Enemy Within

by Marcella Burnard

  “No wonder you were ready to suicide.”

  She sighed. She’d been full of ambition. Duty had seemed very black-and-white. Snuggling down in the nest she’d made of her comforter and pillows, she said, “Raj came up with the radiation idea after Jayleia made some comment about wishing we could rig UV with enough reach to sanitize every nook and cranny. He did some research and brought back hull penetration tolerances versus human tissue tolerances. The three of them, Dad, Raj, and Jay, mixed up the pre-exposure cocktail to minimize tissue damage. It’s remarkably effective, but we had no way of getting it to the Balykkal.”

  “It won’t teleport?”

  “No.”

  “Radioactive all on its own, is it?”

  “Just enough.”

  “You took a full dose of radiation.”

  “And exposed Pietre to a full dose,” she said. “We both spent a good long time in gene therapy afterward.”

  “Ari, a radiation dose like that,” Seaghdh said. “That does things to a man.”

  “Women, too, Seaghdh, I assure you.”

  “Aye. But the female genome is encapsulated. It’s harder to damage and easier to repair.”

  “Yes.”

  “You sterilized him.”

  “Yes, and I’d do it again. Dead is dead. Pietre’s alive. Dad has a grad student working on a way to repair the damage to a single sperm cell. I understand they’re making significant progress.”

  Seaghdh uttered a harsh laugh. “You have had to make some tough calls in your time, haven’t you?”

  “Part of the job description.”

  “I don’t envy you. I’d have done the same thing, up to and including flying into the sun. Think of the songs they’d sing. You might have gotten your own holiday.”

  She laughed, but his approval warmed her. It had been one of the few times she and her father had agreed. Radiation could be recovered from, death couldn’t. It hadn’t made it any easier to break the news to Pietre. She’d demanded to be the one to do it. He’d been on her ship and under her command, such as it was. She had to take responsibility for telling Pietre that her decision had left him sterile.

  Seaghdh flopped back down in the bed. “He’s not just an orhait’s ass.”

  “Nope,” she said, struggling to stifle a yawn and the picture of Pietre’s face affixed to the body of one of Tagreth’s infamous six-legged, nasty-tempered pack animals. “His hatred is justified. I only poke him in the eye when he lets it get in the way of doing his job.”

  “You told him to check for a fuel clog in the starboard atmospheric, didn’t you?” Seaghdh demanded. She could hear the mirth in his voice. “He tuned the engines instead just to spite you.”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t choke back her yawn that time.

  “Rest,” Seaghdh said, his voice deepening. “Sleep.”

  Ari wanted to tell him she rarely slept, that when she slept she dreamed. She wanted to tell him, but unable to resist the caress of power in the rich, melodic voice curling around her, her eyes drifted shut.

  ARI propelled herself from the depths of sleep, automatically swallowing the scream that tried to escape her throat. She was upright and halfway across the room before she realized what had happened. Breathing hard, she set her hands on her desk and leaned, head hanging, trying to calm the shudders wracking her body. Humming. She heard it now. It jolted her heart into high gear. It didn’t matter that it was just a harmonic in the interstellar drive. It never mattered.

  The bedclothes rustled. Seaghdh sat up.

  “Ari? Are you all right?” he asked. “Half light.”

  The lights switched on. She flinched.

  “Sorry,” he said, rising. He moved as if afraid she might shy away. “Do the lights bother you?”

  “No,” she rasped. Not now that they were on and she could plainly see she wasn’t in a Chekydran cell, no, they didn’t bother her.

  “Trouble sleeping?”

  “Engine harmonic,” she said.

  “I hear it. I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about. V’kyrri would be on it already . . .”

  She shook her head. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

  He paused at her side, peering into her face, looking unsettled. Finally, he laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re shaking and you’re cold. Come on. Into bed. I’ll take the floor.”

  “I cannot sleep in the bed.”

  “You obviously aren’t sleeping on the floor, either,” he replied. “Just warm up. You don’t have to sleep.”

