Games of Command

by Linnea Sinclair

  He chanced a glance at Fynn—the empath who had stood in the doorway for the past few moments while he let his thoughts and emotions run rampant. Again.

  Fynn knew. The look on her face when he saw her in the doorway told him everything. And if she knew, then Tasha would know, and he didn’t want her finding out that way. Not from a medical practitioner who knew what he was, who would advise Tasha that his feelings were most likely nothing more than an aberration, a programming glitch to be rectified. Fynn could order that. That’s what med-techs did.

  He had to control his emotions when Fynn was around. There was too much at risk and, thanks to Roderick Kel-Tyra, he was running out of time. He stuffed the last remnants of pain back into his emotional strongbox and turned his mind to the matter at hand.

  “I had a problem with a few of his responses.” He leaned back against the office wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn’t sit so close to Tasha in the small confines, because every time he did, her warmth seemed to wash over him and he was caught like a drowning man in a riptide. “His dialect is difficult to translate.”

  Tasha tilted her chair back and looked up at him. “It’s not the dialect. TeKrain speaks an ancient form of Tosar. They often invert the subject and predicate.”

  “Not to mention twist the truth,” Fynn said.

  “You caught that well,” Tasha told her with a smile. “And damned if he didn’t like that one bit.”

  “Did TeKrain know you were there to read him empathically?” Kel-Paten asked Fynn. Maybe the Zingaran doctor was thinking of the Tsarii. Maybe she wasn’t tuned in to his emotions. Maybe. He doubted it.

  “I made sure he thought I was there strictly as a medical professional, but he is Tsarii, Admiral. Many of them have a low-level empathic sense.”

  Gods, no. He had forgotten that fact. The Illithians and the Rebashee were the enemies-of-the-decade and therefore his required focus. Not the ineffectual, quirky Tsarii.

  With a deep sense of impending doom, he realized that would explain TeKrain’s earlier question: Esry’on tura? Is he your lover? Kel-Paten understood the question but thought TeKrain had asked it because he’d reacted when TeKrain struck out at Tasha.

  But the Tsarii evidently was reading more than just his physical response. He picked up on the emotional response as well.

  While Fynn was scanning TeKrain, TeKrain was scanning him.

  And Tasha, with her eclectic linguistic abilities, fully understood the question too. He just prayed she wouldn’t understand as well the real reason behind it. He ran his hand over his face in a weary gesture. “Tell me what happened in there with TeKrain.”

  TeKrain Namar was a small-time opportunist, arms dealer, and mercenary. He’d worked for Serafino off and on for almost six years. Though he didn’t particularly like humans, he’d always admired Serafino’s rakehell attitude and allegiance to the only thing that TeKrain himself really cared about: money.

  At least, that’s all he’d thought Serafino cared about. But the past year, he came to believe that revenge motivated Serafino, and it was a revenge involving a woman.

  And, no, the woman wasn’t Illithian or associated with the Illithians, though TeKrain admitted Serafino had bragged about a deep contact somewhere in the Dynasty. Yes, he knew someone had hired Serafino to obtain information from the Illithians. But Serafino was definitely evasive when it came to exactly whom he worked for. TeKrain said Serafino told him that “he didn’t have a need to know,” and TeKrain accepted that, as long as he was paid.

  And as for payment, TeKrain was under the impression the two hundred fifty thousand credits were only the beginning. There was more coming—Serafino intimated as much. But Serafino never said from where.

  “How did they end up in the vortex?” Kel-Paten ventured as far as the edge of Fynn’s desk, where he perched safely several feet from Tasha and directed his question to her.

  “Let me state that, before the vortex, his association with Serafino had been strained,” Tasha explained. “TeKrain said Serafino’s personality drastically changed a few years ago. He’d forget things or people. Became very mistrustful. It got so bad that the past few months, TeKrain was confined to the ship, not even allowed liberty when they hit a raft or station without Serafino giving him permission.”

  “Trefla,” Kel-Paten said. One of the side effects of the illegal drug was a skewed, disjointed personality.

