Shades of Dark (24 page)

A blue flash of laser fire ripped through my vision.

“Down!” I screamed, but Sully’s hand was already on my shoulder, dragging me backward into the stairwell. My Stinger was in my hand but I didn’t return fire. I landed on my ass instead. Then Sully’s hands were in my armpits, pulling me upright.

Chasidah!

“Fine, I’m fine,” I told him as people barreled past, boots pounding up and down the stairs. An alarm wailed distantly in the corridor beyond the doorway.

“This way!” Del shouted.

We headed down.

I caught flashes of information racing between Sully and Del as we flung ourselves down the stairwell. Our attackers—and they were after us—were a woman and a man, no uniforms.

Feels like ImpSec assassins.
That, from Del. Imperial Security Forces meant Fleet, or Tage using Fleet personnel. Not Narfial stripers, then. And not Purity Brigade.

Not Purity. I’m scanning for them,
Sully said. We slowed at the next landing because Del did. He was in front now, with Sully and me behind.

Others stopped with us. More kept running. But as far as I knew, only two actually knew who fired the shots and who they were after. Del and Sully. If there were any other
Ragkirils,
they’d know.

None,
Sully told me. His eyes were dark and distant.

Del glanced over his shoulder, his eyes equally as dark—but a deep shade of blue glistened in their depths.
Stupid. They don’t know I’m here. Or what you are. I say we take them. And no one will ever know.

A shout above us. A scream dying away. Images darted between Del and Sully, far beyond my ability to grasp.

Behind me, Chasidah. Don’t argue.

I stepped behind Sully but kept my Stinger out, no idea which pairs of boots in the cluster heading for us were our attackers.

Suddenly a man tripped, his legs angling awkwardly. Seconds later, a woman tumbled over him, her pistol flying from her hands, her eyes wide. She screamed, the sound abruptly halting as her head hit the stairwell wall. Her neck snapped. Her body appeared almost pulverized.

The man kept rolling but he was dead long before his shattered body hit the landing.

People gathered around them. Someone shouted that the stripers were coming.

This way.
Del moved quickly and silently for the corridor.
We’ll take the lift this time.

Stripers were everywhere. Sully wrapped his arm around my shoulders, drawing me against him.
Act frightened. They won’t see you as a threat.

I didn’t have to try all that hard. Just because I was career Fleet didn’t mean I liked getting shot at. Or ambushed. Or liked seeing how easily a
Ragkiril
could shatter someone’s bones, or snap his neck with a mere thought. And not even a flicker of the
Kyi
whispering around him.

It had all been Del, that much I was sure of. Besides being linked to Sully, I’d been physically touching him when the two ImpSec assassins appeared on the stairs. I felt no additional power surge, beyond what he was using to maintain our link at that point.

And I had felt a slight twinge of surprise from him at what Del had done so easily.

The station was still in an uproar when we reached E-Level, but whispers were going around that the minor crisis was over.

“Couple of pirates on the bad end of a deal,” someone said.

“Damned
rafthkra
addicts,” intoned someone else a bit farther down the corridor.

“Stripers shot ’em,” a tall man in green coveralls announced to his group standing stiffly by a cargo bay door. “Party’s over. Back to work.”

Marsh stepped back warily when Sully brought Del onto the bridge of the
Karn,
introducing him as the new pilot. I could understand his thought processes. Ren was blind, safe, accepted. The best or worst he could do was read rainbows, a person’s emotional resonances. But this tall, imposing guy was a fully sighted Stolorth. Who knows what he could do? Maybe nothing; most were empaths. But…

“He has the schematics for Burke’s jukor ship,” Sully added.

Marsh’s frown vanished. He stuck out his hand. “Welcome on board, Captain Regarth.”

“Del,” the Stolorth corrected, taking Marsh’s hand. “Chasidah rightfully holds the title of captain on this ship.”

“I’ve put in our departure request,” Marsh said, looking from Del to Sully to me. “First available slot is in an hour. I took it. Things are backed up because of some kind of accident on station.”