  He put an arm around her shoulder, drew her to the bed, and released her as she climbed in. She huddled under the blankets, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins. Concern puckered the skin between his brows. He eased down to sit facing her as if afraid she might object.

  She flushed, embarrassed that in his company she felt so vulnerable, so exposed. Why, when he looked at her, did Cullin Seaghdh see so much more than anyone else? Every time her father or Raj or Jayleia looked at her, she saw walls go up in their eyes, as if they couldn’t stand to see what she’d become. To know what had happened and was still happening to her. Seaghdh seemed to accept her. She sighed.

  “The Chekydran hummed,” she explained, her voice shaking.

  Seaghdh closed his eyes and nodded, but not before she saw pain flare in his gaze. When he looked at her again, only a hint of it remained. For some reason, it reached a deeply hidden part of her. He hurt because of what she’d been through. He hurt for her.

  Ari swallowed hard and forged on, wanting him to understand, hoping he wouldn’t look at her with that damning mixture of pity and hopelessness she saw in her family’s eyes.

  “Everything vibrated. Skin, muscle, bone, teeth. This damned, barely audible buzz. It never stopped.”

  Warm, strong fingers covered hers and she realized she’d twisted the blankets into a hard knot with her white-knuckled hands.

  “From watching them, I gathered that it functioned as a kind of neural network, a framework of communication and awareness,” she said. “If we could develop some kind of sonic disruption, we might be able to . . .”

  “You were a prisoner and you collected intelligence?” he asked. His laugh sounded brittle.

  “I became what they accused me of being.”

  “And when the engine drops into a harmonic?”

  “I’m right back in that cell with very little to do to stay sane but catalogue details.”

  He shifted. Without a word, he turned and sat beside her, nudging her over. Propping his back against the headboard, he tugged her into his grasp. His thighs cradled her backside. He drew her against his chest, his arms closing around her. She blinked, uncertain how to respond, afraid to let herself feel. Or want.

  “Relax,” he rumbled, his tone unsettled. “Pretend for me that this helps.”

  He needed it, she realized in a flash, needed to feel useful. Why? Why did it matter to him? He had helped her. She could admit that. Could she do as he asked and pretend she was okay in his arms? She sighed, loosed the tension from her body, and rested her head against his shoulder. Maybe she could. Heat seeped through her. The rhythm of his breath rising and falling rocked her. It felt so good. So safe. It dismayed her to find just how badly she needed to be held. She closed her eyes on the shudder of fear that rippled through her.

  “How did you manage to wake up without screaming?” he asked, his breath puffing against her hair.

  “Officers don’t scream.”

  He chuckled. “Armada boot camp suddenly scares the hell out of me.”

  “It isn’t something one picks up in boot camp. Besides . . .” Ari broke off, fear spiking through her again.

  He tightened his arms around her. “Besides?”

  She fought the urge to deny him. No matter the cascade of adrenaline and cortisol in her blood, her survival no longer depended on silence. She could fight back.

  “Besides,” she forced herself to say. “If I scream, they win.”


  Seaghdh swore, the sound angry, desolate. “V’kyrri will take care of the harmonic.”

  She nodded.

  He released her to tab off the light, then wrapped her in his embrace once more.

  She stared into the darkness for several minutes while his breathing deepened and slowed, lulling her.

  “Would you be okay lying down?” he murmured.

  She started and forced herself upright. By all the Gods. She’d fallen asleep in his arms after a nightmare. She’d never slept after waking from . . .

  “I can’t do this. If I dream again . . .” She gasped and shook her head at the desire welling up within her to stay locked in his arms.

  “You won’t,” he whispered into her hair as he eased them down in the bed. “You won’t. Sleep. Only peaceful, pleasant dreams.”

  He’d put that indefinable something into his voice, using his talent to compel her again. No. He was offering his ability to her, to help her. Again.

  Desperate, needy, starving for the emotional comfort Seaghdh offered, a part of her lunged for and clung to the lifeline he’d thrown. Her eyes burned as he turned to his side and tucked her back against his chest.

  “Sleep.”

  Weariness closed over her head like deep, silent water.

