ADMIRAL’S OFFICE
Tasha had her back to him, leaning one hip against his office wall while she waited for the galley panel to kick out two cups of coffee. Kel-Paten permitted himself a few moments of pleasurable indulgence at the sight, then clicked open the comm link on his console before he totally forgot why the Triad bestowed the rank of admiral on him. “Dr. Fynn, what’s the status on Serafino?”
“He regained consciousness briefly,” Fynn told him, an undercurrent of exhaustion in her voice. Sass pushed a steaming cup across the desk toward him, then sat. He nodded and focused on the CMO’s report. “I’m not totally happy with some chemical changes in his bloodwork. But he’s resting comfortably. His injuries are serious but not life-threatening.”
“Good. Your orders, Doctor, are to keep him alive, but that’s all. Just keep him alive long enough so I can have the pleasure of killing him. Kel-Paten out.”
He sifted through a short line of messages from various division commanders that blinked on his screen just as he finished with Fynn. He could’ve spiked in through the interface in the armrest of his chair and downloaded the information directly into his memory, but Tasha was there, sitting, sipping coffee, watching him.
He knew what he was. She knew what he was. But he didn’t like reminding her of it. Spiked in on full ’cybe power, his eyes would take on a luminescent hue. He had no choice on the bridge earlier, when they encountered the threat of the vortex. But he had a choice here.
Damage reports were encouraging. Reports on the vortex and Serafino’s appearance—both unexpected and illogical—were less so. Tasha’s offhand suggestion of a Triad secret weapon hovered in his mind. Leave it to her to come up with something so wildly crazy it just might be true. Except that, if it was, he would more than likely be involved with the project, and he wasn’t.
Unless…He brought up one of the mental filters he’d created years ago to circumvent what PsyServ programmed into his mind and made a note to do some discreet poking around later. He couldn’t chance—during his routine uploads and downloads when spiked in—that PsyServ wasn’t also doing some less-than-routine poking around in his personal databases at the same time.
He cleared his screen, then turned away, reaching for his coffee. “I apologize for the delay. But there were a couple—” and he hesitated, stopped in his mental and verbal tracks by the enigmatic grin on Tasha’s face.
The grin faded and Tasha pulled herself upright in her chair. “Oh, sorry. When I’m tired, the mind wanders.”
“A new hypothesis?” The look on her face was absolutely blissful—like a furzel licking fresh cream off her whiskers. He hoped her mental wanderings had nothing to do with the security officer who often partnered her in racquetlob. He’d be duty-bound to kill the man. Or at the very least transfer him to the farthest reaches of the galaxy where nothing, human or otherwise, would ever wish to be.
And while he was at it, he’d send that bastard Serafino with him.
Serafino. A thought occurred to him, so chilling that even the mouthful of steaming coffee he took did nothing to melt the rock-hard feeling that suddenly lodged in the pit of his stomach.
Had Tasha been thinking of Serafino?
Serafino’s effect on women was legendary. Kel-Paten hadn’t missed the wink Serafino gave her, saw the way Serafino’s gaze raked over her half-naked form….
He didn’t realize he’d spoken the name aloud until he heard Tasha’s voice.
“What about Captain Serafino?” she asked. “Besides the fact that he’s here and our house guest for a while.”
House guest? He’d prefer to see him an occupant of the morgue. He tapped at his screen, bringing up a series of folders Triad Intelligence had gathered on the man over the last decade.
“Just what do you know about Serafino? Not,” he touched the screen, “what’s here. But what do you know?”
She shrugged. “What makes you think I know anything more than you do?”
He answered with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’ve worked the Zone almost as long as I have.”
“And the Regalia, under my command, was a warship. Small time smugglers are handled by local patrols.”
He knew that. But that’s not what he was asking, and he told her so.
