Enemy Within

by Marcella Burnard

  Hicci shuddered and released her.

  “I needed someone I could trust without question. I needed someone strong, determined, and committed, someone who could survive Chekydran brutality and biological manipulation,” Angelou said. “You were the right choice, but I made the mistake of ignoring your considerable intellect. I hope you can forgive me. In retrospect, I should have brought you in with full disclosure.”

  Hicci peaked with a high-frequency shrill that made her head feel like it had split in two. Rage and hatred flamed through her.

  “Full disclosure,” she gasped. Her head spun as the implications sank in. “You planned this? You handed me over to these bastards?” She wanted to scream. The band of stabbing fire constricting her chest wouldn’t allow it.

  “No.” Angelou shifted in his chair, the leather creaking again. “In the strictest, most shortsighted reading of events, I suppose I did. This is part of a much larger plan, one in which you have played a key role. Help me finish this.”

  By the Twelve Gods, all she wanted was to finish the entirety of the Chekydran species.

  “Help you how?” she wheezed.

  “Your memory has been augmented.”

  “Yes.”

  “We need it.”

  “A code.” Ari tried not to move. Her head felt too full. Nausea surged and receded, surged again. It felt familiar.

  “Not just any code. You’ve spent time aboard the Claugh nib Dovvyth command ship. You’ve seen people log into the ship’s systems.”

  “You want the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s code.”

  “You got close enough to get it?” Angelou marveled. He laughed. “Well done!”

  She opened her eyes.

  Angelou went on. “It isn’t his code I require. Interestingly enough, our information indicates that the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s security codes are not tied to command codes. Maybe his own people don’t feel they can trust him. No. There’s a young computer specialist.”

  Sindrivik?

  “Give me his code.”

  “I didn’t see . . .” She halted as memory unfolded, clear as if she stood in the doorway of Eilod’s conference room. Sindrivik. Logging into the computers to fix the system failures. Panic rose and she quashed the vision, forcing her eyes to focus on right here, right now.

  That’s when she realized Hicci was reading her. He stood on eight legs, rocking back and forth; her blood crusting on his skin, his three rows of vestigial eyes all swiveled in her direction. His tentacles lay quiescent below his vibrating throat pouch. How long had she let him sift through her head?

  It had been easy to close the Chekydran out before V’kyrri had told her she was a telepath. She’d had long years of belief that such mind talents were impossible in her people. Except she now knew there were no people she could identify as hers. Thanks, Mom.

  The pressure in her skull increased unbearably and the first dry, desiccated alien tendril drilled into her thoughts. Ari’s confidence broke. She retreated, diving down the well that had always been her safe haven.

  Someone had beaten her to it. Soul chilling fear surrounded her, permeated her. She huddled, quaking, and recognized it. Seaghdh. He struggled against terror. He didn’t fear for himself. It was for her. She could feel it.

  She cursed. She should have known better. Seaghdh had offered safety. She’d clung to the illusion that another humanoid could keep her safe. This was the result. She’d made Cullin Seaghdh integral to her sense of security, maybe to her sense of self.

  Hicci shifted. It was a tiny move and nearly silent, but it alerted a more aware part of her brain. For the first time since she’d been captured, he was picking up her thoughts.

  Icy fear drove through her. She couldn’t lock him out. Every bolt hole she’d ever used to escape him mentally had just slammed shut. Her heart raced, beating against shattered ribs. Seaghdh’s anguish clawed at her. It was much worse than her own fear. No matter what had happened, she loved him.

  The thought stopped her cold and Ari stared at it. She wanted to reject it, to throw it as far and as fast as she could. Loving Auhrnok Captain Cullin Seaghdh nib Riorchjan would only bring her, and possibly him, pain. All right. Acknowledged. But she’d survived pain. So far.

  She loved him. Knowing in a way that no one else could, feeling in a way no one else could, the despair he suffered on her behalf shattered her self-control. She ached to fix it for him.

  Hicci’s hum deepened, vibrating hurt through every broken bone in her body. She suddenly felt his tentacles grasping her face. Thrice-damned bastard. He was sifting her emotions, her fears, her thoughts. It felt exactly like the touch of his skin, sticky, raspy.

