

Mommy up?

No, Mommy wasn’t up. But something... something was. Golden eyes narrowed, searched the shadows of the cabin.

Bad Thing, sending out tendrils.

He couldn’t permit that.

Protect Mommy. Must protect Mommy.

He sent a small stream of energy back. Just a little Blink. Not a lot. It wasn’t time yet to let Bad Thing know he was here. Too dangerous. Reilly had much to learn before he could help.

The ugly, smelly light coiled back in upon itself.

Good.

Reilly slept lightly after that, furry ears alert, twitching.

Must protect Mommy.

6

ADMIRAL KEL-PATEN’S OFFICE

Eden disliked being called into the admiral’s office, especially when it was only a half hour after she’d awakened. Especially when she hadn’t finished her mid-shift version of breakfast yet. And most especially when she plotted with two captains against him.

At least, that was the way Eden’s overactive conscience viewed the situation. It made a private meeting with Kel-Paten almost qualify as a nail-biter.

She spotted Timmar Kel-Faray exiting the admiral’s office just as she arrived. He nodded in greeting, his voice dropping to a hushed tone. “He’s not happy over something. Sorry.”

Eden’s stomach plummeted. Oh, damn. He found out that Serafino was a Nasyry telepath. He found out that she was more than just an empath.

No, worse. He found out that she’d asked Sass to break into his quarters and pilfer his files.

She weakly smiled her thanks. With a dozen guilty thoughts bouncing around in her head, she assumed her best professional mien, girded herself for battle, and she placed her hand against the office door scanner.

It read her identity and the doors parted.

The admiral was at his desk, head angled slightly away from her, but she clearly saw the eerie glow in his eyes. He was spiked in. Reviewing her report on Serafino? Or spying on—

“Doctor.” He leaned back in his chair and motioned to one of the two empty chairs across from his desk, his eyes still luminous but less so.

Eden sat and rested her folded hands properly in her lap, although she really wanted to knot them in worry. The U-Cees had strict regulations about electronic eavesdropping and violating an officer’s privacy without due cause. She had to assume the Triad had the same. Therefore, there was no way he could know what was said in her office in sick bay. Or in Tasha’s cabin. She straightened her spine. “Admiral, what can I do for you?”

“I gather Serafino is still unconscious.” He glanced briefly at what she now recognized—with relief—as her report on the comp screen. “Do you have an explanation for the sudden decline in his condition?” None that I’m going to give to you at this moment. “Dr. Monterro and I have some theories, but I don’t want to get into them until we can present you with something conclusive.”

“Such as... ?”

Mistrust. She empathically read that, coming strongly from him. Damn!

She fished around for something close enough to appease him.

“It is possible the injuries he sustained in the vortex flare aggravated previous brain trauma.” Well, that was somewhat the truth, after all. The implant could be considered a previous injury.

“Or... ?”

She tried to remember what little she knew of Serafino—the physical Jace Serafino, rake and scoundrel. She had no intention of telling him about the Nasyry half.

“It could also be the result of trefla use.” Potent and dangerous recreational drugs were a well-known pastime for many rim runners and mercenaries. Trefla crystals were one of the more popular. When she performed her volunteer work at the hospital on Kesh Valirr, she saw firsthand just what it could do.

Kel-Paten seemed to accept that. He touched the comp screen. Her report on Serafino vanished; another report appeared in its place, but this one, too, had her medical seal on top. Nothing out of the ordinary, then.

Nothing with Psy-Serv’s distinctively spooky single-eye emblem.

“TeKrain Namar.” He said the name of the Tsarii crewmember and looked back at her.

“Master TeKrain still has difficulty breathing, not to mention speaking, sir. He needs at least another twenty-four hours on the respiratory regenerator.”

“I need some answers before the next twenty-four hours, Doctor, and with Serafino unresponsive and Kel-Pern sedated, I don’t have a lot to choose from. I’ll be in sick bay at sixteen-thirty exactly. I expect to have TeKrain available for questioning.”

“That’s not possible—”

“Make it possible,” he countered coolly.

“Admiral Kel-Paten,” she said, equally cool, her tension over this meeting drawing her nerves just a little too taut, “you may run this ship, you may run this Fleet, you may even run the entire Triad for all I know.

But I will tell you one thing you do not run, and that is my sick bay. You will talk to Master TeKrain, Master Kel-Pern, and Captain Serafino when, and only when, I give you medical clearance to do so. Rest assured you will have that clearance at the earliest opportunity that I deem to be safe. But know that is my decision and my decision only. Do I make myself clear?” Kel-Paten blinked at her. She’d give anything to know exactly what was going on behind those faintly glowing eyes of his right now. The little her senses picked up showed confusion, with a small bit of admiration.

“Perhaps I didn’t explain myself well,” he began.

My oh my! she thought. Is the unshakable admiral backing down?

“No one is more aware of your concerns than I am,” she offered. “But it was your order that I keep Serafino and his crew alive, at all costs, just so that you could have the pleasure of killing him. I have to assume that ‘at all costs’ includes even yourself. Sir.” She smiled, but it was not a warm smile and she was sure he knew it.

He leaned back and steepled his gloved hands in front of his mouth in what she had come to recognize as a typical Kel-Paten gesture.

“You wouldn’t give that answer to Captain Sebastian,” he said after a moment, but there was nothing accusatory in his voice. If anything, he seemed amused.

“Captain Sebastian would know better than to make that request,” she told him.

“Captain Sebastian has not had the aggravation of Serafino in her back pocket for the past fifteen years. Nor a veritable flock of Triad department ministers who expect—no, demand—the impossible out of me simply because I am Kel-Paten.” He raised one eyebrow. “If I can’t intimidate you into getting what I want, dare I ask for your sympathy?” His mouth twisted, and Eden realized the Tin Soldier was trying to smile. It was a small smile and a bit crooked. Barely visible behind his gloved hands, but it was there. She saw it.

He could be almost charming if he ever gave himself half a chance, she noted with surprise.

“You have more than my sympathy, Admiral. You have my complete cooperation, as long as you allow me first to do what I’m here to do.” He nodded. “When do you expect I’ll be able to speak to either Kel-Pern or TeKrain?”

“I think within thirty-six hours is reasonable and safe.”

“And Serafino?”

“His condition is more fragile until we can identify whatever unknown factors caused the seizure.” It was a great non-answer, and she congratulated herself on it. Her good spirits died with Kel-Paten’s next remark. This was definitely where she did not want the conversation to go.

“You might ask Captain Sebastian for suggestions. They were acquainted. Years ago, I believe.”

Eden dug quickly for another non-answer. She remembered Tasha saying she mentioned Sookie’s to Kel-Paten. But she didn’t know in what detail, and she suspected the admiral—who could almost have been considered friendly moments ago—had shifted gears and was on a fishing expedition. It made her once again consider what kind of emo-programming he had and who designed it.

“Captain Sebastian’s received the same briefings on Serafino that you have, sir. If she knew anything helpful, I’m sure she would have volunteered it.”

She regarded Kel-Paten levelly and, at the same time, tried to read him empathically. It was then she realized that the glow in his eyes, which had faded until it was barely noticeable, increased. Not as much as when he was spiked in, but it was there.

He was using his ’cybe power as a block or a filter of some kind as she probed him. She didn’t know how she knew that, but it was a guess she would be willing to place money on. That’s why her empathic senses had picked up so little before—or with such inconsistency.

He leaned back, the light in his eyes once again a pale mist. She sensed only weariness. “Of course,” he said. “But should you—or she—think of anything that might help us all deal with this Serafino situation, I trust you’ll bring it to my attention. Immediately.” Trust. Was that what this was all about? Eden pondered that as the lift returned her to sick bay’s deck. Was it simply that, even after six months of working together, the Triad wasn’t ready to accept the U-Cee officers on board? And these few glimpses she saw of what appeared to be a softening in Kel-Paten’s personality, a foray into emotions—was that all just part of the Triad’s plan to make U-Cee officers feel they were part of the team when in fact they were not?

Or was the admiral genuinely trying to reach out to them, to Tasha?

Both suppositions made sense. And neither made sense. Being a touch telepath, Eden knew she might find out considerably more by grasping Kel-Paten’s hand next time they were together. But she knew that could also result in a lethal charge, ending her life before her body hit the floor.

The fully integrated Jace, being Nasyry, would be able to obtain the truth more easily and safely—if he was willing to put his personal bias against Kel-Paten aside. But in order to get his telepathy consciously functioning, she had to put Tasha Sebastian’s career—and maybe even her life—at risk.

She shook her head and exited the lift. Give her a good old bounce-’em-off-the-walls vortex any day. That was something Doc Eden Fynn could understand.

SICK BAY

With a frustrated sigh, Jace Serafino folded his telepathic self back inside his mind. There was so much he needed to share with the Vaxxar’s CMO, and he’d let himself get distracted by a too-soft mouth, a blush of pink on pale cheeks, by the very womanly roundness of her body. That wasn’t like him. Well, that was like the human Captain Jace Serafino, but not the Nasyry Jace Serafino. He was a highly disciplined, well-trained warrior.

All that had gone to hell when he touched minds with Eden Fynn.