  Tasha shrugged. “TeKrain had decided he was going to jump ship, but Serafino wouldn’t let him out of his sight. Then, without warning, Serafino broke dockage at Rekerral and headed, as far as TeKrain knew at that point, to nowhere. Except that Serafino fed TeKrain exact coordinates. Exact coordinates that put them right at the epicenter of the vortex.”

  Rekerral was a small station with a questionable reputation, on the edge of the Zone closest to Illithian space. That was First Fleet’s—his—responsibility and the Nexarion’s territory, and Kel-Paten had been assured by Captain Kel-Varen that the border was secure, the station not a liability. One more thing now to double-check.

  “Why would he head for a vortex?” Fynn asked Tasha.

  Kel-Paten answered. “To use its power, Doctor. There are theories that we can use a vortex as a form of intergalactic travel. Faster than the jumpdrives we currently have and without the need for jumpgate technology.” It was a hypothesis he’d actively worked on for many years—and, if not for the war, he would’ve gotten much further. It was one of the reasons he had been so amenable to the peace talks.

  But not the only one.

  Now, however, he was concerned that the Illithians were ahead of him. Were they using vortices to infiltrate Triad space? Nothing in any intelligence reports he saw suggested the Dynasty was even close to having that kind of technology. But did Serafino know something, and was he helping them?

  “According to TeKrain,” Tasha continued, “when the Novalis reached the coordinates, the vortex was just starting to form. TeKrain has no idea how Serafino knew it would. He was also surprised to see our energy signature, but then the ship began to break up. Serafino took the helm and did what he could to get her within our sensor range, to save the crew. And the rest we know.”

  Kel-Paten turned slightly on the corner of Fynn’s desk and looked down at her. Though the information about Serafino and his use of the vortex interested him most, he was in Fynn’s office, and this wasn’t the venue for such a discussion. “I’ll need a report on your assessment of TeKrain’s veracity, Doctor.”

  “Once the computers translate the vidtranscript of the session, I’ll overlay my readings and stat it to your offices.” Fynn nodded to Tasha, then to him. “But that probably won’t be until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s acceptable,” he told Fynn, pushing himself away from her desk. He stopped behind Tasha’s chair and rested his hand lightly on its back. He had to separate her from Fynn before the two had a chance to compare notes. And he wanted to dissect this new information on the vortex with Tasha. He swiveled her chair to face the door before she could object. “Come along, Sebastian. You’re with me.”

  He waited, favoring her with one of his usual glares until she offered a halfhearted wave to the CMO and fell in step with him as he strode through the doorway.

  “Comm me when you’re ready for dinner,” she called back through Fynn’s open doorway. “Give me prelims on TeKrain then.”

  “Will do.” Fynn nodded as her doorway slid closed.

  Kel-Paten uncurled his fingers from the fist he’d unconsciously made, and he motioned Tasha toward the corridor as if his world hadn’t just taken a nosedive into a black hole.

  Eden Fynn could give Tasha a lot more than prelims. He feared that her empathic readings on the Tsariian weren’t the only things she would discuss with her captain as soon as they were alone. And he didn’t know whether he was more afraid of Tasha’s scorn when the Zingaran CMO told her just how hopelessly in love the Tin Soldier was with her or Fynn’s resultant order to Section 46 him, re
moving from his life the only two things he gave a damn about: his service to the Triad through the Fleet and the chance to have Tasha Sebastian by his side.

  SICK BAY

  Eden took a half hour to review updates from the medical team on Lightridge Station. There was little chance—with Serafino and all that had happened—the Vax would head back there now. But the unexplained deaths plagued her. However, Serafino’s medical situation and warnings about a serious threat to the Alliance bothered her equally as much.

  Which was why a visit with him soon was on her schedule.

  In the meantime, she worked on the Lightridge data, just in case Kel-Paten returned unexpectedly. It wouldn’t do to have him find her in Serafino’s hospital room so shortly after their interrogation of TeKrain. That would definitely take some creative explanations, but not more creative than what she’d devised as a means to initiate telepathic contact with Serafino without either harming him—she would set the alarm on her watch for ten minutes—or exposing herself—literally—to the amorous advances of his evil twin. She needed a way to keep the physical Serafino busy while she reached out for the telepathic one.

