* * *

Eden Fynn let out a slow, soft sigh of relief. The sound was not lost on Serafino.

“Is he usually this testy or is it that time of the month?” he drawled.

Tasha Sebastian perched on the edge of the table not far from his boots and crossed her arms over her chest. “You owe me one, Serafino. You are very lucky to be alive right now.”

He gave her a confident smile. In spite of her bland black and tan Alliance uniform, her very professional demeanor, and the noticeable lack of glitter he remembered gracing her then much-shorter spiky hair, he could still see the mercenary agent called Lady Sass. It was something in the tilt of her chin or the deceptively loose way she held her body. Ready to move decisively at any moment, this one. He’d seen her in action.

Impressive. “You know the Tin Soldier and I go back a long time. He’s threatened me before.”

“Then you should know better than to push him,” Tasha said. “If what you’ve been telling us is true, then you should be looking to us—to him—for help. Alienating him will get you nowhere.” Serafino considered her words for a moment. Then, with a glance back at Eden, “Ahh, so it’s good cop–bad cop here, eh? And what’s your role in this little play, Doctor? I hope you’re the one they assign to rehabilitate me.”

“You know, Captain Serafino,” Eden said, stuffing her hands into her lab-coat pockets, “you would have made a great used-starfreighter salesman.”

He laughed. “Or politician?”

“Or double agent,” Tasha intoned lightly.

He looked back at her, not for a moment fooled by the casualness of her words. She’d been burned, badly, by people she trusted. He remembered hearing whispers of Lady Sass’s ignoble death on Lethant. The smile faded from his face. “I’m no saint, Sebastian, but then, neither are you. You’ve moved in the same circles I have; you know how to check on what I’ve told you. Your Tin Soldier there, the Triad bought him and built him and owns him. He can’t even think in those directions until all that Triadian propaganda is shaken loose.

“But you’re right,” he continued. “I need his cooperation. Hell, I need this damned ship, if you want to know the truth.” A wave of tiredness washed over him. He shook it off. “The Faction suspects I’m on to them.

I’m not the only one they’re looking to terminate. He’s on the list—or will be. Little by little, they will take out anyone who stands in their way, just like they did to Senator Kel-Harrow. The Tin Soldier’s too powerful for the likes of them—tell him that.”

“And I suppose,” Tasha asked, “you’re going to tell me I’m on that list too?”

“Why the hell do you think they put you on the Vax in the first place?” Serafino replied. “They figured he’d do the job for them. Which is very reassuring, because it proves that they’re not infallible; they can make mistakes.”

“Serafino, I don’t know who this ‘they’ is that you’re talking about.”

“The Faction is—” A headache blinded him suddenly. He winced, rubbing his temples for a moment. “Powerful. Deadly.” He forced the words out. A hand rested gently on his shoulder—his lovely doctor’s. Some of the pain abated. He took a breath and continued. “But in this case, they’ve misjudged this whole situation, haven’t they? With the Tin Soldier.

And you.”

“I think,” Eden said, “it’s time for Captain Serafino to return to sick bay.” There was a quiet insistence in her voice.

He wanted to laugh at her concern for him—it was just a little headache; he had them all the time.

But Tasha was nodding in agreement. She unfolded her arms and pulled herself away from the table. “Let me wrap this up by saying I don’t know what situation you’re talking about, unless it’s the fact that the admiral and I were adversaries at one point. Keep in mind we’re both professionals, career officers. We have our duties and perform them to the best of our abilities. If that means cooperating with someone we once viewed as an enemy, we can do that. And that’s something—if you want Kel-Paten’s help—I strongly suggest you learn.” She tapped at the comm panel near the door. “Security Team One to the ready room.” She looked at Eden. “Cisco will escort Captain Serafino back to sick bay. I’ll see you in forty-five minutes in the officers’ mess,” she added.

Serafino looked at Eden as the doors closed again.

She was frowning. “Captain? How are you feeling?”

“Never been better.” He pulled his feet off the table. “Sass has no idea, does she?” he asked as he stepped next to her. “But you do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I—”

“Kel-Paten,” he cut in. “You could file a Section Forty-Six on him.

’Cybes aren’t supposed to have those kinds of emotions.”

“I didn’t feel that his anger at you was out of place,” she said mildly, but something that looked like surprise flickered briefly across her face. A face he’d like to explore with his fingers. His mouth.

He forced himself to remember they were talking about the Tin Soldier.

“Anger?” he asked. “Oh, there was heat there, but it wasn’t from anger.

And it wasn’t directed at me.”

The doors opened, and a muscular man with short brown hair and a laser pistol strapped to each thigh stepped in. “Doctor?” Cisco Garrick nodded to Eden as two burly security officers moved to flank Serafino on either side.

“Ah, yes, table for five, please,” Serafino quipped as they headed into the corridor.

He grinned when Eden shook her head in exasperation.

They were in the lift, heading down to sick bay, when he felt something struggle within himself. For a moment he felt like two people, and one of them—how strange!—could reach Eden’s mind. With a confused urgency, he mentally interrupted her conversation with a security officer who’d showed considerable interest in the CMO since they’d stepped into the lift.

He only wants in your pants, darling, Jace purred, his telepathic intrusion startling her.

She managed to keep from tripping over her own tongue in answering the officer’s question before replying silently. And you don’t? she shot back with no little irritation.

He chuckled. Most definitely, but at least I’m enough of a gentleman to let you know first what an unacceptable scoundrel I am.

Jace—are you telling the truth?

About wanting you? Absolutely. I—

No, damn you! About this Faction killing that senator—

I’m surprised you have to ask that question, Eden. But since you have... He flashed a series of images to her, not the least of which was one of Defense Minister Kel-Sennarin standing over the lifeless body of Senator Maura Kel-Harrow.

The contact was abruptly broken by the lift doors opening and Garrick grabbing Serafino’s arm to guide him down the corridor to sick bay. He leaned into the officer, feeling light-headed from the effort. And still very much like two people.

It was a risk to attempt the contact, he heard his own voice say in his mind. I can feel the implant, little by little, destroying everything I’ve uncovered about the Faction. Soon, very soon, everything the Nasyry part of himself knew would be gone, and there’d be no one to stop them.

Therefore, he hoped—desperately hoped—Eden had caught it all.

They were all dead if she hadn’t.

11

DECK 1 CORRIDOR

Serafino’s interrogation had not gone well.

Aggravation, annoyance, and confusion coursed through Sass as the ready-room doors closed behind her. Aggravation at Kel-Paten’s mishandling of the last half hour of the interview. Annoyance at Serafino’s taunts—and a small bit of fear when he’d mentioned Sookie’s. And confusion—Serafino’s allegations of corruption in the Triad sometimes matched but at other times were at odds with what Eden learned from him in their sessions. Hopefully Eden would be able to contact Serafino’s Nasyry half once they were safely back in sick bay and find out just what in hell the whole story was.

In the meantime, Sass had her own bit of trouble to deal with: Kel-Paten. Something more than emo-programmed anger seethed through the ready room just now. And whatever it was almost jeopardized the interrogation. As his captain, she had to find out what and why that was.

And as his friend—

The thought momentarily startled her. Did she honestly consider herself to be the Tin Soldier’s friend? Could a biocybe have one? With a small shake of her head, she realized that it mattered little what a ’cybe was capable of. The extension of friendship was equally her responsibility.

If they weren’t friends, they were at least colleagues. So as his...

colleague, she owed it to him to find out why in hell he acted like such a godsdamned, trock-brained idiot.

She laid her palm against the admiral’s door scanner and waited while it confirmed her identity and reported it to the occupant of the office. She was granted entry by the almost silent sliding of the double doors into the wall.

The lighting in Kel-Paten’s office was unusually dim. She stepped in and saw a tall form silhouetted against the floor-to-ceiling viewport. At sublight speed, the starfield was a black vista dotted with silver-blue points of light. Kel-Paten stood, his back to her, his arms braced on either side of the viewport. He didn’t turn when she entered, not even after the doors clicked closed. Yet he had to know she was there; his office doors wouldn’t have opened without his verbal authorization.

Something was very wrong.

“What happened back there, Kel-Paten?” she asked.

A tense shrug, more silence, then: “I lost control.” There was an unusual hesitation in his voice, as if the very act of speaking was difficult. “I thought that was obvious.”

“That’s not like you,” she replied. Damn it all, he wasn’t even putting up a fight! Everything in his stance, his tone, screamed defeat. This wasn’t the Kel-Paten she knew.

“I imagine,” he said after a moment, his voice still strained, “that Dr.

Fynn is ready to Section Forty-Six me about now.” Was that what this was about?

“Because you lost your temper?” she asked. “That’s fairly easy to do with Serafino.” Or Namar TeKrain. Or any number of other individuals who came into the scope of Kel-Paten’s disapproval over the years. Most rightly so, she realized. She was hard pressed to remember his getting irate without a valid reason. Branden Kel-Paten could be difficult, but he wasn’t petty.

“I made it look as if we were playing good cop–bad cop,” she continued when he didn’t comment. “Serafino thought he was clever picking up on that.” At the mention of the name, she saw Kel-Paten’s hands, still braced against the viewport, clench.

But no verbal response.

Again.

She thought of the countless times she and the Tin Soldier had traded barbs over their respective ships’ vidscreens. He was rarely at a loss for words—if nothing else, there was always their perfunctory name game and its accompanying disapproving tone.

But silent? Withdrawn? And not even turning around to favor her with a typical Kel-Paten scowl?

Maybe a Section 46 wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Do you want me to handle Serafino from here on?” she offered. “I can—”

“No!” He swung around to face her, and she noted with surprise the luminous glow in his eyes. He either was still powered up since the session in the ready room or had turned on his ’cybe functions just now.

Maybe Eden was right. Some kind of glitch in his emotional programming had bypassed his safeguards.

He stared at her, that eerie glow in his eyes. “We both can handle Serafino.” He stepped away from his desk as he spoke.

In tandem, she took a step back toward the door.

“I think it’s imperative we handle Serafino together,” he continued.

His office comm buzzed, Rissa Kel-Faray’s soft voice breaking the tension. “Sir. Admiral Roderick Kel-Tyra’s responding to your request on translink four.”

“I’m sure that’s important,” Sass said. “By your command.” She nodded formally and was out the door before he could grant or withdraw permission, Serafino’s warnings echoing darkly in her mind.

OFFICERS’ MESS HALL

Sass watched Eden climb the short flight of steps to their private table in the wardroom, her dinner of stew and cheese bread balanced on a tray in her hand. By comparison, Sass’s tray held only a tall glass of iced gin.

And the remains of two lime wedges she’d spent the past forty minutes—ever since she’d left Kel-Paten’s office—mutilating with her swizzle stick.

Eden noticed. “Drinking our dinner, are we?”

Sass looked up as Eden took the seat across from her. “You have a chance to get anything more from Serafino?”

“Not as much as I’d like, but yes.”

“Good. Sit down, Dr. Fynn. I think we have a problem.” To underscore her point, she activated the privacy field around the table as soon as Eden sat, the pale yellow lights in the floor signaling that the two officers didn’t want to be disturbed. The sonic buffer itself would prevent them from being overheard.

The smile immediately dropped from Eden’s face. “What now?” Sass gave a short, dry laugh. “I think the correct response is: you tell me. No, I’m sorry. Let me just run some issues by you, and then you tell me what you’ve learned from Serafino.”

Eden nodded and Sass continued: “I’m sure you noticed that the session between Kel-Paten and Serafino was less than a rousing success. Granted, Kel-Paten, being the Triad’s biggest fan, wouldn’t be expected to be thrilled with Serafino’s allegations. But Serafino is telling the truth.” She stabbed the lime wedge with her swizzle stick and pointed it at Eden. “Is that right?”

“Well, yes.”

“So the logical—and the gods know that’s what ’cybes are supposed to be: logical—the logical thing for Kel-Paten to do would be either to discount what Serafino said or investigate the allegations. Right?”

“Well, yes.”

“The last thing you’d think he’d be concerned with would be Serafino’s nasty little jibes. I mean, he’s programmed to be immune to that stuff.”

“Yes, but—” Eden started to say.

“Exactly. Yes, but. I honestly thought if Serafino called him Tin Soldier one more time, Kel-Paten was going to fry him, right then and there. So I step in. And Kel-Paten walks out of an interrogation.” Sass shook her head, the memory still puzzling. “I went to his office to get some answers.

If he wanted to play good cop–bad cop, fine, but tell me first, okay? But when I got there, Eden... it was strange. He was staring out the viewport, didn’t even turn when I came in. And when he finally did, he was still in his ’cybe mode.”

“That’s not that unusual,” Eden offered. “His cyberinterface functions as an emotional discipline—”

“Like he was going to emotionally discipline Serafino? Lubashit.” She waggled the mangled lime at Eden again.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Then think back about what Serafino told us just before I left. That this Faction intends to take out Kel-Paten, but first they wanted Kel-Paten to take me out. And I don’t mean to dinner.”

“You’re basing your conclusions on one false premise,” Eden began, but Sass cut her off.

“You don’t know the way he looked at me just now, in his office. It makes too much sense.”

“But—”

“Do you think Serafino’s telling the truth?”

“I know he’s telling the truth,” Eden replied quickly. “Serafino and I had brief contact right after you left. I tried to get more from the, um, other side of him once we got back to sick bay, but I wasn’t able to link with him, either telepathically or in Novalis. What I did get, though, was this.” Eden described the images that were flashed to her mind of the Triad Defense Minister.

Sass swore out loud and closed her eyes briefly. “Kel-Paten’s first posting was on Kel-Sennarin’s ship. Now he reports directly to him as head of Triad Strategic Command.”

“So?”

“So that’s why he’s on Serafino’s trail. And why I’m on the Vax. The two hundred fifty thousand credits Serafino stole is a minor mullytrock to the Triad.” Sass hesitated and then said the words she had a hard time accepting after six months of working with the admiral. She really believed they’d developed a level of mutual respect. She knew she had.

Now it seemed that Kel-Paten’s interaction with her was all a sham. “First he gets rid of Serafino. Then he gets rid of me. Either directly or by staging it so I’m killed in the line of duty—possibly during Serafino’s capture. That’s why he was so disturbed by Serafino’s ship suddenly appearing, and so suspicious of me at the time. It skewed whatever plans he and Kel-Sennarin made.”

“You can’t seriously think Kel-Paten would harm you,” Eden asked pointedly. “There’d be questions, inquiries—”

“He’s Kel-Paten. The Kel-Paten—he damned near defines loyalty to the Triad. And with Kel-Sennarin behind him—as he’s been for years—there’d be no questions.”

Eden sat back in her chair, her eyes wide. “But if that was really his intention, I should have sensed... ”

Sass didn’t miss how Eden’s comment trailed off. “Remember who—what,” she corrected, “you’re dealing with here. Out of the ten, twelve ’cybes they created—those others we’re not supposed to know about—he’s their only success story. They put a lot of time and effort into him. Psy-Serv put a lot of time and effort into him. Not to demean your talents, my friend, but you might be a bit out of your league here.”

“There was talk about a scrambler being integrated into the biocybernetic programs.” Eden’s voice was hushed. “Something that could send out false readings. But we could never track down anything definitive. It might just be wild gossip.”

“Telepathic scrambler? Or just empathic?”

Eden thought for a long moment. “Empathic. From what I’ve read, a telepath can detect a scrambler. An empath can’t.” There was a moment of studious silence, then: “Serafino,” they said together.

“We have to remove that implant before we get to Panperra,” Sass continued. “Because, one, I don’t know if Kel-Paten will let him live that long. And, two, the only way we’re going to know the whole story—not only about this Faction but about what’s going on with the admiral—is when Serafino’s free of that device. What we have now is a physical body that remembers part of it and a telepathic connection that can’t stay online for more than ten minutes.” Sass drew a deep breath. “I may not— we may not—have that much time.”

“When can you get the data from Kel-Paten’s files?” Eden asked.

“He’s logged for an inspection tour of navigation and stellar cartography at oh-nine-thirty tomorrow. He will probably also ask—no, demand that I accompany him. I can’t be with him and in his quarters at the same time. And I can’t refuse to go with him, because then he might go back to his quarters and find me there.”

“We need a way to keep him busy without you.”

“We need to make me sick.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What’s the herb that raises your body temperature? I want you to give me just enough to simulate a fever. Something that when I weakly collapse in front of him will register to his cybernetic sensors as real. And register on sick bay’s diags as real. Then you’re going to lock me up in one of your med-rooms and not permit him to see me for at least five hours, during which time I’m going to have to climb up through the ship’s interior maintenance tunnels all the way to his quarters, break in, infiltrate his security, download half the universe, and get back to sick bay in time for my miracle cure.”

“Sass—”

“You have the hard part of keeping Kel-Paten from going back to his quarters. And if he does, you alert me right quick.” Sass leaned over the table. “Got it?”

Eden suddenly smiled and tapped her juice glass against Sass’s now empty one. “Feels like old times, girl. Feels like old times.” MAIN LIFT BANK

Sass leaned back against the cool metal walls of the lift and closed her eyes. That foul-smelling herbal compound of Eden’s that she downed shortly after her morning coffee had kicked in several minutes ago, first with a feeling of light-headedness that just progressed into a rather unpleasant dizziness.

Admiral Kel-Paten, she noted, was in his usual spit-and-polish military stance as he stood quietly next to her. He made no mention of yesterday’s interview—or his loss of control—during their usual morning briefing in his office. The distant, efficient persona she knew as Kel-Paten was firmly back in place. That made it easier to keep her new wariness of him at bay.

They were back in a routine so familiar that she could have conducted it with half her brain tied behind her back.

Which was a good thing, because, judging from her body’s wobbling, that wasn’t far from the truth.

The lift doors opened on nav deck. Kel-Paten turned, evidently expecting her to step in front of him.

By that point, she felt the small beads of sweat trickling down the side of her face.

“Tasha?”

There was an odd hoarseness to his voice, Sass thought, or maybe the herbs affected her hearing as well.

“Tasha, are you all right?”

“Don’t think so,” she whispered. Her knees gave out and she slid toward the floor.

The next few moments progressed through a hazy, moving fog.

Kel-Paten dropped to his knees and suddenly she moved upward, aware of his arms under her legs and around her back.

For a moment, panic surged through her. Gods, she’d just presented him with the perfect opportunity to kill her. Weak, already obviously ill, helpless. A thought and a touch could finish her off.

If she had the energy, she’d have pounded her head on the lift wall at her stupidity. Instead, a low moan was all she could manage. Then she heard a familiar, discordant trill. He must have activated the emergency comm panel.

“Kel-Paten to bridge. I need an emergency transport to sick bay. Lock on my comm link and Captain Sebastian’s. Now!” And there was the momentary disorientation as her physical form merged with beams of light... and reemerged as physical form in sick bay.

Alive. So he wasn’t ready to kill her yet. That thought cheered her.

Eden looked totally surprised. “Admiral! What happened?” Sass had the urge to wink, but her eyes didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

“I don’t know.”

I passed out, she wanted to say, but her mouth didn’t seem to be working either.

Caleb Monterro motioned them into the nearest diag room.

“She just passed out,” Kel-Paten said.

