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 Withdrawn?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 s
taging 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. PsyServ 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?”
<
br /> 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.
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.
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