I knew all their names. And except for Nathaniel Milo and the Taka, their histories. The husbands and wives they left behind. The children. The parents.
I knew them all. And now I had Tessa. An innocent, her mind gutted.
A stranger stared back at me through Sully’s eyes. Then suddenly he ripped off his straps, thrust himself to his feet. For one long terrifying moment I thought he was coming at me, his expression hard and bleak. But he charged by me, past Ren reaching toward him. He stepped over the hatchlock. His arm lashed out. His fist slammed against the corridor wall.
Two more steps, another slam. And another. And another. Echoes of anger. Echoes of pain, fading when he reached crew’s quarters.
“Chasidah.” A harsh, disapproving tone came from somewhere I never expected it. Ren.
I swiveled around. His face was pinched, his lips thin. His voice shook slightly when he spoke, like ice-crusted waves crashing against a frozen shore. “I do not know how to explain this—it is not my part to do so—but I must. I cannot let you destroy him.”
“I didn’t—”
“You are. He feels your rejection, just as I do. Your fear. You know this now.”
I nodded, numbly. Ren wasn’t the only one who could read rainbows.
“I will tell you what you do not know. He offered his life to save yours. On Moabar. He knew the risks. He was alone in this, searching for you. I couldn’t help. The planet drains me, physically. He did this alone. To find you.”
I splayed my hand. “I know the shipyards. I know—”
“Nothing, Chasidah Bergren! You do not understand. He couldn’t live with the knowledge that you were on Moabar. That you would be harmed. That you would be alone, afraid.”
He was right. I didn’t understand. We were talking about Gabriel Ross Sullivan. About six years of tag-you’re-it out on the rim. About hijackings I’d interrupted and illegal escapades I’d appeared in the middle of, like an unwanted guest at a party. Our brief chance encounter at Port Chalo didn’t seem to be sufficient motivation to pull me off Moabar.
“Final day of your trial, the starport experienced a major power loss,” Ren said. “He tried to free you. Damned himself because he failed.”
I froze, memories washing over me. I was back sitting in lockup, deep in the starport’s brig. Judgment against me had just come down. Sentencing would follow, but my options were clear. Moabar or Moabar. They’d never offer me death.
Then darkness. The corridors rang with hard-booted guards, rifles glinting as the red-tinged emergency lights flickered on.
They’d flanked my cell. Belatedly I realized the force field was down. I could’ve run. Don’t know how far I would’ve gotten. But I could’ve tried.
Two hours passed before the power came back on.
A prank, a guard told me nervously. Bored station brats.
Not a prank. Gabriel Ross Sullivan had tried to rescue me, because he didn’t want me to be alone and afraid.
I turned to Ren, but had no words. I didn’t need them. Ren could read rainbows.
His voice softened, the waves still coming, but no longer to an ice-covered shore. “He knew you couldn’t live with yourself if Kingswell died. But he also knew you’d hate him when he gave you the only option that would let Kingswell and the lieutenant live. This is what he risks for you. To feel your hatred, because he cannot do otherwise, being what he is. And he offers this so that you won’t have to feel the pain.”
Suddenly, my fears seemed foolish, stupid. “I didn’t know.” It was a weak, horrible excuse. But it was all I had.
A small smile met my trembling voice. “I’ve often told him to give you those poems he’s written to you. But he’s been afraid. Until you showed you could be friends with me. Showed you didn’t mind someone reading what you call rainbows. He reads, has been reading yours for a long time. Hoping. Waiting.”
“Hijacking cargo to get my attention? Getting himself killed, hoping I’d come to his funeral?” I wasn’t disbelieving his words. But I needed to put all the facts together.
“The first I’ll let him explain to you. The truth may surprise you. But the second, I will tell you, because you know more of the truth than you realize. You know who he is, the wealth and power his father held in the Empire when he was alive. You know also his family disowned him. Two years ago, shortly before his mother died in a shuttle accident, he believed she was open to reconciliation. But that meant the mercenary, the smuggler known as Sullivan, had to die. He agreed to that, faked his own death, not because he had any interest in his inheritance, but because he wanted respectability. So the next time he met you in a bar, you wouldn’t run away.”
