by Joanna Wylde
Silence.
A darkened, soft blue room awaited her. The weapons system sub-AI stood before her, wearing K’rilla’s own face. It was a small vanity, but during the design process she’d figured it was the only way she’d ever get on board the ship.
“Emergency shutdown of all systems, bypassing captain’s orders,” she told it, the final step feeling too simple. The AI nodded. All around them virtual lights flicked from red to green as it implemented her command. It seemed too easy and she quickly scanned the sensors to make sure the machinery was responding. Then she reopened the audio channel.
“You should have access now,” she said.
“Got it,” Northman replied. “I’m taking over. The AI is listening to us again.”
K’rilla left the room, swam back up and out of the data, pulled out of the software and opened her eyes. The room around her remained a blur until she reached behind her neck and found the jack, pulling it free. She found her body covered with sweat and she leaned back against the console, knees shaking.
“Status?” she asked, her voice rough.
“Stabilizing,” Northman said, his voice strained. “You were right, it had to be sabotage. I wish it had been a hardware failure. I think I’d rather blow up than face this.”
She nodded her head, weary beyond words. Somewhere, in the heart of their flagship, a spy lurked. A spy with enough knowledge to impersonate the Captain and lock out orders from the ranking weapons officer.
Not a good situation.
“Engineer d’Pecoraio, you have some explaining to do,” the captain said across the intercom. “Commander Northman, take her into custody and bring her to brig.”
Chapter Five
K’rilla took a deep breath, wishing she could eat something. Not that food would solve her problems, but if they were going to execute her, she didn’t want to die hungry. It just seemed a bit unfair…after all, she’d saved their collective asses.
“Tell me about your software daemons,” the interrogator asked, nothing in his expression betraying that they’d gone through this at least ten times already. She sighed.
“I already told you about them,” she said. “They’re just pre-fabbed programs that allow me to do parallel processing, just like AIs I’m working on.”
“Illegal programs.”
“Yes,” she said. “In this context, they’re illegal. I know that. They’re supposed to be contained in the lab and by carrying them in my personal core I broke the law. I’ve already admitted to that.”
“You also admit that you created an illegal backdoor entrance to the weapons system.”
“Yes,” K’rilla muttered, hoping she’d made the right decision by cooperating fully. Perhaps she should have asked for an advocate, at least that way they’d have to feed her. “I leave one in every program I work on, it’s very common. That way if the boys on the field fuck up my system, I can still get in to fix it.”
She glanced down at the cuff on her arm, the lights blinking as the sensors recording her vital signs. That, combined with the drugs they’d given her, should make it impossible for her to lie. The drugs certainly made it impossible for her to think straight. She felt like a little cloud floating through the sky…
Why did they keep asking questions?
“So you’re telling me that all the engineers on your team have similar access to these systems?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. It throbbed dully and she had trouble gathering her thoughts. “Only me. Although they probably have access to other programs they’ve worked on. We all have micro-detonator implants, you know that, I told you already. If we found ourselves in hostile hands we could destroy the data. The daemons also carry backup self-destruction parameters in case I lose consciousness or am killed while jacked in.”
“Using your detonator would mean brain death for you.”
“Yes,” she murmured, swaying on her chair. She focused on the man’s head, her eyes hurting as she tried to focus. How many hours had she been awake? Seemed like forever. “If I activate the device, I’ll die. But that’s all right, because it would protect the information. We engineers are soldiers too, you know…”
“No, you aren’t,” he replied, his voice harsh. “You’re a civilian. You had no right to create this security breach.”
“Tell that to all the people who would have died if I hadn’t been here,” she murmured. “Can we please stop? I’ve told you everything I know, at least a hundred times. I want to eat and I want Darius.”
“Admiral Darius,” he said sharply, correcting her. “He is in charge of this fleet, please speak of him with respect.”
“I do respect him,” she muttered, feeling the happy little glow that came over her whenever she thought about him. “He’s my lifemate. I didn’t think I had a lifemate, and there he is!”
K’rilla giggled, thinking about how nice his strong arms felt around her, how good his…
“You wouldn’t believe how big he is,” she murmured. “When he came inside—”
“That’s enough,” the man muttered suddenly, glancing up at the recording monitor hanging above the table. “I don’t need to know about the admiral’s assets.”
“That’s a good way to put it,” she said. “Because he has a really cute ass too.”
The man didn’t respond and she took a moment to ponder Darius and his assets. Damn, she liked him. That made her headache feel better. Everything about him made her feel better and she wished he was there. Of course, he couldn’t be. She was a traitor—a man like he would never tolerate a traitor, lifemate or not. She’d probably never see him again.
She felt tears well up and suddenly she was crying. The tiny part of her brain that could still think clearly hated crying. Women who cry look weak and K’rilla couldn’t afford to look weak. But to lose him now, so soon after they’d found each other. It was almost too much to bear.