  ARI had finished running her fifth kilometer in the cargo bay and had started loading weights on the weight bar when Seaghdh sauntered in. Wiping sweat from her forehead, she nodded, mistrusting the sharp look in his eyes and the hard line around his mouth.

  “Didn’t wake you again, did I?” she asked.

  “No.” He took up position at the head of the weight bench as she lay down and placed her hands on the bar. He spotted her off the rack.

  “Thanks.”

  He watched her for a few reps. “Want to tell me about that psych lock on your cabin door?”

  Her muscles froze, trembling. He’d seen her wade through the psych test. Misery and shame closed sharp teeth on her heart.

  Seaghdh grabbed the bar and pulled it back onto the rack.

  Did she want to tell him about the psych lock? Bastard. She sat up, breathing hard. “No.”

  “Do it anyway,” he ordered. “What are you afraid of, Ari?”

  “Damn it, Seaghdh. You’re kidnapping me, not treating me.”

  Intraship chimed. “Captain?” Sindrivik said.

  “Seaghdh,” he replied, turning to glance at the speaker. “Go ahead.”

  “On approach to Kebgra,” Sindrivik said. “No response to hails.”

  Ari stood up frowning. “No response?”

  “None.”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  CHAPTER 9

  ARI showered and dressed so fast her hair was still damp by the time she bounded onto the bridge. Sindrivik vacated the pilot’s seat. Scrolling through the data, Ari glanced at Seaghdh. “Automatic beacons are online, just no verbal response from the depot.”

  “What are our choices?” he asked, leaning back in the command chair, eyeing her olive-drab fatigues.

  Let him. She needed to be in uniform. She stared at her panel. They could make Silver City, but the slightest emergency and they’d be running on one atmospheric unless they replaced the part. Doable, but it made the Sen Ekir fly like a garbage scow.

  Swearing, she shook her head. Unacceptable.

  “Running on one engine is a risk I’m not willing to take,” she said.

  She saw V’kyrri look up at Seaghdh and nod once. Confirming her risk analysis? Maybe the uniform had been a mistake. It reminded her she had a job to do, but it had obviously prompted Seaghdh to recall he’d spent the night holding the enemy. Who’d slept ridiculously well and long because of his arms around her.

  She scowled. “We stop at the depot.”

  Her father had used the Kebgra settlement as a supply stop for years. The settlers weren’t big on formality. More than once, the crew of the Sen Ekir had put down in the middle of a festival or a street party that encompassed the entire population. They’d always gotten a hurried “yeah, put down anywhere!” from someone before, though.

  “They are isolated. Could be a com failure. Land here.” She pointed to the depot a kilometer or so outside of town. “I’ve never seen another ship there, but we’ll scan before committing, just in case.”

  “Agreed.”

  They broke orbit and headed in on both engines. V’kyrri huddled over the engineering panel as if holding the starboard fuel feed valve together by willpower alone. The ship shuddered into the atmosphere. Turrel shook his head as they rounded into position for final descent.

  “Nothing there,” he said.

  “Initiating landing sequence,” Ari said.

  “Acknowledged.” Seaghdh glanced at her. “Will we need your father for clearance?”

  “On Kebgra? Hell no. Their notion of customs and clearance is to invite you to supper and ask if you’re married to more than three spouses.”

  Seaghdh grinned. “Sounds like my kind of world.”

  They set down with a thump. Still nothing from the locals.

  “Ari, Turrel, with me,” Seaghdh said.

  She led the way to the hatch and cycled open the air lock. Seaghdh stepped past her and sauntered down the ramp. She followed. It wasn’t until they’d set foot to the pale lavender dust at the bottom of the ramp that a breeze blew away the scent of metal hot from entry. She drew in an experimental breath and frowned.

  “Do you smell that?” she murmured.

  Seaghdh wrinkled his forehead in concentration and nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Back!” Ari ordered, instinct screaming. It was death she smelled. “Seal the ship!”

  They backed up the ramp, Seaghdh coming in last to cover their retreat. “Sindrivik? Get sensors online and moving!”