Port Chalo. Ren knew about Port Chalo. I started to say something but he held up his hand.
“His mother died before he could reconcile with her. Her unexpected death put the estates in the hands of a cousin. So he has nothing to offer you now, except what he is. Someone you can trust with your life. Someone who will never let you down.”
I closed my eyes, felt as if my heart had been ripped in half. Then I opened them, quickly. Because I knew where that other half of my heart was: at the end of the corridor behind me, in the Meritorious’s crew’s quarters.
12
He was leaning against the bulkhead at the end of the corridor, arms spread wide. A figure in black outlined against the light gray wall. His back was to me, his head was angled down. I could see the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders. His palms were flat, fingers splayed. He looked like a man trying to push his way through the wall.
Or like a man who awaited crucifixion. Damned by an Empire that labeled mind talents as filthy, cursed. Damned by a woman whose life he’d saved.
I couldn’t change the former. Only the latter.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and lay the side of my face against the hard planes of his back. I could feel him trembling, his breath shuddering against me. A frigid chill raced through me, met up against a rushing heat. The heat mushroomed, flowed outward as if through my hands. Then it cascaded back into me, tingling, intense, passionate.
I said nothing, didn’t have to. I sent rainbows. And accepted the ones he sent back to me.
It took a few minutes for the trembling to stop, for his arms to relax, for the warmth to settle to a steady glow that I realized had nothing to do with his body’s heat, or mine. He straightened away from the wall, his hands covering mine.
I threaded my fingers through his and said the one word I thought he might want to hear. “Mine.”
He squeezed my hands. Heat surged, spiraled, settled. Then he turned, drawing me into his arms, pulling us both back against the wall. He pressed me tightly against his body, his face in my hair, his fingers stroking, kneading.
Needing.
I ran my hands up the front of his shirt, across his shoulders, responding in kind. The muscles in his biceps were taut, powerful. My hands circled back to his shoulders, stayed there as I clung to him, sending rainbows.
He tucked my face at the hollow of his throat. His breathing had slowed, but it was still ragged. I could feel his heart pounding.
“Sully? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Shhh. Hush, hush.” A hoarse request.
His fingers wriggled into my hair, wound through the braid but didn’t undo it. Just stroked, caressed. I leaned my head back into his hand. His eyes were closed. Then his lashes lifted slightly.
I ran my fingers over his lips, searching for a hint of that Sully smile. His lips parted. My fingers met the tip of his tongue, and I heard a soft intake of breath. His lips closed against my fingers, sucked.
Heat fluttered, spiraled through me. I stood on tiptoe, pulled my hands down to his shoulders, and let my lips brush his, softly. Let the tip of my tongue touch his, softly.
He groaned, pulled me into his chest, held my mouth in a long, deep kiss while fireworks arced just beneath my skin. I wrapped my arms around his neck, raked my fingers through his hair. His hands lost
their gentleness, traveled boldly, insistently.
I tilted my face away from his, breathless, and ran my thumb across his mouth. Kissed him again. And this time I heard bells, chimes.
Then Ren’s voice. “Excuse me, Captain. But I think we’re about to exit the jumpgate.”
“Shit.” We said it at the same time. He pushed away from the wall. I turned, almost stumbling over my own feet. So much for the captain in control. He grabbed my elbow, propelled me forward. “Go, Chaz!”
We raced around Ren, hopped over the hatch tread, and tumbled into our chairs just as the last set of triple chimes sounded.
I swung the armrest controls around with one hand and tapped in commands with the other. “Initiating exit sequence.” I hooked on my tattered straps and was back in command mode.
“Bringing sublights online,” Sully answered.
I heard Ren’s footsteps, the squeak of the chair at the comm station as the rumbling noise started beneath my boots. Nice, friendly sublights, ready to go after a short nap.