“Tell me again about the access codes,” the interrogator said. “Did anyone instruct you to do this?”
“No,” she murmured. “I just did it, we all do. It’s quite common.”
Saul watched as the interrogator started through his list of questions once more, hating himself for letting her suffer like this. He wanted to be in there with her, but he couldn’t trust himself to remain objective. Too much had happened too quickly and now they had a traitor on board to deal with. No one could be above suspicion, not even himself and the captain.
Planetside marines carrying blasters filled the hallways and every man on board had been confined to quarters. Saul and Captain Markus had been among the first to take the truth drugs. Both had been cleared, of course, not that he’d ever doubted Markus’ loyalty. Commander Northman had been cleared as well, along with all the senior officers. Saul didn’t know whether to be happy about that or not. He was glad to know none of the men he trusted was the traitor, but the general crew shouldn’t have had access to the sections of the ship they would have needed to pull this off.
That didn’t leave many options.
Either the saboteur was still hiding in the ship, which seemed unlikely, or one of the senior crew was criminally incompetent. Endless ramifications spun through his mind. Who knew how many ships harbored traitors? At least the new weapons system itself was solid. Their survival proved K’rilla right about that.
Shit, now she was crying. The sight was more than he could handle and he started toward the door. He would not allow his woman to be treated this way, completely unacceptable. Markus reached out and caught his arm and Saul quivered with sudden rage. Breathing slowly and steadily, he shrugged off the man’s hold, turning to face him, bracing for combat. The marines snapped to attention, arming their weapons as he hovered on the brink of attack.
Markus met his eyes steadily, his gaze filled with understanding and more than a little envy. Of course, it was the life-bond overwhelming his emotions. A mated man would do anything to protect his woman—this was instinct.
“Sorry,” Sa
ul said, forcing himself to slow down. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You’re lucky to have her,” Markus said. “She’s a brave woman. She could have just let us eject the cores, nobody would have known the difference. This will work out, somehow.”
“I won’t let them take her away,” Saul said, the muscles in his jaw tensing. “I won’t allow it.”
“They won’t,” Markus replied. “She’s too valuable. And she saved the invasion—that counts for something. Not to mention her family pull.”
The reminder stilled Saul and he grimaced. He’d already talked to her father once today and he didn’t relish the idea of meeting the man in person. Danvarus d’Pecoraio might have been born into one of the most powerful families in Saurellia, but he’d earned every bit of the influence he held today. He had the presence of a Councilor and the financial resources to destroy a planet. His pride in his daughter was palpable, his faith in her motives absolute. He hadn’t bothered to hide his displeasure with Saul Darius, addressing him bluntly.
“This is your fault. You brought her up there, you put her in this position. Keep her safe or I’ll destroy you and everything you’ve ever loved.”
Saul looked back into the interrogation room, noting the look of reluctant admiration on the interrogator’s face. Her skills and dedication to her work shone through the drugs, no matter the difficulty of the situation. He couldn’t help but feel pride in her for that.
“Captain, we have something for you,” a young lieutenant said, approaching the men.
“Yes?” Markus asked.
“We’ve found evidence that a member of the maintenance crew may have been responsible,” he replied, his voice low. “Although he covered his path pretty well. We’ve traced the commands to a console within the officer’s lounge, and while we don’t have any physical evidence connecting the man, surveillance shows that he’s the only one who could have been present at the time the commands were given. We have no idea how he got the captain’s codes or how he disabled the overrides.”
“Is he still alive?” Markus asked. The lieutenant shook his head.
“We found him dead in his room,” he replied. “Most likely killed himself, but it could be murder. We may have another one on board. We’ll know more after we finish questioning all the crew members.”
Markus nodded, his face weary.
“I’ll take care of this,” he said, looking to Darius. “After they’ve finished with Engineer d’Pecoraio, we’ll release her to your custody. But I’ll have to cut all computer access to your cabin and post guards. At some point they may decide to pull her personal core too.”
Saul nodded, wishing he could take her now. While he could technically overrule Markus’ decisions onboard ship, it wasn’t good policy. His job was to manage the fleet—Markus was in charge of the Glory.
“I’ll stay here until they’re ready,” he said. “Inform me if anything else turns up.”
Markus nodded and exited, leaving Saul alone to watch the interrogation.
* * * * *
“You can stop looking at me like that,” K’rilla said, her voice tight and annoyed.
Darius raised his brows, questioningly. They sat across from each other at the table in his quarters. A steward who carefully noticed nothing had just delivered their dinner and it smelled fantastic to her. But the food would curdle in her stomach if he kept glaring at her like that.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. “I’m sure you know what they’re planning to do with me. You might as well let me know why you’re so angry.”
“I’m angry because you took an incredible risk with your life,” he said. “You should have stayed in my quarters when I told you to.”
