Shades of Dark (20 page)

He shook his head. “I missed that one vital piece of information. A small matter of a very sharp knife at the time.”

“Do you know where the copy is?”

“Dock Five. I assume we have a fairly decent window of time before whoever has it releases it. It depends on how often Gregor checked in. I doubt it was daily. When I get a chance, I’ll go back over his personal transmits, see if I can’t find a pattern.”

I hoped it was monthly. But Dock Five. We’d just come from there, and were now less than seven hours from Narfial. I sagged against the edge of the bed and blew out a loud sigh of frustration.

“Don’t relax yet,” he said, sarcasm clear in his voice and the pursing of his mouth. “It gets worse.”

I straightened. He pushed himself off the bed.

“We know that before we left Dock Five, Gregor sold the fact we’re headed for Narfial to someone. And that we’re going to be meeting with an informant who will help us stop Hayden and Tage. I’m guessing now that was sold to one of Acora’s contacts. That’s why Tage hasn’t released what I am to the newshounds. I guarantee you he wants us on Narfial. We’ll lead him right to Del. He’ll have us all, nice and tidy.”

“Then we abort the mission. We have to.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? What do you intend to do?”

“Give Tage what he wants. He’s just going to get more than he bargained for.”

Gregor, like Aubry, was locked in the brig, sleeping under light sedation, mental faculties rearranged courtesy of Gabriel Sullivan. But unlike Aubry, who would wake when we hit Narfial with memories of being on a commercial transport on his way to find work on the rim, Gregor would not have such an easy future. His older memories were intact. Everything from the past fifteen years was gone.

Sully, with Ren’s help, interlaced in basic current events. Gregor wouldn’t remember how to pilot any ships of newer design, but at least he’d know who’d won the Baris Cup in the past several years, and which slender but buxom woman was this year’s hot vid star.

He was Meevel again. That’s who he’d been fifteen years ago. He’d probably spend the rest of his life as a dockhand, loading cargo. His coworkers would find him brash, if a bit simple. And he had a comfortable bank account to fall back on if he couldn’t find work right away, courtesy of his recently deceased great-uncle Ross.

Sleep was impossible but I was dozing, cabin lights dimmed, when Sully came in. We had only a few more hours until Narfial. He slipped off his boots then sat in the armchair kitty-corner to the couch, head in his hands. I knew he wasn’t coming to bed.

I sat up, hugging the pillow against my chest. “He tried to kill you, Sully. He’s lucky to be alive. People get shot on Dock Five all the time for less.”

“I had no right to torture him.”

“That wasn’t you.”

“Don’t be naive, Chasidah.” He raised his head but didn’t turn toward me.

“Your failing, Gabriel, is not in what you are, but that you don’t know how to properly
use
what you are. You almost killed Gregor. But a few months ago, you saved Ren’s and Philip’s lives. And you just spent two hours putting Meevel Gregoran somewhat back together. That is a huge gift.” I paused. “Did you ever think of going to Stol for training?”

“Getting there is a bit of a problem when the government wants your head on a platter.”

“We’ll put it on our to-do list. Come to bed.”

“I need to send Drogue another note. Then I want to see if I can pick up who Gregor’s fail-safe partner is on Dock Five. I’ll close the doors so it won’t bother you.” He padded to the wide opening, tapped at the door sensor, then padded back, a gray, indistinct silhouette fading into the shadows of the cabin as the closing bedroom doors slowly obscured him from view.

I woke, hungry and thirsty, realizing I couldn’t remember when I last had a real meal. I looked at the clock. It was near the end of third shift. Four more hours and we should be picking up the signal from the Narfial beacon.

I rolled over, reaching for Sully mentally and physically.

The bed was empty.

I thought I knew why. I was having a hard time pushing that luminescent image of a lightning-edged
Kyi-Ragkiril
from my mind. My rational mind had shoved him into yet another of those mental duro-hards and sat on it until it closed securely. But my emotional self still saw flickers of him in the shadows. I loved Sully. But there was also Gabriel.

My mental duro-hards were not
Ragkiril
-proof.