Do I hear an echo? No, that would be Eden’s job, hearing thoughts.

Her back bumped against something hard. An annoying beeping sound commenced. The diag table, kicking on and downloading her vitals.

Kel-Paten’s face hovered over hers. “We had an inspection tour scheduled.” He looked at Monterro, then Eden. “She seems to have—”

“A fever. A very high fever.” Eden glanced at the readouts on the wall above the bed. “Admiral, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”

“If it’s serious, I’m staying.”

Get him out of here, Eden!

As if on cue, Eden shot Kel-Paten a reproving look. “Kel-Paten, you’re wasting my time. And hers. I’ll send Dr. Monterro out shortly if we know anything.”

That seemed to do it. That and a tone Sass recognized in Eden’s voice that signaled someone was fraying her last strand of patience. Kel-Paten nodded as if in a trance. “I’ll be in your office, Doctor. Thank you.” The doors slid shut. Cal palmed on the security lock. Eden rolled up Sass’s sleeve and slapped a transdermal antidote patch on Sass’s arm.

“You will,” Sass heard Cal say to Eden, “explain all this at a later date.”

“Promise, Doc.” Eden smiled at him. “The captain said she’d even bring her best gin. Now go out there and keep the admiral occupied. And for the gods’ sakes, let me know immediately if he leaves sick bay.” It was a few minutes before the fog dissipated from Sass’s vision and her mouth felt connected to her brain again.

“How are we feeling?” Eden crooned teasingly.

“Like lubashit on a lemon.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. The room tilted only slightly. Her head pounded and her stomach felt as if it had gone through a shredder. “Hand me my gear, will you?” She removed her uniform jacket, stripping down to her dark-gray T-shirt. Into the pockets of her pants and into the small pouches on her utility belt she stuffed the few things she would need, the last of which was a small bag of fidget treats.

“You left Reilly in my cabin, right?” she asked Eden.

“He and Tank were playing ‘run around the table’ last I saw them.”

“They’ll both earn their keep this shift.” Sass glanced at her watch. “I have about four and a half hours. Don’t worry—after this they’ll probably name some medical deity after you.” She hoisted herself into the large square air duct. “Take a nap, Doc. By the time my day’s over, yours will be starting. You still have to operate on Serafino after this.”

“Piece o’ cake,” Eden quipped, echoing Sass’s earlier optimism. “Just watch your ass out there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sass flashed her friend a wide grin and shoved herself into the small dark tunnel, ignoring the hundred or so things that could yet go wrong.

Including what one ’cybe admiral—a very deadly ’cybe admiral—would do if he caught her hacking into his private files in his quarters.

12

TASHA SEBASTIAN’S CABIN

“Okay, Reilly, that’s a good furzel,” Sass whispered as the larger animal squeezed into the conduit duct too small for any human form. Reilly himself just barely fit, and she knew if it wasn’t for the handful of treats she’d thrown through the grating, he wouldn’t make the journey at all.

Tank bounded quickly behind him, not one to miss any hint of a meal.

She’d clipped two tiny lasers on the furzels’ collars, and as they pushed in frustration against the grating that separated them from their snacks, she operated the lasers remotely, punching small holes in the grating’s frame.

There was the muffled thud of the grating hitting the floor. The two animals leaped down into the admiral’s cabin and devoured the treats.

“Okay, now!” she called hoarsely, having given them enough time to finish their food. “Out time, furzels! Out time!” It was a trick Eden had taught Reilly back on the Regalia and Sass had subsequently taught to Tank. “Out time” meant the furzels could run loose in the corridors. But to earn that, they had to open the cabin doors.

Which they did by making a mad dash across the room and throwing their small bodies against the manual lock override to the right of every ship’s cabin door.

It often took several tries.

Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety-thumpety THWACK! Thud.

A furzel ran, hit the override panel on the wall, and fell to the ground.

Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety-thumpety THWACK! Thud.

In between the thumpetys and the thuds, Sass made her way back to her quarters and out her own door. She monitored their progress on the small comm link on Tank’s collar and prayed no one would see her or hear the bizarre noises coming from the admiral’s cabin.

Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety-thumpety THWACK! THUMP!

She should speak to Eden about Reilly’s weight problem. That last one almost sounded as if he might crash through the bulkhead.

Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety-thumpety THWACK! Thud.

Swoosh.

The cabin door opened. The furzels raced out. The captain stepped in.

SICK BAY

Eden turned off the bed’s diag systems as soon as Tasha left, fluffed the pillow, and leaned against it with a quiet sigh. A short furzel nap would do her good. She’d dozed for about five minutes when she heard the door lock cycle. She opened one eye.

Cal stuck his head in and quietly slipped inside.

“He’s looking through the report on the virus,” Cal told her.

“Lucky him.” Eden stifled a yawn.

“He looks miserable.”

“So was I when I read it in med school. Lousiest bit of research I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Cal leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his broad chest. “I didn’t mean it that way. I mean the admiral looks extremely upset over Captain Sebastian’s supposed condition.”

“The admiral,” Eden noted, “has several good reasons to be upset, not the least of which is the captain’s supposed condition. I just wish I could get a clear reading on whether it’s a good upset or a bad upset.” Cal caught her slight frown. “I take it you’re having problems placing him in an empathic category. Being ’cybe, he might not react in ways we understand.”

“Tell me about it!” She stretched her arms over her head. “His being programmed by Psy-Serv makes it that much more difficult. You’ve seen his med-files, Cal, and I’m sure you saw the same gaps I did.”

“So much for their unequivocal trust of the U-Cees.”

“Tasha said the same thing. Looks like we all have a lot to learn.” Cal went back out to keep an eye on Kel-Paten; Eden relaxed into the pillow again.

A little early for bedtime, or are we napping?

The gray mists cleared. Jace had one leg propped up against the stone bench, leaning one hand on his knee. She came and sat down next to him.

Napping. I may have to pull a late-nighter on your account, Captain Serafino.

Jace, he reminded her patiently. You’ve used my name before. No need to be so formal now. He was smiling, and because the telepathic contact was so clear, she saw his smile as well as felt its warmth.

I have a problem, she told him gently, with such familiarity with a patient.

We’re friends.

I’m not disputing that. She was genuinely fond of the playful, telepathic Jace Serafino. But even friendship takes time. And the Jace I know here, she motioned to the gray mists, is not the Jace Serafino I’ve been encountering out there.

Been misbehaving, have I? He sat down next to her, his hands clasped between his legs, and gave her his most innocent look.

She laughed. That’s putting it mildly. You did have a rather nasty run-in with Kel-Paten.

Ah, the Tin Soldier. He and I never got along, especially after the Traveler and I got the best of him at Fendantun.

Jace, how much are you aware of what your physical self is doing?

Do I remember my conversation with Kel-Paten in the ready room last night? Some. Like speaking now with you, I can’t be involved for more than my time limit. So I try to fade in and out, keep myself out of trouble. You can tell, can’t you?

Eden nodded. She’d noticed a slight difference in Captain Serafino’s reactions from time to time and suspected the internal Jace had a hand in that.

Can you read Kel-Paten? she asked.

He shrugged. Sometimes better than others. There’s a strong cybernetic overlay that Psy-Serv designed to prevent just that.

Gods, she’d suspected as much. A scrambler?

He nodded. Any telepath worth his salt prevents himself from being read by other telepaths. But since Kel-Paten’s not telepathic, he can’t do that. Hence the filter or scrambling system, as you put it.

When I remove the implant, I may ask you to read Kel-Paten.

I don’t mean to rush you—I really don’t want to make you a widow before I can make you my bride—but do you have a time frame here?

Eden ignored the little fluttermoth that made a brief appearance in her stomach at his words. She had neither the time nor the interest in anything romantic right now. Within the next twenty-four hours. I know that seems sudden—

I think it’s a necessary risk, he said, a grim tone to his voice. I’m forgetting important information, more and more. I don’t know if I have enough time to explain to you all that needs to be said.

You mean like what you told me earlier about Kel-Sennarin?

You got that, then? He seemed relieved when she nodded. I just wish I could tell you more about this damned thing in my head.

You may not have to. Tasha believes Kel-Paten may have documentation on it in his files. She’s chasing down the information right now.

Kel-Paten’s permitting this? he asked.

She shook her head and flashed him the mental image of the admiral in sick bay with Tasha in his arms and her subsequent recovery and escape through the ductwork.

Jace raised his eyes in mock horror. I should have known! Lady Sass was always game for some wild escapade. He touched her chin, tilting her face up to his. Well, my Eden, if I’m to die, then let it be in your arms.

Your optimism overwhelms me.

Eden. He gently stroked her face, his touch causing a trail of heat across her skin. I don’t doubt your medical expertise. I’m just too familiar with Psy-Serv’s deviousness.

I will not risk your life. Unless Tasha brings me exactly what I need to remove the implant, you’ll remain a split personality for a while longer. I will not endanger you in any way, she repeated.

You endanger me every day, every hour. His thumb traced the outline of her lower lip, then softly his mouth followed where his thumb was.

For a brief moment, Eden ignored all her mental warnings about men like Jace and let herself sink into his gentle, wonderful kiss. But when she felt the warmth of his tongue probing her mouth, she turned her face away and grasped his hands, which were getting far too familiar.

Jace, please don’t—

Why? Don’t you know what you do to me?

This is a wonderful fantasy, but Novalis is not real life. And you’re not the same out there.

A sad smile crossed his face and he brought her hands to his lips, grazing her knuckles with a kiss. I’m a rotten son of a bitch out there.

And you question why I’m saying no? she asked somewhat wistfully.

And you question why I’m trying? Eden, a woman like you would never love the Jace Serafino out there.

What happens when I remove the implant? Which Jace Serafino will become the real one?

I don’t know, he replied honestly. I was pretty much the same son of a bitch before the implant. What the implant did is force me to look at myself. And it’s allowed me to become, with you, someone I might have been if my life was different. But that doesn’t mean I know who you’re going to get when you’ve put me back together. I just hope we can still be friends.

She smiled and started to reply, when he continued, Because I have this real fear, you know, of rectal thermometers.

Regretfully, Eden let their link fade. She lay quietly, still feeling his touch on her hand, on her face.

Eden had a fear as well. Tasha might be in trouble, deep trouble. Jace had confirmed her suspicions about Kel-Paten’s personal psychic shield. It was very possible the affection she sensed in him when Tasha was around was a deception.

It was very possible, should he find out what she and Tasha were up to, that he’d kill them both.

13

BRANDEN KEL-PATEN’S CABIN

Sass straddled the swivel chair in front of Kel-Paten’s desk and typed a maintenance access code into the small keypad. The recessed comp screen emerged from the desktop, its electronic eye winking on for retinal verification. Quickly, she ran one finger over her mouth and smeared a light film of lip gloss across the small portal.

“Retinal confirmation temporarily off-line,” the tinny computer voice intoned softly, after a few moments of frantic beeping through an ineffective—thanks to a few other tweaks Sass had employed—repair program. “Please respond with verbal verification procedures.” She took the wad of chewy candy from her mouth and stuck it directly over the microphone input, then brought up the security program and tapped the checkbox to suspend retinal and verbal verifications. The system reversed course and brought up a new series of commands. She ignored those and went through three more screens until she found what she needed: Inoperative Systems Simulations. She chose Sim 374.

It was the Triad-approved version of the program she ran on the Regalia to train computers and crew what to do in event of a partial or—gods forbid!—total systems failure. She ran two such sims from her office here on the Vax in the first few months she was on board. Just like the manual override on each cabin door, there had to be an alternate way of getting out. Or getting in.

Right now she needed in.

Dutifully, the system responded. She implemented some basic tests just to get further into the program before trying to bamboozle it into letting her into Kel-Paten’s coded files.

His cabin lights winked on and off; his cabin temperature raised and lowered. His small galley even produced a nice, hot cup of Mahrian blend, black, which she sipped gratefully while moving the program through its paces. She glanced at her watch—she had a little more than three and a half hours left. A lot of time, yet not. She had no idea what, or how much, she’d find once she got in.

She tabbed down the current page and found the Emergency Data Transfer Simulation Program.

“Please verify through retinal scan,” the computer replied audibly. She hadn’t dampered its voice, only her own.

She searched parameters and tapped retinal scan off-line. Then she rekeyed in her request: Initiate Emergency Data Transfer Simulation Program.

“Authorization code required to initiate. Respond with code,” the computer said.

She knew that was the next level of security; hell, she’d designed the Reg

’s programs to respond in a similar manner. But what the Vax had that the Regalia didn’t was Kel-Paten—a biocybe who physically spiked in to the computer systems. She withdrew a small coiled cable and an even smaller—and highly illegal—code-pattern emulator from one of her pockets and quickly disconnected the auxiliary keyboard, inserting a coupler and reconnecting the keyboard through that. She patched the other end of the coupler into the emulator and shoved that into the small port set into the arm of Kel-Paten’s custom-made chair.

She waited a few tense seconds for the units to synchronize, then directed the program to derive the last known code from its terminal location.

There was a moment of tense silence. Had she tried this from any other terminal, including her own office, Sass knew she wouldn’t be able to gain access. But she was banking on the fact that Kel-Paten felt his personal quarters were totally secure. And she was banking on her knowledge that he usually spiked in—a “spike” she hoped the emulator would simulate, as far as the computer was concerned.

“Access granted,” the computer intoned softly, and Sass let out a corresponding sigh.

It was all relatively easy pickings from there.

True to form, Kel-Paten’s files were disgustingly well organized. She popped a portable datadrive into the download port and initiated copy-file commands. It would have been easier and quicker to tag files and have them sent to her datafiles, but that would have left a trail. Her datadrive was carefully created to leave no input ID.

One of the more interesting things she’d learned to do on Lethant.

There was a lot of data referencing Psy-Serv, an almost equally large amount on Serafino. She copied both directories and, over the next hour, transferred more.

Med-Files–BKP and BKP–Personal were snatched. She’d just discovered an encrypted file titled Tasha when her badge trilled.

“Sass! Eden here. We lost him!”

“Bloody damn!” She flicked off the comp screen. It slid back into the desktop, but the green light on her drive still flashed, the unit working, pulling data. She heard the smart click of the cabin door lock recycling.

Heart pounding, she dove under the desk, fitting her small form into the kneehole and shoving her comm link down the front of her shirt. If it trilled now, she was dead.

Cabin lights flicked on. Heavy footsteps moved across the carpeted floor as the door swooshed closed.

Damn! Shit! Trock! Sass ran through every swear word she knew in five languages as she listened to the sound of liquid being poured. Thank the gods she’d finished her coffee and disposed of the cup in the recyc. She heard a cabinet door thwump closed, a short spate of footsteps, and then the fwoosh of couch cushions as a body sat.

Just my luck. The Tin Soldier’s poured himself a drink and is now going to sit and watch a season’s worth of Zero-G Hockey reruns or something.

He couldn’t stay in his quarters. Granted, he had the right to be here.

But she was dying in sick bay. Didn’t he care about that?

If nothing else, it was a bitch to find command-staff replacements—especially a huntership-qualified captain—on short notice.

Surely he had to appreciate that?

Scrunched into the kneehole of the desk, small beads of sweat trickling down her chest, Sass cautiously eyed the small drive. It was still pulling data, and for the life of her she couldn’t remember if it beeped when it finished. Or not.

The or not would be a relief. Any other option would take a lot of explaining. If she lived long enough.

The tiny green light on its cover panel blinked on–off, on–off. At each

“on,” she breathed in. At each “off,” she held her breath. Why couldn’t Kel-Paten listen to music or turn on a vidshow? Anything that made noise!

But, no, he sat in a silence far too loud for her liking.

A comm link trilled. For a moment her heart stopped and she clasped her hands over her shirt pocket to muffle any further noise. But it wasn’t her link that had activated.

“Kel-Paten here.”

“Admiral, this is Dr. Fynn.”

Sass squeezed her eyes shut tightly. Eden! Get me the hell of out here!

“I would appreciate it if you’d return to sick bay. I think we may have some good news in a half hour or so.”

A half hour or so. That was Eden’s way of telling her to get the hell out and do it now!

“On my way, Doctor,” Kel-Paten replied. Sass heard the clink of a glass against the tabletop.

Thank you, Eden! Sass waited a few seconds after the cabin doors closed before extricating herself from under the desk. The kink in her back complained painfully.

Beep-ta-beep! said her datadrive.

Sass almost jumped out of her skin. “Up yours and the equinnard you rode in on!” She snatched the drive from the port. She tapped at the desk and the vidscreen popped up. She grabbed at the pink candy and quickly wiped her sleeve over the lip gloss smear, then popped the screen back down again.

Sass had replaced the duct grating when she first came in, but she checked it again just be to sure and then did a quick visual to see if there were any other traces of her visit. There were none—it was as if she was never there.

She was out the door and back in her cabin just in time to find Reilly and Tank doing a reprise of “run around the table.”

“How did you—?” But, of course, the furzels couldn’t answer how they got back in her cabin. Usually they made their way down to hydroponics, where either she or Eden would eventually retrieve them, as they always did on the Regalia. “You guys know more secrets than I do,” she told them. Then, stuffing the datadrive in her shirt, she climbed into the larger access ducting that opened into her bedroom closet and made her way down the maintenance ladders to the lower deck that housed sick bay.

Caleb Monterro waited for her. “Quick!” He tossed her the silver hospital gown. She stripped off her clothes. He stuffed them and the drive into a small hamper next to the bed as she slid beneath the covers. Just at that moment, Eden stuck her head in the door.

She nodded at Sass. Sass nodded back.

Then Eden turned. “Admiral,” she said, “you can see Captain Sebastian for a few moments.”

Kel-Paten strode past Eden without so much as a “by your command.”

“Tasha.” His voice had a noticeable rough edge to it. “How are you feeling?”

“Like hell,” she replied, her voice equally breathy. After all, she’d just finished scaling twelve flights of maintenance ladders. Thank the gods it was down!

He cleared his throat. “Doctor.” Eden looked at him. “I need to speak to Captain Sebastian. Alone.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but the captain requires medical monitoring at this time. If my presence disturbs you, then you will have to tolerate Dr.

Monterro’s.”

They needed him to tolerate somebody’s as protection until she could find out what Kel-Paten had in his files.

He glanced one more time at Sass. “What time are you releasing her?”

“First shift, most likely, depending upon how she fares during the night.”

“I’ll be here at oh-nine-hundred to escort her.”

“That won’t be necessary. One of my nurses can see her to her quarters.”

“I’m sure your staff has more-pressing concerns. I’ll see her back to her quarters myself.” He stared down at her.

“Admiral. Captain Sebastian will be released if and when I say she is released, and if and when she is, she will be released to no one other than one of my medical staff. I’m sure you have more pressing concerns.”

“I don’t. I’ll be here at oh-nine-hundred.”

Sass didn’t think he would murder her in front of witnesses. Obviously, neither did Eden. “I’ll advise you at oh-eight-thirty,” the CMO said, “if she’s ready to be released. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

Kel-Paten’s icy gaze went from Eden to her, causing a chill to flit up Sass’s spine. But no, not a chill. Something else. Something different.

Because his gaze wasn’t the least bit icy at all.

