Shades of Dark (12 page)

But Ren being
Ragkiril
had been a natural assumption.

Sully being one wasn’t, and I said so.

“Then use that to your advantage,” Ren advised, his voice soft and soothing. Gentle waves lapping at the shore of a safe harbor. “Human
Ragkirils
are rare. If you say your talents are minimal, I doubt anyone can provide evidence to the contrary. I’m willing to—”

“No.” Sully cut in sharply, darting a glance at me and Ren. “No,” he repeated, more calmly. “I won’t do that again. Ever.” He turned back to the screen slatted through the tabletop.

The incoming transmit signal pinged. Sully jabbed at his deskscreen. One transmit.

“Drogue,” he said but I already saw the monk’s smiling face filling my screen and his.

“Some good news I thought Captain Bergren might like to hear,” Drogue said. “Her brother, Thaddeus, has been transferred out of Holding Block Three into much nicer quarters. Protective custody is what I think they’re calling it, but it’s an apartment, not a cell. He continues to be guarded, but I’m hopeful this signals a change of heart and mind by the authorities. I’m sure they realize the charges against him were in error. Prayers do get answered because I’ve been praying they’d come to this conclusion.” Drogue was nodding. “That’s all I’ve heard through our people there. If I learn more, of course, I’ll send immediately. Blessings of the hour upon you. Praise the stars!”

The screen blanked without showing the official arch-and-stave of the Englarian Church. And the transmit ID confirmed it was sent through Drogue’s private communications system. The government, for the most part, left the Englarians alone. But there was no sense in taking chances.

Sully leaned back in his chair. “They’re planning on us coming after him. An apartment on station is far less secure than lockup.”

For a moment a small hope blossomed. Thad hadn’t really turned state’s evidence, caving into pressure from Lars, telling Tage all he knew about me and Sully. Tage only said so to draw me, to draw
us
out. Putting Thad in a vulnerable location was another step in that plan.

I could almost believe that, if Philip hadn’t told me my father was involved.

“They probably assume you’d send me,” Sully continued, “and I’d kill him, rather than risk his talking further. I’m who they’re after. They’d love to add murder to whatever list they have with my name on it.”

Thad and I were just different versions of bait. I knew that.

“They might kill him anyway, through a
zragkor,
and blame me for it,” Sully added, his voice softening. “It’s something you need to consider, angel-mine.”

The truth in Sully’s words hit me. A light warmth comforted me from two directions: Sully and Ren. I accepted it, but it didn’t take the worry away. Or the realization that no matter what happened, my brother’s life was at risk.

I still wasn’t 100 percent sure he had betrayed me. There were always half-truths, just enough to make Lars and Tage believe he was cooperating. But even if he told everything, he was still my brother. I may have lost respect for him. I may never want to speak to him again. But I didn’t want him dead.

Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized Thad knew too much. There was no way Tage or Burke would keep him alive.

Philip. He still might be able to do something. “Sully, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I need to talk to—”

“I know.” He reached across the vacant chair between us and closed his hand over mine. “Until we hit Narfial, it’s just too risky.”
I’ll work on it. I promise.

I understood. The closer we got to our meeting on Narfial with a contact we knew only as Del, the tighter our security had to be. Sully’s contacts in the Takan community—many through Verno and the church—had brought Del’s name to Sully’s attention. Verno didn’t know him. Drogue knew of him but had never met him. We didn’t even know if he was human or Takan. We only knew the Takas trusted him and sources seemed to prove he was as interested in stopping Burke’s jukor labs as we were.

That he was part of the Takan “Circle of Life Breeds Death” brigade was also possible, though we had no proof of that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be associated with someone who viewed rape as an answer. Neither did Sully. It would be akin to working with the Farosians. So for the moment he fell into the “enemy of my enemy” category.

But he was an enemy of my enemy with information we needed: ship’s ident on Burke’s jukor lab and crew.

Sully brought up a hologram of Narfial Starport through the viewer in the center of the table. It was cylindrical like Marker 3 but less than half the size, with a section of gangly looking protuberances near its base to accommodate ore tankers and other large ships. As we were running under the ident of a small commercial supply ship, we’d be docking on the opposite axis and probably a few levels above. Ore tankers—often overloaded with cargo and less-than-sober crew—had an unpleasant way of hitting things on their way in and out of stations. Wise captains knew to stay clear.