Which was also why I’d wanted him to come to bed. Yes, I knew he was hurting. Yes, I knew he felt my uncertainty. Showing him I loved him would help him get past that. But it would also help me.

There’s the first time in every fighter pilot’s life when her ship betrays her, skitters out of control, systems failing. God willing, it happens in simulators where there’s no loss of life, no property damage. But God isn’t always willing and many a green pilot has wrecked out in a bay or dirtside landing strip, very sure she’d never be able to have the courage to sit in the pilot’s seat again.

I’ve been there. I had to force myself to climb back in and throttle up for launch, convinced I’d clip off much more than a wingtip and forward landing strut this time, taking bay crew with me, ending my own life in a ball of flame.

The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes.

At least if you wreck-out in bed, nothing will catch fire,
I told myself sagely as I threw the sheets off my bare legs.
Then again…

When I came out of the shower, the bed was neatly made. An angel of heart-stars card rested on my pillow.

Sully?
“Sully?” I poked my head into the main salon area. Empty. I grabbed underwear, pants, shirt, and pulled them on, then went back for the card. I palmed it, warmth spiraling up my arm.

If Tage, Acora, and their minions didn’t gun us all down on sight when we made Narfial, I’d work on motivating my
Ragkiril
with a little pleasure when we got back on board. We needed to find each other again.

I was in the pilot’s seat when we approached the Narfial beacon. Sully was in the ready room, having been fussed over by a concerned Dorsie who offered to poison Gregor, this time for pulling a knife on Sully. Too bad the bastard didn’t die when Chaz shot him. Obviously, we’d had to change the story a little, adding that Verno and Ren would transfer Aubry and Gregor to Narfial lockup once we docked. It was all settled.

Sully was distinctly unsettled, in spite of the fact he believed he’d identified three possible sources for Gregor’s “fail-safe partner.” But what might come over the news feeds from the Narfial beacon worried him. The fact that he’d not had an answer from Drogue in several hours worried him even more.

Communications to Moabar are rarely reliable,
I reminded him as I watched the boards light up with the increasing traffic. Verno was at helm, Ren at communications. Marsh was sleeping because he’d be on duty, guarding the ship after we docked.

We were no longer the
Darvo Tureka,
independent freighter out of the A-B. Now we were the
Fair Jeffa,
under contract to Core-Em-Ex, a division of Core Central Medical Suppliers. Our beautifully forged manifests showed we had duro-hards full of bedpans, thermal sheets, and insta-splint samples, plus two medical supplies salespersons doing catalog distribution.

Core-Em-Ex was a real company. Our false sales personal were Gregor and Aubry, who’d be left behind. But our documents, in typical Sully style, were damned near infallible.

I still would like to make sure the Purity Brigade isn’t also there to greet us,
Sully told me, bringing me back to his worries over Drogue.

Here’s an idea,
I told him, keeping my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.
We’ll position ourselves with the Brigade on our left and Tage’s friends on our right, and when they both raise their weapons to fire, we’ll duck
.

A lightpen sailed onto the bridge through the ready room’s open door and smacked the back of my chair. Not one of Gabriel’s tricks. Just Sully’s good throwing arm and dead-eye aim.

Seriously—

Seriously,
I interrupted him.
We’re picking up the beacon’s signal, starting data download. Let’s see what the news tells us. We might find our answers there.

I switched captain’s controls over to the ready room’s deskscreens, then slid out of my chair, stopping to pick up Sully’s lightpen from the floor. I tossed it back at him. He caught it in midair. Only as I took the seat next to him did I realize it still floated there.

If Dorsie comes in that might be a bit hard to explain.

He plucked it out of the air and put it back in the slot in the table with a tense smile.

I held out my hand.

He frowned, not understanding, and reached for the lightpen.

No.

I clasped my hand around his and tried to send warm rainbows.

He stared at me for a long moment then shook his head lightly, bemusement lighting his eyes. He brought my fingers to his mouth and for an even longer moment we sat there in silence, his breath warming my skin, his energy heating my soul. His eyes were closed, his thoughts, silent. But the agitation and worry he’d worn for hours lessened, at least a little.