14

SICK BAY

Sass let out a sigh she hadn’t realized she was holding in when the door closed behind the Tin Soldier. Then she lunged for her clothes. There was a lot of work yet to be done.

“How much were you able to get?” Eden offered her the small datadrive.

Sass finished pulling on her boots, then accepted it, holding it in her line of sight and squinting. “Won’t know ’til I get back into this thing. I don’t think it’s wise for me to use your office in case you-know-who pops back in. Can I use Cal’s in the back?”

Cal’s office it was. Eden brought in another cup of coffee and left Sass alone to unravel the data.

She made a backup copy first, in case fail-safes or traps existed. There were over fifty directories, some with names she recognized but most with only numbers. Nothing blatantly labeled Psy-Serv Secrets.

A block of files with Triad Med Ministry transit tags caught her eye.

They were also security-locked. She unlocked them, bundled them, and shot them over to Eden’s personal in-box.

Twenty minutes later a noise caused her to look up. Eden, in her doorway. And not with fresh coffee, damn! But a distinctly pinched look about her eyes.

“Trouble?”

“From the odds and ends you sent me, it looks as if Psy-Serv has experimented with implants for over twenty years, most of which failed and killed the recipient. Serafino’s must be one of the more advanced designs.”

“Wonderful. For Serafino, that is. At least his won’t malfunction—”

“It is. The fact that he’s able to bypass the implant means it’s breaking down. When it finally does, it’ll kill him.”

“Not wonderful. How do we fix it?”

“That tidy bit of information isn’t in the stuff you sent me. Any more?” Sass made a quick scan of the files. “Don’t see anything here. Maybe it’s inside one of these. Can you work with what I’ve given you?” Eden sat down with a sigh. “I can increase Serafino’s telepathic access time. But I can’t remove the implant, no.”

“Is it possible Kel-Paten doesn’t have that answer?”

“We still have more than we had before, Tasha. And if Serafino can be more of, well, himself, maybe he can help.”

“I’ll send you my next download shortly,” Sass told her as Eden headed for the door.

“Give me five minutes,” Eden said, glancing at her watch. “I need a cup of tea. Desperately.”

“Got it.” Sass turned back to the comp and resumed scanning the files.

The medical terminology meant nothing to her, but she dutifully unencrypted what she could and sent it to Eden.

Four hours later they were no further along except for an added appreciation of the deviousness of Psy-Serv.

This time when Eden appeared in her doorway, she had both tea and coffee.

“I can now understand why Triadian telepaths kill themselves rather than be recruited,” Eden said.

Sass blew across the top of her mug. Small steam clouds swirled. “I really thought we’d find the answers here.”

“We did,” Eden reassured her. “Just not all of them.”

“What do we do now?”

Eden thought for a moment. “I can make some adjustments on Serafino with a sonic laser tomorrow, before we hit Panperra. That should increase his access time and slow down the implant’s deterioration.”

“What about this Faction? And what about the admiral’s involvement?”

“Those are command decisions, Tasha,” Eden said.

“Command’s damned tired and hungry,” Sass growled. “I don’t like this, Eden. It was so much easier before the Alliance. At least we were relatively sure who our enemies were.” She looked at Eden. “How accurately can you read him, being he may have this scrambler installed? You’ve hinted that he’s more human than we all think.”

“I can’t rule out that he might be programmed to appear more human as a cover.”

“So you’re telling me you can’t read him at all.”

“Not reliably.”

“Can Serafino?”

“Once I get him fully functional, better than I can. I’ve asked him the same questions, by the way.”

“Because you’re concerned you can’t read Kel-Paten.”

“Because I’m concerned,” Eden told her, “that what I’m reading might be wrong. In which case he’s masking something serious. But if I’m reading him correctly... ”

“If you are?” Sass urged her.

“We’ve seriously misjudged him. It’s not an easy position.”

“You’re saying there’s a chance Serafino’s wrong and the admiral may be on our side in this?” Sass asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t let me work in the dark. It’s too dangerous for all of us.” Eden turned her mug in her hands before speaking. “By tomorrow I should have Serafino’s telepathic time increased. We’ll have to schedule another meeting. I’ll get Serafino to read him and see if he can unravel that inconsistency I sense.”

“Just one inconsistency?” As tired as she was, Sass picked up on that.

Eden closed her eyes. “Just one,” she said finally. “When he’s with you.”

“I’m the inconsistency?”

“That’s when I get the conflicting readings. When he’s focused on you.” Sass glanced at the comp screen. “Eden, he has a whole set of files on me. I didn’t bother to open them because I thought Serafino was the issue here. But Serafino did say that he thought I was brought on board for Kel-Paten to handle. If what we have here is a list of acceptable fatal accidents with my name on them, then that might be enough for me to contact the U-Cees for assistance when we get to Panperra.”

“Do you want to take a break? I can have the galley deliver something.” Sass glanced at her watch. It was almost 1800. “I was hoping to relax with a meal and a beer after we decided there was nothing more with Serafino, but we’ve just opened up a whole other can of frinkas, and this one’s got my name on it. So bring me whatever’s quick and easy.” Sass sipped at the mug of hot soup Eden brought and opened up the files, one after another. Most she recognized as her official U-Cee personnel files and even—gods, was he thorough!—an old report on the academy coursework UCID had concocted as hers. Just how long was he keeping tabs on her—and why?

A chill ran up her spine. Did Kel-Paten know not only who she was but who she wasn’t? His files on her were only the official ones, the ones designed to create Tasha Sebastian. She found nothing on Lady Sass. That was of little comfort, however. Just because she didn’t find them didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Or that he didn’t know about Zanorian, Gund’jalar, and Lethant.

It would bother her if he found out the truth about her unsavory past associations. Oddly—or perhaps not so oddly, Sass being Sass—she realized she could handle his being her assassin far better than she could handle his disdain.

Shaking her head at her own musings, she returned to her work. The next group of files contained transit-tagged downloads from different times and sources. They were coded so that new data automatically appended to the parent file whenever it entered the system. It was a common method.

But why Kel-Paten kept a transit-tag file on her was a mystery. Until she opened and read it.

For one very long moment she sat frozen in disbelief, a series of conflicting emotions churning through her. Then she was on her feet, lunging toward Eden’s office, swearing in every language she knew.

SICK BAY, DR. FYNN’S OFFICE

When Eden saw Tasha striding through the main area of sick bay, she knew something was wrong. For one thing, it completely blew Tasha’s cover story of being sick. And second, there was always the remote chance that Kel-Paten would come in. Eden’s glass-fronted office provided no place to hide.

Tasha didn’t try to hide. She plopped down into the chair across from Eden’s desk, her eyes wide in amazement. “This is unbelievable. It makes no sense.” She waved one hand in the air. “But then again, it makes perfect sense.”

“What?” Eden asked.

Tasha picked up Eden’s teaspoon and pointed it at her. “I thought at first that this might be part of his cover. That he created all these log entries in the past few weeks. But they go back years, Eden. Since I was on the Sarna Bogue!”

“What entries?”

Tasha ignored her question. “He’d have to have a phenomenal memory to do that. Granted, he probably does. But he’d also have to assume that I’d break into his systems and download these files, just to throw me off the track. That would be assuming a lot, even for Kel-Paten. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I might if I knew what you were talking about,” Eden replied patiently.

Tasha gave her a look as if she couldn’t comprehend why Eden wasn’t comprehending. “The log entries, of course.”

“Oh. What log entries?” She was too tired to hide her sarcasm.

“Kel-Paten’s. The ones he’s been dictating to me. For twelve years.” Eden sat back in her chair. “Oh.” Like that should explain everything.

“Yeah. No shit. Oh.”

“Tasha—!”

“I’m sorry. Here.” She tossed a crystalline disk at Eden. “Here’s a small sample. Take a look and let me know what you think.” Perhaps log entries wasn’t the most accurate description, Eden noted as she read. Love letters might be more like it. Most written as captain’s personal logs, since he was a captain when he first saw Tasha on the Bogue twelve years before. They were very personal observations of what he was feeling, dreaming, and hoping for:

Captain’s Personal Log... encrypt code SBSTN... subsequent encrypt code TASHA... transit tag this and all subsequent coded logs for delivery to TransGal Marine Depot 31 UPON MY DEMISE... Append... deliver to United Coalition HQ Varlow attention Lieutenant Tasha Sebastian...

Append... deliver to U-Cee Huntership Asterion’s Star attention Commander Tasha Sebastian... Append... deliver to U-Cee Huntership Regaliaat tention Captain Tasha Sebastian... Append... deliver to Captain Tasha Sebastian, Alliance Huntership Vaxxar...

Datestamp 351904.2

It’s been four days since we first met and I still don’t know more than your last name. That I learned from the patch on your jacket: Sebastian.

Gods, woman, I need to call you something more than that. My green-eyed vixen? Do you know how you haunt me? Do you know how I’ve damned myself for not removing you from that U-Cee supply ship four days ago?

You probably thought I was angry over coming away empty-handed.

You locked your ship down very well, scrambling its codes with a flair that’s more than impressive. Given time, I could have unlocked it—I always can. But standing on that bridge, I realized that your cargo and your ship’s military data were not what I wanted at all.

The Triad doesn’t take political prisoners—how many times have I heard that? But this wouldn’t have been a political action. This would’ve been purely personal. But in that area my cowardice is rivaled by none. So I walked away. It is an action I will regret for as long as I live.

I cannot accept that I will never see you again. I will find you. If it takes the rest of my life, I will find you.

Captain’s Personal Log, Datestamp 350508.6... encrypt code TASHA...

You have my hearty approval for your transfer to Asterion’s Star!

Tasha, I’m so proud of you. Your first assignment on a U-Cee huntership.

I could tell you they’re not half as good as the Triad. But you suffer because of my cowardice. Would you have hated me if I’d pulled you from the Bogue? Possibly. In the meantime, you can run circles around the U-Cees. I know you will. Hell, woman, you ran circles around me on that supply ship.

I’ve read your personnel files, your academy records. Top of your class, all the way. You have no idea how much I respect that. Your family’s money could have paved an easy route for you, but you’ve chosen the harder one. I respect that even more.

I miss you, Tasha. I miss the way you wrinkle your nose. I miss your smile. It’s been four months since I’ve seen you, and the holos my agents bring back to me don’t carry your energy.

I may have to engineer an attack on the Asterion’s Star just to see you again.

Captain’s Personal Log, Datestamp 381022.2... encrypt code TASHA...

I’m sitting here in the bowels of Antalkin Station and I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again. I’m recording with an overlay note that should append to my personal files, all of which will be sent to you. Very shortly, I think.

The Illithians staged a brilliant ambush. I don’t know if we received bad information or I was just being more stupid than usual. In any case, they almost took the Vax, but my ship maneuvered out of their reach. Now it’s me they’re after because—with station comps down—I stayed behind. I’m the only thing—person—that can delete our military data from the station’s banks so the Irks can’t get it.

But that’s... that’s not the point. The point is they managed a couple good shots at me. I’m not as indestructible as Triad intelligence would have you believe. Though you and the U-Cees probably have that figured out by now. Sometimes I wonder just who we’re fooling with all this cyber shit.

Things don’t look optimistic at the moment. I’ve found a hiding place, but I’m sure it’s only temporary. They have a couple of teams looking for me. I’m flattered. Twenty to thirty Irks combing a dead station for me. I kept moving as long as I could, but I’ve run out of energy. And time.

Tasha, gods, I’ve run out of time with you, haven’t I? All these years I’ve had dreams of taking you to Tygaris—we could play the tables. I know you’re hell at Starfield Doubles.

But it’s not going to happen now.

Tasha, I’m so tired. I miss you so much.

I have to move again. I hear... something.

I love you.

And then, a more recent entry...

Admiral’s Personal Log, Datestamp 460310.9... encrypt code TASHA...

I don’t know where you found that No, No, Bad Captain shirt. Nor do I know where you found those pink sweatpants. But sweet holy gods, Tasha, you don’t know how close I came to totally losing it and making more of a fool of myself than I already have.

It seems all I’m able to do in your presence is stare at you like some stupid schoolboy. I just want to talk to you. I’ve been trying so hard to reach you, but I’m so afraid, and the gods know if you found out you’d probably think it hysterically funny... but I’m so afraid of losing you. I don’t know how close I can get. I tell myself all the time that you’re here with me on the Vax and I should be thankful for that! It’s more than I ever thought I deserved. I know where you are, I know you’re safe, I know I can protect you.

And I know to some extent I’m driving you crazy. You think I’m following you around. You’re right. I am. I just need to be with you, Tasha.

After we handle this Serafino situation, we’ll go to Tygaris. I know I’ve been saying that for years. Even Ralland’s tired of listening to me. But I mean it this time.

I’ve dreamed about this, Tasha. I need to make it come true. I have to ask you. And I have to figure out another way to keep you from playing racquetlob with that godsdamned lieutenant. Damn it, Tasha, don’t you know what he wants from you?

I mean... that is, I want the same thing, but, Tasha, I love you, and I don’t care what he tells you, he doesn’t. He couldn’t. Not as much as I do.

And not for as long as I have.

Eden blanked the screen and looked at Tasha. The captain distractedly twirled the teaspoon on the desktop. Eden cleared her throat.

“Interesting, eh?” Tasha asked, but the flippancy in her tone didn’t quite match the seriousness in her eyes. Or the uncomfortable aura Eden strongly sensed around her. Tasha was more troubled than Eden remembered in quite some time.

“I’m relieved to know I’m not as bad an empath as I thought,” Eden replied.

“This is what you were talking about a couple of days ago.” Eden nodded. “Kel-Paten has a hard time controlling his emotions around you. I just wasn’t sure why.”

“And you are now? What about that scrambler?”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel things. It just means I might not be able to get a true reading.” She tapped her screen. “But these do seem to answer the question about any recent changes in his emo-programs. Like you said, I can’t see him fabricating twelve years of log entries on the unlikely chance you’d stumble over them. Plus, the datestamps—you did check for forgeries?”

“Genuine.” Tasha sounded almost disappointed.

“Then I think I can say his logs accurately state what he feels—or believes he feels.” Eden damned the fact that Triad Medical had so little information on biocybes and none at all on Kel-Paten’s first sixteen, full-human years.

Tasha closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. “Those logs are tagged to be sent to me only after his death. I had no right reading them.”

“You didn’t go looking for them. There were circumstances—”

“The hell with circumstances!” Tasha rasped. “I feel like a total shit for some of the things I’ve said to him.”

“He might be relieved to hear that. You could always ask him to go to Tygaris.”

Tasha held her hands up in front of her. “Wait. I just said I feel like a shit. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to get involved with him. He’s my CO.

He’s a pompous, annoying, overbearing—”

“He’s a ’cybe,” Eden put in.

“That too,” Tasha agreed, then added, “It’s a damned shame the Triad wasted such a nice body on such a shitty personality.”

“You could probably earn the eternal gratitude of the crew by seducing him,” Eden suggested.

“Very funny.”

“Then let me suggest you carry on as you usually do but with a little more tact,” Eden said. “We still have a number of problems to deal with, not the least of which is the removal of Serafino’s implant. Just because we know why Kel-Paten follows you around doesn’t mean he’s not also following Psy-Serv’s agenda in other areas. Humans can compartmentalize. He can too.”

“You mean he could still be programmed to kill Serafino?”

“Yes, considering that every time he spikes in to this ship’s datalink, he uploads and downloads from Psy-Serv. He might not even realize it.” Tasha nodded slowly, then shoved herself out of her chair. “There are five more directories I need to decode. I may not find out any more on Serafino’s implant. But we need to know everything Kel-Paten has on Serafino. Because if this Faction is real and after our hides, Serafino is the only one who knows how to stop them. Kel-Paten kills Serafino, and he’s effectively killed us all.”

15

SICK BAY

At 0850 Kel-Paten strode in, broadcasting—as far as Eden was concerned—apprehension and anticipation. Apparently he couldn’t wait any longer to drag his green-eyed vixen out of sick bay, back to where he could keep an eye on her.

At least, she hoped that’s what it was. Serafino’s warning still echoed in her mind. There were several layers to Kel-Paten’s emotions, some of which may have been very expertly manipulated by Psy-Serv.

“The captain will be ready in a few minutes,” Eden told him as she retrieved Tasha’s file from her desk. “The earliest she’s allowed to go back on duty is late this afternoon.”

And that went double for herself as well. Neither of them had had more than four hours sleep after decoding Kel-Paten’s files and conferencing back and forth. Eden was strongly looking forward to discharging the captain and heading straight for her own quarters.

“I’ll make sure no one disturbs her,” the admiral told Eden.

Tuck her in and read her a bedtime story, will you? “Very good,” Eden said out loud. “I’ll just—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t need that thing!” Tasha’s forceful complaint flowed out into sick bay as soon as her door opened. Inside, a male med nurse was trying unsuccessfully to talk Tasha into sitting in a hoverchair. SOP for discharging patients, he was telling her.

“Screw SOP. I wrote most of the damned SOPs and—” She looked out the open door, saw Kel-Paten, and immediately clammed up.

Oh, great, Eden thought. Tasha, this is not acting normally. Keep yelling. Do something. Have another cup of coffee.

Kel-Paten was already at the doorway. “What seems to be the problem?”

The man looked from the admiral to the captain and back to the admiral again. “Captain Sebastian, sir, isn’t cooperating in regard to sick-bay dismissal policy.”

“You will learn that Captain Sebastian rarely cooperates in regard to any policies. The day she starts is the day I resign my commission.” Kel-Paten looked at Tasha. “Sebastian?”

Pause.

It was, Eden noted, a familiar phrase Tasha needed to hear.

“Kel-Paten.” Tasha nodded in return.

“You’re off duty until I tell you otherwise.”

“I’ll be in my office after lunch. Not on the bridge, Admiral. In my office.” She breezed past him and headed for the corridor. “Thanks for the hospitality, Doc!”

“My pleasure,” Eden replied, but it was automatic. She was still trying to tune in to and sort out the Tin Soldier’s emotional resonances.

They were there, oh, yes. She had more faith in her abilities after seeing his personal logs. And if the admiral was full human...

But he wasn’t. Psy-Serv and Sellarmaris Biocybernetics had seen to that.

Eden chewed absently on her bottom lip and went back to her office to log off duty. She needed some serious downtime. She had to talk to Jace Serafino. And she wasn’t sure he was going to like what she had to say.

NOVALIS

Jace reached for Eden’s hand and drew her down beside him on the bench. What’s the news?

There’s not enough for me to risk surgery right now. There were references to what I need to know, but the data wasn’t there. Eden shook her head. I’m sorry.

Don’t be. I’m a great believer in all things in their right time. Like you coming into my life. I don’t think we met just so you could dig a hole in my head.

She swatted at him playfully. I wouldn’t dare dig a hole in your head.

All kinds of gremlins would leak out!

Gremlins, eh? Jace responded with a comical growl and drew her against his chest, nuzzling her neck. Eden shrieked, laughing, and finally managed to break free.

She wiped at her eyes. Jace, stop it! I still have something serious to discuss with you. Just because I couldn’t find the data I need to remove the implant doesn’t mean I didn’t find anything at all.

I’m listening.

I think I can disable it. In fact, I think I’ll have to. She flashed to him all she’d read about the implant’s inevitable deterioration.