I picked up the exit beacon, verified coordinates, locked them in. “Three minutes to hard edge.”
“Got it.”
We traded more chatter, all of it intense and technical. Personal lives, all the joys and the conflicts, disappear during a jumpgate transit. I ran over the data for mass, velocity, and inertia, checked for dump points. Sully monitored weapons. We didn’t know what might be waiting out there when we came through. We still squawked an Imperial ID. There wasn’t time to alter the Meritorious’s codes now.
“Thirty seconds to hard edge.”
“Got it. Preparing to disengage hypers.”
“On my mark. Twenty seconds.” I watched the screens and monitors, felt the first shimmy as the jumpgate’s hold on us began to recede.
“Ten seconds. Eight seconds. Four. Mark. Now!”
We dropped out swiftly, the black starfield suddenly glistening through the forward viewports.
My fingers flew over a series of touchpads. “Max sensors, full sweep. Bogey check, bogey check.”
“Weapons active.” Sully was reaching, tabbing, watching monitors just as I was. “Clear, clear.”
I let out a short sigh of relief. Either those cruisers following us had no idea which exit we would take out of the jumpgate, or they believed our cold entry had been fatal. Or we were just plain lucky.
I didn’t know how long our luck would hold out.
“I need to delete all the Imperial codes. Take the helm for me; get us on course.” I yanked off my safety straps, pushed out of my chair. I glanced over my shoulder just as Sully turned in his seat. And damned the heat rising to my face as his gaze followed me. Then realized that the color on my checks was probably nothing compared to what else I radiated. Which only made my cheeks heat up more.
“Need my help?” he asked.
“Take the helm,” I repeated. “I won’t be long.” We had unfinished business, lots of it. Lots of questions, explanations. But if I didn’t get those codes changed, those explanations might not matter.
He seemed to catch that. “I’ll be waiting for you.” He added a slow grin to his words.
“Just don’t get us lost.”
Ren’s smile was wide as I tripped over the hatch tread. I sent him my oh, shut up rainbow and didn’t look back. I strode toward the captain’s cabin. This, at least, was familiar territory.
Lew Kingswell had kept his command-code file exactly where Fleet regs said we should. I’d never kept mine there. I’d kept a partial, just in case during a surprise inspection someone wanted to see if Chasidah Bergren knew the rules.
I did. I also knew that most of civilized space did as well.
I’d kept the full command codes in a buried file, surrounded by trip alarms. It took me about fifteen minutes to create another. Then I reset all commands and passwords. But not the Meritorious’s ID. I had to be on the bridge to do that.
I made copies of everything on a small datapad I found on a shelf next to the desk. This was slow work. The ship was under full power, with the hypers the only cold system. I couldn’t shut down the sublights, couldn’t shut down enviro, recode, and bring them up again. So I inserted patches that would hamper any attempt by intruders to take the ship. I’d make the permanent changes when we met up with Sully’s ship on the border.
A noise from the open doorway made me raise my head. Sully cleared his throat and leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded over his chest. Unshaven, dark hair tousled, clothed all in black, he exuded an undeniable sensuality.
He arched an eyebrow. “Ten minutes I’ve stood here, and you’ve yet to notice. Demoralizing to be so quickly forgotten.”
My brain seized, fogged, and overheated. It was rare for me not to have a rejoinder for one of Sully’s quips, yet I couldn’t think of one. A slight twinge of apprehension mixed in with the sensations from the past two days. The heat of his body, his kisses, his hands caressing my skin all flooded through my memory. At the same time, I remembered another heat, surging, spiraling through me when we touched. I knew empaths read emotions, some could even transmit them. But I didn’t understand it. That made me nervous.
And there had been that unsettling coldness in him when he’d agreed to handle Kingswell. As if he weren’t comfortable with what he could do. Why? Part of me longed for answers, for the facts. But part of me feared the answers more than the questions. Maybe that’s why the routine of changing ship’s codes had seemed so preferable once we’d cleared the jumpgate.
