But not now. Stars have mercy, I loved him. And questions hurt him. Answers hurt him. I’d felt his anguish, his fear, when one would pop into my mind, unbidden. I’d turn, forgetting the one thing that was very, very hard for Sullivan to face. And that was himself.
I remembered the feel of his voice in my mind, No. Stay still. Don’t … don’t turn.
Fear. He’d been behind me, somewhere in gray fuzzy soft. Don’t turn. Don’t look. Don’t look at me.
What would I have seen if I had?
Right now, I looked through the main viewports. They framed something once beautiful in her own functional way. Something that had saved my life countless times. Something that had bestowed a title, a purpose to the name of Chasidah Bergren. And had continued on bravely, forever holding a piece of me in her memory when the court had stripped that same title and purpose away.
As long as she worked the lanes, as long as she streamed through the neverwhen, so did Captain Chaz Bergren. I always felt that even if I died, my codes, my programs, would live on in her.
I never thought she’d be the one to die first. And in such ugliness.
The shattered hull of the Meritorious hung lopsided against the starfield. The Level 2 autodestruct had gutted most of her starboard side, peeled back her hull plating. Her Imperial insignia was blackened. Her bridge, shattered. All that was left of her name were the first four letters: MERI.
Meri.
Good-bye, Meri, my sweet little P40. I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry.
“Weapons online.” Verno’s voice was gravelly, sounding normal again.
“Targeting. Locked.” Sully shifted in the sling behind me. Then, softly, “Chaz?”
I didn’t turn, just shook my head and raised my hand to push away his offer. I knew what had to be done. Why it had to be done. Nothing for the Empire to trace. Nothing for them to question. I just couldn’t be the one to do it.
Fifteen. Fifteen lives. And now Meri’s.
She was only a ship. My first and only command.
My sweet, sweet little P40.
A short, harsh sigh came from Sully. Then a word. “Fire.”
Lasers streaked out from the Boru Karn. The Meritorious exploded, disintegrated into a thousand wheeling stars. Then she faded away.
We were about ten hours from the B–C border. But we were twenty-six from an inexplicable systems failure. And a total recovery. Providential, Ren had said. Everything had come back on, flawlessly, as if it had never happened.
Sublights thrummed at max, Sully-style. That meant max plus twenty to the rest of civilized space.
We’d all slept, exhausted, aching, then reconvened in the ready room with lots of coffee. Ten hours to the B–C border. Problems behind us. Troubles forgotten.
Gregor sat across from me, cheerful and jubilant. And noticeably apologetic. “Was real furred, wasn’t I? Went babbling a few nasty words. Sure you know I didn’t mean them. Sure you, being a Fleetie and all, must have heard them a hundred times over.” He offered a wide grin and slapped the side of his head with his hand, skewing his thinning brown hair. “Still rattling around in there. Can’t you hear it?”
Verno’s laugh rattled a few viewports in the next quadrant. Ren’s gaze brushed over Sully’s, then mine. Marsh was on the bridge, listening on intraship. Dorsie and Aubry were sleeping, off duty.
“Chest healing better?” I was the picture of concern.
“Still some tightness, soreness.” Gregor stretched, winced.
God, get me a theater. Any stage will do.
“Dorsie’s got a cure for that,” Verno said. “Her special tea.”
With honeylace. She’d brewed a mug for Sully and Ren. I didn’t need it. I had Gabriel Sullivan’s bedtime stories.
Sully keyed a touchpad. The hologrid rose. Not with Marker manifests, ship movements. But with the system primaries for the Boru Karn. He’d captured them in the midst of disintegration, had the forethought to save the file.
We studied it now. It was a horrific mess and it seemed to hold no answers. No clues. Except one.
Sabotage.
“You brought her in for regular maintenance when I left for Moabar.” Sully jerked his chin toward Gregor. “Who worked on her?”
“Me. Aubry. The tech crew at Dock Five. Our usuals. No one touched her unless Aubry or I was there.”
Sully watched him. If Gregor was lying, he was dead.
