Chapter Eleven

I sat hunched over in the command chair, elbows on my knees, my chin resting on my hands. My fingers were steepled over my mouth as if holding back words I couldn't bear to say. Words that stabbed my mind as if they were carved out of ice.

Sully. Mind-wipe.

"He will need my help getting them into the pod." Ren touched my shoulder.

I nodded.

"Chasidah."

I shook my head. Chasidah wasn't here right now. She was on a little trip, looking for someplace warm and safe and quiet. Someplace no one would ever find her. Someplace with no ghosts, no handsome bastards. Someplace with no mirrors, reflecting back the face of a fool.

Ren left, closing the hatchway of the bridge behind him.

I breathed a shuddering breath against my hands, straightened. Mechanically, I checked all screens and monitors. We were on course for the jumpgate. All systems optimal.

Good ship, a P40.

A light flashed, a soft double-chime. Two minutes to jumpgate outer beacon. Where had the time gone? Must be having fun.

Three chimes. The quintessential beacon calling-card. I keyed back my answer. Hello out there. Nice to meet you. Have any minds you need destroyed? We're having a sale.

My hands shook. I clutched them to my midsection, doubled over. Took long, deep breaths. I can deal with this. Just as I accepted Ren as an empath. I can deal with this.

I straightened. We are, after all, on the same side, aren't we? A team? Friends? Not lovers, no, not that. It'd been only a kiss or two. Nothing serious. A few overly emotional moments resulting in some playful behavior.

And besides, Sully wasn't doing a zragkor. Just a blanking of a small part of memory. He wasn't, he couldn't be, a Ragkiril. Just an empath. Like Ren, only human. And Ren's okay.

I can deal with this. I can.

The hatchway cycled open, admitting the sound of footsteps. I didn't turn around.

Ren's voice sounded gentle, like raindrops pattering against a placid stream. "They're in the pod. Secure. Comfortable."

I tapped the screen, brought engine controls to my keypad, decreased power. Engines cycled down past one-quarter sublight. I angled thrusters, arcing us around the beacon.

I tabbed on intraship, spoke to my invisible crew. My ghosts. "Stand clear. Pod clamps releasing-"

The lights on my short-range scanner suddenly flared. Sirens wailed through the ship, red- alerts engaging automatically. I stared at the screen in disbelief. Incoming. Two armed Imperial cruisers, running hard, fast. And heading directly for us.

I slammed my hand on the keypad. "Releasing pod! We got bogies, two. Coming in hot!"

I lunged for engineering, threw the sublights into emergency overdrive. The Meritorious surged forward with a wrenching jolt. I careened back toward my chair. The ship lurched. I stumbled against Sully, heading for his seat.

For three long seconds his hands grasped my wrists. His gaze, wary, tired, locked on mine before I wrenched away, pulled myself into my seat. I raked the straps across my chest, dragged the armrest controls in front of me.

I heard Ren's straps click to my left, at communications. Then another click, from engineering on my right. I checked status, swore. We were fifteen minutes out from the working edge of the gate. At top speed, the cruisers would never catch us. But we were under one-quarter sublight moments ago. We might as well have been standing still.

I disconnected safety overrides with three quick taps. "Bring hyperdrive online, now!"

I hated hitting a jumpgate cold, but I had no choice.

Sully worked the board quickly, his movements sharp, precise. No hesitation in his fingers, no second thoughts.

No time.

I called out shield status, distance to jumpgate, time to intercept with the cruisers streaking toward us.

"Got it." Sully's voice was sharp. "Got it."

"I need those hypers!"

"Working on it."

A shimmy racked through the ship. The hypers were cold, and angry at being awakened. Another alarm blared. Pressure warning. An unhappy sound.

Then a third. Weapons. "Cruisers in range. They're targeting us." I segued power to defense. "Aft shields at max."

Movement on my screen flickered in a deadly staccato. Incoming from the cruisers. Small. Lethal. "Birds incoming. Taking evasive action."

I banked my ship, hard. It skewed us off the course to the jumpgate, sent us away from our only chance at freedom. But the plasma torpedoes heading for us gave me no choice.

I released a scatter-field from the ship's underbelly, hoping to confuse the torpedoes' guidance systems. Two followed the debris, veering. The other kept coming straight on.

I slapped the alarms into silence. I needed to outrun the bogie, get back to that jumpgate. I needed the hypers, pulsing, online.

"Sulliv-"

"Returning fire."

"Damn it! We don't have time. Hard edge in two minutes, ten seconds!"