I gestured toward the deskscreen on my right, stuck to that safe topic. “It takes longer to do this when we’re under way.”
He stepped inside. “We’ve time. Two and a half weeks yet.”
“The Aldan–Baris border’s at least three and a half—”
“I take risks.” He pushed the datapad to the center of the desk and sat, angled on the edge. “The Boru Karn will meet us in Calth.”
“Not at the A–B?” The Aldan–Baris border contained a number of asteroid belts and abandoned miners’ rafts. They provided excellent places to hide, especially for a ship the size of the Boru Karn. It was one of the few places Sully had ever managed to lose me when I was on his trail. Calth was more open, more heavily trafficked by Imperial ships. “Is that wise?”
He responded with the quiet, gentle stare I suddenly tagged as Sully’s way of reading me, like Ren’s barely perceptible head tilt.
“Wisdom’s only proven in hindsight, my angel. Without application, it’s but theory.” He spread one hand in an almost elegant gesture. “True wisdom is theory that’s been tested through risk.”
We’d just kidnapped two Imperial officers, hijacked a patrol ship, almost been incinerated by plasma torpedoes, and could’ve killed ourselves in a cold jump. And I was listening to a lofty-sounding monologue better suited to the halls of a university than the quarters of a patrol-ship captain. Who’d just found out the man before her was a rogue empath. Maybe I wasn’t the only one not quite ready to face the questions and answers.
“Sully—”
“Hush, Chasidah-angel.” He put his finger against my mouth. “I have a question.” His fingers moved under my chin. “Do you still think it was wise to come down the corridor after me?”
He withdrew his hand and waited.
I thought of his lecture on wisdom. And I’d heard this tone in his voice other times, when he’d played the poet, the pedant. They’d almost always been times of intense emotion. Like Port Chalo. I’d written off his words that night because of the beer. But he was sober now, though no less intense.
I wasn’t sure I understood him. I needed, however, for him to understand me. There was too much at risk here, in too many ways.
“Were my actions wise? I’m a Fleet officer, trained to assess situations, act on the facts. You won’t find impetuous in my service record. Obviously, there’s a lot I don’t know about you. But there’s a lot I do know, after six years. Especially after the past few days. But I’m also not a foo
l,” I added softly. “I have fears.”
“Because of risks you don’t understand.”
“Oh, some I understand very well.” I breathed a small, harsh laugh. “I have had my heart trashed. That’s not in my service record either.”
His slight frown was encouraging. By all that was holy, I did have some secrets left, even from an empath.
“That’s not at risk here.”
“I’ve heard that before too.”
“Chasidah—”
I touched my finger to his lips, mimicking his gesture of moments ago. “Hush.”
He gave me a small smile, wistful yet oddly warm.
I took my hand away. “So was my coming after you wise? I owed you an apology. It wasn’t my intention to say hurtful words. I told you the other night. There are a number of things in my life that I’m not handling well, that confuse me. You’re one of them.”
“Because of what happened with Kingswell?”
“And because of what happened, or didn’t happen, in Port Chalo.”
“I never regretted my choice of career until I met you,” he said, his wistful smile fading. “I had certain commitments to fulfill. Once they were, I had what I thought was a plan. A reinvention of Gabriel Ross Sullivan, if you will, into someone Chasidah Bergren would meet in an officers’ club. Not in one of the disreputable bars in Port Chalo.”
“I would’ve preferred Port Chalo to Moabar.”
“So would I. Then Kingswell, and what I had to do, wouldn’t be an issue. But with that, my answers are long and complicated. I can’t guarantee that clarification is a solution. It hasn’t been, for me.”
Growing up an empath in a society that condemned mind talents hardly provided any avenues for clarification. I could see why his friendship with Ren was important. I could also see why my acceptance of Ren was equally as important to him.
His gaze flicked down to the desktop, then back to my face. “I have another question.”
I nodded.
“Did you come looking for me freely, or because of Ren?”
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