He was totally unprepared for her impact on him. It wasn’t just her physical beauty; he knew many women who were so exotically beautiful that their very entry into a room caused all conversation to cease.

But then, as his often-so-wise sister would point out, an eight-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound, foul-smelling grenkbeast entering a room would also cause all conversation to cease.

Eden Fynn didn’t cause all conversation to cease. She caused his heart to start beating again. She caused him to search his repertoire for the witty phrase just to see her smile. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

His twelve-minute time limit was going to drive him out of his mind.

Literally. Because if the Nasyry element of Jace Serafino felt that way, the human, womanizing, certified rake and scoundrel element of Captain Jace Serafino was going to go completely out of control once he woke up.

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, and hurt her he would.

There was no room in the human Jace Serafino’s life for the kinds of emotion, the kind of commitment, she made him want. Strewn across civilized space were a series of individuals who would not hesitate to strike out at Serafino through his feelings for Eden. Just as they had through Bianca and Jorden.

He couldn’t let that happen again.

But, gods, how he wanted to know, just once in his life, what it would be like to be truly loved by a woman like Eden Fynn. He needed her warmth, her compassion, her intelligence. And her innocence. That’s what he’d first noticed when their minds touched, and it sent his jaded senses reeling. He felt that he had spent his entire life in a dank and musty room, and suddenly a window had opened and it was spring, with every fruit tree in blossom outside.

Why now, when his life was in such a wretched state? He wanted to offer her the sun, the moon, and the stars—and all he could bring her was pain.

He sighed, physically sighed this time, as the damage from the seizure faded. His other wounds had healed; his Nasyran physiology enhanced his healing rate. Even now his ears picked up the sounds and voices in sick bay. Eden’s voice was one of them. A warmth flooded his veins at the sound.

She was discussing with someone named Cal the fact that Captain Serafino’s vital signs were rapidly improving.

You want vital, Eden my lovely, come here and I’ll show you vital! The thought and accompanying sensation raced through his mind before he could stop it.

A surge of heat flowed from his mind directly into Eden. She stood near the foot of his bed, close enough that he heard her surprised intake of breath as his heat touched her.

Jace felt her question the sensation and respond with a mental bucket of cold water aimed at him, but it didn’t work. His physical senses were coming around too quickly, and he was aware of her perfume and the soft sound of her breathing as she moved closer to him.

He groaned softly but audibly.

There was a slight click as Eden placed her medicorder on a nearby table. “Captain Serafino? This is Doctor Fynn. Can you hear me?” His mouth moved slightly but no sounds came out.

He shifted his focus. On the wall above his bed, the diagnostics panel linked to the sensors in his bed rapidly kicked out data on his improving condition.

Eden leaned across him to key in some adjustments.

“Cal,” she called out, her fingers tapping in instructions, her attention on the readout, “I think Captain Serafino is about to return to the land of the living—ohh!”

He yanked her down on top of him, his mouth hard against hers, his tongue taking advantage of her surprised exclamation to probe her warm sweetness. His left hand threaded its way into her hair, his right arm tightening around her waist.

Warm. Soft. Sweet. She was all these things, this woman.

The bald-headed, stocky man near the doorway looked up from the file in his hand. “It appears he has returned,” he commented lightly, a definite amused tone in his voice as he stepped quickly toward the bed.

His warm, soft, sweet woman squirmed, extricating herself from his passionate embrace before Cal could intervene. She fell off his bed and landed squarely on her rump on the floor with a very unprofessional exclamation.

She was still sitting there, glaring up at the bed, when Jace rolled over and, propping himself up on his side, extended one hand down to her.

“Come back up here, nurse. I think I need a little more of your special medicine.”

“I think you’ve had quite enough special medicine, Captain Serafino,” she snapped at him, ignoring his hand and his chuckles. She accepted Cal’s hand instead and pulled herself off the floor.

Jace liked what he saw: womanly curves accented by the well-fitting black and tan jumpsuit uniform that even her shapeless blue lab coat couldn’t hide.

“Fynn,” he said, reading the nameplate on her coat. “Does Fynn have a first name?”

She squared her shoulders. “Yes, it’s Doctor. Please lie back down. I’m going to have Dr. Monterro run some tests on you.” He rested his head against the pillow. “Dr. Monterro, eh? What a coincidence! Two people in the same sick bay with the same first name.” She shot him a withering glance. He grinned broadly in answer. She snatched the medicorder from the table and thrust it toward the other doctor. “I’ll advise the captain that Serafino is awake.” Eden... sorry. He reached out, softly, haltingly, into her mind just as she exited sick bay. She turned, startled, then shook her head and strode out into the hallway.

He didn’t know if she’d heard him or turned for another reason.

He didn’t know... he couldn’t remember what it was he didn’t know.

DECK 10

At Eden’s request, the ship’s computer informed her of Captain Sebastian’s location in drive-thruster maintenance on Deck 10, though by the time Eden arrived, Tasha had left maintenance and was walking down Deck 10’s main corridor on her way back to the bridge.

“Making your rounds alone?” Eden asked, catching up with her.

Tasha chuckled. “Oddly, yes. The admiral’s in the middle of a vidconference with the Kel-Tyras. I’m sure I’ll run into him on the bridge later. Anything you need me to relay to him about our house guests?”

“I have some good news and some bad news,” Eden said, carefully lowering her voice. “But this is for your ears, not his.”

“Want to discuss it in the wardroom?”

Eden nodded and said nothing further on the subject until they were seated at a quiet table next to one of the floor-to-ceiling viewports in the officers’ lounge on Deck 8 Forward. The only other occupants were two officers in Triad blacks, obviously off-duty. They were sharing a pitcher of ale at the bar, but they were far enough away, their attention on a sports vid, that Eden didn’t worry about being overheard.

“What’s up?” Tasha asked.

Eden started with the less complicated of the two issues. “Serafino.” Literally, she thought, remembering the telling hardness of his body beneath hers. “He’s awake. He was right about his memory. He didn’t even know my name.”

“Is your link with him broken?”

Eden remembered the soft, sad apology in her mind and shook her head. “Not completely. When his physical body was unconscious, his subconscious or telepathic sense had free rein. Now that he’s awake, his conscious mind will dominate. His telepathy, as well as his knowledge of his talents, is blocked. Though after he woke up just now, he was able to very briefly contact me. But I could feel it was a strain.”

“Do you know anything more on the implant?” Tasha kept her voice low.

“Not really. But there’s something you should know. Serafino has an older sister. And he blames Kel-Paten for what happened to her.” Eden gave a concise recounting of what she’d learned from Serafino the night before, ending with his warning that they faced a much larger problem.

“So he’s willing to shelve his mission of personal revenge for the greater good?” Tasha shook her head. “I’m not convinced, but he can’t lie to you, can he?”

“I’d sense it. He’s angry, yes. But he’s also scared. And it’s not Kel-Paten he’s scared of. It’s just difficult to find out more while that implant still functions.”

“That’s priority number one, then. Find out what that damned thing is and get rid of it.”

“I sent the sketch I made of the unit as he showed it to me, along with the results of my research, to your in-box. Other than the three possibilities I listed, nothing. I’m sorry to have to give you so little to go on.”

“Don’t worry about it, Eden. When I access Kel-Paten’s files, I’m only going to have time to dump whatever I find and hope like hell you can use it.” Tasha sighed. “I wish I’d had more notice about this vidconference—Ralland Kel-Tyra usually keeps the admiral chatting. That would have been an ideal time to get into his quarters and access those files.”

“He’s interrogating TeKrain tomorrow. Kel-Pern is still out of commission,” Eden said. “Maybe then?”

“I have a feeling he’ll want us there. You for your empathic readings as to the truth. And me because I’m more fluent in the street-lingo dialect of Tosar that TeKrain speaks than Kel-Paten is.”

“TeKrain’s Standard is pretty bad,” Eden admitted. “Though he does have an impressive command of our swear words.”

“Yeah, well, I think that’s Serafino’s doing. Probably his idea of a joke.” Eden grinned wryly. “Captain Serafino certainly has an interesting sense of humor.”

“Around the admiral, that could be fatal,” Tasha warned. “You’d better get the message to him to behave himself, or that implant will be the least of his troubles.”

Behave? Eden had no idea how she could get Captain Serafino to behave. His inner self didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it, if their recent encounter was any proof.

“I don’t think Kel-Paten appreciates being called the Tin Soldier,” Tasha was saying, referring to Serafino’s brief but notable comments when he was first transported to sick bay.

“I’m sure Serafino knows that. I’m equally sure that’s why he uses the term. Whatever’s happening in the Alliance is why he’s here. But as long as Kel-Paten is too, he’s going to use every chance to insult him. Because of Bianca.”

Tasha studied her thoughtfully. “I thought ’cybes couldn’t experience emotions. I mean, I’ve seen Kel-Paten act as if he’s angry. But our research on him during the war tagged it as a response-simulation program.”

“I don’t think it’s a simulation,” Eden said carefully.

“It has to be. He’s a ’cybe.”

“I’m an empath,” Eden countered. “And he’s not just a ’cybe. There’s still a lot of human biology there.”

“You’re telling me you sensed genuine anger from him?”