“I saw the repair logs.” Sully picked up his lightpen, tabbed down the side of the panel. A second grid flashed up. “Nothing here,” he pointed to the logs, “explains this.” He pointed to the crazed primaries.
There was a long moment of studious silence.
“That’s true, Sully-sir.”
“How about a worm?” Marsh’s voice came over intraship. He had a smaller version of both grids on his bridge monitors.
“Basically impossible,” Sully said, “on my ship.”
Sully was no pilot. But he was one damned fine engineer, and an even better systems tech.
“Impossible from outside.” Gregor leaned back in his chair. “But how about right here?”
“Here? Gregor, you’re saying one of us did this?” Verno pointed a long finger to the grid.
Gregor shrugged. “I’m saying Sully’s right. He’s got this ship rigged tighter than a whore’s—pardon, Captain Bergren. He’s got this ship locked down tight where our systems are concerned. It’d have to be someone who could get in from inside. Like, I don’t know, the terminal in Sully’s quarters.” His gaze swept over me, quickly, then moved on. “Or on the bridge or maybe in here… .”
“That’s traceable,” Sully snapped. “I already checked for it. Nothing showed up.”
“Someone was real good, it might not.” Gregor spun his lightpen on the tabletop but didn’t look at Sully.
Sully stared at him, hard, for a long time. “We’ll keep working on it,” he said finally.
He moved his lightpen. The grid changed. “This is the latest we’ve been able to snag on Marker. We’ve got four days left till we hit the A–B. I want to move on the shipyards no later then ten days after that.”
“We’ll be ready, Sully-sir. We’ll be ready.”
21
An hour, maybe less, to the B–C.
Sully sat at the small dining table in our cabin, elbows bent, mouth resting on his folded hands. He stared at the mug of hot tea before him as if he could find answers in the curls of rising steam.
At least, that’s what it looked like to me. The door slid closed behind me. I unhooked the holster from around my waist and tossed it, along with the laser pistol snugged into it, on the couch as I walked by. We were on the Boru Karn but I went armed, everywhere, on the ship now. We all did.
Sabotage. It hung heavy in the air. Even Dorsie’s fragrant galley seemed a bit less for it.
Sully had just come from a private talk with Gregor. I wondered, but didn’t ask, if Gregor had met Sully’s hidden half, his talents, yet.
Intraship trilled on his deskcomp. He didn’t turn. I answered it. “Bergren.”
“Captain Chasidah. We’ve just crossed into Baris. Tell Sully-sir, if you will.”
“Acknowledged. Thanks, Verno.” I clicked it off.
He was looking at me when I turned away from the desk. “Sit.” I could hear please implied. I could also hear the tiredness in his voice.
I sat next to him and took a sip of his tea. One of us might as well.
“It’s not him,” he said.
Gregor wasn’t responsible for the near-destruction of the Karn’s primaries. The near-destruction of the Boru Karn itself.
“I didn’t think so,” I told him. “The man may be annoying, but not stupid. Or suicidal.” Gregor would have died if we had.
“He wants very much for me to believe you’re responsible.”
“At least he’s consistent.” I became Gregor’s nemesis the moment I’d set my boots on the Karn’s decking.
“He maintains that the wor
m had to have been entered by someone on this ship.” He stared past me, past the tea I nudged back in front of him. “He asked if I checked the datapad you took from the Meritorious.”
“Kingswell’s pad? It’s in the ready room. Want me to—”
“It’s here. Now. I checked it.” His tone went flat.
I was suddenly aware of my heart beating a bit harder in my chest than I wanted it to. “And?”
He nodded, slowly. “I found it.”
A chill ran through me. “A worm program?”
“Traces of it. They usually don’t leave a trail, you know. But there are always residues, skews. I found those.”
“Who put it there?” I’d cleared Kingswell’s datapad, dumped everything except what we needed to know about Fleet itself and about Marker. Could I have missed something coded to send a worm if the pad was used without authorization? But that would only destroy the pad, not invade another computer system. “Couldn’t have been Kingswell. The man didn’t have that kind of knowledge.”
“Gregor and I discussed that. He maintains, and correctly so, that you do.”