Damn. He was definitely not pleased with the news. How much time do I have before I self-destruct?

You’re not going to self-destruct. As for time, you still have several months before any irreversible damage sets in. Now that we’ll have Kel-Paten’s cooperation—

The Tin Soldier’s cooperating with you? What the hell happened?

She hesitated a moment, indecisive about revealing something so personal. Something that, as Tasha said, wasn’t supposed to be public knowledge. She wanted to trust Serafino—he had been honest with her so far, even about his own failings. She just hoped his longstanding feud with Kel-Paten didn’t override his good sense.

What happened started twelve years ago. She hesitated, needing clarification before she went further. Jace, I need to know more about this Faction that wants Sass out of the way. You said they put her on the Vax to accomplish that. What leads you to believe that?

From what I’ve been able to piece together, there are several key people that they want to control or to neutralize. Captain Sebastian’s name is one that came up on several occasions.

Why do you think that Kel-Paten’s involved?

The Tin Soldier was adamant during the peace negotiations about Sebastian’s assignment to the Vax. He made a few threats and then a few concessions, and here she is. Given that Kel-Sennarin is one of his superiors, I couldn’t think of any other reason.

She could, but if she hadn’t read the admiral’s private logs, she’d still doubt her own empathic readings of him. Do you remember what happened in the session in the ready room?

Mostly. Why?

You said you sensed a heat from the admiral.

He frowned, his blue eyes darkening. Did I? There are a number of blanks in my mind. I’m sorry.

So that was Serafino and not Jace’s Nasyry side picking up on what was going on between Kel-Paten and Tasha. Evidently he always had a low-level empathic ability, even with the implant. But until she could get Jace talking to Serafino—as she’d started to think of his two existences—the full story on anything wouldn’t come out.

Eden?

I could explain what I think is going on with Kel-Paten, but I’d rather have you see it for yourself, she told him, laying her hand reassuringly on his arm. Because I don’t think Kel-Paten understands what’s happening. I could use your telepathic guidance, Jace. And your experience with Psy-Serv.

Right now my telepathic guidance is limited.

That’s why I have to disable the implant. That should give you more control and give us some more answers. Believe me, we need answers.

He nodded slowly, but she saw and sensed a tension in his smile. And he felt her question. I don’t know what’s going to happen when you put me back together. I don’t want to lose your friendship. Your respect. I’ve come to value that. He brushed his thumb gently across her cheekbone.

No matter what happens, don’t give up on me, Doc. Promise me.

A lump formed in Eden’s throat at the intensity and fear in his words.

She knew if she had to answer him out loud at that moment, she wouldn’t be able to. But there were advantages to telepathy. I promise. No matter what happens.

The gray mists cleared. Reilly’s furry presence was warm against her arm. Eden Fynn stared at her cabin’s ceiling in the darkness and wondered about her promise. But which Jace Serafino emerged from surgery wasn’t even on her mind. As long as one of them did.

Eden’s real fear was that in trying to save one, she might kill them both.

CAPTAIN SEBASTIAN’S OFFICE

Sass chewed on a lushberry, the last remnants of lunch at her desk. She found it a necessary action when her instincts demanded she jump down Kel-Paten’s throat. It was difficult to chew and yell at the same time, so she chose chewing.

He’d barged into her office less than ten minutes before, angry she was back on duty. And angry that she’d told Kel-Farquin’s office that she and Dr. Fynn would, unequivocally, be part of any interrogation on station involving Serafino.

She did not know, however, which action of hers made him more angry.

Not that it mattered. He took up residence in the chair across from her desk and made no motion to leave, despite the fact that she told him she had a lot of formwork to do, none of which would get done while he glared at her.

And glared at her in a very possessive manner, as if he owned her!

Well, he was damned well wrong.

But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him so, because behind all the glaring and all the possessiveness, she saw something else. Something lonely and afraid that used the advantage of rank to keep her near him.

She popped another lushberry in her mouth to keep from saying something hurtful. Because she didn’t want to hurt him. He was her colleague. Her annoying almost-friend.

“There’s been more Illithian activity out by the Mists,” she said, wanting to change the subject. “When do you think HQ’s going to let us loose on that? We could get Kel-Varen’s Nexarion to—”

“Sebastian.” Pause. “I’m not going to discuss that until we resolve the Serafino situation.”

“Kel-Paten,” she replied, and paused as well. “I told you. Doc Eden and I will handle it. Unless you feel I’m not capable,” she offered, remembering the old adage about “the best defense.”

“Or do you feel I’m not capable?” he asked her quietly. Too quietly.

“I feel,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that Serafino will do all he can to drag you into a pissing contest.” Or maybe the newly reintegrated Serafino wouldn’t. As they sat there, Eden was tinkering with his implant. Either way, she didn’t want Kel-Paten exposed to Serafino until she and Eden were sure which Serafino they were dealing with. “He has no history with me,” she pointed out.

“Except at Sookie’s.”

“That’s ancient history.”

“I’ve reason to believe Serafino has a long memory.”

“So? You think he’s going to challenge me to a game of Starfield Doubles?”

He studied his gloved hands, fisted in his lap. “There are other issues here,” he said finally.

She almost said, “So?” a second time, but stopped. She knew what the issue was. It was a who. And she was the who, and that was something she definitely did not want to discuss.

She picked up the last lushberry. “I’ll make sure you see everything on Serafino before it goes out, and all that comes in,” she conceded, or at least tried to appear as if she was. There were things she could not let him see. His infatuation with her notwithstanding, he was still Kel-Paten. Ol’

Loyal to the Triad Kel-Paten. Ol’ Rules and Regulations Kel-Paten. Ol’

Programmed by Psy-Serv Kel-Paten. It was the latter that worried her the most.

Almost as much as they way he regarded her now. There was that odd something in his eyes again, and suddenly she was on her feet, nervous and uncomfortable and unsure of what to do. She grabbed her empty plate. She knew what to do with that.

“I need coffee.” She didn’t offer him any as she made her way past his chair to her office’s small galley niche. “I have a lot of work to do,” she added, without turning around.

Evidently her lack of manners finally made Kel-Paten realize he was extraneous. He shoved himself to his feet while she waited for the liquid to brew.

“We’ll handle Serafino together.” His pale gaze pinned her, and his words were not a question.

“By your command, sir,” she said blandly. She sagged against the wall as her office door closed behind him. Damn those logs of his. She felt as if she stumbled over herself, when she used to be so confident in his presence. On top of all that, she hated being in a position of having to lie to her CO. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d arranged for Eden’s and her presence on Panperra without advising him first. There was also the fact that she’d arranged to arrive at Panperra by a shuttle of her choosing, not via direct dock, the latter too risky given her plans. But if the Triad really was in collusion with this Faction, then they’d violated the treaty and there was no Alliance. And if there was no Alliance, Kel-Paten wasn’t her CO.

It was convoluted, circuitous logic, but that, and a hot cup of Mahrian blend, black, made her feel one hell of a lot better, professionally.

Personally—well, she didn’t want to even think about personally.

She turned back to her deskscreen and pulled up notes on Panperra’s layout and maintenance corridors that Kel-Paten would never see.

16

SICK BAY

It wasn’t at all procedure, but Eden couldn’t leave the recovery room, couldn’t leave Jace’s side. Not until she knew for sure he’d wake up. When the first twinges of discomfort filtered through her empathic senses, she was elated. When he rose to full consciousness, she thought she’d weep for joy.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

There was a dull, throbbing pain on the side of his head from the sonic scalpel and probe.

Jace grinned at her from his reclining position on the diag bed. “I feel like I hit a brick wall. And I’m hoping you’ll tell me the brick wall looks the worse for it.”

“No, but you should be the better for it,” Eden said, and checked the panel readouts. Everything looked good, due to his accelerated healing rate—thanks to his Nasyry physiology. It was strong enough to counter the sonic surgery. Actual physical removal of the implant, though, would have been significantly more risky. Nasyry physiology or not, he’d still be comatose at this point. As Sass had pointed out, they didn’t have time right now for a long recovery.

She touched his shoulder. Other than that damned thing in your head, you’re disgustingly healthy, Serafino.

His gaze shot up quickly to meet hers. Well, hello! How did you—oh!

Relief flooded through Eden. She did it! She’d disconnected the implant.

Suddenly, Eden saw and felt a series of images flow through his mind.

Memories of Novalis, both the ship and the place; memories of her, of a light kiss placed on her wrist and the accompanying warmth that had flooded both of them. And memories of another woman, dark-haired, and a young boy. Bianca and Jorden. Both parts of Jace Serafino were integrating, merging memories and events of the past four years and, to some extent, ones even older than that. There were age-old memories shared by all the Nasyry. Eden saw and felt only the edges of those. Her fledgling telepathic skills couldn’t handle their full impact.

He pulled himself to a sitting position on the bed and reached for her before she realized what he was doing. But he only touched her face, three times, temple, cheek, and chin, in the ritual blessing. He was marking her again, but this time it was for real.

She pulled his hand away, held it lightly in her own for a moment.

“Captain,” she said, a slight warning tone in her voice.

“Doctor,” he replied, his voice low and enticing.

It almost reminded her of Tasha’s “Sebastian—Kel-Paten” routine, and she had to shake her head, chuckling slightly. “You’re feeling fine,” she said, releasing his hand.

She picked up the chart from the nearby table. He tried to grab it from her and pull her back to him.

“Tell me, Doc, do you kiss as passionately here as when we meet there?” He had no need to explain here or there. His audible words were accompanied by an equally loud telepathic sensation that woke up those damned flutters in her stomach again.

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I was right. There were gremlins in there and they escaped. Behave yourself, Serafino. I still have a healthy supply of rectal thermometers.”

“Eden—”

“Let’s put these silly flirtations aside, okay? We have more serious things to tend to.” She glanced out the open door into sick bay and saw only Cal and other personnel she could trust. Still, she lowered her voice.

“You’re back together, in a sense, but we won’t know for how long and to what extent for several hours yet. Captain Sebastian and I need to know everything you know about this Faction that’s infiltrated the Alliance.

We’re only a few hours out from Panperra. We don’t know what’s going to happen there. Whatever information you have could be crucial.” His expression sobered immediately. “I thank you for your trust. And for believing me.”

“You still have to convince the captain.”

“And the Tin Soldier?”

Eden sighed. “That job we may relegate to Captain Sebastian.”

“Kel-Paten,” he told her, “will not credit anything I say. I just want to warn you about that.”

“We’ve already had one experience in that area.”

“Ahh.” He shook his head, his eyes closing momentarily. “The conference in the ready room the other day. There was something... odd, if I remember.”

“Do you? Remember, that is? Specifically, anything to do with the admiral and Captain Sebastian?”

He thought for a moment, then his eyes narrowed. “Yes. There’s a chink in the Tin Soldier’s armor.” He looked up at her. “It’s Sebastian.”

“You made a vague comment at the time about a heat coming from him and that it wasn’t anger.”

“Extraordinary. A ’cybe infatuated with a human. Sellarmaris Biocybernetics would not be happy with that.”

Something in Serafino’s tone unsettled Eden. “I’m not looking to compile evidence for a Section Forty-Six. I need to know if what he feels for Tasha is genuine or something Psy-Serv could have planted to throw off any telepath reading him.”

He nodded. Eden waited, but he said nothing.

“I know you have real reasons to distrust him, because of your sister,” Eden continued when he didn’t answer. “I’m not saying that’s not important. It is. But first we really need to know whose side he’s on.”

“I’m working on that, but I can’t get a reading on him right now. Not at this distance, not with that damned thing pounding in my head.” Eden felt immediately guilty for pressing the issue. “Then forget it for the time being. There’s some swelling around the implant, but that will subside.” She checked the readouts on the diag bed. “You’re healing nicely.

I’d say another five, six hours and you won’t even know I’ve been poking around in there. In the meantime, Captain Sebastian needs to talk to you as soon as possible. Do you feel up to it?”

Her question elicited an immediate devilish grin. “Well, I don’t know, Doc.” He made a grab for her hand. “Why don’t you feel—” She slipped from his grasp and groaned loudly. “I’ll get the captain,” she told him as she exited.

She reached Tasha in her office. Not knowing who might be in there but assuming the worst, she went through their agreed-upon routine: “I’d like to see you now for those final tests I mentioned earlier.”

“Of course,” came Tasha’s voice over the comm. “I’ll be there in five.” Jace Serafino watched Eden thread her way through bustling med-techs as she headed for her office. It was a rather pleasant view, the soft curve of her hips apparent even under the shapeless lab coat. Compassion, competence, and a very womanly body, well-padded in all the right places.

That was Eden Fynn. She fascinated him. She tempted him.

And she also made it clear that she was off limits. She could flirt, she could smile, and then she could go right back to being the chief medical officer, leaving him hanging on a proverbial limb.

He was definitely not used to that. It was he, Jace Serafino, who would decide upon whom he would bestow his charms. And it was he, Jace Serafino, who would decide when to withdraw them as well and move on to the next interesting little flower.

But Eden was more than an interesting little flower. She was a whole garden of endless delights. He felt as if he were locked outside the gate, unable to gain access but drawn by the sweetness of her scent.

It all came together in the few minutes after he woke up—all the memories of touching her, kissing her in their telepathic meetings. All the memories of speaking to her, flirting with her in sick bay. He put together the warmth with the woman, finally.

And she wasn’t to be had. Not by him. He felt that very clearly. He was mystified how she could enjoy his company so much and yet be so willing to let him go.

He knew he was charming. He knew he was good-looking. Scores of women had told him so.

And she was still willing to let him go.

He’d have to correct that notion very shortly. Just as he’d have to monitor the situation between the Tin Soldier and Sass. So Kel-Paten had finally learned the meaning of love. Interesting. Perhaps it was time, then, to teach the ’cybe the meaning of loss.

A flash of movement in the corner of his hospital room caught his eye.

He turned, tensing slightly, on the alert. But nothing was there. At least, nothing he could see. But yet...

He reached out telepathically, ignoring the twinges of pain, the sense of disorientation. Something was definitely there. And it was laughing at him.

A noise. He looked around quickly. Nothing. Yet he could feel it, feel the presence...

A large black furzel jumped on his bed, landing gracefully at his feet.

“Murrupf!” said Reilly.

“Murrupf yourself,” Jace said, badly imitating the furzel’s noise. He reached for its soft head, but the yellow eyes narrowed.

Okay, Jace said. What’s the deal here?

The answer, as expected, came more in feelings and images than in words. It took a moment for Jace to place them in an order that made sense: Eden. Warmth. Love. Protect.

You’re the doctor’s furzel?

Again, images and feelings: Eden. Love. Food! Eden. Protect.

I won’t hurt Dr. Eden.

Jace saw his own image, slightly skewed, from the furzel’s point of view: Mistrust. Not know. Strong feelings to Eden. Danger! No bring danger to Eden. Love. Protect. Food!

I promise. I won’t hurt Dr. Eden. She’s my friend too.

Reilly cocked his head. Maybe. Not know. Sense danger. Protect Eden.

Love. Go Blink now.

With a flick of his tail he was gone, dissolving into thin air.

That startled Jace for a moment, then he grinned. No mere alley furzel, that one. A high-level furzel, with telepathic and teleportation talents. He wondered if the lovely doctor knew what she had. Or had the animal—sensing her latent abilities—sought her out?

He tried scanning for the furzel again and flinched when something distant yet uneasy brushed across his senses. Carefully, he reached for it, probing, but his head pounded. The damned implant had him worried, making him a bit cautious.

And the furzel too. Sense danger, the furzel told him.

Something was on or near this ship. He couldn’t tell. It might be more than just the headache stopping him. He could faintly feel what might be the jagged outlines of a psychic block.

But who or what on this ship could do that? It wasn’t another Nasyry.

He’d know a Nasyry mind signature immediately. No, this had something else, something familiar yet...

No. Yes. He thought he almost saw it clearly now. Sophisticated yet obscure...

Damn. It almost felt like Psy-Serv. Like the Faction.

SICK BAY, DR. MONTERRO’S OFFICE

Sass leaned back in Cal Monterro’s office chair. Serafino lounged in a smaller chair across from her. Eden, on his left, perched on the desk’s edge, where she had a clear view, over Serafino’s dark head, of anyone coming down sick bay’s inner corridor.

They were the only three in Cal’s office. Cal was poised outside Eden’s office to alert them to any “incoming,” which included at this point any Triad officer other than medical staff. Sass and Eden figured the ruse about the medical tests would last about forty-five minutes at most before someone—most likely Kel-Paten—would come hunting.

“Okay, Serafino, we don’t have much time,” Sass said. “To date you’ve only been able to give us bits and pieces about a threat you call the Faction. I need answers and I need them without the usual lubashit.” Serafino unlaced his fingers and gestured casually at her. “Why do you think I came looking for you, for the Vax, in the first place?”

“I have several theories, but I’d rather hear your version,” Sass replied.

“You’re U-Cee and a student of Gund’jalar’s,” Serafino said, naming the Rebashee mystic and mercenary. Gund’jalar was well known—like most of his people—for his dislike of the Triad, even though almost sixty-five years had passed since the Triad had forcibly annexed the Rebashee’s Danvaral sector. “Everything I’ve been able to uncover about the Faction is closely tied in with Psy-Serv and key people in the Triad.”

“Psy-Serv?” Eden straightened abruptly.

“They don’t want to control just telepaths. They want to control everyone. Whoever they can’t, they kill. Kel-Sennarin isn’t their only double-agent. Kel-Adro was too. But he’s dead. Now.”

“Unfortunate shuttle accident.” Sass remembered the reports just before the peace talks.

“Timely shuttle accident,” Serafino corrected. “He wasn’t cooperating.”

“And what does Psy-Serv get out of this?” Sass asked.

“My guess is control of every branch of government, every branch of business that relies on its services. Law enforcement, the courts, financial institutions, the medical community. Psy-Serv evaluators determine the guilty and the innocent, the honest and the fraudulent, based on their telepathic probes.”

“Which they already do,” Eden put in.

“But you see, now the Faction decides ahead of time who’s guilty and who’s innocent based on what suits its needs. And that may have nothing to do with the truth. They’ll control businesses, even Fleet, the same way.

Evaluators loyal to the Faction will decide where to invest and who gets to helm a huntership.” He nodded to Sass. “You didn’t undergo a Psy-Serv evaluation before you were assigned here, did you?”

“The U-Cees fought that. We don’t use TelTal the way the Triad uses Psy-Serv. So it’s not part of the APIP program.”

“It will be in two months.” Jace’s tone was ominous. “Think of the uproar when it’s revealed that the Vaxxar’s captain has past associations with Dag Zanorian and, more so, Gund’jalar. I’m guessing the Faction already knows or suspects—”

“It’s not in my records,” Sass cut in, her stomach tense, her breathing constricted as if a black-gloved hand already closed around her throat. If the Faction revealed that information, it could split the Alliance wide apart. And the U-Cees would look like the guilty party for having her in their ranks. That could even spark another war. Gods. “I’ve seen my APIP

records and Kel-Paten’s personal file on me. They have my connection with Kesh Valirr and my official stint with UCID. But the time I spent on Lethant is still recorded as official leave and sabbatical, showing me on Varlow and Trillas. And there’s nothing on Gund’jalar.” Serafino nodded thoughtfully. “If you weren’t a student of his, I wouldn’t be here now. That’s how widespread the Faction is. I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

“So you did come looking for us?” Eden asked.