Something dark and tense flickered briefly through her eyes. He saw it not so much because he’d been progr—was skilled in detecting human facial nuances. He saw it because he spent years memorizing every line of her face, the curves of her mouth, every light that danced in her eyes. The lights had stopped dancing. Something about Serafino bothered Tasha Sebastian. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. She ran one hand absently through her short hair.
Was she just tired or was it something more?
“Our paths may have crossed,” she said finally, with a casual shrug.
“You’ve met before.”
“My life’s full of interesting characters. It’s part of my job description.”
“You find Serafino interesting?” He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and peered at her from over their black-clad tips.
She sighed. “I thought you wanted my hypothesis on the Irks?”
“I do. But first tell me why you find Serafino interesting.”
“Why not? You find him disturbing,” she challenged. “I think interesting might fit right in there. Especially when you consider the circles he’s run around the Triad and the U-Cees when we’ve tried to stop his smuggling operations. Then there was that double cross he pulled on the Irks over that shipment of Zonn-X rifles six years ago. In some ways, I admire his creativity.”
He closed his eyes briefly. Creativity? Unorthodox methodology was more like it, and not unlike his own Tasha in that. But past associations with a known smuggler wouldn’t sit well with Fleet HQ on Prime. Better he find out before they did.
“Where did you first meet him?” He fired the question at her. “And how well did you know him?”
Anger flared in her eyes. She sat upright. “You think that because the Novalis shows up right after we’re ordered to find him that I leaked that information to him somehow? So he could stage a repeat performance of his infamous ambush on the Traveler out by Fendantun?”
Before he could reply, she rose and pointed her finger at him. “That’s what you meant when you said you found his ‘sudden appearance disturbing,’ isn’t it?”
He tamped down his annoyance at the mention of Fendantun. That wasn’t at all the issue here. “Sebastian—”
“Why would I do that,” she continued, leaning her hands on his desk, “and drop him oh-so-pretty in your lap, if I were working with him? That would make no bloody sense!”
“Sebastian—”
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
No, but he began to wonder about his own mental faculties. Somehow he’d lost control of this discussion, and he wasn’t quite sure how or where. His meetings with Tasha often contained heated exchanges, though not the kind of heat he’d have liked. They had clashed, amicably, for years. Yet there was something different in her forcefulness this time. An element of hurt or fear?
“I don’t think you’re stupid. Sit down.”
She sat, though he could tell by the way she folded her arms across My name’s No, No, Bad Captain! that she was none too happy about it. Or with him.
“I need to know how you know Serafino. In case HQ questions me about it.”
“From Sookie’s” came the tense answer after an equally tense silence.
The name had a faint ring of familiarity but he couldn’t place it. “What’s Sookie’s?”
“Sookie Tawdry’s. A nighthouse and casino on Kesh Valirr.” She leaned back in her chair. “Don’t look so shocked, Kel-Paten. I spent two years with UCID doing undercover work.”
He knew about her stint with the United Coalition Intelligence Division. He’d damned near memorized her personnel file.
“And Serafino was…”
“A player. I doubt he remember
s me. That was years ago. Plus, even if he did, he wouldn’t remember me as Sebastian. No one—” And she stopped, gave her head a small shake. “We used nicknames. You know how covert work goes.” She drew a deep breath. “Have we cleared up any possible charges of treason against me? Or should I anticipate spending the night in the brig, just to be safe?”
“I don’t think the Vax’s brig could hold you,” he answered truthfully. He’d never doubted her loyalty to the Alliance or her crew for a moment. It was her allegiance to himself that had him worried.
But his comment finally evoked a small smile from her. “Not for long,” she agreed. “Now, are you finally ready to give me your theories on the Illithians?”
He shook his head, closing his eyes briefly. Those damned yellow numbers still glowed in the lower left corner of his vision: 0342.15.20. No matter how many numbers were attached, it was still very late. Or very early.
He always had the option of switching to his surplus power supply to stay awake for another thirty-six to forty-eight hours. Under normal conditions, he rarely slept for more than four hours a night.