  She caught Cal’s eye as she strode toward Serafino’s room and nodded slightly. He nodded back. They’d already discussed what she had to do, and he, too, had set his alarm. Neither doctor knew for sure if Serafino would survive another seizure.

  The security lock read her palm print and granted her entry. Serafino was scanning a vidmag on the swivel screen that pulled out from the wall by his bed, and he looked up when she entered, a broad smile on his face.

  “Well, if it isn’t one of the Doctor twins, and my favorite at that! Have I told you how beautiful you look today?”

  “You told me this morning.” She avoided looking at him and concentrated instead on the data on her handheld medicorder. She wanted to make sure that he was strong enough to withstand her telepathic attempt.

  “You can tell me how perfect I am. I don’t mind,” he teased.

  She glanced at him and thought regretfully how true that really was. He was undeniably perfect. Tall. Dark. Handsome. To-die-for blue eyes. Owning a pair of those herself, she’d never before succumbed to their reputed charms. But his were different, a deep azure blue with flecks of green and gold, graced by long dark eyelashes. Oddly sensitive and compassionate eyes, set in a distinctly masculine, chiseled face that tended to an early beard shadow. Which only made him look more handsome and more rakish.

  “Actually,” she told him, beginning to enjoy the charade, “you’re not all that perfect.” She sighed and then became quiet. Patients hated that worried-medical-doctor sigh, she knew.

  “Hmm,” she mused out loud, pretending to concentrate on the readings in her hand.

  “Hmm?” he questioned. “Is that a good ‘hmm’ or a bad ‘hmm,’ my lovely doctor?”

  She shrugged. “Not sure.”

  “What do you mean, not sure? You’re the doctor—the chief medical officer, if I’m correct.” He smiled, but it was a tense smile.

  “You are. Correct, that is.”

  “And what else am I, Doc?” he queried. “Look, I got bumped around a bit. But that doesn’t warrant being locked up in here.”

  “That’s something you’ll have to discuss with Admiral Kel-Paten,” she told him.

  “I’d love to. Bring him on. Bring on a whole army of Tin Soldiers. When are you going to let me talk to him?” He had made this request before and received the same response.

  “When I give you medical clearance, Captain, and you’re not there yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Not sure.” They were back where they’d started, and that was just where Eden wanted him.

  He leaned against the pillows and groaned. “Okay, Doc, what is it? You can tell me. Am I pregnant?”

  His query and expression were so comical that Eden laughed out loud. “No, but I’m glad to see you still have a sense of humor.”

  “You have a sexy laugh, Doc.”

  “And you, Captain Serafino,” she said, moving in for the kill, “have something that is confounding my best diagnostic equipment. So I’m afraid I have no choice but to resort to drastic measures.”

  He frowned. “Explain.”

  “We can’t get a definitive reading on your body temperature. There’s something in your system—and I’ve seen it in rare cases—that scrambles the medicorders.”

  “Something—like what?”

  “Electrolyte levels have been known to do that,” she lied.

  “Which means…?”

  She pulled out an antique glass thermometer. “I have to take your temperature. Manually.”

  “Manually?” He stared at the instrument that bespoke a time long ago of scalpels and sutures and things that actually hurt. “What’s that thing?”

  “A thermometer. An oral thermometer. Open wide….”

  His eyes almost crossed as he stared at it. “You’re not putting that thing in my mouth!”

  “Are we afraid, Captain Serafino?” she cooed.

  “Lubashit, no! It’s just that nobody’s used those things in centuries, Doc. Where did you get your medical degree, anyway?”

  “The same place you got your captain’s license. Send away twelve box tops from Starry Loops cereal and you can be anything your heart desires. Now say ahhh.”

  He clamped his mouth shut. “No,” he said through tight lips.

  Eden stood back, eyed him in mock anger, and tapped her foot. Then, reaching into her other lab-coat pocket, she pulled out a larger and longer thermometer.