Hard edge, no hypers and a torpedo, hot, with my name on it.

The shimmying quieted, the pulsing began.

"Hypers online. Twenty percent."

Smirking. Damn him, he was smirking. I could hear it. Bastard. It felt good to feel angry at him. I didn't want to think about why.

"Two minutes." I flattened vanes, scanner dishes. Torpedo still closing but losing speed, the looming gatefield muddling its tracking sensor.

"Thirty-five percent."

"Minute forty. I need sixty percent at crossover." God. Sublights were still online. They had to be disengaged before hypers hit fifty percent or the ship would rip apart. Like a mind undergoing a zragkor.

"Forty-seven percent."

"Edge at thirty seconds. Cut sublights!"

"No can do, Chazzy-girl. Fifty-three percent."

I felt the gate grab us, felt the ship skew, slide. "Damn it, Sully!"

Ren's voice answered, soft, serene. "Merciful Abbot Eng, grant us now your everlasting protection-"

We slammed through the jumpgate, screens erupting, sparking. Drives pulsing, sublights grinding up the neverwhen, the nowhere-everywhere of jump.

My body jerked forward. The straps cut into my chest, branding my shoulder. I couldn't breath. Bridge lights flashed off, flickered on, died.

Someone groaned, grunted in the blackness.

Then a piercing sound, like metal screaming, torquing.

I was whipped to my left, the armrest impaling my ribs. I clawed at my straps, tried to pull myself upright, away from the pain coursing through my body. Something slammed me back, lifting my feet off the decking, my arm off the control pad, my body-

 

-ached. Must've been one hell of a party. I couldn't remember a hangover this bad. My head throbbed. My arms and legs felt as if they weren't a part of me, yet.

My eyes wouldn't open. Then something warm surrounded me. Something gray and fuzzy and soft. For a moment, I felt as if I knew it, recognized it. But no, how could I? Still, I let it surround me, let it draw me back together, piece by piece.

I opened my eyes. The world was dimly lit, red-tinged on the edges. Lights twinkled in the distance. Nice colors, red, green, yellow. I was in the middle of a room. No. A ship's bridge. A chair, my chair, the captain's sling, was in front of me.

Interesting. If I weren't sitting there, where was I? Something soft and warm was behind me. I tried to turn but my shoulders protested. I glanced down. Decking, under my legs. Another pair of legs, longer, angled against mine. Black-sleeved arms crossed over my midsection. Large hands covering mine.

Mine.

I forced myself to be very, very still.

"Chaz." A deep voice, soft, rumbling. "Back with us?"

Sullivan.

A shadowy movement on my left edged my vision. Ren, kneeling down, a few inches away, cloudy eyes studying me. His braid had partly unraveled and his lips were pinched. He looked worried, or in pain.

I drew a deep breath, struggled to sit up away from the enveloping warmth. Away from a man who could perform a mind-wipe. But one who needed my help, with Marker, I argued mentally. Needed my help because of the Takas. The jukors. Needed my help with this ship. I was still alive and thinking, wasn't I? He needed me that way. I was the only captain he had. Sully wasn't trained as a pilot. He needed me alive and my mind intact. Time to remember that.

"Status?" My voice cracked.

Sully answered. "We're fifteen minutes into transit. Hypers working at seventy-two percent efficiency. Sublights took some damage but we've got them operative."

By all I held holy. I'd been unconscious for fifteen minutes? Then I remembered slamming into jump, cold, sublights grinding. I wrenched around, my concern for my ship overriding all else, even my fear of the man sitting next to me. "What in hell did you think you were doing?"

A half-smile quirked on his lips but didn't reach his eyes. His mouth, like Ren's, was taut. "What I've done before, when I had to. Used the torque of the sublights to slough off the resistance coming into a jump cold."

I stared at him. Why did all the handsome ones always have to be such brilliant bastards? And why did they have to have minds that could-

I halted the thought, threw that into my mental duro-hard container in cold storage with all the others. "You could've warned me."

He could've warned me about a lot of things.

"We were all busy with other matters."

Understatement of the century.

I drew my knees up and rested my elbows on them. My fingers found the release-points on the Grizni bracelet on my wrist. It tingled reassuringly. I took another deep breath.

Fifteen minutes into jump. Probably an hour forty yet to go. I'd know more when I read the data at my console. Good old, consistent, reliable data. "No one followed us in, I take it?" That should've been one of my first questions, if I'd been thinking like a captain. But I hadn't finished putting Chasidah back together yet.