“We need to talk about that.” She glanced over her shoulder. The two officers were intent on the vidclips of fumbled plays flashing on the screen.

She turned back. “He called me into his office to put pressure on me to release Serafino’s crew for interrogations. But he also made this cryptic remark about what you might know about Serafino. Personally.” Tasha’s mouth tightened. “I should never have mentioned Sookie’s.”

“He didn’t mention it either. But he was fishing. I read distrust, very strongly.”

“Distrust isn’t technically an emotion—”

“I’ve sensed others from him that appear to be, but then, I’ll admit, I’m looking now. Trying to read him because... ” Eden closed her eyes briefly.

“I don’t know how to explain this, but there’s an emotional resonance that shouldn’t be there.”

“Are you sure? The U-Cees built their strategies around the fact that between the cybernetics and Psy-Serv’s emo-inhibitor programs, Kel-Paten is one six-foot-three deadly emotionless son of a bitch. That was the whole point. No emotions to sway decision-making. Only cold, hard clinical facts.”

“You’ve seen him lose his temper,” Eden countered.

“And I’ve heard your medical diag comps use a compassionate tone of voice when interviewing patients and a firmer tone if a patient starts to babble too much. I even know of bar ’droids in the high-priced Glitterkiln casinos that laugh when customers tell jokes. Those are response simulations. Mimicry, not feelings.”

“I know.”

Tasha looked quizzically at her. “What are you telling me? Does Kel-Paten need a tune-up, or do we have a Section Forty-Six situation?” Section 46. Eden had read the regulation so many times the key phrase stuck in her mind: behavior, attitude, and/or reactions clearly in contradiction to the accepted norm. And while emotions were fully acceptable in humans, in biocybes they were not.

“I don’t have access to his full medical profile,” Eden told her. “All I know is what I sense as an empath. A telepath could tell more.”

“You mean Serafino? But you said his telepathy doesn’t work as long as that thing’s in his head.”

“Not consciously. But subconsciously he’s very aware. And he is Nasyry.

If we put them together... he might later be able to tell me what’s going on.”

“Let me get this straight.” Tasha spread her hands on the tabletop. “You want me to put together two longtime enemies: a lethal ’cybe who just might have a screw loose and a rogue Nasyry telepath who has the ability to pick up and use that very flaw to torment him.”

“I can try to delay Serafino’s interrogation until I have a little more time to check for any changes in Kel-Paten’s emo-programming. If the Triad will even let me access that data.”

“Try to delay it until we can double the size of your medical staff. And my security staff. And while we’re at it, increase the size of the morgue.

Because if either one of them loses control,” Tasha added, pushing herself to her feet, “we’re going to need them all.”

7

ADMIRAL’S OFFICE

The three-way vidconference on the Serafino situation was going as well as could be expected—given Admiral Roderick Kel-Tyra’s penchant for perfection. Had it been only Captain Ralland Kel-Tyra, framed by his habitually disheveled office on the deep-space link, Kel-Paten would have freely expressed his frustration over Serafino’s appearance and his annoyance over his U-Cee-issue CMO’s protectiveness toward the bastard.

But the fact that Tasha had, while working for UCID, known that same bastard was something he’d not tell even Ralland. He was still digging into her past. It probably was just a chance meeting and best left unsaid, for now.

But it was imperative that Kel-Paten not let any hint of things being less than perfect in the Serafino matter come to Roderick’s attention. He was Kel-Paten, and it was his job to do the impossible.

So he relayed his report, considered hypotheses, outlined strategies—and kept tabs on Tasha while he did so.

She was in engineering, he noted, logging in and out of his ’cybe links while listening to Roderick’s laundry list of information the Tri—that is, the Alliance—wanted out of Serafino before the Vax made Panperra Station. A few minutes later, he picked up Tasha in Deck 10’s main corridor. Waiting for... ? He quickly checked nearby comm-link signatures. Ah. Eden Fynn. That could mean nothing or it could mean trouble. He hoped like hell they were talking about Serafino, about their furzels, about anything but him.

“Within thirty-six hours.” He answered Roderick’s question about his upcoming interrogation of TeKrain Namar. He outlined what he thought the Tsariian might be able to divulge and agreed that—sadly—there were insufficient grounds to hold either crewmember. He confirmed they’d be released to Panperra Medical and noted that Tasha and Fynn were now in the wardroom, Deck 8 Forward. Fynn was probably telling her about his less-than-perfect attempt to gain the CMO’s cooperation in his office earlier. Divide and conquer didn’t work this time. It reminded him how little he understood about the dynamics of human friendship, especially between women.

Ralland’s comment drew him back to the vidconference, and by the time he responded to and settled that, Tasha was moving again. Heading for the bridge. Alone.

Good. He needed to see her. He wrapped up the meeting without further problems, logged off with Roderick, and was nodding good-bye when Ralland’s raised hand stopped his move to disconnect the link.

“Something else, Captain?” he asked.

Ralland relaxed back into his chair. “Made any progress with her yet?” The subject of Ralland’s question didn’t need identification. Ralland Kel-Tyra was one of the few people Kel-Paten considered a friend. And the only one who knew what Tasha meant to him. Kel-Paten checked to make sure the connection with the elder Kel-Tyra was indeed severed. Then he exhaled, noisily, to let Ralland know this was not something he wanted to discuss.

But knowing Ralland—and he knew him very well—that didn’t make any difference.

“No,” he said finally, and when the quirking of the younger man’s eyebrow let him know that his answer did not suffice, he sighed. “These things take time.” I’m not full human. I don’t have your expertise with women, he could have added but didn’t. Ralland had heard those arguments many times. And just as many times he’d heard Ralland’s advice—advice he fully expected would be repeated now.

It wasn’t.

“You might not have much more time,” Ralland said instead. “Now that Tasha has the captaincy, the old man’s talking of having you run First from Prime.”

Kel-Paten’s gut tensed as Ralland’s words unfolded in stark images in his mind. He’d be on Prime. Tasha would be on the Vax. They’d be separated. “He can’t do that.”

But even as he said it, he knew the old man could.

“It’s your own fault, Branden,” Ralland replied easily. “You’ve done a good job of convincing the High Command she can handle a Triad huntership without a hitch.”

She could, but that wasn’t the point. “Roderick knows damned well I’m not interested in flying a desk,” Kel-Paten countered, anger mounting.

Anger was preferable to fear. It was the only emotion that came easily to him, because Psy-Serv didn’t bother with any serious inhibitors there.

They wanted him angry and they wanted people afraid of his anger. “And what about APIP? It’s supposed to reflect a joint Triad–U-Cee command staff.”

“Which the Vax has with her as captain,” Ralland said.

“The Vaxxar is my flagship!” And Tasha was his dream for so many years. He couldn’t lose this chance with her. Not now.

Ralland held up both hands in mock surrender. “I’m only telling you what I heard. The U-Cees are considering putting one of our people in command. The old man feels we need to make a gesture in kind.” Kel-Paten shot Ralland a narrow-eyed look that relayed exactly what kind of gesture he’d like to offer Roderick Kel-Tyra.

“Unless Tasha formally opposes the change,” Ralland said. “As the senior U-Cee officer in the APIP program, she has that authority. It’s outlined in the Alliance Personnel Integration Program manual. Chapter twenty-three, section ten. But I think you might need more than rules and regs here.” He paused. “It’s not Tygaris, but Panperra does have a few nice quiet pubs. I’ve told you before: sit her down, buy her a few drinks, talk to her. And not about military theory.”

Kel-Paten sat for a few minutes, gloved hands steepled before his mouth, after he signed off.

He was going to lose Tasha. After years of having to be satisfied with glimpses of her as they played furzel-and-mizzet during the war, he finally had her on board his ship and in his life. And now in an absurd twist of fate, he was going to be sent away from her. Unless he could convince her that she needed him—wanted him—on board.

How in hell was he going to do that before the old man made his move?

He was trying; Ralland knew he was trying; the godsdamned gods knew he was trying to make Tasha see him as something—some one—other than a biocybe construct. But he wasn’t even to the point where he felt she considered him a friend.

So many things had gone wrong, including an empathic CMO who could read his emotions like a free-running download and who could file a Section 46. Or maybe Tasha would file if he didn’t take the time to convince her that underneath the hard cybershell that was Admiral Kel-Paten, there was a man named Branden who was still very much human. Or part human. And who had the same emotions, fears, desires, and joys as any other human male on board this ship.

Ralland was right. He had to stop trying and start doing. He powered down, shunting Psy-Serv’s supposedly unmovable emo-filters to the back of his mind. He pushed himself out of his chair with a determination he usually reserved for attacking the enemy and headed for the bridge.

He found her at the bridge’s apex, her attention on the starfield flowing by the large forward viewport as the Vaxxar traveled at sublight speed toward the nearest Fleet base on Panperra Station. Mouth dry but mind—and heart—refocused, Kel-Paten stepped up beside her. Best to start with something innocuous, something she’d expect him to say.

“What’s the latest on Serafino?”