  Ari wanted to help Seaghdh, but she didn’t dare try. She had to get out. Now. Before Hicci realized she’d managed to connect to Cullin on a rudimentary level. Even assuming she could deepen the telepathic contact with Seaghdh, she didn’t know how to do it without hurting one or both of them.

  She couldn’t risk that Hicci might be able to read Seaghdh through her. And if Hicci finally got around to killing her, she couldn’t risk being in Seaghdh’s head. From what tiny bit she understood about telepathy, if she died while in contact with him, Seaghdh could all too easily die, as well.

  Hicci crept through her head like a dark, unspeakable stain, spreading, blotting out. This was worse than having her blood and pain used for his sexual gratification. Yes, that horrified and sickened her, but this invasion ripped bits of her away, scattering the pieces into the dark. Ari gasped, desperate for respite. Retreating from his presence, she threw feeble blocks in his way to keep him from following her. Nothing held.

  “Relax, Ari,” Angelou coaxed. “Let your mind drift. Listen to my voice. Think back to the times you saw someone sign into the computers. That’s all you need do. The Chekydran will take it from there. They’re telepaths, Captain. Let your memories flow. We will take the code from you, disable the Dagger’s shields, and take the first steps to assuring the security of our people. I will have the Chekydran place you in a medical crèche while we bring the Claugh nib Dovvyth Empire to its knees.”

  Bring the Claugh nib Dovvyth to its knees? Why did they need her? Or the codes? Awful suspicion rolled in her brain. Hadn’t they already decimated the ranks aboard the Dagger with the disease she’d unknowingly brought onboard?

  Twelve Gods and all Three Hells. She’d sacrificed herself for a disease that wasn’t fatal.

  CHAPTER 28

  HICCI chortled and shoved his way deeper into Ari’s brain.

  She writhed, unable to cry out or pound the floor with her bloody fists. Too late, she could plainly see that Angelou and the Chekydran hadn’t needed to kill anyone; they’d only needed to convince her to return to Hicci’s ship so they could access her memory the way they hoped to access the Dagger’s command codes. She was as much a prototype as Tommy had been.

  She’d fled so far before Hicci’s onslaught that she doubted she’d ever find her way back. Part of her recognized the incipient disintegration of personality, of sanity. Ari didn’t care. Maybe if Hicci drove her into madness while in contact with her, he’d get sucked over, too.

  She had to protect Seaghdh and his people, even if it meant throwing away her life to do so.

  Clarity burst across her beleaguered mind like a supernova overwhelming view-screen filters and she knew what she had to do.

  She had to die.

  And she had to take Hicci with her when she went. He was already deep into her head. If she could lure him just a little farther, maybe she could telepathically access her transponder and trip the self-destruct sequence. It was a long shot. She had to try.

  She called up the memory of her last duel with Seaghdh, reviewing the blade and foot work move by move, uneasily experiencing the surge of remembered arousal that went with it. Ari shrank from allowing Hicci access to those feelings. She treasured them. He’d know that, though, and the memories with the accompanying emotions would be irresistible to him. Closing her eyes, sh
e built the sensory detail.

  Concentrating so hard on handing Hicci a memory of her choosing, she didn’t quite catch the shift in the Chekydran aural net. She only noticed when Hicci wrenched free of her mind.

  Ari cried out.

  Hicci rushed from the room as the shipboard hum amped up in frequency and volume.

  Her head reeled at the sudden emptiness. She lay dazed, unable to focus her eyes or control her shivering body.

  “Captain?”

  She whimpered.

  “Something has happened. What is it?”

  She tried to form a response and couldn’t. Words and language seemed to have been misplaced. Or maybe it was motor skills that had been lost. She moaned.

  Ari heard Angelou shove himself out of his chair, swear, and begin pacing. She could almost see him. He’d done the exact same thing when she’d reported for duty a month ago and he’d sent her on sabbatical. He folded his hands behind him, crossed back and forth in front of his prized window, head down, brows drawn together, and a scowl tightening his features. Despite the distance separating them, she felt like she was in his office with him.