I sat back against my chair, sharply. Closed my eyes. For a minute I was back in the courtroom, in full dress uniform, and about to be stripped of my rank and command. I’d listened to everything, all the testimony, all the proof. And saw truth in none of it. Only lies, intricately, beautifully, professionally crafted. But I could disprove none of them.
Captain Bergren is the only one who had the ability to override that command.
Correctly so.
I opened my eyes. “I’ve left the datapad in the ready room enough times that anyone on board had access to it. I can’t tell you what anyone else may have done”—I still didn’t want to believe anyone on board would have tried to kill us—“but I didn’t create a worm. I didn’t load it into this ship.”
“I know.” He offered me his hand. I took it, warmth cascading through me. “But neither did Gregor. Neither did I. We’re the only three who’d know how. And I’m not even sure at this juncture where the worm originated. Even Gregor agrees that the damage could have come from the fail-safes collapsing as the worm attacked our systems and, through them, the datapad. Though that probability is less likely.”
He squeezed my fingers, gave me a brief, troubled smile. “I can’t stop thinking about Milo. Someone told the stripers about the Diligent Keeper. Leaked that information. Or sold it. Milo’s crew didn’t know why he was on Moabar Station. Ren and I booked passage through the church. It was all legitimate. Only Milo knew why I was there. And, like Gregor, he’s not—he wasn’t—suicidal.”
I knew all this. We’d discussed it and noted the warnings. But maybe we hadn’t paid enough attention to what we saw. “Who on the Karn knew you were using the Diligent?”
“Everyone. Marsh, Gregor, Dorsie, Aubry, Verno. Milo met us at Dock Five, in the rafts.”
I knew Dock Five. It was an abandoned mining raft converted to a way station at the A–B. Barely legal, but as long as its dockmaster regularly paid the Empire its share of the port charges, Fleet had no reason to shut it down.
“Drogue?” The round-faced monk had been nothing but helpful. But I had to ask. I was gathering data now. Facts.
Sully nodded. “He knew we came in on Milo’s ship. He knew I came to retrieve you. But I worked too closely with him. Ren did, even more so. If he were lying, setting us up, we would’ve known.” He hesitated. “Sensed something.”
Just as Sully knew that Gregor was telling the truth. And that I was. Unless …
I curled my fingers tighter through his, tried to send rainbows along with my question. Because I knew he hated these kinds of questions. “Is there anyone who could block the truth from you, or Ren, if you were deliberately reading them?”
From my conversations with Ren I’d learned that reading an emotional resonance didn’t necessarily reveal the reason behind the emotion. I didn’t know if Sully had read his crew telepathically, going into their minds the way he had mine when we faced the Loviti.
His gaze went back to his tea. Cold now, steam no longer rose and curled, like gray fuzzy soft.
“On this ship? No,” he said after a moment. “But elsewhere? Most are on Stol. But we’d see the block.”
Like a DO NOT ENTER sign? “But what if you didn’t see a block? What if you saw a false memory of innocence?”
His free hand angled out toward me, fingers splayed. His expression was thoughtful. “Memories are linked. Intertwined. False ones, or lies, float. Or have very weak foundations. I don’t know how to explain this—”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Then understand that Ren might not see one, but I would. There’s always the accompanying fear. Even if it’s small. It’s distinctive.”
“What if the memory weren’t false, or blocked, but erased?” Like Kingswell and Tessa.
A long sigh. “Same thing. A gap where it shouldn’t be.”
“But what if that mind assumed the gap belonged?” I thought of Dock Five. Seedy bars, nighthouses, honeylace dens. “A conversation over a couple of beers, shots of honeylace on the side. Maybe a pipe of rafthkra. Or two. One hell of a hangover in the morning. One hell of a gap in the mind.”
Obsidian eyes darkened, deeply troubled.
“Sully, we’re not talking about a hauler full of synth-emeralds here. Or a smuggler’s load of rafthkra or Trelarian brandy. We’re talking about gen-labs. And jukors. We’re talking about something that could only be done with the backing of someone very powerful in the Empire. Someone powerful enough to keep it a secret. Prew maybe be a pompous dandy of an emperor, but he’s not evil. This is evil. There’s a very real power behind it.”