Her face was in profile to him. “Doctors Fynn and Monterro still have tests to perform. It sounds like his condition is still uncertain.” He angled slightly to his right. He needed to see her eyes to read the nuances between her words and thoughts. True, he was trained—he liked that word better than programmed—to correctly interpret over one hundred forty human facial expressions and another sixty-seven nonhuman ones. But these classifications were often useless when it came to Tasha Sebastian, and he couldn’t risk any margin of error now.

“They don’t want him to relapse,” she added, tilting her face just slightly as if she was aware of his new, more intense scrutiny.

He looked past her. Casually, he hoped. Bridge officers were bent over their screens or moving with crisp efficiency between stations. Any one of them would know how to turn this conversation into a friendly one. He only prayed he didn’t fumble it too badly. “I assure you, Sebastian, I have a great respect for Doctor Fynn’s assessment. However, her focus is different from ours.” He liked that as soon as he said it. It aligned Tasha with him under the heading of command, breaking her usual allegiance with the CMO.

“As I understand it, we’ll have nothing to focus on if Serafino is comatose again. Or dead.”

Maybe this was not the topic he should have chosen. Her tone—and her shoulders—were stiff. His attempt at creating a mutual allegiance had failed. He could almost hear Ralland’s voice in his mind: Loosen up! He glanced down at her again, grasping for some Ralland-like quip. “You have my permission to shoot me should I misbehave during the interrogation.” Her eyes widened—just slightly. The corners of her mouth quirked upward—just a bit. “But we’re headed for Panperra. That would leave me alone to deal with Adjutant Kel-Farquin. Cruel and unusual punishment, Admiral.”

It was working. He turned the discussion from a professional one to something that bordered on friendly. But he’d been at this juncture many times before. And the rejoinders, the quips, that came so easily to her escaped him.

One-point-four-million credits they’d spent perfecting his flawlessly synchronized cybertronic brain interface, and he came up with nothing.

Tasha cocked her head slightly to one side, as if studying him. Perhaps she knew of the amount and just now realized what a tremendous waste of funds it represented.

“We’ll handle Serafino, his crew, and Kel-Farquin without incident,” he said finally, because the silence had dragged on too long. And because the lights dancing in her eyes had dimmed. “Doctor Fynn will permit us to talk to TeKrain tomorrow.”

Disappointment. He read that in her features. But he didn’t know if she was disappointed that they’d handle Serafino together or because she’d lost a chance to shoot him.

“Admiral, sir. Excuse me.” Timmar Kel-Faray was on his right. “Captain Sebastian, I have that report, if you have time.” He held up a datapad.

“Admiral, if there’s nothing else?” Tasha asked.

Yes! He wanted to shout. Yes, there is definitely something else. My entire life lies at your feet. But if he said that, she’d Section 46 him for sure.

“Nothing. Carry on.” He nodded, then forced his attention away from her to the large viewscreen on the far wall.

Her footsteps and Kel-Faray’s moved away from him. He waited until they were almost to the bridge doors before casting his glance their way.

Kel-Faray, taller than Tasha, bent his head as they talked animatedly about something. Easily. Naturally.

Why, why, why? The cybernetic enhancements in his body gave him a physical strength three times that of a normal human male. The interfaces and programs in his brain gave him analytical capabilities that matched—and at times exceeded—the computer systems of the best hunterships.

Yet conducting a simple, friendly conversation was beyond his grasp.

His face even had trouble smiling.

Why was he so incapable of being human around her? Was he fighting his own fear of rejection... or something else, something he didn’t want to think about?

What if—in spite of all the counterfilters and sub-routing he’d implemented—everything that had once made him human was finally programmed out of him?

EDEN FYNN’S QUARTERS

Eden woke to her usual prealarm alarm: luminous yellow eyes inches from her nose, relaying one message: Feed Me. It was exactly five minutes before her cabin lights would flicker on at 0600 hours. She yawned, stroked Reilly’s soft head, then swung her feet out of bed. She was opening the furzel’s favorite Seafood Platter Supreme when she realized that she’d slept through the night with no contact with Jace.

That information warranted a mental damn! There was so much she still needed to know about him, not the least of which was his physiology.

The Vaxxar’s med-files contained little information on the Nasyry. And here it was, 0610 hours, and she had no answers.

It was one more thing she’d have to ask Tasha to look for. If anyone had information on the Nasyry, the Tin Soldier did.

The treadmill alcove of the ship’s gym was empty, as it usually was at this hour, the simdeck jogging path the preferable routine for most of the officers and crew. Eden arrived to find Tasha already at the barre, stretching.

“What’s our ETA at Panperra?” Eden asked, grabbing the barre and arching her back.

“Day after tomorrow, about twenty-thirty hours,” Tasha answered.

“I suppose any R and R is out of the question.” Panperra had a few good pubs that Eden wouldn’t mind spending time in.

“With Kel-Paten, I think that’s a given. At least for me. Plus I’ll have to meet with Homer Kel-Farquin.”

“Hazards of the occupation,” Eden quipped, knowing Kel-Farquin’s reputation as a pompous bore. “Maybe you can convince Kel-Paten that you need a couple of good rounds of iced gin after. Tell him it’s your doctor’s orders.”

“I doubt he’ll let me catch up with you, Cal, and Cisco if any shore leave is approved at all.”

“Bring him with you,” Eden told her.

Tasha shot her an incredulous look. “Surely you jest.”

“I jest not. Bring him with you.”

“Don’t you think I see enough of him as it is? Or are you looking to file me for a Section Forty-Six?”

“Hardly.” Eden grinned. “I have a couple of new theories on our Tin Soldier.”

“Like getting him drunk to see if human emotions surface?” Eden grabbed her towel before it slipped off the barre. “Hadn’t thought of that. Not a bad idea.”

They both stretched in silence for a few minutes.

“To test for the emotional programming thing, you mean,” Tasha said finally.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I think you’re misreading him.” Tasha paused. “I tried kidding around with him yesterday. Didn’t work.”

“He might be able to switch it on or off, depending on where he is.”

“We were on the bridge.”

“Hmm,” Eden said again. If Kel-Paten was circumventing his programming, then he’d most likely not do it with such a large and official audience, and she told Tasha so.

“And he’s not going to get suspicious if the two of us drag him to some small cozy bar and ply him with drinks? We’re U-Cees, Eden. The enemy.

Not his perfect, beloved Triad.”

“Speaking of his enemies, I’m having some problems with Captain Serafino.”

“Such as?”

“There are physiological questions I can’t answer.”

“Implant?”

Eden shrugged as best she could while deep in a lunge. “Could be.”

“Then what?”

“It might be because he’s Nasyry.” She lowered her tone, even though there was no one near enough to hear. “And the med-files here are damnably incomplete.”

Tasha shook her head knowingly. “I guess I’m adding this to my shopping list.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Your wish, Doctor, is my command,” Tasha said, and motioned to the empty treadmills. “Ready?”

They finished their workout without further conversation and then headed to their cabins to shower and change before they had to start their respective shifts at 0800.

Eden’s quarters were closer to the lift; the captain’s quarters were farther down the corridor, next to the admiral’s and the ready room. They stopped at Eden’s door.

“Are we talking to Serafino today?” Tasha asked.

“Not until Cal and I can pin down those unknown readings in his blood.

I’m thinking... ” She hesitated for a moment, pursing her lips as she attempted to convince herself she was on the right track. “I’m thinking of trying to make some form of telepathic contact with him today, maybe after you and Kel-Paten talk to TeKrain. But I’ll need you to run interference.”

“Got it. But can you make contact with Serafino while his physical self is still awake?”

“It’s not the easiest way,” Eden responded. “But he managed to reach out to me yesterday, shortly after he woke up.” A very brief apology after a rather startling encounter. “According to him, I’m a touch telepath. If I can strengthen that link through physical contact—”

“Not an altogether objectionable task, Doctor,” Tasha teased, her eyebrows raised. “I haven’t seen that much of him lately, but what I remember was damned nice to look at.”

Eden pulled herself up to her full height and looked haughtily down at the shorter woman. “I am a professional, Captain Sebastian!” she teased.

“Keep a bucket of cold water handy,” Tasha retorted, punching her friend good-naturedly on the shoulder before she headed toward her cabin.

“For him or for me?” Eden called out to her.

Tasha stopped at her cabin door. “For both of you! And should you need any help—”

She quickly ducked inside to avoid the balled-up gym towel hurled at her by the professional Dr. Fynn.

TASHA SEBASTIAN’S QUARTERS

Once inside her cabin, Sass was met by another moving projectile. This one was fur-covered.

“No, you cannot have any more food!” Sass told the black and white fidget, who murrupped and purred and, plumy tail aloft, wove in and out of her legs on her way to the shower. He flopped down on her bed when she emerged from the sanifac, presenting his belly to be rubbed. She obliged. His loud purr filled the room, softening as he fell asleep.

Sass mulled over the information Eden had given her as she absently raked her fingers through Tank’s long, silky fur. She kept coming back to the fact that Jace Serafino was Nasyry. Bunch of overblown snobs.

Considered themselves far too good to associate with anyone without mind talents. They called regular humans ollims or odoms or something.

Ah, oullum. She could hear her old mentor, Gund’jalar, pronouncing the foreign term. Meant blank minds or dead minds. They even lumped the Zingara like Eden into that classification, because the Zingara refused to stop trading with the U-Cees.

