Shades of Dark (43 page)

The archiver was where I left it. I pocketed it then swung into the captain’s chair and brought up her logs. The engineer was still slumped at his station. I forced my eyes not to stray to him, forced my mind not to consider the state of his mind. These people were our enemies. It was preferable to being shot. Losing memories wasn’t the same as losing a life.

The lab ship’s captain was Brigitta Halemon. I didn’t know her record, her training, or previous postings. Those didn’t matter. But I needed to hear her voice, her cadence, how she handled meetpoints with her boss. And I didn’t have a whole lot of time to study her. However, knowing standard procedure and the fact that the existence of this ship was highly secret, I suspected there wouldn’t be a lot of friendly chatter. But there might well be code words. The wrong one in the wrong sequence would alert Burke’s captain that something was amiss.

I brought up her last twenty transmissions, immediately ruling out those going to depot and station traffic control. That left three, all to different transmit codes. I hoped one was Burke’s ship. The meetpoint was likely set recently, unless this was a routine stop at a prescribed interval of time. I couldn’t rule that out either.

I brought up the logs on the three unknowns. Two were traffic advisories from independent freighters. A fairly routine practice in between beacons. The third was a private transmit to a ship’s chandler on Ferrin’s. Useless.

I grabbed twenty more but knew I was running out of time.

Sully?

No answer. I hit intraship. “Sully, I’m going to need the captain’s all-clear codes. I’m not coming up with any recent transmits between her and Burke’s ship.”

Sorry,
came the answer and not through intraship. I wondered if he was back on the depot. There was an odd note to his voice.
I’ll tell Del. Either he or I will get back to you.

We don’t have a lot of time,
I told him.
You know as well as I do, the wrong word or the wrong person, and they won’t make dock.

Agreed. We’re working on it.

I hoped it was Sully not Del who got the information for me, but I knew we also didn’t have the time for me to be picky.

I went back to the transmit from the ship chandler’s on Ferrin’s and listened to Halemon’s voice while I scanned the next set of transmits for anything from Burke. She spoke in short sentences with not much inflection. A standard bored officer doing her duty. Her accent was Baris Starport–bred, full of jumpjockey-speak but grammatically correct, meaning she’d had some advanced schooling. Not a problem to imitate that and, with a little added background interference that would be expected here, the differences in our voices might not matter.

I found two earlier transmits going to a repair bay on Ferrin’s—evidently Ferrin’s was a place Burke felt safe. They taught me nothing new about Captain Halemon but solidified what I did know about her. Still, talking to a ship’s mechanic wasn’t the same as conferring with someone she considered to be her employer. I guessed the jumpjockey talk would get pushed to the background for conversing with someone of Hayden’s status.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind me. They sounded like Philip’s hard gait but I turned anyway to be sure. Sully wasn’t with him.

He answered my raised eyebrow with a nod. “Sullivan went back to the depot.”

“I need Halemon’s all-clear codes.”

“Is that the captain’s name?”

“Know her?”

Philip took the seat at the helm in front of me, but not without a quick glance at the sleeping man at engineering.

“I’m learning to ignore him,” I said with a grim smile.

Philip grunted an all-purpose answer. “What’s Halemon’s first name?”

“Brigitta. Know her?” I repeated. Hopeful. Working blindly and under the pressure of a time deadline were not my favorite activities.

He shook his head.

“That’s okay. I think I have her basically down. If you could add some noise to the comm-link, we’ll be okay, if Sully gets her all-clears. If not,” I pointed to the engineer. “He’s our best option.”

“How long has Sullivan been fully phased?”

Philip’s question confused me until I saw him run two fingers across his face. Lightning.

“That I’ve been aware of? Ten days, two weeks. But he’s been struggling with something for longer than that. Ren would know more.”

Philip folded his hands together and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I wondered if it was Regarth’s influence.”

He’d asked Sully that earlier. Sully hadn’t answered. Evidently it was important enough that Philip needed to ask again. “What’s the problem?”

“Two fully phased
Kyis
are the problem. I hope Sullivan knows what he’s doing.”

The tight tone of his voice concerned me. “Philip, I don’t have access to your family’s data. Break this down for me.”

“You know
Ragkir
have different levels of power, with
Kyi
being the highest? Among
Kyis
there are levels. Phases. It depends on their ability to use and integrate energy. When one’s fully integrated, fully phased, the physical body actually shows energy transmissions. They can look like lightning bolts or starburst or just expanding glow fields.”