But Tasha had no auxiliary cybernetic power supply. And he could tell from the shadows under her eyes that any productive time for discussion had long passed.
“It’s late, Sebastian. Your temper’s sharp and my mind is not right now.” He waved her off. “Get some sleep.”
“You sure? I’m sorry I popped off at you like—”
“I doubt it,” he said, and forced his mouth into what he hoped looked like a smile. It wasn’t an expression he was used to wearing, and it felt as if his mouth fought him every time he tried. “If you ever stopped arguing with me, I’d know there was something wrong.”
She eased herself up out of the chair and headed for the door. “We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow morning—today. Morning. Hell, you know what I mean.”
“Oh-eight-thirty, this office,” he told her as the door slid open.
“Oh-eight-thirty?” she squeaked.
“Oh-nine-thirty, then. In uniform. And on time.”
“Who, me?” she asked in mock innocence, then saluted him, hand over her heart. “By your command, Admiral.”
“Dismissed,” he replied, and then, ever so softly and only after the door had closed, added a gentle benediction: “And may the gods keep you in their care.”
That had been his private blessing to her for years, so much so that it was almost automatic, though rarely spoken out loud. Yet this time he added extra energy to the plea. Something about Serafino’s appearance troubled Tasha. Something more than just the fact that the man was a pirate, a rogue—and a decidedly romantic figure.
Therefore, that same unknown something about Serafino troubled him deeply. He steepled his hands in front of his mouth and tried to identify the source of both their disquiet.
He couldn’t. And that troubled Admiral Branden Kel-Paten, the infamous Tin Soldier, even more.
He pulled down the wrist flap on his glove and lined up his hand with his chair’s dataport, spiking in. Data pathways—Triad, U-Cee, PsyServ—scrolled through his mind. He accessed Tasha’s personnel file. Maybe it was time he reviewed her undercover assignments again. Sookie Tawdry’s. Yes, there it was. He merged with the data and looked for things he might have overlooked before. Things that perhaps the U-Cees, and especially UCID, might not want the Triad to know.
SICK BAY
The ship was twenty-eight hours out of Lightridge Station, not quite twenty from Serafino’s unexpected arrival. During that time period, Kel-Paten twice denied Eden Fynn’s requests to return to Lightridge and her work on the Degun’s Luck investigation. Serafino’s capture did not mean the mission was completed. It was, in fact, only just beginning.
And, no, she could not take a shuttle and return to Lightridge alone. “Depending on how Serafino responds to interrogation, your services, Doctor, might be needed.”
Eden was about to point out that her medical team was quite competent in dealing with whatever torture Kel-Paten chose to inflict on his prisoner, when she realized it wasn’t her medical but her empathic expertise Kel-Paten wanted. She was the only certified empath on board. She’d function as an unerring lie detector when Serafino was questioned.
So, yes, she was, uniquely, needed.
Eden left the admiral’s office and found Tasha in the corridor outside her ER doors. Meal break—dinner for them—was in less than an hour.
“Said no again, did he?” the captain asked.
“Won’t play Truth or Lies without me.”
“Ah. How are our house guests?”
“Come into my office and I’ll show you the latest reports. Then we can get a bite to eat.”
Tasha followed Eden to her glass-fronted office and sat, reading quietly while Eden uploaded a copy of her report to Kel-Paten’s in-box. Well, perhaps reading quietly wasn’t quite accurate. Eden came to the conclusion that there must be a racquetlob game going on somewhere in sick bay. A silent racquetlob game, which only Captain Tasha Sebastian could see.
The booted foot propped against the edge of Eden’s desk rocked the captain’s chair back and forth, back and forth. It was a motion, Eden noted, that was in direct relation to the sound of sick bay’s doors opening:
Phwoosh.
Tasha tilted back, head turned slightly for a second.
Thwip. The doors closed and Tasha sat forward.
Phwoosh.
Tasha tilted back.
Thwip.
Tasha sat forward.