“We need to go over some scenarios,” Sully said. “We have ten, fifteen minutes yet before we hit the first data beacon.”
And all hell breaks loose.

Sully.
My mental admonition was echoed by Ren’s. So he was linked to both of us at the moment.

“I’m a realist,” Sully said out loud with a sigh of exasperation.

The tension of not knowing when and what Tage would release was wearing on him.

“Most likely we’ll dock on Level E, but maybe F.” Sully pointed his lightpen at the holo, illuminating the areas. “We have to assume things might go wrong. We have to assume this might even be a trap. We need to know at least three ways back to the ship.”

“I could never believe Drogue would betray us,” Ren said.

“Drogue’s a messenger, not the source,” Sully pointed out. “The trap could also be for Del and have nothing to do with us. Plus, if Tage puts a high enough price on my head, we could find ourselves with a whole new problem. Which is something else we need to discuss.”

He drew in a deep breath. “If the problem is me, then I’m not coming back to this ship. Not right away,” he added when I sat up straighter, startled by his words. “Maybe not for…a while. I’ve left instructions in our cabin, Chaz. What to do, whom to trust, all my financial data. It’s there. It’s all yours.” He paused. “The crew trusts you, respects you.”

The finality in his voice scared me, and I realized he hadn’t gone to play cards with Ren at all. He’d been planning his funeral.

“I’m not leaving you on Narfial,” I said firmly.

“You may not have a choice.” His tone matched mine.

“Sully—”

“I can handle myself. I can’t handle myself and watch after you.”

“I didn’t rise to the rank of captain because I look good in uniform,” I shot back. “I’m capable of watching out for myself.”

A smile twisted his lips. “You look damned good in uniform. Even better out of it.”

“Damn you, Sullivan!”

“You’re forty years late on that.”

“Children.” Ren drummed five of his six fingers on the table. “Behave.”

Sully leaned across the chair between us again, grabbing for me. I made a fist. He brushed a wet, sloppy kiss across my knuckles. “We can wrestle over this later,” he said, his eyes dark.

“I don’t like this defeatist attitude that keeps cropping up,” I told him, pulling my hand out of his grasp. “Or the way you try to trivialize it.”

“I don’t like it either.” His expression sobered. “But things are coming fast and hard at me right now. I’d be an idiot not to face that. I’ll also lose my mind—more than I already have—if I can’t somehow make light of it.”

This time I was the one letting out a sigh of exasperation. “I know. I understand.” I did. “It’s just that—”

“We’re not Fleet? There’s a comfort in protocols. We lack that here.”

“Sully’s not used to having anyone worry about him,” Ren put in.

“There’s that too,” Sully admitted. He arched one eyebrow as he glanced at Ren. “When did you get so wise?”

He was at it again. Sidestepping what I wanted to discuss, glossing it over with a wry remark. No, Gabriel Sullivan was not remotely Fleet, and that was part of the problem. I may be his captain, his lover. His best interfering bitch, as he’d often named me. But he took others’ counsel only when it suited him.

What had he admitted to me when he’d pulled me off Moabar? That his best advisers had voted against the action. He’d come after me anyway.

A shrill pinging interrupted Ren’s rejoinder. Sully spun back to the deskscreen. “Beacon,” he announced, then launched the commands to grab the news banks, updated nav advisories, and anything else residing in the beacon’s systems at that moment.

I waited, forcing myself to breathe. What information would Darius Tage release? Everything Thad told him, or would he hold some back, waiting to see if Sully responded? Had Tage even believed Thad?
Oh, by the way, my sister’s run off with a human mind-fucker
wasn’t something most people would accept without proof.

But Tage could get the proof. The Guthries had it. And they moved in the same circles, professionally and personally.

I hoped Tage hadn’t believed Thad. People in lockup, especially under threat of treason, could say a lot of things to get released. I hoped Tage would take a very long time obtaining that proof…long enough for us to meet with Del on Narfial, long enough for us to pick up the trail of the lab ship, long enough for us to destroy it. To reveal Tage’s part. To give control back to the Admirals’ Council. To stop the stranglehold on the rim worlds.