Snobs. She couldn’t mesh that with the Jace “’Fino” Serafino she’d known. But she could definitely understand now why he was so damned lucky at cards—and at avoiding any traps the Triad or U-Cees set out for him.

And it might explain the Alliance’s—and PsyServ’s—interest in him. A rogue Nasyry could definitely be a threat to Psy-Serv. But did the Alliance know what he was when they hired him to work undercover? Did Kel-Paten?

He couldn’t know. It wasn’t mentioned in the briefing. It wasn’t in any of the data provided on the mission. If Kel-Paten knew, he wouldn’t be pushing so hard to interrogate Serafino—at least, not without a Psy-Serv agent present. So that meant Psy-Serv left out that one, very important fact when they sent Kel-Paten after Serafino.

Why?

Turning that question over in her mind, she grabbed a clean uniform from her closet. Her comm link pinged as she pulled on her boots.

She flicked on the mike. “Sebastian.”

“Kel-Paten here. My office, ten minutes.”

It wasn’t even 0800 yet and still a full hour away from her usual 0900

briefing with the admiral. She knew that an interrogation of one of Serafino’s crewmembers was on today’s schedule, however. The admiral was obviously anxious to discuss it.

For a moment, she considered spilling what she knew about Serafino.

Psy-Serv’s omission rankled her. Frankly, it carried the stench of someone playing a very dangerous game. If there was anyone who could counter such a game, it was Kel-Paten. And, in spite of all the suppositions floating through Eden’s conversations with Serafino, she trusted Kel-Paten. It was something deeper, something beyond the U-Cees and the Triad.

Something beyond the Alliance.

She just... trusted him.

But not enough right now to go against her CMO’s wishes and tell him—

warn him—that Serafino was Nasyry. Yet.

“You promise me coffee and I’ll do anything,” she responded lightly.

There was a moment of silence, then: “That can be arranged.”

“Good,” she replied. “On my way. Mahrian blend, black.” A hissing sound stopped her before she reached the door. She spun around. “Tank?”

Another hiss and a low growl.

She headed back to her bedroom. “Tank?”

The long-furred fidget’s back was arched, his ears flat to his head. Sass followed his wide-eyed gaze... and saw nothing. Nothing but the starfield outside her cabin viewport.

“What’s the matter? You just realize you’re in the space lanes?” She patted his head, shook her own, and left.

Kel-Paten didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Tank trotted around the cabin after MommySass left, sniffing corners, putting his wet nose to the viewports, and then staring nowhere and everywhere. Be alert, Friend Reilly had warned him. Bad Thing watches us with its ugly smelly light.

Tank knew. He scented another drip of ugliness just now, a fetid ripple in the neverwhen. A small one, yes. But there.

Gone now. He looked again through the neverwhen. Perhaps he’d scared it away. He might be only a fidget, but he was growing stronger. He blinked his eyes, searching for something more pleasant.

Friend? Friend?

He felt Reilly’s answering purr.

Play now? Play time?

Play now, came the answer from down the corridor. Come here. Go Blink.

Fun! He swished his tail, remembering to do what Reilly taught him.

Stretch. Reach. Sense. Go Blink.

He felt the neverwhen ruffle his fur. And then he was in Friend Reilly’s cabin, sharing a wet-nosed greeting. Fun! he said again, and pounced on his friend’s back, wrestling the larger furzel to the floor.

8

SICK BAY

TeKrain Namar’s leathery face brightened as Eden entered his sick-bay cubicle. “Fynn, yes, Doctor. You are. How?” he asked in broken Standard.

It took Eden a moment to rearrange the words. “Fine, thank you, Master TeKrain. And how are you feeling this afternoon?”

“Easier. Pain. Now breathe. Yes. No more.” His thin faced nodded rapidly.

Okay, let’s decipher this one slowly, Eden told herself. “You are in less pain when you breathe, is that correct?”

The thin face nodded again.

“Good. Stay still for a few moments while I check some of your readings.” She held the medicorder near his chest and watched the figures dance across the small screen. Everything appeared as it should for a Tsariian male of his age who’d been through the injuries he’d sustained.

She told him as much, adding, “Then there’s no reason Admiral Kel-Paten shouldn’t be able to talk to you.”

“Kel-Paten!” TeKrain suddenly sat straight up in bed. “Fear! Do cannot!

Release sick, now I am!” He coughed profusely and theatrically.

“You’re perfectly fine, Master TeKrain,” Eden said, with a strong but soothing tone in her voice.

Bony russet hands grasped the sleeve of her lab coat. “Stay! Me with, Fynn Doctor! All we die now! Soldier Tin, all we die!” She patted his arm reassuringly, her touch bringing with it the strong sense of fear pervading the Tsariian. “The admiral has just a few questions. There’s nothing to be worried about.” It was at this point that Cal Monterro stuck his head through the cubicle doorway. “The admiral and Captain Sebastian are here to see TeKrain, if you’ll permit it.”

A yellowed gaze pinned her. “Now?” A keening sound escaped his lips.

“Lost, lost! Is lost all!”

“In spite of the noise, I believe Master TeKrain can withstand a few questions,” Eden told Cal, as she tried to dislodge the Tsariian’s long fingers from her wrist. She was unsuccessful in that endeavor until she heard the muffled footsteps come up behind her. TeKrain drew back against his pillow as if a battering ram had been shoved against him. He quickly wrenched the bed covers up under his chin.

Kel-Paten assumed his usual military stance on the left side of TeKrain’s bed and nodded for Eden to stay in place across from him. Tasha came up and stood more casually on the left, one hand resting on the footboard.

“Master TeKrain, I hope you’ve found our medical facilities adequate to your needs,” Kel-Paten began.

“Sick, sick,” TeKrain said weakly.

Eden had no trouble picking up a palpable sense of impending dread.

Clearly, the Tsariian was terrified, but whether it was because of who was in the room or because of what he knew, she couldn’t tell at the moment.

“I am sure you wish to give the Alliance your full cooperation,” Kel-Paten said. “Therefore, you’re in no danger.”

“Later me know I! Kill you will!”

“The Triad—the Alliance has no real interest in you, Master TeKrain,” Kel-Paten said, and Eden noted with a mental grin that she and Tasha weren’t the only ones who couldn’t keep straight which team they played on.

“You’ll be released once we reach Panperra. In the meantime, we need to know what you can tell us about Captain Serafino,” Kel-Paten was saying.

Angular shoulders shrugged in a jerky movement. “What you I tell, know? All you, everything, Soldier Tin! Namar, small, stupid!”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, TeKrain,” Kel-Paten said smoothly. “I think you’re intelligent enough that someone like Captain Serafino would want you on his ship. Would trust you.”

“Trust? Hmmph!” The Tsariian jerked his chin in the air as he spoke.

“Orders, no! Question not! This, yes do, question? Not!” Eden saw Kel-Paten glance at her for confirmation. She nodded. As far as her empathic senses could tell, TeKrain was telling the truth. Serafino gave him orders and that was all. He wasn’t allowed to question.

“What kinds of orders, TeKrain?”

Another nervous shrug. “Here go we!” His voice climbed almost comically at the end of the sentence. “Course this, yes take. Course that, no.”

As TeKrain spoke, Eden had her first sense that the Tsariian was, if not lying, then definitely omitting some facts. She shifted position enough to catch Kel-Paten’s brief attention and the captain’s as well.

Tasha spoke before Kel-Paten could. “TeKrain. Enk rankrintar narit t’sor enarin. ”

It took Eden a moment to translate the insult—one she knew only because she’d heard Tasha use it before: your tongue and your brain are no longer friends.

Tasha’s pronouncement unleashed a flood of Tsariian words from TeKrain, who in his excitement evidently forgot his professed frailty and released his death grip on the coverlet, waving his hands excitedly as he spoke.

Eden caught only a few words: Money. Betrayal. Hunter. Hunted. And Serafino’s name along with a few others—Admiral Kel-Varen’s for one. But it wasn’t the words she needed to understand; it was the emotions behind them. She signaled to Tasha what she knew with a system they had devised years before—fingers open, truth. Fingers closed, lies.

The hard tone left Tasha’s voice. She moved closer to TeKrain.

Kel-Paten stepped back slightly as she inched next to him. Eden knew the admiral’s lethal presence was one of the reasons TeKrain was talking at all.

TeKrain laughed at something Tasha said and seemed to relax. Eden’s hand remained open. TeKrain was telling the truth, whatever that was at this point.

But his next words were laced with a totally different feeling. Eden closed her hand into a fist and, just as quickly, there was a guttural utterance from Tasha.

TeKrain hissed something back that sounded equally nasty. His right hand swung out to grab the captain.

Kel-Paten intercepted the movement with cybernetically enhanced speed, his black-gloved hand clamping on to the narrow wrist. “Touch her and you die.”

The Tsariian paled under his russet skin as he drew in one long, noisy breath of air, no doubt feeling it was his very last. But when after a few moments he was able to take a second breath and then a third, albeit a shaky one, he parted his lips into a taut, stiff smile and puffed out several strained laughs.

“Joke. Yes? Kidding.” His gaze went from Kel-Paten to Tasha. Then he let out a long sigh, as if some deep understanding had just dawned.