  “It’s the drug,” he said.

  In her mental image, he didn’t even stop pacing. He simply tossed the words out for her to catch as she could.

  “Aphasia is a common side effect.”

  Terrific, but what was the drug supposed to do?

  “It’s designed to open certain pathways,” Angelou answered her mental question as if he’d heard it. “In test cases, it allowed a telepathic species, the Chekydran, more reliable access to the thoughts and feelings of non-telepathic species.”

  Startled, Ari tried to frown. It felt like she still could. Had Angelou really heard her? Did he not realize she wasn’t physically speaking? If the drug did what he said it could do, maybe he had heard her and simply assumed she spoke via com. The drug. It had to be new or the Chekydran would have tried using it while she’d been a prisoner.

  “You weren’t a prisoner,” Angelou countered.

  Ari froze, not even breathing. Twelve Gods. He could hear her. Mentally. How? They were sectors apart. How could she be both places at once? She consciously focused on listening to the Chekydran aural net, hoping it would mask the thoughts and questions racing through her head. If she’d managed to reach him telepathically, could she put herself in his office? Influence him and his actions?

  “And yes. The compound is something we’ve had in development concurrent with your modification. The Chekydran wanted to introduce it into your program much earlier, but it wasn’t safe and we couldn’t afford to risk you.”

  Filling her mind with the vision of Angelou and his office, Ari concentrated on being there, on moving closer to Angelou, on not just imagining him, but on seeing him, being in the same place with him. He still paced, though more slowly, impatience lining his face. Closer. She remembered how she’d hurt V’kyrri. He’d been open, reading her, trying to make contact. That had been frighteningly easy, but she didn’t want to hurt Angelou. Not yet. She didn’t know if what she wanted was even possible.

  The bastard had handed her over to the Chekydran. She’d damned well make it possible.

  She reached for him mentally.

  And felt him flinch.

  “Stop,” Ari commanded, picturing him standing still.

  It took a moment to register with her physical ears, so far away, but the sounds of his boots on military-issue black-and-white tile stilled.

  Grim satisfaction spread over her like a warm blanket. She had him. For the moment.

  “Desk. Sit,” she ordered.

  He returned to his desk and sat. His movements sounded jerky and awkward, judging by the scraping and thumps she heard over the com. The sight of him in her mind’s eye showed his face looking pinched and curiously blank. She wondered briefly if he was in pain, then decided she didn’t care. A single drop of blood trickled from his nose.

  Ari issued commands, controlling his moves and listening to the shrill of protest and distress rising in his head. Through Angelou, she found and bundled up his files and sent them to IntCom. He had no defense against her intrusion, no weapon to combat her presence. It was so easy. It scared her. Something flashed through his thoughts. She caught only a glimpse. It was enough.

  Horror rocked her and she nearly lost her grip on him. How could she have overlooked something so obvious? Hicci knew about her transponder. Angelou had told him.

  Ari gasped and had to still her shaking. The strike team. Seaghdh. They were flying straight into a trap.

  Snarling, she wrapped a mental hand around her admiral’s neck and watched his face turn purple. “This is what you get when you drug open a telepath.”

  She rummaged around his memories, hurriedly looking for the name of the traitor in Seaghdh’s ranks. Angelou didn’t know his name. He knew only that the agent supplying his information was a telepath close to Seaghdh.

  V’kyrri.

  Misery clenched a fist around her heart.

  V’k. How could you?

  She flung Angelou against the far wall.

  He flew out of his chair, hit, and slid to the floor in a heap, bleeding and unconscious. Ari scrambled his door codes so he couldn’t get out without some work.

  It would have to be enough. Weariness dogged her as she fought her way back into her own head, her own aching body. Her heart bumped against the confines of her chest. She had to warn Seaghdh.

  “Sindrivik!” she attempted to say. It came out as a croak. She tried again. If she could control a man two sectors away, surely she could control her own body.