  “Fine,” she said, holding it out for him to see. “You don’t want to say ahhh, we can do it another way. This is a rectal thermometer. Roll over.”

  Serafino actually paled. “You must be out of your friggin’ mind.”

  “Then say ahhh,” she told him.

  He said “ahhh.”

  When she was sure the thermometer was securely under his tongue and that he wouldn’t bite the thing in half, she surreptitiously tapped at the extra comm link in her pocket, sending a signal to its coded twin on Cal Monterro’s desk. Serafino was under control. Now came the hard part.

  She took his wrist in her hand as if to take his pulse. Again, an ancient medical practice in an age of scanners and sensors and sonic surgery.

  “What now?” he mumbled around the thermometer.

  “Shh! Lie back and close your eyes. I need your heart rate to relax so I can take your pulse. The more you fight this, Captain, the longer it’s going to take. And if I can’t get a good reading out of that oral thermometer, I’ll have no choice but to use—”

  He fell back abruptly against the pillows, his eyes tightly closed.

  She let her hand encircle his wrist and used the blinking red numbers on her watch to let her mind fall into a light trance. His breathing slowed and so did hers, until they were matched in rhythm. She called his name. Jace? She had a brief floating sensation and then a comforting warmth.

  Eden! What in hell did you stick in my mouth?

  She shot him a mental grin. Had to shut you up somehow. Would you have preferred the other orifice?

  She felt him grin back, a small tickle of warmth in her mind as he sent his words: A doctor and a comedian. She felt a question forming. How did you know this would work?

  There are some Zingaran manuals on telepathic healings. It was an avenue I had to try. Jace, we have problems, not the least of which is a compound in your blood I can’t get a reading on. My med-files have so little on Nasyry physiology, I don’t know if you have a severe infection or it’s just normal. That’s the first thing, she told him, and then waited.

  I don’t have an answer on that. I feel fine, if that’s any help.

  Not to a doctor. But we have other avenues.

  We?

  Sass—Captain Sebastian. We think Kel-Paten has accumulated some impressive files on PsyServ over the years. Sebastian’s going to get them.

  You can call her Sass. I know who she i
s. I know about Gund’jalar, Zanorian, and Lethant. She had quite a reputation on the rim.

  That wasn’t something she was here to discuss, and she told him so. But it was something she would warn Tasha about. She knew there were parts of Tasha’s past that would put her in serious jeopardy if the wrong person were to learn of those facts.

  He caught her concern. I didn’t think her time at Sookie’s was a secret.

  That’s not. But Lethant…

  Got it. What else do you need to know? We’re at about six minutes and running.

  I have Cal on standby, timing us. Jace, I can’t try to remove that implant until I know more about your blood composition. Anything you can remember from past physicals will help me. If not now, then the next chance you get to contact me.

  Whatever you can do, love, know that I appreciate it. And I don’t blame you for anything that might go wrong. I’m a big unknown here.

  Not for long, if Sass can get that data from Kel-Paten’s files. In the meantime, I need to know how you bypass the implant. Maybe I can help extend your time.

  A flood of information came to her—Nasyry mind-control rituals plus a healthy dose of cybercircuitry tricks. Much of it meant nothing to her, especially the technical data. That would be child’s play to Kel-Paten, she knew, but asking his help right now was out of the question. Still, it was an area that Tasha was well versed in.

  She felt his agreement. Tell Lady Sass that ’Fino sends his regards. It was almost time to break contact.

  She wondered whether you’d remember her if she said ‘ante up’!

  Tell the little card shark I sure as hell do! Tell her I said she ought to play Kel-Paten in a sudden-death round of Starfield Doubles for the control codes to the Vaxxar. She’d win, no doubt.

  She sent him a smile. Will do, Captain.

  Then the contact was gone.

  She opened her eyes and gently released Serafino’s wrist, then tapped at the comm link in her pocket. Her watch told her she had forty-eight seconds to go.

  Forty-eight seconds more and she could have killed him.

  “Captain Serafino,” she called softly.