"They saw us go in pretty cold. Probably figured we wouldn't make it."

The torpedo wouldn't have been able to cross the gatefield. So we were safe, for the time being. Relatively speaking. I pushed my hands flat against the deck, struggled to stand. Sully grabbed me easily under the armpits, lifted me, turned me to face him when I wobbled on my feet.

"I suggest you sit for awhile, captain."

Good idea.

* * *

Bridge lights were back on. I adjusted the straps locked across my chest. They were half-torn. Just as well, because they didn't chafe the bruises I knew were blooming on my skin. Bruises that matched, no doubt, the one on Sully's right cheek. Even Ren moved stiffly, probably wishing he'd remembered to bring his cane.

We all looked like we'd been through one hell of a good pub fight.

It took me fifteen minutes to run a thorough systems check from the controls at my armrest pad. I knew Sully had already had done one, but I needed to see for myself that we were alive and slicing through the neverwhen without any more than the usual problems. I needed to keep my mind busy with ship operations, ship data. I didn't need it wandering, asking questions until I'd calmed down and could face answers I might not want to hear.

I couldn't even face Sully right now. Because that started the questions surfacing.

I finished the check, shoved the arm pad away. My body ached for reasons I didn't care to explore. I leaned my head back against the cushion and stared at the ceiling, listening to the ship's noises. Sensors beeped softly every five minutes signaling the completion of a sweep and initiation of a new one, like wings reaching outward from the skin of my ship, brushing through the neverwhen. Other data clicked, trilled. The sound of the hypers was a soft but familiar hum. I glanced down at my armrest controls just to be sure, ran another test, leaned back again. I had work to do and systems to coordinate but my body was reluctant to cooperate. A few minutes later I forced myself back to work. When the aching resurrected itself we were thirty-eight minutes to exit. I rested my head against the cushion, tried to will the ache into a far galaxy. Footsteps sounded on my left. Ren's face came into my field of vision. His braid was almost completely unraveled, blue strands tangling around his shoulders.

If he were reading rainbows, he had to know I was unraveling, too.

"Commissary panels are off-line. But I can get some water. Would you like some?"

"Thanks. Big mug."

He brought back one for Sully, one for myself. Mine was in mug marked with the captain's insignia. It was standard issue, but Kingswell had probably been the last to use it. I thought it was just coincidence until I realized the insignia was raised. Ren could feel it with his fingers.

"I washed it clean, first." His webbed hand rested lightly on the armrest on my right. My controls were inches from him, but he couldn't see them, only my outline and probably the outline of my hands as they held the mug.

I tried to make my voice light, not reflect the strange numbness I felt in my soul. "I'll put a commendation in your file." I took a sip, my fingers tracing the same raised areas his had. My thoughts rested for a moment on the other captain. I wondered if he'd know me, if we ever met again. Would he thank me for sparing his life? Did he even know he had one, or was the Lew Kingswell placed in the rescue pod more than an hour ago someone else now?

"Ren?" I hesitated, anxiety clashing with fear. I forced myself to ask. I had to ask. I had to gather my facts. It was the only thing I knew how to do, the only thing that had never failed me. "Kingswell. And the woman. They'll be okay?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sully turn at his station.

Ren answered. "No worries, Chasidah."

Oh, yeah. My rainbow. I wondered what color worry was. "They'll remember nothing?"

Sully's chair squeaked as he leaned forward. "They know who they are. Where they're from. Things in their past."

I took another sip. "How far past?" I asked the hazed, starless jump darkness through the viewport. Not Sully. I couldn't look at Sully. "Childhood? Academy? Current Fleet posting?"

A long silence. "It depends. I... I did what I could. There wasn't a lot of time."

So it had been an imprecise cut. Jagged. Memories torn away like the fabric of a sleeve caught in a doorway, ripping, unraveling. Events trailing like broken threads. Hopes, dreams, shredding.

I felt sick.

"I did Kingswell last. I took more time with Tessa because I know you-"

"Damn you, Sullivan! Don't tell me her name!" I wrenched around to face him, anger, shame rising in me. I didn't need to know her name, didn't need to make her real and personal. Didn't need to add her to the list of the other fifteen.

I knew all their names. And except for Nathaniel Milo and the Taka, their histories. The husbands and wives they left behind. The children. The parents.

I knew them all. And now I had Tessa. An innocent, her mind gutted.