  She sounded like a mortally wounded animal. Maybe that’s what she was. Shrieking in frustration, she hazed momentarily. Fear yanked her back. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen. The broken ribs had punctured a lung. Damn. She refused to die while Seaghdh and his team were in danger. She’d have to risk telepathic contact with Seaghdh.

  Ari heard the door open.

  Hicci.

  She recognized the hum and something more than that. Was she getting a sense of Hicci’s mental presence?

  He threw something into the room and chortled. “Rescue,” he said, barely able to get the word through his amusement.

  She blinked trying to make out both what Hicci was talking about and what he’d dropped. Never before had Ari picked up such a strong sense of emotion from him. Up to this moment, she would have sworn the Chekydran and humanoid feeling systems had no analogue. Could she use her newfound awareness to distract him while she warned the Dagger? She sensed something that made her plodding thoughts hiccup.

  Ari focused on the jumble of cloth and leather Hicci had tossed into the room. Recognition jolted her.

  Seaghdh.

  He’d been unconscious when Hicci had dumped him in her line of sight. As he came to, she felt him in the room, in her head, in her heart. Her wide-open telepathic brain lit up and warmed with relieved recognition, even as despair flooded her. She wanted to wail. She’d been too slow, too late to warn him. To save him. The strike team, her only hope of rescue, had been captured.

  They’d lost.

  He stirred, sorted himself into familiar shape, and rolled toward her. He stared, pain, rage, and horror in his face, but no recognition as he looked at her.

  Ari caught a flash from his surface thoughts of twisted, bloody, broken bodies. His strike team. She groaned and realized in a flash that Hicci must have picked up her memories after all. He’d recognized Seaghdh and dragged him here, knowing he could use her feelings for Seaghdh to torture her further. She closed her eyes and thought, “I am so sorry, hwe vaugh.”

  She felt his dread for her spike. Ari opened her eyes.

  “Twelve Gods. Ari,” he breathed. In an instant, he’d gained his feet and closed the distance between them, crouching before her.

  “Don’t touch me!” she cried inside her own head, praying he could hear as he reached for her.

  In her haste, she failed to moderate her menta
l voice. She knocked him on his butt. And tipped off Hicci.

  The alien swiveled to peer at her, waving tentacles and spurting short, inquisitive bursts of sound. He plunged into her wide-open mind. The invasion wrung a weak mewl from her hoarse throat.

  “Telepath!” Hicci hummed, sounding delighted. He clicked in anticipation and stroked a tentacle lightly over her body, knowing it would cause pain, knowing she’d begged Seaghdh not to hurt her. Knowing it would infuriate Seaghdh.

  Hicci ripped through her brain, glee plain in his unguarded mental presence. Ari shrank before the onslaught. Loathing rippled through her along with the fiery torment of freshly disturbed wounds.

  “Leave her alone!” Seaghdh growled, wiping blood from his nose. The raw, unmitigated power in his voice took her breath.

  It couldn’t work, could it? How could his power translate via a computer program? Or did Nwyth Okkar transcend words?

  For two heartbeats, everything froze. A tendril of hope lifted within her. Seaghdh drew a noisy breath.

  Then Hicci lashed out.

  Seaghdh tried to dodge.

  She heard the sickening thud of tentacles connecting with flesh and then Seaghdh hit the floor with a grunt. From the wheeze that followed, Ari gathered the impact had knocked the breath from him.

  Hicci, chortling and radiating excited anticipation, closed in and slapped Seaghdh hard enough to split his lip.

  That it wasn’t her body absorbing Hicci’s punishment made her heart tremble. She was captive audience to Seaghdh’s death by torture. Ari could feel it in Hicci’s surface thoughts, hear it in the gurgling chur his hum had become.

  Helpless and empty, she could only lay on the floor, hardly breathing, eyes achingly dry, heart shrinking and quaking in her chest. Somehow, she’d done something to Angelou, two sectors away. She wasn’t sure what or how, but she did know she was perilously near the end of her strength.

  Awareness arrowed into her fuzzy brain as Hicci urged Seaghdh to stand up and fight. Hicci loved that in destroying Seaghdh, he shredded her newborn sense of safety and the first hope she’d known since her capture. He relished knowing that she knew.