“Right, that would have been perfect,” K’rilla said, rolling her eyes. “Of course, the invasion would have been delayed for months, but my safety is far more important than a billion lives.”
He didn’t answer and she kept her face neutral. No point in rubbing it in—they both knew she was right.
“You could have at least told me who you were,” he said finally. “It was a bit embarrassing.”
“Hmm, before or after you kidnapped me? You didn’t even ask my name until the end…”
He had the good grace to look away from her and she couldn’t help but laugh. The poor man might be one of the greatest military minds of a generation, but he knew nothing about women.
“It’s all ended well,” she said. “Or at least, I think it has. Unless they’ve decided to imprison or execute me for treason? That would be in poor taste, considering I saved all of you.”
He shook his head.
“It’s worse.”
She froze.
“What could be worse?”
“They’re sending you with the fleet,” he said. “The Council can’t let you stay home in your current position, it sets a bad example. And they think you’ll come in handy if any other technical sabotage takes place. They’re remanding you into my custody for the duration, with a full lock on your personal core that only fleet captains or higher can override.”
She laughed out loud, loving it.
“You poor thing, you’re an admiral and you can’t even get rid of one woman!” she said. “But it’s the best solution for all of us.”
“I can’t lose you,” Darius said, looking directly into her eyes, refusing to laugh with her. “Don’t you understand how impossible this is? I can’t risk losing you and we’re heading into combat.”
“No, the fleet is heading into combat. I’ve read my military history. Admirals don’t go directly into the fight, they can’t afford to. It’s your job to send other men to die and your burden to carry when they do. Let me be the one who comforts you after the battle ends.”
He shook his head.
“Sometimes entire fleets are destroyed. This isn’t safe.”
“It’s not safe back home, either,” K’rilla said. “We have a major security issue. A traitor got on board our flagship. I’m a senior engineer working with the navy on secret weapons systems—don’t you think I’m a target on Saurellia too? Why do you think I got the explosive chip implanted? It’s not just an affectation, Darius. Even civilian engineers are combatants in this war. Every one of us is ready and willing to die to keep the Federation safe. If my skills are needed on this ship, you have no right not to bring me along.”
He stood, pacing across the room, a caged animal. After long moments of silence he stopped moving, turning to look at her. His face twisted, filled with anguish.
“I know that,” he said. “It’s killing me. And what if you get pregnant? What then? I won’t risk our unborn child.”
“You have a pretty good opinion of your own sperm,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll use birth control. Now is not the time for a pregnancy.”
He froze, his expression dark.
“Saurellian women do not use birth control.”
K’rilla narrowed her eyes, standing to face him, crossing her arms in front of her body belligerently.
“Saurellian women on Saurellia do not typically use birth control,” she said, keeping her voice mild. “But women in dangerous situations do. I will. Get over it.”
She half expected him to shout her down, although she knew the priestesses would back her up on this one. Instead he just shook his head slowly.
“This is nothing like what I imagined when I dreamed about finding a lifemate. Women are supposed to be soft and sweet and welcoming,” he said. “And you’re supposed to obey your lifemate.”
K’rilla couldn’t help herself, she laughed out loud. Again.
“You’ve been with the fleet for too damn long. Saurellian women have never been like that.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said finally. “My mother died when I was ten years old. And I shipped out young—I looked for a mate, but every woman I met seemed scared of me. Their families too. It didn’t look good for my chances and I was already getting myself in trouble.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “You put on a pretty good show and they were probably young and silly. But I’m a grown woman, Darius, and I’m not scared of you. I’m your mate, and whether you like it or not, we’re partners. That means we each get a vote.”
“Not when it comes to running the fleet, K’rilla,” he replied, his voice suddenly hard.
“You’re the admiral, I’m the engineer. I understand that. I’m not an idiot.”
“So I hear,” he replied, his voice losing some of its harsh edge. His face softened. “Call me Saul. That’s my name, although nobody has the nerve to use it.”
She smiled at him, then said his name, rolling the sound around on her tongue.
“Saul.”
K’rilla walked over to him, laying one hand across his uniformed chest. She tested the fabric, then cocked her head at him flirtatiously.
“I think I liked your gladiator togs a little better.”
He smiled back.
“I liked your dress better than the brig jumpsuit too,” he said. “Too bad we don’t have anything for you to change into. Your parents are sending a package and I’m sure it will include clothing. But until then, that’s really not the best color on you.”
She laughed.
“Do you want me to take it off?”
He gave her a hopeful look and K’rilla felt the same sense of power she’d had earlier. Saul wanted her, she could see it in his eyes—physical lust and emotional desire heady in its intensity. Of course, the attraction wasn’t only on his side. Just looking at him sent her heart rate upward. K’rilla slid her hand down his body, enjoying the hardness of his muscled form. Difficult to believe that he really, truly belonged to her and nobody else. Her hand trailed down his stomach, finding the stiffening length of his penis, and she gripped it through his clothing.