A stranger stared back at me through Sully's eyes. Then suddenly he ripped off his straps, thrust himself to his feet. For one long terrifying moment I thought he was coming at me, his expression hard and bleak. Dangerous. But he charged by me, past Ren reaching toward him. He stepped over the hatchlock. His arm lashed out. His fist slammed against the corridor wall.

Two more steps, another slam. And another. And another. Echoes of anger. Echoes of pain, fading when he reached crew's quarters.

"Chasidah." A harsh, disapproving tone came from somewhere I never expected it. Ren.

I swiveled around. His face was pinched, his lips thin. His voice shook slightly when he spoke, like ice-crusted waves crashing against a frozen shore. "I do not know how to explain this. It is not my part to do so. But I must. I cannot let you destroy him."

"I didn't-"

"You are. He sees, he feels your rejection, just as I do. Your fear. You know this, now."

I nodded, numbly. Rainbows. Ren wasn't the only one who could read rainbows.

"I will tell you what you do not know. He offers his life, to save yours. On Moabar. He knew the risks. He was alone in this, searching for you. I couldn't help. The planet drains me, physically. He did this, alone. To find you."

I splayed my hand. "I know the shipyards. I know-"

"Nothing, Chasidah Bergren! You do not understand. He couldn't live with the knowledge that you were on Moabar. That you would be harmed. That you would be alone, afraid."

He was right. I didn't understand. We were talking about Gabriel Ross Sullivan. About six years of tag-you're-it out on the rim. About highjackings I'd interrupted and illegal escapades I'd appeared in the middle of, like an unwanted guest at a party. Our brief, chance encounter at Port Chalo didn't seem to be sufficient motivation to pull me off Moabar.

"Final day of your trial. The starport experienced a major power loss," Ren said. "He tried to free you, so you wouldn't have to go to Moabar. Damned himself because he failed."

I froze, memories washing over me. I was back sitting in lockup, deep in the starport's brig. Judgment against me had just come down. Sentencing would follow, but my options were clear. Moabar or Moabar. They'd never offer me death.

Then darkness. All I could think of was an attack on the starport. Starports had too many back-up generators to have power failures. The corridors rang with hard-booted guards, rifles glinting in the red-tinged emergency lights flickering on.

They'd flanked my cell. Belatedly I realized the force-field was down. I could've run. Don't know how far I would've gotten. But I could've tried.

Two hours passed before the power came back on.

A prank, a guard told me nervously. Bored station brats.

Not a prank.

Sullivan.

Gabriel Ross Sullivan had tried to rescue me, because he didn't want me to be alone and afraid.

I turned to Ren, but had no words. I didn't need them. Ren could read rainbows.

His voice softened, the waves still coming, but no longer to an ice covered shore. "He knew you couldn't live with yourself if Kingswell died. But he also knew you'd hate him when he gave you the only option that would let Kingswell and the lieutenant live. This is what he risks for you. To feel your hatred, because he cannot do otherwise, being what he is. And he offers this, so that you won't have to feel the pain."

Suddenly, my fears seemed foolish, stupid. "I didn't know." It was a weak, horrible excuse. But it was all I had. A small smile met my trembling voice. "I've told him often to give you all those poems he's written to you. But he's been afraid. Until you showed you could be friends with me. Showed you didn't mind someone reading what you call rainbows. He reads, has been reading yours for a long time. Hoping. Waiting."

"Hijacking cargo to get my attention? Getting himself killed, hoping I'd come to his funeral?" I wasn't disbelieving his words. But I needed to put all the facts together.

"The first I'll let him explain to you. You'll be surprised to learn the truth on that. But the second, I will tell you, because you know more of the truth than you realize. You know who he is, the wealth and power his father held in the Empire when he was alive. You know also his family disowned him. Two years ago, shortly before his mother died in a shuttle accident, he believed she was open to reconciliation. But that meant the mercenary, the smuggler known as Sullivan had to die. He agreed to that, faked his own death, not because he had any interest in his inheritance. But because he wanted respectability, so the next time he met you in a bar, you wouldn't run away."

Port Chalo. Ren knew about Port Chalo. I started to say something but he held up his hand.

"His mother died before he could reconcile with her. Her unexpected death put the estates in the hands of a cousin. So he has nothing to offer you now, except what he is. Someone you can trust with your life. Someone who will never let you down."

I closed my eyes, felt as if my heart had been ripped in half. Then I opened them, quickly. Because I knew where that other half of my heart was: at the end of the corridor behind me, in the Meritorious's crews quarters.

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