“Esry’on tura?” he asked her as Kel-Paten released his wrist.

Tasha frowned. “Nalk,” she replied emphatically. No.

Two emotional responses hit Eden at the same time. From TeKrain, it was surprise and disbelief.

From Admiral Kel-Paten, it was a similar jolt of surprise but with a distinct twinge of regret that seemed out of context with what was happening in the room. Whatever it was, it was caused by TeKrain’s last question, which Kel-Paten obviously understood, along with Tasha’s definitive no. An interesting combination, Eden noted. Something else to ask Tasha about.

“I think we have all we need to know from Master TeKrain at this time.” Tasha looked at Kel-Paten, who nodded.

Eden turned to TeKrain. “We appreciate your cooperation. Thank you.” The thin face nodded rapidly. “Fuck you very much too!” It was the only Standard phrase he knew in its proper word order, and it was definitely a memorable one.

DR. EDEN FYNN’S OFFICE, SICK BAY

Kel-Paten’s first impulse was to upbraid the Tsariian for his insulting parting comment. But Tasha grabbed his arm and propelled him through the doorway before he could do much more than let out an exasperated grunt.

“He doesn’t mean it!” She shoved him down into a chair in the CMO’s office. “Serafino—or someone—just taught him that to be funny.” She referred to TeKrain’s parting words. He knew that, yet it took a moment for her words to sink in and for him to shift his focus from the overly excitable Tsariian to the woman who had him pinned in the office chair. Her hands pushed against his shoulders, her legs were planted between his own, and their combined weight caused the chair to tilt backward slightly, bringing her face inches from his. Their thighs touched in an undeniably intimate manner, and he suddenly forgot everything—Serafino, TeKrain—everything except how little effort it would take to pull her against him and sear her with the rush of heat that coursed through his body.

“Sebastian.” His fingers circled her wrists. His voice was a raspy whisper, and the pause that followed hinted at a deep pain he didn’t mean to let surface.

She straightened. “Admiral? You okay?”

He closed his eyes. For a brief moment, his thumbs traced the lifeline of her pulse. Then he nodded, gently removing her hands from his shoulders and holding them together before releasing her, letting her step away.

“I’m fine.” He ran his hand over his face, then abruptly pushed himself out of the chair, turning his back to Tasha as he sifted disinterestedly through a small pile of case files on Fynn’s desk.

“We need to go over TeKrain’s information.” His voice sounded strong, angry again. It was always easier to be angry. “Get Dr. Fynn—”

“I’m right here,” the CMO said.

He spun around, almost colliding with Tasha, and saw Fynn leaning against the door frame.

“I’m sorry for so rudely commandeering your office,” Tasha said, one hand toward Eden, “but I really thought we were about to witness a murder.” She grinned.

Kel-Paten waited for Fynn to respond to Tasha’s smile. He wasn’t the only one to notice that she didn’t. And he had a very bad feeling about what Fynn did notice.

Tasha’s now-frowning gaze went from Fynn to him, then back to Fynn again. “Just what is going on here?”

“I think,” Fynn said, “that we’re all waiting to find out what TeKrain told you. You were the only one who understood everything he said.” She took her seat and straightened the files on her desk.

Tasha sat also. Kel-Paten remained standing, and Tasha looked up at him. “Sorry. You didn’t understand any of it?” He chanced a glance at Fynn—the empath who had stood in the doorway for the past few moments while he let his thoughts and emotions run rampant. Again.

Fynn knew. The look on her face when he saw her in the doorway told him everything. And if she knew, then Tasha would know, and he didn’t want her finding out that way. Not from a medical practitioner who knew what he was, who would advise Tasha that his feelings were most likely nothing more than an aberration, a programming glitch to be rectified.

Fynn could order that. That’s what med-techs did.

He had to control his emotions when Fynn was around. There was too much at risk and, thanks to Roderick Kel-Tyra, he was running out of time. He stuffed the last remnants of pain back into his emotional strongbox and turned his mind to the matter at hand.

“I had a problem with a few of his responses.” He leaned back against the office wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn’t sit so close to Tasha in the small confines, because every time he did, her warmth seemed to wash over him and he was caught like a drowning man in a riptide. “His dialect is difficult to translate.” Tasha tilted her chair back and looked up at him. “It’s not the dialect.

TeKrain speaks an ancient form of Tosar. They often invert the subject and predicate.”

“Not to mention twist the truth,” Fynn said.

“You caught that well,” Tasha told her with a smile. “And damned if he didn’t like that one bit.”

“Did TeKrain know you were there to read him empathically?” Kel-Paten asked Fynn. Maybe the Zingaran doctor was thinking of the Tsarii. Maybe she wasn’t tuned in to his emotions. Maybe. He doubted it.

“I made sure he thought I was there strictly as a medical professional, but he is Tsarii, Admiral. Many of them have a low-level empathic sense.” Gods, no. He had forgotten that fact. The Illithians and the Rebashee were the enemies-of-the-decade and therefore his required focus. Not the ineffectual, quirky Tsarii.

With a deep sense of impending doom, he realized that would explain TeKrain’s earlier question: Esry’on tura? Is he your lover? Kel-Paten understood the question but thought TeKrain had asked it because he’d reacted when TeKrain struck out at Tasha.

But the Tsarii evidently was reading more than just his physical response. He picked up on the emotional response as well.

While Fynn was scanning TeKrain, TeKrain was scanning him.

And Tasha, with her eclectic linguistic abilities, fully understood the question too. He just prayed she wouldn’t understand as well the real reason behind it. He ran his hand over his face in a weary gesture. “Tell me what happened in there with TeKrain.”

TeKrain Namar was a small-time opportunist, arms dealer, and mercenary. He’d worked for Serafino off and on for almost six years.

Though he didn’t particularly like humans, he’d always admired Serafino’s rakehell attitude and allegiance to the only thing that TeKrain himself really cared about: money.

At least, that’s all he’d thought Serafino cared about. But the past year, he came to believe that revenge motivated Serafino, and it was a revenge involving a woman.

And, no, the woman wasn’t Illithian or associated with the Illithians, though TeKrain admitted Serafino had bragged about a deep contact somewhere in the Dynasty. Yes, he knew someone had hired Serafino to obtain information from the Illithians. But Serafino was definitely evasive when it came to exactly whom he worked for. TeKrain said Serafino told him that “he didn’t have a need to know,” and TeKrain accepted that, as long as he was paid.

And as for payment, TeKrain was under the impression the two hundred fifty thousand credits were only the beginning. There was more coming—Serafino intimated as much. But Serafino never said from where.

“How did they end up in the vortex?” Kel-Paten ventured as far as the edge of Fynn’s desk, where he perched safely several feet from Tasha and directed his question to her.

“Let me state that, before the vortex, his association with Serafino had been strained,” Tasha explained. “TeKrain said Serafino’s personality drastically changed a few years ago. He’d forget things or people. Became very mistrustful. It got so bad that the past few months, TeKrain was confined to the ship, not even allowed liberty when they hit a raft or station without Serafino giving him permission.”

“Trefla,” Kel-Paten said. One of the side effects of the illegal drug was a skewed, disjointed personality.

Tasha shrugged. “TeKrain had decided he was going to jump ship, but Serafino wouldn’t let him out of his sight. Then, without warning, Serafino broke dockage at Rekerral and headed, as far as TeKrain knew at that point, to nowhere. Except that Serafino fed TeKrain exact coordinates.

Exact coordinates that put them right at the epicenter of the vortex.” Rekerral was a small station with a questionable reputation, on the edge of the Zone closest to Illithian space. That was First Fleet’s— his

—responsibility and the Nexarion’s territory, and Kel-Paten had been assured by Captain Kel-Varen that the border was secure, the station not a liability. One more thing now to double-check.

“Why would he head for a vortex?” Fynn asked Tasha.

Kel-Paten answered. “To use its power, Doctor. There are theories that we can use a vortex as a form of intergalactic travel. Faster than the jumpdrives we currently have and without the need for jumpgate technology.” It was a hypothesis he’d actively worked on for many years—and, if not for the war, he would’ve gotten much further. It was one of the reasons he had been so amenable to the peace talks.

But not the only one.

Now, however, he was concerned that the Illithians were ahead of him.

Were they using vortices to infiltrate Triad space? Nothing in any intelligence reports he saw suggested the Dynasty was even close to having that kind of technology. But did Serafino know something, and was he helping them?

“According to TeKrain,” Tasha continued, “when the Novalis reached the coordinates, the vortex was just starting to form. TeKrain has no idea how Serafino knew it would. He was also surprised to see our energy signature, but then the ship began to break up. Serafino took the helm and did what he could to get her within our sensor range, to save the crew.

And the rest we know.”

Kel-Paten turned slightly on the corner of Fynn’s desk and looked down at her. Though the information about Serafino and his use of the vortex interested him most, he was in Fynn’s office, and this wasn’t the venue for such a discussion. “I’ll need a report on your assessment of TeKrain’s veracity, Doctor.”