“I knew from my sources that the Vax was in the quadrant, knew the Alliance would send Kel-Paten on my trail. I needed to contact you,” Serafino said to Sass, “in a way that the Faction wouldn’t deem suspicious—even though at the time, with the implant functioning, I wasn’t sure why I had to. Find Lady Sass kept echoing in my mind for the past few weeks as the headaches got worse. I guess, subliminally, I thought your UCID connections could do something with this.” He tapped his head. “But finding this beautiful Zingaran doctor,” and he reached for Eden’s hand, “was an incredible surprise. And delight.” He brushed a kiss across Eden’s fingers.

“Serafino.” Sass had to bring his attention back to the problem. “The doc tells me you’re a high-level telepath. Is that correct?”

“Except when the damned implant kicks in, yes.”

“And part Nasyry?”

“Courtesy of my father.”

“Any other talents? Healing? Piloting?” She suspected the latter, given his ability to evade Kel-Paten all these years. Nasyry pilots had the ability to read jumpspace fixes without using gate beacons.

“Nas garra,” he corrected her. “Pilot guide. Unofficial, of course. I left Ysanti before I could be ranked by my people. Bianca wasn’t happy there.”

“And that’s how Psy-Serv managed to put that implant in your head.” Some of the haughty confidence left Serafino’s features. “You know about my sister.”

Sass nodded.

“That was their method to guarantee my cooperation. One I intend to fully thank the Tin Soldier for. But not,” and he held up one hand as if anticipating Sass’s reaction to the bitterness in his words, “until all else is settled. I guess I should be grateful they didn’t kill Bianca or my nephew and settled for this instead.”

“And Psy-Serv wanted you to... ”

“Infiltrate the Triad Ministry of Intelligence by accepting their commissions, including this latest one to track down some possible arms running to the Illithians. This isn’t my first mission with the MI.

Psy-Serv—the Faction—wants to know everything the MI knows. Only they don’t pay with credits, they pay with pain.”

“They want to know more than what MI knows,” Eden put in. “That implant has a recording function. It’s giving them your entire life.” Serafino paled. “It’s what?”

“I’m beginning to believe that’s why they wanted Kel-Paten to bring you back in—alive,” Eden said. “They want that recording in your head of everything you’re heard, seen, and thought. This may well go beyond your infiltrating MI.”

Serafino sat quietly, one hand fisted against his mouth. Eden’s revelation clearly disturbed him. “Bastards,” he said after a moment. He rapped his knuckles on the armrest, eyes unfocused. Finally, he nodded.

“There’s another element to the Faction. Something more than just Psy-Serv, but I don’t know quite what or who. But that must be what they’re really after. What I know. Who I can expose.”

“We need those names,” Sass said.

“Names I don’t have—yet—other than those I told you about, like Kel-Sennarin. Just images. Some odd snatches of conversation. I must be closer to the truth than I realize. I just wish I knew what I saw or overheard that’s so critical.”

“Eden, give him a datalyzer, let him record all he knows. Then get it to me. I’ll append it to my file on the implant.” Serafino was still deep in thought. He shifted in his chair, bringing his hands together. “They did the same thing to me that they did to the Tin Soldier. I feel stupid for not realizing that sooner. You know when he spikes in, there’s a two-way data transfer. He might be looking for a particular report. But from what I’ve heard, Psy-Serv can just as easily poke around in his programs and alter them as needed.”

“That’s not reassuring news,” Eden said, her lips tight.

Serafino glanced at her and Eden’s head tilted slightly, as if she was listening. But Serafino hadn’t said anything... Not that I can hear, Sass realized. But Eden could.

“Love letters? The Tin Soldier wrote you love letters?” Serafino stared at Sass. Damn! She felt her cheeks burn, and she knew exactly what Serafino had learned from Eden’s thoughts.

“Log entries,” she corrected tersely. “And how did we suddenly get on this subject?” She slanted a narrow-eyed glance at Eden.

“I... we have been concerned about the possibility that the admiral’s emotions might be part of a program.” Eden splayed one hand toward Sass in a somewhat apologetic gesture. “What Jace—Captain Serafino—said just now made me realize that was a possibility we couldn’t afford to discount. And he—” She shot a hard look at Serafino. “You should ask first, you know, before you go traipsing around in my thoughts!”

Something between a sigh and a chuckle escaped Serafino’s lips. “Sorry, sweetling. But there was this sudden sense of worry emanating from you.” He turned back to Sass. “So the Tin Soldier is trying to seduce you through love letters?”

Sass glared at him. Serafino held up both hands quickly, in mock defense. His charming, devil-may-care attitude was back, covering what troubled him, she guessed. It troubled her too. Serafino knew who she was, what she’d done. How much did the Faction know?

“I’ve seen that right hook of yours, Lady Sass. I surrender!”

“They were logs, Serafino.” It wasn’t just that she’d read Kel-Paten’s logs—almost all of them now. It was that Serafino knew and thought it comical. She could tell by the tone of his voice, the squinty narrowing of his eyes, the twitch of his mouth. She felt embarrassed, not so much for herself but for Branden Kel-Paten, and he wasn’t even here. “I wasn’t supposed to find them, let alone read them. But they came along in the downloads I filched trying to find data on that damned device in your head.”

“That’s why I asked you earlier about what happened in the ready room,” Eden said. “It’s critical to know which side Kel-Paten is on.”

“More so because you know who I am,” Sass put in quietly. “If the Faction pulled that from your mind, they may have told the admiral.” Serafino’s mouth tightened into a thin line, then he shook his head. “I haven’t checked in with Psy-Serv in almost three months. I wasn’t thinking of contacting you back then, anyway. And nothing I can sense from the Tin Soldier tells me he knows who you are. At least, not consciously. He’s very attracted to you and very protective.” Eden let out a soft sigh. “I agree. My readings say he’s not a threat—not to you,” she added with a nod to Sass.

For some reason she didn’t want to explore, that information made Sass feel better.

“But keep in mind,” Serafino put in, “the Tin Soldier’s complicated, a product of Psy-Serv’s and Sellarmaris’s best. Which means we can’t rule out that the Faction could control him. I wasn’t fully myself in the interview. Give me another shot at him.”

“The shuttle trip to Panperra will be your next chance,” Sass said.

“Having Kel-Paten against us will be a definite problem. Having him on our side could be a tremendous plus.” Having him also in love with her...

was the most frightening thing of all.

Because the woman he thought he loved didn’t exist. And the one that did was someone he hated.

And who would be the one to be hurt when he found out?

She shoved the question away, feeling stupid and uncharacteristically sentimental. “We confirmed with Panperra’s outer guidance beacon about twenty minutes ago. I’ve requisitioned a shuttle for three hours from now, if the doc says you’re up to it.” At Eden’s affirmative, Sass continued,

“We’re going to have to do some fancy dancing on station. I alerted two of Gund’jalar’s people, who will help. I need you back on the Vax, Serafino, but without Kel-Farquin or Kel-Paten knowing about it. For all intents and purposes, it’s going to look like you’re on a long trip to their prison on Riln Marin.”

“Do I get to choose whose cabin I hide out in?” he asked, flashing a wicked grin at Eden.

Eden had mentioned to Sass that there was “a slight attraction” between Serafino and herself. Now Sass wondered if the good doctor wasn’t underestimating things. Well, if he wanted to be near Eden, so be it. As long as Eden had no problem with it. At least Sass knew that someone would be able to keep the rather rambunctious mercenary in line.

She decided, however, not to reward him with that information yet and instead spent the next fifteen minutes going over just how they were going to engineer his escape from Panperra and his return to the Vax. And what roles Gund’jalar and the rest of the assortment of rim runners would play, if what Serafino prophesied came true.

When she was sure Serafino understood, she nodded to Eden. “We’ll leave now, just in case there’s a certain problem up front.” She pulled her extra service pistol from under her jacket and held it out to Serafino. “I hope to hell you don’t need this.”

He took it and tucked it in the back of his pants. Then he touched her arm lightly as she walked by. “It’s good to work with you, Lady Sass.

Master Gund’jalar always had high praise for you.”

“A lot of what I know, I owe to him,” she replied. “Watch your back,

’Fino.”

Sass didn’t miss Eden’s questioning look as they exited Cal’s office. She hadn’t told her CMO she intended to arm the mercenary captain. Her decision to do so violated at least a half dozen Alliance regs and probably twice as many Triad ones. Eden, being Eden, would no doubt quote a few of those, just to make sure Sass was really certain that what she wanted to do was arm a man labeled—and for good cause—a dangerous and volatile mercenary.

It was. Those were Alliance regs. And she was starting to suspect that the alliance between the U-Cees and the Triad no longer existed.

She just wished she knew where the Tin Soldier stood in the midst of the mess.

17

CAPTAIN SEBASTIAN’S CABIN

Sniff. Sniff.

Greeting! Friend.

Friend. Greeting!

Food?

Food!

The two furzels touched noses one more time before Reilly followed Tank into Sass’s small kitchen. Tank sat and looked up at the countertop.

Reilly leaped gracefully, landing next to a shallow bowl of cream.

Tank scrunched his pudgy body against the floor and pushed with all his might, managing only to scramble against the cabinet doors before falling.

Shtift-a! he swore.

Reilly looked down at the pudgy fidget, then indicated with a lift of his nose the other side of the counter and two tall stools. Obediently, Tank trotted around and, paw over paw, grunting audibly, managed to pull himself up to counter level. Reilly graciously left a bit of cream for his friend.

Food!

Food!

Sweet. Cool.

Cool. Sweet.

A noise at the cabin door drew their attention.

Sass. Friend. Love, said Tank. MommyMommy!

Friend. Sass, agreed Reilly.

“Well, aren’t you two a sight!” Sass pulled off her uniform jacket and threw it carelessly onto the couch. The antics of the furzels were a pleasant diversion after the issues raised in her talk with Serafino. She pushed her worries aside for the moment. “Out of cream, hmmm?” Two pairs of golden eyes followed her movement to the small fridge.

Two noses twitched at the buttery smell as more cream was poured.

Sass patted both heads affectionately as pink tongues flicked small droplets of cream over the countertop. “Have to talk to Eden about how you get in here, Reilly.” She peered at the air vents in the wall. They seemed intact. “May have to comm link you both and let the computer track you one of these days,” she continued, as she entered her bedroom.

She dragged a medium-size duffel bag from the closet, then stuffed the usual items inside: a requisite change of uniform plus enough clothes for a two-night stay on Panperra—which, being primarily a commercial civilian station with the Triad’s military presence confined to three small docks, promised to be a bit more fun once they had Serafino safely settled. A Legends Fair was scheduled on Panperra for the next two days.

Conveniently enough, the fair’s usual pandemonium and plethora of people in costume would also provide the cover to get Serafino off station and back on the Vax.

Almost as an afterthought, she tucked the small datadrive that contained Kel-Paten’s decoded files in a hidden pocket of the duffel. There was information she wanted to review; information Gund’jalar would require if all Serafino foresaw came about.

She heard the thud of Tank jumping off the stool and the muted thumpety-thump of his overlarge paws as he ran into her bedroom. He pushed his wet nose against her hand and then dug under her clothes in the duffel.

“It’s just for a couple of nights,” Sass told him, guessing at the meaning behind his burrowing. “Eden and I will be back before you know we’re gone.”

No Mommy leave! No Mommy leave! Tank go with! Tank go with!

Friend. Reilly sat on his haunches and stared at Tank. The little fidget frantically rooted through the clothes.

Friend!

Tank stopped, ears perked high.

Friend. Safe. Safe. All go. All go with. Plan. Go with. Secret.

“Murrupf?” said Tank.

“Murrupf,” said Reilly.

“Good boys.” MommySass ruffled Tank’s fur. “Now go play! Mommy has work to do before she leaves.”

Tumbling over each other, the furzels raced from the room.

CAPTAIN SEBASTIAN’S OFFICE

Sass logged off her office comp as her door chimed. She glanced at the overhead readout.

Kel-Paten.

“Damn,” she said softly, standing and touching the mag-seal on her briefcase. Then: “Enter.”

The door slid open. “When were we denied permission to dock?” Kel-Paten leaned his gloved hands against the back of one of her two office chairs.

“About an hour ago,” she lied.

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

She met his gaze levelly. “I left that information on your office comp board.”

“You could have reached me in my quarters.”

She knew that. That’s why she left the message where she did, knowing it would get buried under the usual deluge of information every ship’s officer received upon arriving on station.

“It’s not a critical issue. I’ve allocated the Definator to transport Serafino in and alerted Kel-Farquin as well.” She turned away from him and straightened a stack of data files on her desk, hoping he’d interpret her body language: I’m busy. Leave. She was increasingly uncomfortable around him. Now that Serafino had basically concurred with Eden’s analysis, she couldn’t stop thinking about his log entries. She couldn’t stop thinking that, to him, she was his green-eyed vixen. She wasn’t remotely a vixen and had never considered herself more than passably attractive. To be the subject of such undeserved passion...

It almost made her more nervous than when she thought he was the enemy.

“The command shuttle is the Galaxus. ” His voice interrupted her thoughts.

“I thought you might be using her,” she offered, but that wasn’t the real reason. Given Serafino’s warnings, she thought it best not to advertise the status of those on board by using the larger craft.

“I will. We will,” he corrected. “I’ll accompany you to Panperra.” She’d figured that was unavoidable. Though she had hopes. She picked up her briefcase, declined his offer to carry it for her, and looked squarely at him. “If you do, it’ll be on the Definator. I’ve already loaded—”

“I’ll order it unloaded.” He pulled on her briefcase as she tried to step past him. “I see you’ve put in for a stay-over on station.”

“My schedule’s clear—”

“The Triad maintains an excellent officers’ club there.” He looked down at her. She tried to tug the briefcase out of his grasp. “I’ll arrange a dinner meeting with some of Kel-Farquin’s key staff.”

“Ede—Dr. Fynn and I had plans.” She stubbornly hung on to her briefcase as they moved toward the door.

“After dinner we can take a walk through the fair compound.” We will do nothing of the kind! Sass finally relinquished her efforts to regain her briefcase. All she needed was Kel-Paten traipsing alongside while she and Eden maneuvered Serafino back to the Vax. She’d have to think of some kind of diversion for him.

Actually, Eden had thought of one earlier. It would also, she knew, keep him from uncovering their deception. Though it would take her out of the action for a while.

Green-eyed vixen, indeed.

She glanced up at him as they entered the lift and tried to put together the passion in the logs she’d read with this always-in-control Tin Soldier next to her. It didn’t make sense.

Until he glanced down at her in return.

People often compared his pale blue eyes to ice, but they were wrong. It wasn’t the cold blue-white of ice they resembled but the white-hot blue of the center of a flame.

She’d seen this look from him before, but this time—she wasn’t sure why—it seared her, touched her, reached something deep inside her with an unexpected heat.

For a brief nanosecond, something inside her almost melted. That scared her and made her realize that there was no way, seeing the intensity reflected there, that she was going to be able to avoid him on Panperra. And his presence would create a big problem in getting Serafino safely off station.

She had no choice. She trusted Eden; they’d worked far more dangerous situations than this, and Serafino was nothing if not a master at getting out of tight spots. She’d just have to let Eden and Serafino hook up with Gund’jalar’s people on their own. It was their only chance of success.

“Dinner sounds wonderful.” Sass tried to put the right combination of enthusiasm and seductive suggestion in her voice and was surprised to find it wasn’t as difficult as she would have thought. A little fun and games, a little flirtation... she could handle that. “Actually, Eden has plans to see someone special at the fair. I’d have only been a tagalong.” She gave him a small, confidential smile. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind my tagging along with you?”

He almost dropped her briefcase. “I think it would be very nice.” He’d moved closer to her. She turned her face up toward his. In the back of her mind she monitored the muted ping as each deck passed by.

She waited until the lift was just a few pings from her destination before she deliberately stepped up to him, one hand resting lightly on her briefcase, which he clutched against his chest.

“I think that would be very nice too,” she whispered. Parting her lips slightly, she leaned toward him, her eyes half closed.

“Tasha.” He breathed her name and brought his head down to close the few inches that separated them. She sucked in a breath, arching, tilting her mouth closer to his. And the lift pinged, twice this time, as the doors slid noisily open.

She snatched her briefcase out of his hands and sprinted through the doors, pivoting after only a few steps and grinning at him.

“Shuttle Bay Three. Half hour, Kel-Paten,” she called, and touched her fingers to her temple in a mock salute.

He stood in the middle of the lift, his mouth half open in surprise, his arms raised as if holding on to a briefcase—or a woman—that was no longer there.

He was still standing that way when the doors closed in front of him.

Sass trotted the short distance down the corridor to sick bay, laughing softly to herself and at herself. Who would have thought it would have been so much fun to tease Branden Kel-Paten?

“You look like the fidget who caught the slitherskimp,” Eden said as Sass entered her office. “What now?”

“A slight change of plans once we get on station. You have Serafino’s datalyzer for me?”

“Everything he could remember. He said to tell you there are still gaps.

I’m telling you as his doctor that until that thing’s removed, there always will be.”

“Understandable.” Sass accepted the handheld and tucked it in her briefcase. Then she pulled out a thin datadisk and handed it to Eden.

“Here’s Panperra’s layout. Serafino shouldn’t need more than five minutes to memorize it. Meet us in Shuttle Bay Three in twenty-five minutes.”

“Us?” Eden questioned.

Sass sighed. “You were right. I am the issue here, and the issue’s going to have to keep Admiral Kel-Paten busy while you get Serafino back to the ship.”

“Busy?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Eden. This is duty. Lives are at stake.” Eden’s grin was decidedly wicked. “You mean you’re going to—”

“Have dinner with him. Engage in some flirtatious conversation. Give you time to find Angel and Suki.” Sass hadn’t seen Aliya “Angel-Face” Kel-Moro since Angel’s pair-bonding ceremony with Suki years before. An Alliance captain couldn’t risk being seen with one of Gund’jalar’s mercenaries. It was one of the friendships she missed. “They’ll make sure Serafino’s on the right med-shuttle, purportedly going to Riln Marin. Our shuttle. Coming back here.”

“And you’ll be?”

“Keeping the Tin Soldier as far away from our shuttle bays as I can until the Vax heads out again.”

And oddly, that assignment wasn’t as unpalatable as she once would have thought.

SHUTTLE BAY 3

Shuttle Bay 3—a cavernous, well-lighted bay in the mid-aft portside section of the Vax—housed two of the huntership’s five shuttles: the larger Galaxus and the smaller Definator. Both were elliptical in shape, their silver hull plating emblazoned with the Vax’s signature dragon-and-lightning-bolt symbol. When Sass arrived, cargo ’droids were transferring luggage from the smaller shuttle to the larger.

Admiral’s orders.

She sighed and found the lanky young ensign in charge of the transfer.

“She’s fully fueled?” She laid her hand against the shuttle’s fuselage.