Yes. Someone tried to kill us. Something we couldn’t tell Marsh without revealing what he didn’t know about Sully and Del. “I’ll take her out, but I’d like you on the bridge at that time,” I told Del. “The
Karn
has some interesting quirks you might need to be aware of.”

Marsh snorted. “She’s Sully’s baby, that’s for sure.”

“Why don’t you finish stowing your gear, then come up to the ready room in fifteen minutes to meet the rest of the crew?”

“My pleasure, Captain.” Del smiled. “Mr. Sullivan, I have a few things you might be interested in seeing. If you’re not busy right now?”

“I’m not,” Sully said. “Chaz?”

“I’ll be in the ready room,” I told him as they headed for the corridor. “I have a feeling I have lots of system and traffic advisories to wade through.”

Warmth cascaded through me, a small message from Sully. We’d made it. We were safe. I was loved. Then those invisible fingers that weren’t Sully’s tapped playfully on my nose.

Don’t push your luck, Regarth.

That’s not at all what I was pushing, Sullivan. Need I give you a lesson in female anatomy as well?

Stop it, boys!

The captain has spoken
. I could feel Del’s silent chuckle.

From Sully, not quite annoyance but more like exasperation.

Introduce him to Dorsie,
I told Sully, knowing Del heard me.
She’ll keep him busy.

Dorsie?
Images flashed between the three of us.
Ah, Mr. Sullivan. I do approve of your choice of officers and crew.

I very clearly heard Sully sigh as I crossed through the hatchway into the ready room.

Checkpoints and security procedures had doubled, not only due to the “accident on station” but the fallout from what had happened on Umoran. Fortunately, the
Karn
’s forged documents were second to none. It didn’t take me long to make the necessary changes to the ship’s databanks. I had the news feeds running as well. Nothing on Thad, no revelations about Gabriel Ross Sullivan. Just mourning on Umoran, and a growing list of the dead. Not all of the jukors had been captured yet.

The door to the ready room opened, letting Ren in from the corridor. “Chasidah.” A warm misty breeze filtered his words. “You had an interesting time on station, I hear.” He raised his chin toward the open hatchway to the bridge. I tapped the deskcomp, shutting it. He waited for the soft thump then sat next to me.

“You were fortunate to have assistance.”

“You’ve met Del?”

“Through Sully’s link, yes, we’ve been introduced. I was a bit surprised.”

“That he’s Stolorth? And a
Kyi
?”

“You don’t know who he is?”

“You mean that his clan is Serian? He told us the story. His grandparents were some kind of royalty.”

“They were. He
is
.” Ren shook his head, clearly mystified. “He is a prince, Chasidah. Eldest child of the eldest daughter. He is His Royal Highness Prince Regarth Cordell, Serian-Prime, Blessed of the Delkavra.”

“Hell’s ass,” I said, sitting back in my chair.

“Not quite how I’d put it, but I understand the sentiment.”

“He said his family’s lands were taken away.”

“By the current government in power, yes. But you can’t eradicate centuries of history. The exalted lineage is there.” He ran his fingers over the tabletop until he found the tab for the deskcomp. He touched it and the screen rose. “This is a deskscreen,” he said, tapping its edge. “The fact that you didn’t see it a moment ago doesn’t negate what it is. My blindness doesn’t negate what it is. And even if you didn’t know its function, it’s still a deskscreen. Its purpose, its heritage, is not affected by your opinions or knowledge.”

I got his point. The Serians were clearly not pariahs to a great many Stolorths. “Does Sully know this?”

“I didn’t want to embarrass His Highness with such a recital, so no. I’m telling you. At the proper time, you can tell Sully.”

“Are you okay with him being on board?”

“I am honored to be able to serve in his presence.”

“Oh. Well, then.” I didn’t know what to say. Ren was an Englarian monk. Abbot Eng preached death to all
Ragkirils
. His Royal Highness Prince Regarth Cordell, Serian-Prime, Blessed of the Delkavra, was a
Ragkiril
. Ren worshipped the prince and Abbot Eng.