“You’re saying I’m facing another Ragkiril.” His voice was quiet. “One who may have had access to someone on this ship.”
Ragkiril. Another Ragkiril. Besides the one staring uncomfortably at me.
He’d never admitted that before. Only telepath, and then no further explanations on that. I knew we’d somehow taken a big step and kept my response as unemotional, as factual as possible, even though my heart and mind buzzed with questions. “I imagine Stol has a few cities full of them. The Empire’s used them before.”
“You’re wrong.” He clasped his hands against his mouth. Then pressed them, briefly, against his lowered forehead. His shoulders were stiff and tense, as if a weight lay against them. He turned back to me. “Ragkir,” he said. “A minor distinction, and one the Empire seems unwilling to comprehend. All Stolorths, and a few humans, have empathic abilities, from the basic ability to read emotional resonances to the deeper Ragkir mind talents. But Ragkiril … well, there aren’t cities full. The Stolorths would like us to think so. The Empire obliges them by thinking so, because it helps them fuel their prejudices. But since you’re probing for facts, Chaz, I’ll hand you one. There aren’t cities full of Ragkiril. Those that I’ve met in my lifetime could fit in this cabin. Those I’ve read of, studied, could fit in this ship. And we’d all still have plenty of room.”
I sat, stunned, fascinated. And a little frightened. But not so much as to halt my questions. My need to understand him was stronger. “And this minor distinction?”
“Basically, a Ragkir can do a zral. Erase memories. Affect what a mind knows, sees. A Ragkiril can do not only a zral, but a zragkor. He can kill the mind. And, depending upon other factors, training, he also can heal.”
Ren. Sully, breathing for him. This was my explanation. Sully was a Ragkiril, trained to heal, perhaps by the Englarians in the same way they’d trained Ren. But they could also kill, he’d said. His confirmation was chilling and one that made me distinctly uncomfortable. I’d heard rumors of that. That was why the Empire hated Ragkirils, banning and damning any mind talents save for the most benign.
But those had been Stolorth Ragkirils. Not human. Surely the human mind talents weren’t as lethal?
“Still think it was wise to come after me?” He tried to smile, failed.
/>
I thought of him sending life back into Ren’s body. “Yes.”
He let out a breath I hadn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Sully—”
He raised his hand. “No. I can only do so much confessing in one day. Bear with me. This is more than I ever intended for you to know. If it weren’t for what’s happened, it would still be something we wouldn’t discuss until later. Like, ten years from now.”
“Glad to know you intend to keep me around for a while.”
Finally, he offered me a smile back. “A few lifetimes, at least.”
It would probably take me at least that long to figure him out, to finally get all the facts I needed about Gabriel Ross Sullivan. It seemed with every bit of information I learned, additional questions would surface. Like Ragkir and Ragkiril. And how the son of one of the wealthiest men in the Empire had come to learn his mind could touch another’s, could heal. There was so much I didn’t know about Sully, and what I did I barely understood. I pushed my uneasiness aside. I knew he’d sense it.
“Let’s deal with the trouble in this lifetime. I think we may have made the serious mistake of underestimating the enemy. Someone told the stripers about Milo. And someone launched a worm into your ship’s systems. And someone, in case you forgot,” I added, resting my hand on his arm, letting his warmth tumble into me, “sent a jukor to try to stop us from ever reaching the monastery. Someone knows who we are, where we’ve been, what we’re doing.”
“And where we’re going,” he added quietly, his brief smile now gone. “Someone will be waiting for us at Marker.”
Sully left to talk to Ren. I imagined that the discussion, while serious, would no doubt include a few hands of cards. It was his way of dealing with tension, or maybe his way of blocking out the emotions swirling around the ship that he didn’t want to feel.
I flipped open Kingswell’s datapad on the table—my own way of dealing with tension. Sully’s admission had raised questions I wasn’t ready to dwell on. Other problems were easier.
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