The ensign saluted smartly. “Yes, ma’am! I double-checked myself. She was last in for maintenance ten days ago. Everything’s optimal.” For whom? she wondered briefly. Was there some reason Kel-Paten insisted on using the Galaxus other than that she was the traditional command shuttle? Paranoia, she chastised herself. She was getting like the Tin Soldier.

She let the ensign get back to his duties with a word of thanks. He turned back to an antigrav flat as it floated the luggage toward the Galaxus’s under-belly. A Strata-class shuttle, the Galaxus could comfortably seat up to ten people, with a commensurate storage area aft.

She was similar in design to a medium-size luxury transport, with a large cockpit area forward of the main cabin. Like a luxury transport, she had a small galley and full sanifac. Unlike a luxury transport, she also had a fully stocked battle-gear locker, a full weapons array, and an enhanced shield-and-scanner system.

Sass was into her preflight check when the sound of the corridor doors opening alerted her to the arrival of Eden, Serafino, and a small security contingent, headed by the muscular Garrick.

“Everything secure as per your orders,” Garrick told her as Eden and Serafino climbed the short flight of steps to the shuttle’s interior.

“Excellent, Lieutenant.” That meant the pistol she gave Serafino was still in his possession and that the sonicuffs that bound his hands in front weren’t locked. Garrick knew that when she asked for the unusual, there was always a damned good reason. As her crew on the Regalia used to say, there were rules and then there were Captain Sebastian’s rules. And the latter usually won out.

Sass had the preflight completed, luggage loaded, her passengers seated comfortably, and herself ensconced in the pilot’s seat when Kel-Paten arrived, promptly on time. She heard his heavy footsteps on the stairs and then his muted acknowledgment to Eden. When she heard nothing more, she looked away from the datascreen to find him standing in the cockpit’s wide hatchway, a questioning expression on his face.

She could guess at part of it: she was in the pilot’s seat, his normal role.

The other part was no doubt their aborted flirtation in the lift. For a moment she felt guilty, remnants of those damned logs surfacing in her mind. But she wasn’t, she assured herself, trying to hurt him. She was simply becoming a little more friendly. Nothing wrong with that.

Especially since he cared about her. That had to mean he couldn’t be part of that Faction Serafino had warned about. It might not make him any less a pain in the ass, but at least he was a pain in the ass who was on their side. She offered him a welcoming smile.

“Ready when you are, Admiral,” she said, and turned away to check the latch on her safety straps.

“Sebastian.” He slid into the copilot’s seat, locked his own straps, and activated the instruments without further comment.

“Bridge, this is Captain Sebastian. Requesting departure clearance, Shuttle Bay Three.”

“Clearance granted, Captain.” Timmer Kel-Faray’s voice sounded through the cockpit’s overhead speaker. “Initiate departure sequence.”

“Initiating.” Her mind clicked into its piloting mode as her fingers tapped the codes. Inside the bay, a small siren wailed. The lights over the corridor doors went from green to cautionary yellow. The ship’s computers scanned for life forms and, finding none, the corridor door lights changed to red and the door sealed.

Directly in front of the Galaxus, a ring of red lights delineated the outer-bay doors. They flashed and departure systems confirmed their imminent opening.

Sass activated the shuttle’s antigrav thrusters just as the air was sucked from the bay.

The wide doors disappeared into the wall, revealing the immense black starfield beyond. Panperra Station wasn’t visible; the shuttle would have to clear the huntership first, then drop below her before the multilevel artificial world was visible.

“Main thrusters online,” Sass said.

“Confirmed,” Kel-Paten replied. “Full power in ten seconds. Nine. Eight.

Seven.”

She and the admiral worked in synchronization as the shuttle glided through the bay doors, then made a sharp bank to starboard.

“Galaxus to bridge. We’re clear.” She relayed their heading, making adjustments on her console.

“Acknowledged. Turning you over to Panperra Approach Command.

Have a nice time at the fair if you get the chance, Captain,” said Kel-Faray.

“Thanks, Timm. See you in forty-eight. Don’t trash the Vax while we’re gone.”

“The admiral would put a stop to that right away.” Kel-Faray’s voice clearly held a smile.

Not if the admiral’s on Panperra Station, she almost said, but Panperra Approach was requesting her ship ident and clearance codes.

She relayed that information and then waited for docking instructions.

The momentary lull gave her the chance to question just why Timm Kel-Faray didn’t know that Kel-Paten was on the shuttle.

“You didn’t tell Kel-Faray—?” The nav comp’s chime interrupted her question.

“Theta level security docks,” Kel-Paten read out loud as the data scrolled over his screen. “ETA thirty-five minutes, given the current traffic.”

The current traffic included at least fifteen freighters waiting for docking clearance and another five commercial transports reporting on an incoming heading through the jumpgate.

“Acknowledged,” Sass replied, keying in course adjustments while listening to the pilot-to-pilot chatter on the cockpit speakers. At a thirty-five-minute ETA, she knew the Galaxus had been bumped ahead of some of the freighters, the captains of which would be none too pleased.

But they all understood, seeing the familiar silhouette of the Vaxxar in the distance. Rank had its privileges.

But the Galaxus wasn’t bumped ahead of the commercial transports, as those spaceliners had tight schedules to keep.

She noted their positions, then turned back to Kel-Paten to find out just why the remaining senior officer on the Vax had no idea of the admiral’s whereabouts. But she barely got out her first word when an alarm erupted loudly. Five sleek alien fighters—idents scrambled—came screaming through Panperra’s jumpgate, weapons signatures hot. They veered suddenly, dropped into a kill-or-suicide formation, and headed straight for the Galaxus.

18

ALLIANCE COMMAND SHUTTLE GALAXUS

The Galaxus was already more than halfway to the station. That was the first thing Sass checked when the shuttle’s alarms wailed, laser fire peppering her shields. As much as she would have loved to respond aggressively to the unknown attackers, her primary concern had to be Eden and Serafino. The Galaxus was a shuttle, not a fighter craft.

“Panperra Command, this is Captain Sebastian. I need an emergency landing bay.” She adjusted the shuttle’s shields. Kel-Paten, she noticed, had the weapons system online. “Get me a comm link to Commander Kel-Farquin. Now!”

She muted the microphone. “Who in hell are they?” she asked Kel-Paten. The data on her screens told her nothing other than they were fully capable of destroying the shuttle.

Kel-Paten’s data evidently gave him the same answer. “No idea. Yet,” he said tersely. “The Vaxxar has them. She’s powering up.” But it would take, Sass knew, at least five minutes to launch the first squadron of fighters and ten minutes for the huntership to come to full power. The large huntership had been in stationary orbit around Panperra for over three hours, her main drives off-line per Fleet procedure. This was a Triad civilian station, a “friendly” station. Given the proximity to the station, she couldn’t fire torpedoes without endangering the commercial and freighter traffic as well as Panperra’s inhabitants.

“What’s station’s defenses?” Sass asked, then, before Kel-Paten could answer: “Damn! Why the hell hasn’t Kel-Far—”

“Vidcomm Link One open,” the shuttle’s computer intoned.

Sass slapped at the instrument panel before her. Kel-Farquin’s fleshy face appeared on the small vidscreen. He looked distinctly troubled.

“Captain, I—”

“Commander, we need emergency access to Theta Bay. We’ll be coming in hot, full power.” She tabbed the thrusters to sixty percent as she spoke.

“The Vax is in position to render support. In the meantime, the admiral and I—”

“Kel-Paten?” Kel-Farquin’s face jerked toward the dark-haired man seated next to her. “You’re supposed to be—”

But Kel-Farquin’s comment was lost as the vidlink dissolved under a burst of laser fire from one of the alien fighters.

“Bogey at five o’clock.” Kel-Paten responded by activating the aft lasers and returning fire. “Shields holding at ninety-five percent. No structural damage. What’s our ETA?”

“We’re still ten minutes out. But I think we can—shit!” The shuttle jerked as another round of laser fire slashed her shields. “Damn it! Who are they?”

Several thoughts clamored for her attention. The mysterious ability of the unknown fighters to infiltrate Triad space. Serafino’s warning that the Faction wanted both her and Serafino terminated. His suspicions—which she’d oh-so-recently decided to dismiss—that Kel-Paten might somehow be the agent for that. Kel-Paten’s insistence on using the command shuttle to transport Serafino. And both Timm Kel-Faray’s and Commander Kel-Farquin’s ignorance of Kel-Paten’s actions. But more than that, Kel-Farquin’s surprise at finding Kel-Paten on board.

Was the admiral here to deliver them to the enemy?

There was no time to puzzle it out. The shuttle dipped harshly as Sass tried to shake the three fighters now on their tail. Kel-Paten seemed to be intent on targeting them. Still...

She tapped at the shuttle intercom. “Serafino! Get your ass up front!

You too, Fynn.”

Serafino burst through the cockpit doorway, Eden in tow. “What the hell’s going on? Who’d we pick up?”

The shuttle rocked again from laser impact. “A handful of unfriendlies,” Sass said quickly, aware the admiral stared at her, “who seem to be very interested in us.”

“What’s Serafino—” Kel-Paten began, but she overran his question with a forceful one of her own.

“You tell me, Kel-Paten. You’re the one who insisted on transporting Serafino in the Galaxus. And you’re the one who didn’t tell Kel-Faray of your plans. Just whose side are you on?”

“Whose?” He looked from her to Serafino and back to her again. Eden, no doubt knowing someone had to mind the store while these three fought it out, slid into the open station to the right of the admiral and brought the instruments online.

“Why did you change to the Galaxus?” Sass asked angrily.

“It’s the command shuttle. What are you getting at?” His pale eyes narrowed.

“I’m getting at the fact that you made sure we’re transporting a highly controversial prisoner in a highly visible craft, Admiral. We’re doing the expected. Or is it the requested?”

“Are you implying—”

“No, sir, I’m stating. I’m stating that these changes were made to accommodate those who want both Serafino and myself out of the way.” Sass turned to Serafino standing behind her. “Isn’t that how you put it?” Before Serafino could answer, Kel-Paten grabbed her armrest and swiveled her chair in his direction. “Do you really think I would—”

“Incoming, three o’clock,” Eden said loudly. “Shields eighty percent and holding. Tasha—”

“Taking evasive action, Doc, and thank you!” She returned her attention momentarily to the shuttle’s instruments. Why the hell hadn’t Panperra sent assistance?

“I don’t know, Kel-Paten.” She replied to his question through clenched teeth. “But if you’ve set me up and I live through this, I promise you I will dismantle you, piece by piece, and sell you as scrap.” Something painful flashed across Kel-Paten’s face. She knew the vehemence of her words had cut him. She might have threatened to kill a man, but only to a ’cybe would she threaten dismantling. Like an unusable KS3 unit or a malfunctioning bar ’droid.

He released his hold on her chair and sat back abruptly. “You’re wrong.” His voice was strained.

“Am I?” She glanced at Serafino, who’d strapped himself in at the small-weapons station next to her and worked with the data Eden fed to him. “Scan him, ’Fino. I need to know everything, and I need to know now!”

“Scan?” Kel-Paten focused on Serafino, then suddenly jerked back as if he’d been hit. “Mindsucker!” He spat out the word and whipped his face to the right as if by so doing he could break the probe.

“Nasyry mindsucker,” Serafino said quietly and in a voice filled with pride.

Kel-Paten turned back to him, unlatched his straps, started to rise.

“Sit down, Admiral.” Sass’s tone brooked no argument. Neither did the Ryfer in her hand. She pointed it not at his head or his chest—both areas cybernetically protected through layers of microfine but impenetrable plasteel—but at a small vulnerable area at his throat. U-Cee Intelligence was thorough.

He took his seat again, slowly.

“Tasha, I need you.” Eden’s voice had a singsong but firm quality designed to get her friend’s attention.

It did. Sass reholstered the Ryfer, glanced at her instruments, and made the necessary corrections. The Vax, she noted, was already on the move, the first squadron wheeling away from her bays. At least someone was on their side!

She felt Kel-Paten staring at her. When she turned slightly, she caught the undisguised pleading in his eyes. He could, she knew, have moved with such speed when she drew her Ryfer that he could have killed her and Eden before Serafino would even have had time to react. Or he simply could have grabbed her arm and, with just a thought, ended her life.

But he hadn’t, nor had he even tried. And that very fact—coupled with the pain she now saw on his face—made her temper her words and offer him a halfhearted apology.

“If I’m wrong about you,” she told him quietly as the shuttle jerked again in response to another incoming barrage of laser fire, “then I’m sorry. But circumstances right now are a bit strange.”

“Tasha, I’d never hurt you.” His voice rasped.

“He’s clean,” Serafino said. “I can find no trace of loyalty to the Faction.”

“Eden?” Sass looked past Kel-Paten to where her friend sat at the nav station.

Eden nodded. “I’m not sensing any duplicity.”

“But he’s also,” Serafino pointed out, bringing Sass’s laser pistol from the back of his pants and clicking off the safety, “one of Psy-Serv’s prized projects. He might’ve set this up, he might have set us all up, and not even been consciously aware of it. I can’t—there’s no time to do a deeper probe.

Have any tune-ups lately, Admiral?”

She heard Kel-Paten’s sharp, angry intake of breath at Serafino’s words.

But any comment—or threat—he might have made was lost as the shuttle jolted violently to starboard. Lights flickered. The horrifying squeal of metal straining under impact filled the cockpit. Kel-Paten reached for the instrument panel before him, tried to throw more power to the shields and at the same time locate the problem. Serafino was back at weapons, returning fire, swearing loudly.

Sass worked to coax more power out of the shuttle’s engines. Panperra Station was so close! If they could just make it to—

But they couldn’t, as two fighters peppered the portside of the shuttle with laser fire, forcing her to turn off course.

“Feeder-valve failure in the port thruster,” she told her shipmates over the wailing of the sirens.

“Working on it,” Kel-Paten said.

A quick glance confirmed he was. She hated having to double-check him. But so many things didn’t make sense. And Kel-Paten—in spite of his denial and Eden’s assurances—was the biggest unknown and most likely possibility. She shoved away her fears. “’Fino! I need some room!” The fighters forced them out into open space, away from the station.

“Can’t seem to break through their shielding,” Serafino replied, a note of frustration in his voice. Sass saw the shuttle’s lasers doing only minimal damage.

“Try a reverse phase modulation!” The shouted suggestion came from Kel-Paten.

“Bloody damn!” replied Sass as the shuttle jerked and cockpit lights dimmed again. Suddenly everything went green as the emergency-override power supply kicked on.

She did another double-check. As far as she could tell, the power failure wasn’t Kel-Paten’s doing. He was working as hard as she was to keep the ship functioning. “On backups!” Sass quickly tapped in the adjustments on her instrument panel. “Switching to manual on five. Four. Three. Two.

On manual.”

Around her, Kel-Paten, Eden, and Serafino mirrored her movements.

“Navigation online,” Eden said.

“Shields at seventy percent but dropping. We have a rupture, coolant feed section four,” Kel-Paten added.

“Weapons off-line,” Serafino said angrily.

“Shit!” Sass looked quickly from Serafino to Kel-Paten.

“Seal the cockpit and divert power to the shields,” Kel-Paten said, already making the changes.

“Rerouting life support takes five minutes. We don’t have that.” Sass turned to Serafino. “Well?”

He hesitated only a second. “Throw all power to the engines. Head for the jumpgate. The section-four thruster will blow. We’ll just have to deal with that.”

“Agreed.” Sass nodded and moved to implement his idea.

“We’re not locked on to the gate beacons,” Kel-Paten shouted. “A blind jump—”

“It’s not blind. He’s Nasyry,” Sass answered back. She unlatched her straps and reached across to tap instructions into the instrument panel.

“Go, ’Fino, go! You have the con.”

She stepped swiftly away from her seat and Serafino slid in, his hands moving rapidly over the panel. The shuttle lurched forward, pounded by laser fire.

“I’ll drop aft shields last as we cross the gate,” Serafino said.

“Then we can kiss our asses good-bye,” Sass said ominously as she grabbed the back of Kel-Paten’s chair to keep from falling over. She monitored the admiral’s movements—still not sure she trusted him—and felt more helpless than she had in years. Fighters on their tail, spitting death. No help from Panperra. The Vax unable to respond in time. Their only chance at escape didn’t guarantee survival. The ship could be torn apart by the fierce currents of a blind entry into the gate.

As if he could read her thoughts, Kel-Paten glanced over his shoulder at her, his gaze as desolate as she felt.

Then she heard Serafino chuckle. It was an odd, almost cruel sound.

“Be careful if you do.” Serafino looked at Kel-Paten. “Lady’s got a mean right hook.”

Kel-Paten took his attention from the instruments just long enough to send a look full of hatred at Serafino. “Go to hell.” Mind reading. Serafino read something in Kel-Paten’s mind and responded out loud. His answer clearly angered Kel-Paten, but what Serafino sensed, and who it involved, suddenly held little interest to Sass.

The ship burst violently through the perimeter of the jumpgate, raked by energy currents. The Galaxus shuddered wildly as Serafino and Kel-Paten fought to keep it under control.

“’Fino, grab the closest fix!” Sass shouted. They needed a secure energy trail with an active guidance beacon at both ends. Right now the data on the console showed that Serafino had managed to input only one—at Panperra, behind them. They needed that second beacon.

The Nasyry’s forehead was creased in concentration.

Kel-Paten had spiked in. “Scanning,” he said, evidently not willing to trust Serafino’s ability any more than Sass trusted his.

Between the two of them, they had to find something, anything, somewhere—

The ship dropped suddenly as if into an endless cavern, throwing Sass almost over Kel-Paten’s seat. Eden pitched sideways, her strap’s clasps springing free. Sass made a clumsy grab for her, but Eden ended up on the floor, just as an overhead nav panel exploded in a shower of sparks.

Serafino yanked off his straps and lunged for Eden, pulling her away from the falling debris. Sass saw him grasp her wrist as the ship was thrown to starboard this time, rolling up on one end as if slammed from below. Eden slid rapidly into him, and he locked his legs around hers to keep her from careening into the bottom of the weapons station.

Strong arms grabbed Sass’s waist just as the shuttle jerked again. She abruptly found herself in Kel-Paten’s lap. Her hands sought his shoulders for balance as a spray of sparks filled the air. Another panel blown. He turned quickly, shielding her. She let out an “oomph” against his chest, then she pushed. She had to get control of the shuttle, had to find a fix, had to get away from the Tin Soldier, who could yet end her life with only a thought... .

But he was pulling her back, fumbling with the chair’s safety straps, trying to wrap them around her.

Then something yanked her and the admiral out of the chair. Sass swore as they slammed against the wall.

Or the floor.

Or the ceiling. She couldn’t tell.

The emergency lights failed. The cockpit plunged into darkness.

The last thing Sass saw from over Kel-Paten’s shoulder was the green glow from the instrument panels winking out... .

Serafino unlocked his legs just long enough to pull Eden beneath him, his hands securely on her shoulders, his mouth hard against hers.

We’re not going to make it. I’m sorry... regret, frustration, and passion all washed over her.

Eden kissed him back fiercely, letting her mind flow into his, no longer caring about protocol or patients. She felt his desire, physically and telepathically, felt the tension and the tenderness, felt him fill her mind with his fervor as he wanted to fill her body with his physical being. The latter would never happen, but the first granted her a few moments of something so pleasurable that she gasped out loud. She arched against him in an eternal, primal response, her hands threading tightly through his long, dark hair.