“Once the computers translate the vidtranscript of the session, I’ll overlay my readings and stat it to your offices.” Fynn nodded to Tasha, then to him. “But that probably won’t be until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s acceptable,” he told Fynn, pushing himself away from her desk. He stopped behind Tasha’s chair and rested his hand lightly on its back. He had to separate her from Fynn before the two had a chance to compare notes. And he wanted to dissect this new information on the vortex with Tasha. He swiveled her chair to face the door before she could object. “Come along, Sebastian. You’re with me.” He waited, favoring her with one of his usual glares until she offered a halfhearted wave to the CMO and fell in step with him as he strode through the doorway.

“Comm me when you’re ready for dinner,” she called back through Fynn’s open doorway. “Give me prelims on TeKrain then.”

“Will do.” Fynn nodded as her doorway slid closed.

Kel-Paten uncurled his fingers from the fist he’d unconsciously made, and he motioned Tasha toward the corridor as if his world hadn’t just taken a nosedive into a black hole.

Eden Fynn could give Tasha a lot more than prelims. He feared that her empathic readings on the Tsariian weren’t the only things she would discuss with her captain as soon as they were alone. And he didn’t know whether he was more afraid of Tasha’s scorn when the Zingaran CMO told her just how hopelessly in love the Tin Soldier was with her or Fynn’s resultant order to Section 46 him, removing from his life the only two things he gave a damn about: his service to the Triad through the Fleet and the chance to have Tasha Sebastian by his side.

9

SICK BAY

Eden took a half hour to review updates from the medical team on Lightridge Station. There was little chance—with Serafino and all that had happened—the Vax would head back there now. But the unexplained deaths plagued her. However, Serafino’s medical situation and warnings about a serious threat to the Alliance bothered her equally as much.

Which was why a visit with him soon was on her schedule.

In the meantime, she worked on the Lightridge data, just in case Kel-Paten returned unexpectedly. It wouldn’t do to have him find her in Serafino’s hospital room so shortly after their interrogation of TeKrain.

That would definitely take some creative explanations, but not more creative than what she’d devised as a means to initiate telepathic contact with Serafino without either harming him—she would set the alarm on her watch for ten minutes—or exposing herself—literally—to the amorous advances of his evil twin. She needed a way to keep the physical Serafino busy while she reached out for the telepathic one.

She caught Cal’s eye as she strode toward Serafino’s room and nodded slightly. He nodded back. They’d already discussed what she had to do, and he, too, had set his alarm. Neither doctor knew for sure if Serafino would survive another seizure.

The security lock read her palm print and granted her entry. Serafino was scanning a vidmag on the swivel screen that pulled out from the wall by his bed, and he looked up when she entered, a broad smile on his face.

“Well, if it isn’t one of the Doctor twins, and my favorite at that! Have I told you how beautiful you look today?”

“You told me this morning.” She avoided looking at him and concentrated instead on the data on her handheld medicorder. She wanted to make sure that he was strong enough to withstand her telepathic attempt.

“You can tell me how perfect I am. I don’t mind,” he teased.

She glanced at him and thought regretfully how true that really was. He was undeniably perfect. Tall. Dark. Handsome. To-die-for blue eyes.

Owning a pair of those herself, she’d never before succumbed to their reputed charms. But his were different, a deep azure blue with flecks of green and gold, graced by long dark eyelashes. Oddly sensitive and compassionate eyes, set in a distinctly masculine, chiseled face that tended to an early beard shadow. Which only made him look more handsome and more rakish.

“Actually,” she told him, beginning to enjoy the charade, “you’re not all that perfect.” She sighed and then became quiet. Patients hated that worried-medical-doctor sigh, she knew.

“Hmm,” she mused out loud, pretending to concentrate on the readings in her hand.

“Hmm?” he questioned. “Is that a good ‘hmm’ or a bad ‘hmm,’ my lovely doctor?”

She shrugged. “Not sure.”

“What do you mean, not sure? You’re the doctor—the chief medical officer, if I’m correct.” He smiled, but it was a tense smile.

“You are. Correct, that is.”

“And what else am I, Doc?” he queried. “Look, I got bumped around a bit. But that doesn’t warrant being locked up in here.”

“That’s something you’ll have to discuss with Admiral Kel-Paten,” she told him.

“I’d love to. Bring him on. Bring on a whole army of Tin Soldiers. When are you going to let me talk to him?” He had made this request before and received the same response.

“When I give you medical clearance, Captain, and you’re not there yet.”

“Why?”

“Not sure.” They were back where they’d started, and that was just where Eden wanted him.

He leaned against the pillows and groaned. “Okay, Doc, what is it? You can tell me. Am I pregnant?”

His query and expression were so comical that Eden laughed out loud.

“No, but I’m glad to see you still have a sense of humor.”

“You have a sexy laugh, Doc.”

“And you, Captain Serafino,” she said, moving in for the kill, “have something that is confounding my best diagnostic equipment. So I’m afraid I have no choice but to resort to drastic measures.” He frowned. “Explain.”

“We can’t get a definitive reading on your body temperature. There’s something in your system—and I’ve seen it in rare cases—that scrambles the medicorders.”

“Something—like what?”

“Electrolyte levels have been known to do that,” she lied.

“Which means... ?”

She pulled out an antique glass thermometer. “I have to take your temperature. Manually.”

“Manually?” He stared at the instrument that bespoke a time long ago of scalpels and sutures and things that actually hurt. “What’s that thing?”

“A thermometer. An oral thermometer. Open wide... .” His eyes almost crossed as he stared at it. “You’re not putting that thing in my mouth!”

“Are we afraid, Captain Serafino?” she cooed.

“Lubashit, no! It’s just that nobody’s used those things in centuries, Doc. Where did you get your medical degree, anyway?”

“The same place you got your captain’s license. Send away twelve box tops from Starry Loops cereal and you can be anything your heart desires.

Now say ahhh.”

He clamped his mouth shut. “No,” he said through tight lips.

Eden stood back, eyed him in mock anger, and tapped her foot. Then, reaching into her other lab-coat pocket, she pulled out a larger and longer thermometer.

“Fine,” she said, holding it out for him to see. “You don’t want to say ahhh, we can do it another way. This is a rectal thermometer. Roll over.” Serafino actually paled. “You must be out of your friggin’ mind.”

“Then say ahhh,” she told him.

He said “ahhh.”

When she was sure the thermometer was securely under his tongue and that he wouldn’t bite the thing in half, she surreptitiously tapped at the extra comm link in her pocket, sending a signal to its coded twin on Cal Monterro’s desk. Serafino was under control. Now came the hard part.

She took his wrist in her hand as if to take his pulse. Again, an ancient medical practice in an age of scanners and sensors and sonic surgery.

“What now?” he mumbled around the thermometer.

“Shh! Lie back and close your eyes. I need your heart rate to relax so I can take your pulse. The more you fight this, Captain, the longer it’s going to take. And if I can’t get a good reading out of that oral thermometer, I’ll have no choice but to use—”

He fell back abruptly against the pillows, his eyes tightly closed.

She let her hand encircle his wrist and used the blinking red numbers on her watch to let her mind fall into a light trance. His breathing slowed and so did hers, until they were matched in rhythm. She called his name.

Jace? She had a brief floating sensation and then a comforting warmth.

Eden! What in hell did you stick in my mouth?

She shot him a mental grin. Had to shut you up somehow. Would you have preferred the other orifice?

She felt him grin back, a small tickle of warmth in her mind as he sent his words: A doctor and a comedian. She felt a question forming. How did you know this would work?

There are some Zingaran manuals on telepathic healings. It was an avenue I had to try. Jace, we have problems, not the least of which is a compound in your blood I can’t get a reading on. My med-files have so little on Nasyry physiology, I don’t know if you have a severe infection or it’s just normal. That’s the first thing, she told him, and then waited.

I don’t have an answer on that. I feel fine, if that’s any help.

Not to a doctor. But we have other avenues.

We?

Sass—Captain Sebastian. We think Kel-Paten has accumulated some impressive files on Psy-Serv over the years. Sebastian’s going to get them.

You can call her Sass. I know who she is. I know about Gund’jalar, Zanorian, and Lethant. She had quite a reputation on the rim.

That wasn’t something she was here to discuss, and she told him so. But it was something she would warn Tasha about. She knew there were parts of Tasha’s past that would put her in serious jeopardy if the wrong person were to learn of those facts.

He caught her concern. I didn’t think her time at Sookie’s was a secret.

That’s not. But Lethant...

Got it. What else do you need to know? We’re at about six minutes and running.

I have Cal on standby, timing us. Jace, I can’t try to remove that implant until I know more about your blood composition. Anything you can remember from past physicals will help me. If not now, then the next chance you get to contact me.

Whatever you can do, love, know that I appreciate it. And I don’t blame you for anything that might go wrong. I’m a big unknown here.

Not for long, if Sass can get that data from Kel-Paten’s files. In the meantime, I need to know how you bypass the implant. Maybe I can help extend your time.

A flood of information came to her—Nasyry mind-control rituals plus a healthy dose of cybercircuitry tricks. Much of it meant nothing to her, especially the technical data. That would be child’s play to Kel-Paten, she knew, but asking his help right now was out of the question. Still, it was an area that Tasha was well versed in.