Given the amount of traffic through sick bay on a normal day—and they were less than twenty-four hours after the vortex-rift incident—there was always a lot of phwoooshing and thwipping. Most of which Eden long ago learned to ignore.
But after all the stress of the day before and the disappointment at Kel-Paten’s final refusal, the captain’s seesawing movements were just a bit more than Eden could take. But she at least waited until Tasha was in the thwip stage before she reached over her desk and grabbed the older woman’s boot.
Startled, Tasha almost went ass over teakettle right out of Eden’s office.
“Hey! What are you—”
“What are you doing?” Eden chimed in. “Are you rocking yourself to sleep down here? Or am I missing Fleet finals in racquetlob in my ER?”
“I’m—Oh, sorry.” Tasha grinned sheepishly and dropped her foot to the floor. “It’s him.” An upward wave of her hand delineated something larger and taller. “If I go down to engineering, five minutes later there he is. If I’m in the wardroom having coffee, he shows up. But today he’s driving me—how do you like to put it? Nucking futz?”
“This is something new?” Eden asked in obvious disbelief.
The answer was preceded by a sigh. “No, just worse. Or maybe I’m just getting less tolerant.” She tossed the report back on Eden’s desk, then rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “I really popped off at him last night. This morning. That was unprofessional. But he seems to feel that being captain is a two-person job: his and mine, together. You know that’s not SOP. He’s admiral of the First Fleet. I’m captain of this ship. Granted, he’s technically, mechanically, part of this ship, and he’s certainly capable—being what he is—of handling both responsibilities. But then,” and she hesitated, frowning, a dark look in her eyes, “why am I here? If I’m not to function as captain, then what kind of game—” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’m rambling. His paranoia is getting to me.”
“Paranoia?”
“Questioning everything I do, everyone I talk to. As if I’m going to wholesale Triadian secrets to the Cryloc Syndicate or some such lubashit.”
“Like what?”
“Like what?” Tasha repeated. “I don’t even know what secrets the Syndicate would be interested in. Or don’t already know.”
“Not that. What makes you think Kel-Paten is paranoid?”
“You mean besides the fact that he insists on personally reviewing just about every damn
ed report I write? Or tries to fill up what little spare time I have doing this-that-or-the-other-thing with him where—and I know this is true—he can keep an eye on me?” She raised her gaze in a pleading gesture. “Like yesterday after the staff meeting. ‘I’ll require your attention for a moment longer,’” she mimicked, lowering her voice in a bad imitation.
Eden chuckled, but she understood Tasha’s frustration. She also had theories about Kel-Paten’s behavior, derived from watching him over the past few months. But she so rarely had a chance to focus her empathic talents on Kel-Paten without others’ emotions swirling around as well that she wasn’t confident enough to voice her theories. It could be, as Tasha surmised, a basic but expected distrust of anything U-Cee. But a few times she felt something that—if true—might require her as chief medical officer to file a Section 46 on him. She didn’t think that would go over well in the Triad part of the Alliance. Then the puzzle of how—and why—the freighter crews were inexplicably frightened to death would be the least of her problems.
“Then when he found out I knew Serafino—”
“You know Serafino?” The information surprised Eden.
“Gods, not you too!” Sass groaned. “Yes, I knew Serafino. Past tense. I worked at Sookie’s, years ago, remember?”
“And Kel-Paten knows this?”
Sass glanced quickly over her shoulder, then turned back, dropping her voice. “He does now. I figured I better bring it up in case Serafino says something…stupid. It’s in my personnel file as an undercover assignment. As long as no one goes poking further, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I didn’t know Serafino worked for the U-Cees.”
“He didn’t. He was a player at Sookie’s with arms-running connections that UCID and Gund’jalar wanted information on. We had some minor dealings—even played a couple hands of Starfield Doubles.”
“Would Serafino remember you?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“I’m a little worried about his condition,” Eden admitted. “He should be fully conscious by now or at least be showing signs.”
Games of Command Page 4