  “Recalibrating to read biosigns,” Sindrivik acknowledged.

  “No farther than the outer lock!” Ari said. “If this is a pathogen, we’re exposed.”

  “V’kyrri!” Seaghdh hollered into intraship. “Break open those weapons lockers. I need rifles.”

  “There’s an equipment port, vacuum sealed,” Ari said. “Right beside the air-lock door.”

  “Got it!” V’kyrri answered.

  Turrel brought the rifles. Ari tried not to notice he hadn’t brought one for her.

  “V’kyrri, bring two more rifles and report to the air lock.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Seaghdh leaned close, setting off a flutter in her belly. “Ari. Advisability of consulting your father?”

  “Without some notion as to what we’re facing, I don’t know,” she confessed. “When I’m an officer of the Armada, I suspect incursion. Aboard the Sen Ekir, I think of disease first.”

  He flashed her a grin. “Feeling schizophrenic, Captain?”

  “Not according to the psych tests I completed this morning.”

  He chuckled. “Point.”

  She flushed.

  “Ready to exit,” V’kyrri said from the air-lock com.

  “Establish positive airflow, V’kyrri,” Ari instructed. “The panel beside the crew door has a command series for ship air and for atmosphere. Switch it to ship air and pull pressure up until the indicators read yellow. It will keep external air from contaminating the ship and it will be safe to exit.”

  “Aye.”

  Turrel glanced between her and Seaghdh. “We switched to atmosphere when we landed.”

  “It’s scrubbed,” she said. “Until you open the air locks and cargo doors without positive air pressure on board, anything coming into the ship is automatically sterilized. It’s also why the water tastes like crap.”

  “Let me install an oxygenator,” V’kyrri said as he slipped out the door and struggled to seal it behind him. “I’ll have your water tasting like a mountain stream.”

  “My father would explain that the mountain stream you favor tastes the way it does because of the animal excrement contaminating it.”

  “Charming.”
>
  “Captain, the sensors were meant to be used from orbit. Range is limited planetside,” Sindrivik said via the com.

  “By the curvature of the damned planet,” Ari countered, sudden fear making her heart tremble.

  “Yeah,” Sindrivik said. She disliked his grim tone. “Nothing. Not a single humanoid life sign within range of these sensors.”

  She’d started shaking her head before he’d even started talking. “No. That can’t be right. There’re two major settlements . . .”

  “Nothing, Captain,” Sindrivik repeated, sympathy in his voice.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, staggered, and stared at Seaghdh. “Can’t be an outbreak,” she wheezed.

  He frowned and hefted the muzzle of his rifle higher. “No?”

  “Every illness leaves survivors,” she said, choking back a curse. In trying to minimize the risk to her father and his crew, she’d dropped them straight into a body count. She’d run out of options.

  Seaghdh spun to stare out the open hatch. “Sindrivik! Get me ships!”

  “Already on it, Captain,” the man replied. “Nothing in range.”

  “Keep those eyes on and this line stays open.”

  “Mr. Sindrivik. Free the scientists,” Ari said. “Put me on ship-wide.”

  “Captain Seaghdh?” Sindrivik prompted.

  Seaghdh took one look at her grim face and said, “Do it.”

  “Aye,” Sindrivik said.

  Ari waited through a series of clicks and muted beeps as the young man in the cockpit patched her into ship-wide.

  “You’re on,” Sindrivik said.

  Ignoring the prickle behind her eyes, she faced the com so she wouldn’t have to watch the betrayal dawn in Seaghdh’s eyes and said, “Initiate Level Two Containment. Authorization, Captain Alexandria Idylle. Repeat. Initiate Level Two Containment.”

  A flurry of voices competed for the com line.

  “Medical emergency override!” Raj bellowed. “Clear this channel! All personnel, report, by the numbers!”

  “Dr. Linnaeus Idylle, cabin.”

  “Pietre Ivanovich, cabin.”

  “Dr. Raj Faraheed, medical,” Raj said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “Our doors are unlocked. Get out there and initiate containment!”