He whispered her name in her mind just as the shuttle rolled over one last time. He was torn away from her and thrown against the weapons-station wall. It responded by buckling, the stack of power units jarred loose from their couplings and raining onto his body like large metal boulders.

“Jace!” Eden screamed, reaching for him. Another wave of energy whipped the ship around. Her head connected with the metal cylinder under the pilot’s chair. Pain crested just as Eden heard the sound of bodies thudding against the forward viewport, accompanied by Tasha’s very familiar “Bloody damn!”

Then her world went black.

So she didn’t see the other bodies that tumbled just as the Galaxus began a violent ass-over-teakettle spin.

Friend!

Friend!

19

It was a familiar dream and one that always left him with an empty ache upon awakening. He fought the rise in consciousness and held more tightly on to his fantasy, taking in the sandalwood scent of her hair, so soft against his face. And the warmth of her body, so neatly fitted against his.

In his dream she sighed, arching her back, and her round bottom pressing against him caused an immediate reaction of heat and hardness. He groaned her name, drawing her closer, his hand finding the swell of her breasts as he did so. His thumb found a gap in the fabric of her uniform and his fingers slipped inside... .

She stirred, let out a ragged breath as one finger traced that taut peak, and he didn’t know if it was the sound of her pleasure or the ever-present yellow data readout across his mind that alerted him to the chance that this might not be a dream:

Tactile Data Input—Subject female humanoid—approximate age: mid 30s—body. temperature 98.6—respiration fast—metabolic rate normal—

Sweet holy gods. Kel-Paten’s eyes flew open. In his field of vision was a tangle of short, pale hair and an immense black starfield. And not another ship in sight. Their mysterious attackers hadn’t followed them through the gate, though he’d double-check that once he got ship’s systems back online.

“Tasha.” He said her name softly, remembering the bastard pirate’s comment about Tasha’s “mean right hook.” A telepath. A Nasyry telepath—something that should have been in Serafino’s file and wasn’t, he realized with a start. An error or a deliberate omission? He’d ponder that later. Right now he was more bothered by the fact that Serafino had easily pulled the fantasy of making love to Tasha from his mind, along with his fear that—with death imminent—he’d never get the chance.

Yet he didn’t feel dead. But he knew if Tasha woke up now and found his hands placed where they were, there’d definitely be that mean right hook to worry about. Still, the intimacy of their position was an opportunity to assure himself of her well-being—since he doubted any of the med-panels functioned right now. He opened his hand slowly, let it rest against her chest, and dropped quickly into full ’cybe function, running a cursory med-diagnostic on her with the sensors linked through his gloves. No internal injuries and only a slight bruising on her shoulders and back, probably from impacting the viewport. She’d be sore for a while, but nothing more.

He simultaneously ran his own diagnostics, expecting no damage and finding none. His brief lapse into unconsciousness, and hers, was due no doubt to a sudden drop in air pressure as life support shut off and recycled back on.

He withdrew his hand, letting it come lightly to rest on her hip as she let out a small, “Oh!” and rolled over to face him.

Her eyes fluttered opened. Her face wore a slightly lost expression.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

She seemed to study him. “Yeah. Must have been a helluva bar fight.

Who won?”

“I think we did.” He had the distinct feeling she had no idea who “we” were.

“Hmpf!” She gave a short, low laugh. “Then the other guys must feel like shit.” She sighed, snuggling against his chest.

She definitely had no idea who he was.

The feel of her pressing so intimately against him destroyed what little restraint he had left. He clasped her to him and was drawing her face up to meet his own when he felt her tensing, her arms stiffening. He knew that she’d just realized who—and what—he was.

“Bloody damn!” she said.

“Are you all right?” He tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible, hiding the hard edge of passion in it much better than he was able to hide the hard physical response of his body to hers. He shifted position away from her, let his hand fall from her face to the slick surface of the viewport on which they lay.

She followed the movement. It looked as if they were lying suspended in deep space.

“Gods!” Tasha sat up abruptly.

He pushed himself up, reaching for her as she wavered slightly.

“Those ships—”

“I think we lost them. But I won’t know more until I get things working.” He motioned to the darkened console. The cockpit was bathed in a green glow, casting eerie shadows on the total disarray of cables and floor tiles—floor tiles?—and seat cushions and panel covers and Doctor Fynn’s boots—

“Eden!” Tasha clambered around him onto the instrument panel before sliding to the floor. The CMO was curled peacefully around the base of the pilot’s chair.

Kel-Paten pushed himself off the viewport and saw a suspiciously damp section of Fynn’s shoulder-length hair. He grabbed a med-kit from a nearby panel.

“Let me take a look,” he told Tasha as she searched for the medicorder.

He laid his hand flat against Fynn’s face and chest, then relayed to Tasha what his diagnostics found.

“Concussion. No major internal injuries. No broken bones.” Tasha flicked the scanner on, confirming his words with the unit’s data.

“We briefly lost life support,” he told her, seeing the worry and concern on her face even in the dim lighting. “She’ll come to shortly.” Tasha’s eyes were a little wild. “Okay.” She drew a deep breath and nodded in what he understood were her thanks. “Let’s get this ship stabilized, make sure we’re not in danger. I’ll secure her.” The Galaxus was only slightly skewed. A minor adjustment to her internal gravs—thank the gods that still worked!—fixed the problem, though there were a few strange clanks and thuds.

Together they moved Fynn from under the chair and arranged the loose chair cushions around her. She stirred slightly. Kel-Paten left her in Sass’s care and checked the pilot’s console, still worried about their unknown attackers. But scanners were off-line. And the viewport showed no other approaching ships.

“Serafino? Where’s—oh, shit!” Tasha grabbed Kel-Paten’s arm and dragged him to the back of the cockpit, where Serafino lay under a pile of rubble. “Wait ’til I scan before you move anything.” He crouched next to her, glanced at the data on the medicorder and then back at the man called Jace Serafino. A Nasyry telepath. A mindsucker with who-knew-what capabilities. He would like to believe Serafino was dead, but his brief glance at the scanner plus his years in combat told him he wasn’t going to be that lucky. Serafino was alive.

Injured but alive. The man had the proverbial furzel thirteen lives.

“Only a broken arm, so I think we can move this stuff,” Tasha was telling him. She turned unexpectedly, caught the expression on his face before he could mask it.

“Don’t look so damned disappointed that he’s alive, Kel-Paten. He just saved your unworthy ass back there.”

She was defending Serafino—not only defending him, he thought as he carefully moved the debris, but she’d obviously been on Serafino’s side even before they boarded the Galaxus. The laser pistol Serafino had pulled was Alliance command issue, and Kel-Paten doubted the doctor owned such a weapon. Tasha had ordered Serafino to telepathically scan him, and he had, without hesitation. Tasha knew Serafino was Nasyry.

He had a thousand questions, including whether Tasha and the U-Cees had known what Serafino was before the mission. But he was equally if not more concerned that Serafino or Fynn had told Tasha about his feelings for her.

He couldn’t forget her comment about selling him as scrap. That, in many ways, told him what he really wanted to know.

They supported Serafino’s body in much the same way they’d secured Eden’s. Tasha collapsed awkwardly into the pilot’s chair. It squeaked in complaint. She looked up at him, pain and weariness evident on her face.

Even though he doubted she believed him, even though he knew she trusted Serafino more than she trusted him, he had to try. “I had nothing to do with those fighters.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Any idea of their origin?”

“If our databanks are intact, I’ll replay all images we have of them. But right now, no.”

“Were they after us or Serafino?”

“I don’t know.” He saw skepticism in the slight narrowing of her eyes.

“I’m not lying, Tasha.”

“We need to have a serious, honest talk, Kel-Paten,” she said after a moment’s silence—during which, try as he might, he could read neither her face nor her eyes. “But we have more-pressing issues, starting with ship’s status.” She ran one hand through her hair, then turned to the damaged instrument panel at her station.

She was right, they did. He leaned against the back of her chair, studied the data as she did. It told him virtually nothing that he couldn’t discern with his own eyes. They were alive and in deep space. Somewhere. Life support functioned but minimally so, and only in the cockpit. The ship’s structural damage was unknown, as was fuel reserve, engine status, their supplies.

The only good news, as one scanner suddenly flickered to life, was that the mysterious attack squadron had disappeared.

Tasha turned her face toward him. “Can you spike in, or are the systems too far gone for that?”

He eased himself down in the copilot’s chair, faced her, and rested his elbows on his knees. “I can try. No promises.”

“Could it damage your systems?”

“No.” He turned abruptly away. Not could it damage you. Your systems. He heard the words and hated them. “There are safeguards. But I need to sit there,” he added, nodding to the pilot’s chair she occupied.

She changed seats with him. He tried to forget that she watched as he tugged down his right glove, sliding the small plasteel flap that covered his dataports to one side of his wrist. The arm of the pilot’s chair housed an extendable pronged input that fit neatly into his wrist, and he pushed it in place with his thumb, his eyes momentarily closed as he put his ’cybe functions fully online.

When he opened them again, he was in the pilot’s chair, but he was also in the ship—in the cabin, the engine compartment, the small storage bays.

And outside where the vidmonitors that still worked continuously scanned the ship’s exterior. He let the data flow into him, scanning and sorting as need be and, at the same time, watching Tasha from all different angles, imprinting her into his cyber memory, into subdirectories of subdirectories he created that no one—not even Psy-Serv—could find and erase.

The image this time was a Tasha he’d never seen before. Disheveled, tired, and in pain. Worried. About Fynn, he surmised, as she kept glancing toward her friend on the floor. Once or twice she looked at him, but he was in profile to her, seeing her not through his physical eyes but through the various monitor lenses in the cockpit.

Finally she unfolded herself from the chair and sat on the floor next to Eden, taking her friend’s hand in her own and patting it absently.

He went back to work, very aware that the damaged, malfunctioning shuttlecraft he was linked to was the only thing keeping them all alive.

NOVALIS

The gray mists seemed thicker this time. Eden telepathically felt him before she saw him. And when she did, her relief was so great that she ran across the short expanse and threw herself into his arms.

Jace! What’s happened?

He held her tightly. We got through, though I’ll be damned if I know how.

Eden looked up at him, brushed a stray tear from her cheek. Are you okay?

Broken arm, that’s all.

She stepped back. You look fine... She touched both his arms and he laughed.

This isn’t my physical self, sweetling, though we can still have fun.

She blushed. Of course. She still had a difficult time adjusting to two worlds. And two existences. Can I start the healing process from here?

She laid one hand on his chest. Which arm?

He held his left arm out to her. We can join our energies in a healing.

She ran her hand up his arm, wincing when she sensed the location of the break. I can feel the break. How odd. Then she closed her eyes and sent healing energy to that area.

Jace lay his hand over hers, adding his energy to her own. A warmth flooded her. She’d never shared a healing before.

Then his hand traveled up to the back of her neck. You have a bit of a lump there. He applied a light pressure. She was aware of the pain and then not. It was as if he drew it out of her.

The Tin Soldier’s working on the ship, he continued. He’s spiked in, making himself useful, though he’s most uncomfortable doing it around her.

Around Tasha? Eden questioned. I’ve noticed that too.

Jace drew Eden back against him, lightly kissing the top of her head.

I thought I’d lost you, he said suddenly, his voice rough. She felt an ache in him, a frisson of fear, an anger at being caught so helpless.

She held him tightly, then sighed as his mouth left a hot, wet trail down her neck. He was breathing heavily—odd how even an incorporeal body could exhibit those sensations!

He pulled her against him with such force that she let out a small, startled cry. He held her that way for a long time, his face in her hair, and it was only when she finally began to pull away that she realized he, too, was trembling.

Jace—she started, but he hushed her and kissed her fully, in control again, the pressure of his mouth on hers insistent, demanding.

She nibbled on his lower lip and he groaned. Oh, Eden. There’s work to be done, and all I want to do is play with you. He looked in the distance again. Your friend’s worried. The Tin Soldier... well, he’s wished me dead a hundred times already. But Sass is upset. So go wake up and tell her we’ll make it. He touched her face three times, temple, cheek, and chin.

And ended by brushing his mouth lightly across hers.

It was getting to be a rather nice ritual.

GALAXUS COCKPIT

Sass saw Eden’s eyes flutter open.

“Hey,” Eden said weakly.

“Hey, yourself, Doc.” Sass grinned, trying to hide her relief. Eden was a Healer. Sass shouldn’t have been overly worried about her, but she was.

“How’s the head? You had some tomato juice leaking out there.”

“Throbbing, but it’s getting better. I... we worked on that.” Sass glanced back at Serafino’s quiet form. The Nasyry had healing powers too. “Wondered what took you so long. He has—”

“A broken left arm.” Eden struggled to sit up. “We’re working on that too. And you?” She accepted Sass’s hand in assistance. Sass knew it was for more than just support. Her CMO often did quick med-scans with a touch. Her next words confirmed that was part of her reason. “Last time you felt like that was in that bar fight in Port Braddock. The one where the Cryloc hit you with the bar stool.”

“While my back was to him, the coward!” Sass said, and then sighed.

“Wondered why this felt so familiar. Odd how the mile markers in my life are a collection of bar fights.”

She pulled Eden up with her. “He’s checking on the damage,” she said with a nod to where Kel-Paten sat behind them. “Should we wake up Serafino? Maybe he can give us a hand, even if he only has one usable one.”

Eden accepted the med-kit from Sass and turned her attention to Serafino. Sass returned to the copilot’s chair and sat, her legs crossed underneath her. Kel-Paten watched her, his eyes luminous.

“Doctor Fynn is fine.” His voice when he was spiked in was always a bit softer than normal and oddly monotone. And he was more prone to make statements than questions, even when those statements were questions.

Sass nodded. “Bit of a headache from the concussion, but she can deal with that, as well as with Serafino’s arm.” She ran her hand over the lifeless instrument panel. “What’s the situation? Do we need to send out a distress signal?”

It took a moment before he answered. “We’ve sustained major damage to engine section four. I’d estimate at least four to six hours to repair it.

Life support is functional, the main power grid is stabilized, and the scanner array is functioning at seventy-eight percent capacity. In essence, we have enough food, water, and power to last us approximately two weeks, should we require it.

“That’s the good news,” he added.

She turned back to him. She didn’t like the way he said that last sentence at all.

“The good news? Meaning?”

“Meaning there is bad news, Sebastian.”

“Which is?”

“I have no idea of where we are or how to get back to Triad space. Or even U-Cee space, for that matter. Nothing in our nav files matches what I find out there.” He thrust his chin toward the viewport.

Sass leaned back in the chair and regarded him in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

“I do not kid.”

No shit, she thought. “There’s nothing familiar out there?” She pointed to the starfield. “Not a star? Not a constellation? No guidance beacon to get a fix on?”

He was kidding. He had to be kidding. But the finality in his voice when he answered made her stomach clench.

“Nothing.”

Lubashit on a lemon. They were lost.

20

GALAXUS

Lost. In a damaged shuttle.

Not a sturdy, functional Raider-class transport but a bloody, godsdamned luxury command shuttle! If it wasn’t such a frightening realization, Sass would’ve laughed.

“That can’t be!”

“Why not?” Kel-Paten’s demeanor was annoyingly calm. “We’ve not charted our entire galaxy.”

“Yeah, but, we’ve charted—and by ‘we’ I mean, you, me, the Irks, the Rebashee, the Tsarii, and a handful of others,” she ticked off the names on her fingers as she spoke. “We’ve charted a really big chunk of it. You’d have to go damned far to get to a point where nothing correlated with even the edge of one of the charts.”

“I believe we have.”

“You believe?” she repeated, her voice rising.

“Sebastian... ”

“Don’t ‘Sebastian’ me, Kel-Paten. You could be wrong.”

“I could. But the Galaxus’s nav comps are intact. And correct.”

“That’s impossible.” She glanced to the back of the cockpit. “Maybe Serafino can help. The Nasyry have been around a lot longer, and a lot farther, than any of us.”

The bright glow in his eyes flared briefly. “How long have you known he’s Nasyry?”

“Two, three days,” she replied after a moment, knowing he wouldn’t be satisfied with that answer and knowing they were opening a can of frinkas here. But if they were going to find a way to get home, maybe it was time that particular can was opened. “Eden told me.”

“Dr. Fynn—”

“Is a telepath too. Yes.” Might as well cut to the chase.

“Her personnel records—”

“She didn’t know. Working with Serafino uncovered it. She confirmed he’s Nasyry, or half Nasyry. And if Eden says so, then it’s so.” She tried to look sternly at him but failed. She was too damned tired.

Evidently so was he. With something that was a cross between a sigh and a groan, he slid his wrist from the contact cradle embedded into the arm of his chair. Then he closed his eyes briefly, letting his head rest against the high back of the seat.

“You okay?” she asked softly after a few minutes.

He turned his head toward her, his eyes once again their familiar pale hue. “It’s something I’ve gotten used to.”

She ran her hands over her face, his soft, apologetic tone tugging at her.

That, and the realization that he more than likely wasn’t behind the attack by the mysterious fighters. Kel-Paten was a perfectionist. Had Kel-Paten orchestrated the attack, they would have succeeded. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just doing what you have to do.” She hesitated. “Are we really lost?”

“Technically, no. I know exactly where we are. It just doesn’t relate to anything in our nav comps.”

“Let’s look on the bright side, then. That means there’s a whole galaxy of pubs out there that haven’t banned me. Yet.”

“If Serafino can’t help us, finding those pubs may become your full-time job,” he said. “We’re going to need supplies, eventually.” True. “Did your scans pick up any habitable worlds?” It would be nice to know there were a few places they could bunk in with breathable air and potable water. “Or how about a station, a miners’ raft?”

“No rafts or stations yet, but I’ve only scanned based on our known frequencies. I’ll recode a second scan shortly. But as for habitable worlds, a few possibilities. I’ll know more once we get the engines back online and full power restored.”

Sass looked out at the silvery points dotting the blackness, hoping that a planet would suddenly send up some sort of welcome flag, something like Beer Here! One-Credit Shots 1900 Hours to Closing!

Kel-Paten’s voice cut into her wishful thinking. “Go check on Serafino.

Sounds like he’s functional now. I won’t be able to make the proper appreciative noises at his survival.”

“Aye, sir. By your command.” She gave him a wry smile and vacated her seat, surprised at his candor. Evidently there were times he could act almost a little bit human.

Friend? Sleep. Sleep. Tank hurt.

Friend. No sleep. Sleep bad. Alert! Alert! Help Friend. Help Sass. Help Mommy.

Friend... hurt...

Reilly hurt too. Friend. Alert! Help. Soon food. Soon.

Food?

Food. Soon.

Sass sat cross-legged on the floor next to Jace while Eden activated the small bone-regeneration device on his left arm. In six to eight hours he’d have little more than some tenderness at the area of the break. “Though the admiral may never tell you so, we’re both appreciative of what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done,” Jace said, from his position propped against the bulkhead wall, “is get us into a blind jump. I already explained to Eden that I did not get us out. I thought,” he continued, with a nod to Kel-Paten in the pilot’s seat, “he might have spiked in and taken control. But evidently not, from what you tell me.”