“Data’s in.” Sully pursed his mouth. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

He brought up news headlines first, linking the list to my deskscreen. They were sorted alphabetically, with small abstracts as the only clue to content. He reset the parameters to a chronological listing, oldest first, as I watched, and I was aware, for the first time, of Ren seeing everything through Sully’s eyes. I’d known they’d done this before but had never been party to it until now.

Does it disconcert you, Chasidah?
That was Ren, a soft whisper in my mind. His connection to me was through Sully.

Not at all.
It was simply a new sensation. I tried to send rainbow-flavored warmth and received some in return.

The headlines sorted. Sully scrolled right past the sports scores but stopped briefly at a headline about riots at a depot in the Walker Colonies. Food and medical supply shortages. Three dead, seven injured. He tagged it for later perusal.

Two more similar abstracts were tagged, the last one boldly proclaiming “Emperor Prewitt Has Lost Control” with a subheading of “Admirals’ Council and Imperial Legislature Set Special Sessions.” And I remembered what Philip had told his then first officer, Jodey Bralford, right after the incident in Marker: “It’s started.”

It had. Tage and his Legalists—of which Burke was one—were vying for control against the Admirals’ Council. Tage wanted to remove the Council’s autonomy, have them wholly under the emperor’s—and his—command. But then there would be no checks and balances. Only the emperor and, in Prew’s current distracted state, that meant only Tage and his chosen few making decisions.

Then we were at the end of the list. Sully’s twinge of surprise matched my own. Nothing about Thad. Nothing about renegade mercenary Gabriel Sullivan being, in fact, a mutant monster.

“I don’t know if that’s bad or good news, or I missed something,” Sully murmured.

“Name search,” I said. “Yours and Thad’s. Hell, throw in Tage’s. He might not be revealing identities yet.” Especially as the Legislature was set for special session. The media coverage there would guarantee a wide audience.

A few minutes later Sully, looking a lot more relaxed, leaned back in his chair. There was nothing in the news banks to date mentioning Thad or Sully.

“So he’s waiting,” I said.

“Or perhaps your brother hasn’t told him what we feared he would,” Ren said. “Admiral Guthrie only said that your father would make sure Commander Bergren was cooperating. We made the inference that meant he would tell what he knew about Sully. We may be wrong.”

I prayed Ren was right.

I managed to catch a few hours’ sleep. I think Sully slept as well, but I couldn’t be sure. We’d not hit another data beacon until we were on the outer perimeter of Narfial Traffic Control. All incoming communications were locked down due to an “internal system calibration reset,” as Sully told the crew on intraship, promising things would be back to normal by the time we made dock.

“What in hell is a calibration reset?” I’d asked him when he closed the link.

He’d shrugged elegantly. “Damned if I know. Which means they don’t either. It buys us a couple hours.”

But when I woke he was gone, his side of the bed cool enough that I judged he’d been out of it for a while.

I pulled on a pair of clean black pants and tried to “think” his location.
Ky’sara
or not, I’d yet to devise a workable methodology of mentally finding him. Sensing nothing, I tossed a long-sleeved, V-necked gray shirt on the unmade bed, ducked into the lavatory to wash my face and brush my hair, and when I came out found our quarters as empty as I’d left them.

Except for an angel of heart-stars playing card tucked under a corner of the light on my bedside table. One of Sully’s unique love notes. Had he been in while I washed up? No. I’d not closed the door. I would have seen or heard him. I must have missed it in my just-waking grogginess.

I picked up the card. Warmth suddenly traveled up my arm, sheathing me. It was as if he were here in the room. I spun, waiting for him to pop up from behind the couch, grinning like the handsome devil he was.

Nothing.

I looked at the card. It didn’t seem in any way unusual yet it carried “Essence of Sully”—or maybe “Essence of Gabriel”?—as clearly as the heady, distinctive scent of an expensive perfume.

He’d never done that before, imbued an inanimate object with a sensory presence. At least, not that I knew of. I thought of the bright, sparkling, much stronger
Kyi
energies flowing over him hours ago. Was this part of that energy?