“Chasidah, the Serians don’t represent the misuses of
Ragkiril
talents that sadly do exist among my people.” Ren’s voice held a large helping of patience. “Abbot Eng wanted only to cleanse the abusers. Guardian Drogue has said this, many times.

“The Serians accepted the responsibility even for those not like them, and performed the ultimate sacrifice shortly before Abbot Eng himself died. Had he lived, I truly believe he would have come to understand, as Drogue and Guardian Lon and many others do, that not all
Ragkirils
are tainted demons. I also believe that there is a place where the stars and the Great Sea meet, and there the Serians and the blessed abbot have made peace.”

“Right.”

Ren smiled softly, then patted my hand, sending a small flurry of warm rainbows through me. Like Sully could. Like Del. It occurred to me that if I survived Tage’s attempts to kill us, I could well suffer from a cuddling overload on the
Karn.
I hoped Dorsie was willing to work the relief shift.

I opened the hatchway to the bridge again and wandered over to navigation. Sully and Del should be returning momentarily. I really needed to talk to Sully. I wanted to understand what had happened with our attackers. I felt sure Sully knew more. In the meantime, there were some traffic advisories I wanted to make sure were plotted in—

An alarm wailed loudly overhead.

“Shit!”
What now?
I grabbed the arm of the pilot’s chair, swung in. “What is it, Marsh?”

“Targeting sensors. Someone’s locking on us!”

Data streamed down my armrest console. Marsh—a veteran with situations like this—had already kicked the sublights hot. The
Karn
shuddered in her docking clamps. I slapped intraship. “Sully! Verno! Bridge, now!”

Ren pulled his headset on at communications but sightless, there was little he could do other than relay what he heard on the communications channels. “There’s a report of a freighter out of control—”

“Out of control, my ass! They’re gunning for us.” Why did I think two assassins were all Tage would throw at us? I heard hard bootsteps in the corridor behind me. “Sully?”

“Here!” He was. He slid into the seat at weapons.

“Del, take nav,” I said as Verno thumped onto the bridge shoulder-to-shoulder with the Stolorth prince, who’d doffed his long coat but not his shoulder-holstered laser pistol. “It’s going to be ditch-and-drop, boys. Dorsie, lock down. This won’t be nice.”

“Secure, Chaz,” came Dorsie’s answer over intraship.

“I need max shields, port side. Sully, fry those clamps on my command. Marsh, I need all three port thrusters on hard burst, overload on the secondary and tertiary if you have to, then keep sublights screaming till jump. Del, get us a goddamned gate!”

“Plotting a course now, Captain,” Del said as Sully swore and the alarm continued to blare.

“Ren, broadcast an all-ship MYA. Sully, on my mark. Four, three…” I checked my screens one last time and saw the freighter careening toward us. The scanner array the
Karn
wasn’t supposed to have clearly showed her weapons ports powering up, glowing hot. Ren’s MYA—Move Your Ass—had other ships scurrying, and Narfial traffic control pleading with us to hold our position.

Like hell we would.

“…two, one. Sully, fry ’em! Marsh, thrusters, now!”

The
Karn
jerked hard, alarms screaming in triplicate, overload warnings flashing. The grating sound of metal wrenching echoed off the bulkheads. Snapped power lines whipped past the front viewport as something thumped, hard, and something else thudded, once, twice. The ship lurched then we were thrown sideways, my armrest catching me in the ribs in spite of my safety straps.

“Full shields!” I said hoarsely. Goddamn, that hurt. “Verno, don’t let her spin. Marsh, crank those sublights higher.”

We dove away from station—a hideously ugly departure. Narfial controllers cursed the
Fair Jeffa,
assuring us the freighter was back on course and was never a threat to us at dock.

“Bite my ass,” Sully intoned.

“Mine too. Make it a double,” Del said as we streaked past incoming traffic, Verno’s sure hand on the helm keeping us free from at least a half-dozen near-collisions. “Two hours, twenty-seven minutes to gate,” Del added.