“Then who pulled us out? Someone had to initiate the deceleration sequence. The computers were off-line; we were on manual,” Sass said, remembering their wild ride.

“Could you or the admiral have done that by mistake?” Eden briefly glanced up from the medicorder. “Hit something when the ship inverted and you ended up on the viewport?”

“Unlikely,” Sass replied. “The only other possibility is the emergency shutoff, and that’s not even up front. It’s back... ” and she turned toward the rear of the cockpit, toward a long access panel whose door was skewed on its hinges. There was a broken air vent directly above it. And a yellow furzel collar torn in half, snagged on a jagged edge of the vent.

Sass’s stomach clenched and her heart stopped at the same time.

She sprang to her feet. “Kel-Paten!” She didn’t know quite why she called for him. Except she was afraid that if she found what her sinking heart told her she was going to find, she was going to need something large and immovable to pound on in her grief. He was the largest and most immovable thing she knew.

She yanked on the access-panel door as he strode up beside her.

“The door’s stuck!” she cried. “I need in there. Now!” Deities be praised, he didn’t question but tore the panel off its hinges.

And there, balancing on the metal emergency shutdown bar, were two furzels—one rather large black one with a white tuxedo blaze, and a smaller, more furry black and white one. A fidget, really, with his collar tangled in the equipment.

“How in hell—?” Kel-Paten’s question ended abruptly as he was roughly shoved aside by two laughing and crying women.

“Tank!”

“Reilly!”

Kel-Paten watched from the pilot’s seat as Tasha, her face still damp from tears, gently rubbed the shoulders of the pudgy creature that fit nicely in her lap as she sat cross-legged on the floor. He had never heard of furzel massage. But that evidently was what was being performed at Fynn’s medical direction.

The larger furzel in Fynn’s lap didn’t fit as well but received the same loving attention.

When I die, Kel-Paten considered thoughtfully, noting the adoring look Tasha bestowed on the small furzel as she and Fynn discussed what had happened, I think I know exactly what I want to be reincarnated as.

Serafino, in the copilot’s seat, leaned toward him, his voice low. “They’re traditionally neutered at six months. You might not find that as rewarding. Or maybe you might not even notice.” Kel-Paten started slightly, the comment making no sense. Then he realized what had happened. Serafino had picked a thought out of his mind—again. Biting back a response, he automatically activated an additional set of mind filters. He shot Serafino a look of pure venom.

Serafino shrugged, unconcerned.

But no rejoinder. Good.

Then he caught the narrowing of Fynn’s eyes. She’d evidently heard Serafino. Had she been reading his thoughts all along as well? He should never have dropped his mental filters. But they were confining, like wearing three overcoats, and he knew they made him act stiffly around Tasha. So he made a habit of disabling them when she was around.

Unfortunately, most times when she was around, so was Eden Fynn. And now Serafino. Empaths. Telepaths.

He’d have to be on his guard and try, somehow, to circumvent the programming when he dealt privately with Tasha.

He glanced over as Serafino, with a wince of pain, adjusted his position.

Kel-Paten would have gladly added to that, but the show—and that’s what he felt Serafino’s actions were—wasn’t for his benefit but for the doctor’s and Tasha’s.

“Domesticated furzels form a bond with their human counterparts,” Serafino said. Kel-Paten only half-listened to the words, the furzels were of slight concern to him. He was more interested in studying the mercenary, now that the man was revealed to be Nasyry. He was, he realized grimly, stuck with the bastard until the shuttle was fixed and they could return to Triad space.

“Telepathic furzels—they’re fairly rare, you know—can also form a psychic bond.” Serafino smiled at Fynn, and Kel-Paten didn’t miss the slight pink tinge on the CMO’s cheeks. Sad. He respected the woman, thought she was smarter than to succumb to the bastard pirate’s oily charms.

“You can scan Reilly and know for yourself,” Serafino said to Fynn. “But since Tasha and the Tin—Kel-Paten can’t, I’ll explain.” Tin Soldier. Kel-Paten didn’t miss the way Serafino constantly slipped it in and then corrected himself. Another bit of playacting.

Now, Tasha... Kel-Paten had no delusions about his ability to second-guess her, but he did believe she had no idea Serafino was Nasyry until Fynn told her. She also didn’t appear totally comfortable with that fact. Neither was he—or with the fact that Serafino’s heritage was not part of the data either the Triad or the U-Cees had on him. He hadn’t known.

Tasha hadn’t known. He was sure that rankled her as much as it did him.

Perhaps that would be one more thing he could use to keep her allied with him.

He was having a hard time forgetting her remark to sell him as scrap.

Or that she’d armed Serafino. But when she needed someone to rescue her beloved fidget, she called for him, not Serafino. Did that mean something?

He hoped so. They did need to have that talk—but not with either Serafino or Fynn around. How he was going to manage that in a small shuttle... He turned his attention back to Serafino.

Serafino nodded to the large black furzel now purring loudly in Fynn’s lap. “Reilly came to me when I was in sick bay with a warning. With all else that was going on, I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. I accept blame there.”

“A warning?” Tasha asked before Kel-Paten could voice the same question. “They knew those ships were going to attack us at Panperra?”

“It’s more like something felt very wrong. Because of their bond to Eden and you, they decided to take things into their own hands. Uh, paws.” Serafino grinned.

Kel-Paten almost put a stop to the ridiculous conversation then and there but decided it was better to let Serafino make a total fool of himself.

He leaned back, resting his fist against his mouth.

“Because they’d accompanied Captain Sebastian and Doc Eden on emergency drills before, Tank and Reilly knew that they’d have to shut down the engine to drop us out of the jump,” Serafino continued. “They don’t have the knowledge to initiate a shutdown via the command panel.

But Reilly remembered seeing the emergency shut off. And, of course, it’s labeled.”

“You want us to believe they can read?” Kel-Paten had had enough. It was time someone injected some rationality into this insane recounting.

“Of course not.” Serafino looked pleased that his comment had finally elicited a response from Kel-Paten. “But it’s documented that furzels can recognize symbols or patterns. They don’t actually understand the word fish, but when they see those shapes on a can of furzel food, they know it’s something they like.”

Reilly’s head shot up and Tank wriggled in Tasha’s lap.

“I believe our stowaways are hungry,” Serafino said.

Fynn stood and handed Reilly to Serafino. “I’ll check the galley.”

“Until Captain Sebastian and I can complete our assessment and repairs,” Kel-Paten said as Fynn turned away, “we need to keep tight control on all supplies.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“And we need,” Kel-Paten continued, focusing back on Serafino, “to keep our discussions to useful, factual topics. Not flights of fancy.” A slow smile crossed Serafino’s lips. “Guess there’s no room in your narrow-minded programming for—ow!” And he stopped mid-sentence as the tip of Fynn’s boot caught him in the ankle. The smile was replaced by a sheepish look on his face and a stern one on the CMO’s. They were conversing telepathically; Kel-Paten had no doubt now as he watched Fynn lower a bowl of what looked—and smelled—like a meat stew onto the floor. Reilly squirmed in Serafino’s lap.

“You might want to release him,” Fynn said to Serafino, “before he breaks your other arm.”

Kel-Paten heard the warning tone in her voice and felt it had little to do with the hungry beasts and more to do with Serafino’s being back in the insult business. He wanted to tell her not to worry on his account, but Tasha’s soft chuckle drew his attention. Whether she was laughing at the furzels, now head to head in the bowl and slurping loudly, or at the interaction between Fynn and Serafino, he couldn’t tell.

“Time to get to work,” she said, pulling herself off the floor. “Out of my chair, ’Fino.”

“Where do you want us to start?” Fynn put in.

“Captain Sebastian and I have to get the engines, life support, and computers back to optimum—or as close to optimum as we can manage,” Kel-Paten told her. “We can’t stay in this ship much past two weeks. I’m running searches now for stations or rafts. But our chances might be greater for finding a habitable planet.”

Fynn was frowning. “Can’t we just return to Panperra?”

“Not easily.” Tasha sighed as she sat in the copilot’s chair. “Nothing out there,” she said with a flick of her hand toward the main viewport, “tells us how far away we are.”

Fynn shot a look at Serafino. Again, Kel-Paten was sure something passed between them. The man sighed loudly as he plopped down at the nav station. “Let me take a look at the nav data.”

“If you can find something the admiral and I couldn’t, I’d love to hear it,” Tasha said.

As much as Kel-Paten was loath to cast Serafino in the role of savior, he grudgingly hoped Serafino could provide them with some kind of fix. He was, after all, the one who’d brought them here—albeit accidentally.

Or perhaps not so accidentally? No, if Serafino had planned a double-cross, there’d already be at least a pair of Strafers, bristling with weaponry, on the Galaxus’s screens. Still, it was something he wasn’t ready to completely discount. And it was one more thing he wanted to discuss with Tasha.

When— if—he ever got her alone.

“If you could make the main cabin one of your first priorities,” Fynn said to Kel-Paten, “I think we all might benefit from a little more room.

None of us—and that includes you, Admiral—is in perfect condition after what we’ve just been through.”

“Understood, Doctor,” Kel-Paten said. “We should have life support back in the cabin within three hours.”

He glanced at Tasha. She was working data on the copilot’s screens, and when she glanced up at him, there were shadows under her eyes. Fynn was accurate in her assessment that they all needed some downtime.

He shoved his wrist against the chair’s contact cradle, spiked in, and briefly wondered if he’d ever stop feeling uncomfortable doing so in front of Tasha.

No, probably not.

Life support’s base programs cascaded in front of him. He saw the truncated code lines, damaged when the system had overloaded.

“I’ll handle those,” he told Tasha without looking at her. “You check for transfer-point integrity.”

“On it,” she said, and for the next ten minutes they worked in compatible, if tired, silence. Fynn moved from peering over Serafino’s shoulders to tending to the furzels, her footsteps soft. Then a rough grunt broke the silence.

Kel-Paten looked toward the nav station just as Tasha did.

“Damn.” Serafino swiveled around. “Sorry,” he said. “Nothing in my memory, collective or otherwise, ties in to what I see here.” Fynn’s shoulders sagged. “So we could be two quadrants or an entire galaxy away from Alliance space and we wouldn’t know.”

“Not two quadrants.” Serafino turned his chair toward Fynn. “There’d still be something recognizable. A distant star cluster we could hone in on.

That’s not the case.”

Wide-eyed, Fynn switched a look from Serafino to Tasha. “How do we get home? To the Vaxxar or even the Regalia?”

“First, we get this shuttle operative so that we can find supplies and fuel,” Tasha said gently to her friend. “Then we can concentrate on getting back.” She paused. “We’ve been in tighter spots than this, Eden.”

“Yes. That’s true.” Fynn knotted her fingers together, then, with a loud sigh, released them. “Well.” She looked around the cockpit. “Well,” she said again, more firmly this time.

“I’ve picked up three possible worlds in stable habitable zones of F- to K-class stars,” Kel-Paten said. The doctor was uncharacteristically rattled.

She needed something to occupy her mind. And he could use her medical opinion on planetary habitability determination. “I need you to review the data, Doctor, and give us biocompatibilities or hazards. Use the nav station.”

“Here, sweetling.” Serafino rose and made a sweeping gesture with his right hand.

Kel-Paten caught Tasha’s bemused shake of her head out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled the pilot’s chair to face the console. Tasha mirrored his movement and looked questioningly at him.

“Let’s finish getting life support back on in the cabin and maintenance deck. I’m almost done with the preliminaries.” He transferred to her comp screen the data he’d worked on while spiked in, then leaned on the arm of her chair, about to close the distance between them in order to bring her attention to the results of a diagnostic scan, when a small, furry body thrust itself under his arm.

Tank positioned himself on the edge of Tasha’s chair and looked up at Kel-Paten with a noticeably determined and possessive expression.

Tasha wrapped one arm around the fidget and snuggled him closer against her. “Does it bother you he’s here?”

“No,” he lied. He angled back toward his console and tried to concentrate on the problems at hand. They were lost in a malfunctioning shuttle, out of range of help from any sort of civilization as they knew it.

That should be the problem he needed to address. Not that he was on that same shuttle with a woman who’d never see him as anything other than a

’cybe and two telepaths who knew exactly how he, and that woman, felt.

Even her damned fidget wouldn’t let him get close.

All he’d need to find out now was that there was something wrong with the shuttle’s engines. Then Fynn wouldn’t need to file a Section 46 on him.

He’d do it himself.

21

“Jace... ” Eden said his name softly, but not without an underlying tone of warning.

It wasn’t that she was angry, though the gods knew she would be if it were anyone other than Jace Serafino whose fingers now oh-so-innocently traced a trail along the side of her breast, sending small shivers of excitement—and distraction—up her spine.

“Jace!” She said his name a bit more emphatically this time. Maybe she should be angry with him. They’d been attacked, they were lost, and even though life support was now back on and functioning, they could well die in this damned shuttle. But those were also the very reasons—coupled with the fact that she’d never experienced another telepath before—that Eden couldn’t muster her anger. She wasn’t ready to die, but if she had to, she very sincerely wanted to do so with a smile on her face.

With a snort of self-awareness, she realized she likened the mercenary captain to a condemned man’s sumptuous last meal.

She turned her face away from the scanner and tried to look at him. But his chin rested on her shoulder—which was how his arm had snaked around her waist and, eventually, his fingers had explored upward. All she could see in this almost nose-to-nose position was an out-of-focus Serafino. But even in such a position she could see he was smiling his usual devilish smile.

“Hmm?” he questioned.

“You’re distracting me.” Even a last meal had a proper time and place.

“Mmm.” This time the deep voice dropped an octave to respond in a low growl.

“How am I supposed to analyze a habitable world with—oh!” Eden gave a little ticklish squirm. “You’re making this... difficult.”

“The Tin Soldier’s not here.”

After spending almost three hours working on life support, Kel-Paten and Sass had headed belowdecks to the shuttle’s engine compartment.

Their return, Eden knew, would be preceded first by a series of loud noises as that hatchway groaned back into place and then by the sound of their footsteps through the main cabin.

“You’re incorrigible,” Eden told him.

“I’ve never denied it.” He suddenly swiveled her chair around and dragged her to her feet, his mouth on hers, demanding yet at the same time teasing.

“You get,” he told her when they both gasped for air, “too serious, sweetling. Yes, we have to find someplace to put this bucket down to finish repairs. But there’s something else,” he said, as she moved her arms up to encircle his neck. “You’re worrying, and I know why you’re worrying.” His voice became softer now, his smile more faint. “I’ve been apart from people I love too. For a long time now. It doesn’t help keeping that worry in the front of your mind all the time.”

She leaned against his chest, grateful for his warmth and his words.

She was worrying. About her cousins back on Glitterkiln, who were unwavering in their support of her when her ex-husband had decided he wanted a “wife with a smaller dress size.” About Cal, back on the Vax, who never voiced the prejudice some did about working with an empath. And about others on the Regalia, who were almost like family. They would believe she was dead, and their useless grief pained her.

“How do you deal with it?” she asked quietly into the soft fabric of his shirt.

“One minute, one day at a time.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve been doing better since I met you. I don’t feel as lost anymore.” She looked up into deep blue eyes. She understood the feeling. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “No, I—” The back of the shuttle resounded with a thunk and a clank. “The troops return,” he announced, and let her regain her seat.

There was a smudge of something grayish on Tasha’s right cheek. She looked distinctly annoyed as she stepped into the cockpit and took her seat in the pilot’s chair. Kel-Paten followed moments later, looking equally rumpled and annoyed.

Eden looked from the admiral to Tasha. “Bad news?” Bad news, Jace confirmed to her telepathically, but she didn’t know whose mind he’d plucked that information from.

Tasha wiped her sleeve over her face, smearing the gray streak. “We’ve got a break in the main fuel line.”

“Okay, not good news,” Eden said, tamping down her initial alarm. “But workable, if... ”

But it was more than a line break. It was a major line break, Kel-Paten explained, which had resulted in a contamination of the fuel supply. Their estimate of being able to survive in the shuttle for two to three weeks was now drastically shortened. They had maybe three to four days before the Galaxus would cease being a shuttle and become a coffin.

“How much usable fuel do we have left?” Eden asked.

“About thirty hours.” Kel-Paten’s voice showed no emotion, but Eden sensed Tasha’s frustration loud and clear.

The admiral’s words chilled her. She swallowed hard before giving her own report.

“I’ve reviewed the habitability factors of the three worlds you indicated.

HV-Two appears to be the best choice, as it has a large landmass inside its temperate zone, good biodiversity, and orbits an F-Nine star. HV-Three also orbits an F-class star and has good biodiversity, but it has a smaller temperate zone that’s adversely affected by the planet’s axial tilt. Either world meets all parameters for supporting human life. However,” and Eden sucked in a deep breath, “the closer of the two is more than four days from our present location. At top speed. Which we don’t have. So with thirty hours of fuel, the only world in range is HV-One.” She caught a slight knitting of Kel-Paten’s brows. Clearly, HV-1 wasn’t his favorite either. “Its biggest positive is that, like HV-Two, it has a large landmass inside its temperate zone. Plus it orbits a G-class star. But it’s on the outer edge of that star’s habitable zone and has a slower rotation rate, which would leave us with very uncomfortable temperatures during its long nighttime. I’m also picking up some compounds that don’t make sense in relation to planetary density.” Kel-Paten was nodding, and she guessed his analysis was the same. Guessed because any of her empathic probings in the past few hours seemed to be meeting a mental brick wall, ever since Jace had—quite wrongly, in her opinion—intruded on the admiral’s thoughts.

“But that could be due,” she continued, “not only to our relative distance but whatever damage our sensors took coming out of the jump.

I’m running tests on that.” Tests that Jace’s teasing had interrupted.

Tasha leaned over and lifted the chubby fidget into her lap. “HV-One it is, then. Tell us about our new home.”

Eden brought the data up on her screen, simultaneously transferring it to the other workstations. HV-1—“Haven-1” as she nicknamed it—had three significant landmasses: one large one in a decent temperate zone and two smaller ones that were polar and less habitable. She ran through the other pertinent data: water regions, mountain regions, the small desert area in the southermost tip. And two moons orbiting the planet, which contributed to frequent coastal flooding.

“Life forms?” Tasha asked.

“Unknown at this point, Captain. We’re too far for the damaged sensors to provide that data. In another twelve hours, I should have more information. I’m not, however,” Eden continued, “picking up any evidence of technology.”

Eden felt Jace’s concentration shift. She could feel him reaching out across the blackness of space. Yet she couldn’t see what he saw. He’d temporarily shut her out, putting all his energies into finding out what he could about Haven-1, picking up on the life threads that all physical things emitted, sensing its oceans, its mountains, its small and hot desert region.

And... something else.

But they were too far for Jace to be able to define exactly what that something else was.

Jace pulled back, gave his head a light shake, much as Tasha had minutes earlier.

What is it? Eden asked.

Not sure. It might be just a gravitational flux. Those moons.

Show me.

Difficult to do that right now, he said gently through the curtain that had tumbled down between them. Gauzy, opalescent, but a curtain all the same.

Why not? Is it the implant?