Words scrolled through a databox on my screen. He released my hand. “Abstracts are in,” I said. I had them sorted into chronological order, then scanned for any mention of Sully, Tage, and Thad. I got a hit on Thad right away. I sucked in a hard breath, ignored the abstract, and went straight for the text version of the news clip. It was quicker to load. But it was old news, and almost as brief as the abstract: Thad was maintaining his innocence and cooperating with authorities. No examples of what that cooperation entailed.

“Nothing more?” Sully asked.

“Not yet.” The second download was just finishing.

But Thad was alive and, I had to assume, well. It occurred to me that the longer it took Tage to release the information on Sully, the longer Thad would live. He’d be a star witness and no use to him dead.

“Wait. Here’s something.” Sully was performing his own perusal of the newsfeeds. “Englarians ask Admirals’ Council to investigate alleged abuses against Takans,” he read the headline out loud, mentally sending me the article citation. I pulled it up on my screen, reading as he did. It was another damnably brief article, noting a preliminary meeting between “official church representatives”—unidentified—and key members of the Admirals’ Council. Philip’s name was one of three listed. It had been a video conference, not unusual for a preliminary, with concerns expressed that current investigations into the deaths of Takan women in the Walker Colonies were being mishandled. The Englarians requested the investigation be taken away from the Ministry of Justice and placed under the Admirals’ Council due to “information the church has recently seen suggesting these attacks are not confined to the Walker Colonies or other locations in Calth, but may infect the entire Empire.” A larger investigation was needed.

Tage was a senior member of the Ministry of Justice.

“This may be why you haven’t heard from Drogue,” I said.

Sully faced me. “Thad knows I sent a copy of the data on Burke’s labs to Drogue. We have to assume Tage knows that.”

“Thad also knows Philip has a copy.”

“Drogue’s not a Guthrie. He’s a nice, kindly man with a deep faith and strong desire to right wrongs. He’s totally unprepared for the kinds of things Tage can pull.” Concern, anger shimmered through our link. “Damn it, I specifically told him not to go public with any of this. Not until we met with Del, had that second lab and more proof.”

“He has to do what he feels is right.”

“What’s right will get him killed.”

“Philip knows Drogue’s at risk. If it was Drogue who contacted the Council, it might actually be the smartest thing he could do at this point. Questions will be raised if something happens to him.”

“He works in a prison colony. No one will think twice if some inmate slits his throat.”

I leaned back in my chair, unable to deny the truth in Sully’s words. Drogue was likely still on Moabar Station as the blizzard season was in full force dirtside right now. But there were prisoners on station, awaiting transfer. Drogue could be in a lift or in a corridor at the very right yet wrong time. And no one would think twice.

Ren’s voice came over intraship. “We’ve linked with Narfial Traffic Control, Captain.”

I shared a brief, anguished glance with Sully then swiveled my chair around. I had work to do. And we had an appointment to keep.

The last time I docked at Narfial Starport was about eight months before my arrest and court-martial. It wasn’t my usual sector but, like many patrol ships, we often did double duty. We’d been ordered to transport an enviro-tech repair team out of Corsau Station to Narfial, wait while they did whatever an enviro-tech repair team did, and bring them back. It had been an uneventful two and a half days.

I had no such belief that this time it would be the same.

Aubry and Gregor—Meevel Gregoran—were waiting by our hatchlock that connected to the station’s tubeway on E-level, looking slightly tired and confused. Sedation was wearing off. I walked up wearing plain spacer grays with no ship’s patches, my hair pulled back in a bun. It was wet, looking darker than its usual ruddy auburn, and I’d slipped a brimmed black cap—the kind dockworkers often wear—over it. Deliberately.

Verno, in his monk’s hooded robe, stood off to one side, behind them. Just another passenger looking to depart. Ren was farther down the corridor.

“Good luck with your new postings, gentlemen,” I said, databoard in hand, pretending to log off our “paying” passengers.

“Thank you, Captain…?” Aubry’s voice drifted.

“You might want to stay away from the drinking and card games for a while,” I put in with a wink.

“Right, that’s right,” Meevel Gregoran said, shouldering his duffel. “No more celebrations. Time to work, now.”