She felt his agreement. Tell Lady Sass that ’Fino sends his regards. It was almost time to break contact.

She wondered whether you’d remember her if she said ‘ante up’!

Tell the little card shark I sure as hell do! Tell her I said she ought to play Kel-Paten in a sudden-death round of Starfield Doubles for the control codes to the Vaxxar. She’d win, no doubt.

She sent him a smile. Will do, Captain.

Then the contact was gone.

She opened her eyes and gently released Serafino’s wrist, then tapped at the comm link in her pocket. Her watch told her she had forty-eight seconds to go.

Forty-eight seconds more and she could have killed him.

“Captain Serafino,” she called softly.

Bright blue eyes suddenly opened. And looked a bit dazed. There was, she knew, some residual from the telepathy.

She plucked the thermometer from his mouth, glanced at it, and pretended to make a note on the nearby medicorder. When she looked up, he was still watching her.

“You know, Doc, I keep thinking that I know you from somewhere.” His voice had momentarily lost its usual arrogance and was closer to the man she knew as Jace. “I keep thinking,” and he licked his lips as he thought for a moment, “that we were more than just friends.” She shook out the thermometer and placed it back in her pocket. “In your dreams, Serafino. In your dreams.”

She retrieved the medicorder and headed for the door, palming the security lock back on as the door closed behind her. But Jace Serafino was far from safe—not from the damned implant in his head and not from Admiral Kel-Paten’s probing. She could no longer deny the admiral the right to do the latter, and she had only vague ideas what to do about the former.

With a sigh, she sent a note to Kel-Paten upgrading Serafino’s condition. Providing she was present, she would permit him to be interviewed at the admiral’s convenience.

A message waited for her when she returned to her office. The admiral requested her presence at an interview in the ready room at 1845 hours.

Dinnertime, to be exact.

And it looked as if Jace Serafino was going to be the main course.

10

READY ROOM

It was a repeat performance. Only this time the players weren’t in sick bay but in the ready room—the small but efficient conference room just aft of the bridge. A more fitting place than sick bay to interview the former captain of the Novalis, at least in Kel-Paten’s mind. Here the admiral felt comfortable, surrounded by the dark oblong table, the repetition of cushioned chairs, the comp screens set at regular intervals into the tabletop. Familiar and functional without the annoying clicking and beeping of sick-bay diagnostics, too reminiscent of a place and time he’d just as soon forget.

No, the Vax’s ready room was a place in which he felt in total command, and he didn’t want to be anything less when confronting Jace Serafino.

And confront he did. Especially after Serafino responded to questions about his undercover assignment with accusations of corruption in the Triad. The Alliance was a sham; the Triad Houses of Government and Fleet were under the control of a secret, high-powered, and dangerous group. This Faction used murder—not the voting booth—to implement their policies.

The man’s lies sickened him.

“You have a reputation for many things in this sector, Captain.” Kel-Paten all but spat out the title in disgust. “Veracity is not one of them.”

Jace Serafino looked over the tips of his boots, which were propped in a comfortably disrespectful fashion on the edge of the table. “Perhaps,” he replied in a tone equally terse, “that’s because the quality of truth in this sector depends upon the quantity of money willing to purchase it.

Admiral.” Serafino smiled, the effect at once disarming yet cunning. “If you’d ever chance to venture out of this sterile little world you’ve created for yourself, you’d know everything I’ve told you is true.” He jerked his chin toward the wide viewport where Tasha had leaned for the last half hour. “If you took the time to listen to her, she’d tell you.

Unless she doesn’t trust you either.”

Kel-Paten refused to see what might be an acknowledgment in Tasha’s eyes. “I have an excellent rapport with all my officers and crew,” he replied firmly.

“Your crew,” Serafino put in smoothly, “is terrified of you. Most of your officers are Triad born and bred, and brainless. If you have a chance in hell to survive,” he continued, raising his voice over Kel-Paten’s angry growl, “you’re going to have to listen to me.” Kel-Paten leaned his fists against the tabletop and glared at Serafino. It didn’t surprise him that Serafino would shift the focus—and blame—away from his own failure to perform his part of the agreement and instead place the Triad in a negative light. The damned pirate’s delusions of grandeur simply wouldn’t permit things any other way. And in spite of the fact that he knew Serafino was simply trying to change the course of this interrogation with his allegations, he couldn’t let them pass unanswered.

Not when Serafino sullied the Triad’s reputation with his lies.

“If the U-Cees had proof this so-called Faction exists, don’t you think they would have brought out that fact at the peace talks or in council?”

“The U-Cees are as blind as you are, Tin Soldier. Though they have improved after the disastrous scandal Admiral Wembley dumped on their doorstep ten or so years ago. Point is, however, you now have certain people on this ship,” Serafino mused out loud, with an appraising glance at Tasha, “who have significant experience in the real universe. Not your A-level military docks on station or your C- and D-level private-money docks, or even your respectable freighter bays on E. But let’s go below G, Kel-Paten. Let’s take a walk down to where the methane-breathers flirt with the oxys, where trefla is as common as fleas on a furzel. Work the rim worlds like the Doc here has. She knows; they both know.” Serafino turned casually to Tasha. “You’ve come a long way since Sookie’s.”

“Up or down, Serafino?” Tasha replied lightly. “Coming from you, that comment could mean anything.”

Serafino laughed heartily. Kel-Paten tamped down his annoyance and used the moment to glance quickly at a series of discreet hand signals from Fynn—the same ones she’d used earlier with TeKrain. Yes. Serafino believed what he said was the truth. Not only the ridiculous accusations about the Triad but about Tasha’s knowledge and undercover experience.

“Captain Sebastian,” Kel-Paten said, disliking the easy laughter that had flowed between Tasha and Serafino, “is not the one who took two hundred fifty thousand credits. And ran.”

Serafino shrugged noncommittally. “That was my insurance policy.

Your people wanted to send me on a one-way trip to hell. I had no intention of accommodating them.”

“You didn’t have to accept the mission,” Kel-Paten shot back.

“Death threats have a way of convincing even me.” Kel-Paten regarded him coolly. “The Triad can always use one less traitor.” That would leave only Gund’jalar and Dag Zanorian—another damned pirate who enjoyed adding “Captain” in front of his name—to blight the galaxy. A considerable improvement, in Kel-Paten’s estimation.

Gund’jalar’s mercenary operation had lessened since the death of one of his key agents, Lady Sass, seven years ago. And Zanorian had never been half as troublesome as the man before him.

A theatrical sigh escaped Serafino’s lips. He leaned back in his chair and glanced over his left shoulder at Eden Fynn. “See what abuse I have to put up with, Doc? Can’t you feed him some be-nice pills or something?

Or—I know!” And he snapped his fingers and turned back to Kel-Paten.

“We’ll just reverse the polarity on your batteries! You know, kind of a biocybe attitude-adjustment hour.”

Kel-Paten shouldn’t let Serafino’s taunt get to him, but Psy-Serv’s programming made it so easy to get angry. He slammed the chair against the table with such force that both Tasha and Fynn jumped. Serafino only readjusted his outstretched legs slightly and appeared unconcerned as Kel-Paten rounded the corner of the table and stopped, black-gloved hand pointing threateningly in Serafino’s direction.

“I have had,” he said, each of his words punctuated with bitter anger,

“enough of your insubordinate shit, Serafino.” In three long strides he was at Serafino’s side and about to grab a handful of rumpled white shirt when a smaller hand clasped on to his wrist. He froze, not by any force of strength leveled against him but because of a look of disapproval in a pair of green eyes.

“Branden,” Tasha said softly, “he’s playing you. He’s no use to us dead.

Yet.”

She’d stepped between them but still firmly held his wrist, even though she had to see the luminous haze in his eyes. He’d switched over to full cybernetic function right after he slammed the chair into the table.

With the slightest of movements he could toss her across the room. Or sear her with a touch and she’d be dead before she hit the floor.

Yet here she was standing between him and the object of his wrath while holding on to his wrist—with no more concern in her demeanor than if she were about to follow him onto the dance floor.

People didn’t like to touch him. Never knew when those power implants in his hands might activate and their last thought would be one of intense searing pain. Yet he could have told them that that could happen only if his cybernetics were powered on—something anyone could tell by the change of hue in his eyes.

Tasha knew that. As an Alliance officer she had access to all the intelligence the U-Cees had on him. So she knew—and yet here she was ignoring the telltale glow. It was as if what he’d wanted to happen for so long was now happening: she was seeing him not as a ’cybe but just as Branden Kel-Paten.

It would have almost been an optimistic thought were it not for the intense disapproval evident in her eyes.

Kel-Paten didn’t know if she viewed him as human or ’cybe, but whichever it was, she was extremely disappointed. And more than a tad pissed.

That cut him like no ion lance ever could.

He drew his hand away from hers—not sharply, not in any way to cause alarm—and then, without glancing at either Serafino or Eden, strode quickly for the ready-room doors. He couldn’t afford to give the empathic doctor another chance at reading emotions he wasn’t supposed to have.

He could not—would not—face a Section 46. He’d willingly strand himself in McClellan’s Void first. At least there he could lose himself in its hallucinations and he’d never know he’d lost Tasha. The doors clicked closed behind him.