“Both Sully and Del have those.”

“That’s my worry, Chaz. It goes back to clan dynamics. Succinctly, two captains on one ship. Or two admirals. Who’s in command? Who has final say? We talked about this on the ship, when we were in jumpspace. It’s more of a consideration now because of the high level of power. I understand Sullivan feels confident he can control Regarth. I just don’t want to see him do something stupid.”

“Like?”

Chasidah?

I held up one hand, halting Philip’s reply. “It’s Sully,” I said out loud.
You have those codes for me?

I do, angel-mine. Ready?

Ready.

Words flowed into me, but more than words. Almost a feeling of Brigitta Halemon herself. Her confidence. Her insecurity. Her annoyance. It startled me. It frightened me.

A nudge of warmth from Sully.
It was the quickest and easiest way to transfer this to you. Don’t worry about it.

I understood, but…
Sully, is she still alive?

Nothing to fear. Just let me know when Burke’s ship’s in range. I’ll come up to the bridge if you need my help.

With playing Captain Halemon? For him to transfer that part of her essence to me, he had to have taken that into himself.

Just temporarily,
he confirmed.
Think of it as a file to be deleted.

Or a personality to be erased. Like a
zral
.

It’s not that bad, angel.

Just…different.

Let me know when Burke’s ship—

My hand-held blared out three sharp tones.

Now,
I told him as Philip spun in his seat, bringing scanner data to the console screen.

On our way.

“Forty-five out,” Philip said, confirming what I knew from the hand-held. I swung the armrest console screen up into position.

“We confronting Burke on the depot or on this ship?”

“Sullivan and I figured the depot, once we confirm he’s definitely docking.”

That made sense. We had less room to work and were more vulnerable in the lab ship. “I’m good with that. You have ship ident yet?” I asked Philip.

“Ident, no, but she’s a luxury-class yacht. An Explorer Edition Five, looks like.”

That would fit Burke’s profile. I heard bootsteps, felt Sully’s presence before I saw him. “Explorer Five?” I called out over my shoulder, working with the data on my screen along with Philip. There was always a chance this might not be Burke.

“Hayden likes to travel comfortably,” Sully said, coming up behind me. He touched my shoulder and leaned forward, studying my screens. “I think it’s highly likely it’s him.”

“Then why does this ship read him as a blind-ident?” Philip questioned as Del brought the nav station active. “This should be peer to peer.”

“Because he’s not confirmed we’re us yet,” I guessed. I ran through Halemon’s all-clears in my mind. “Did you get protocol from Halemon? Who hails who first?”

Something spiraled between Sully and Del. I felt it but couldn’t get the content.

“We do,” Sully said after a moment. Then:
Chasidah, Del worked Halemon. I transferred the codes to you because you’re not comfortable with him. But you need what he knows, directly. Will you agree to a link with him, just for now?

Would I agree? Yes. Would I like it? That was moot at the moment.
Just for now.

I felt a silence then a rushing heat, a presence that I recognized from our previous encounters.

Thank you, Captain.

Tell me about Brigitta Halemon.

I can do more than that,
Del said.
You and I will be her.

That thought definitely did not make me comfortable but I knew there was no other choice.

When do we send our hail?

Brigitta Halemon’s knowledge was suddenly mine. Not just her insecurities, her annoyances, but the sum of what she was. I saw/felt her childhood on a starport, her clumsy teenage years, her brief affair with a freighter drive tech when she was nineteen. Her own apprenticeship on a freighter, working from third shift to senior nav, and under Burke’s orders, as captain. She was forty-one and Burke’s money intrigued her. She had no interest in politics but held the usual xenophobia found in inner-system residents. Takas made great deck slaves. Stolorths were not to be trusted. Not even the ones who worked for Burke.

I thought of Ren’s innocent protestations about his people a few months ago: Stolorths would never assist in the breeding of jukors.

Sadly, he was very wrong. Greed was sometimes an even stronger motivator than survival.

I glanced down at my console and saw everything as Halemon did. I knew her ship’s and her crew’s idiosyncrasies. The engineer whose mind Sully had blanked was Barth. Unimaginative but reliable. He was divorced with a couple of children scattered on various starports.

Interestingly, Halemon had never been in her ship’s labs. Barth was the only regular crewmember allowed access. She knew Burke was cloning some kind of guard beast, but that was all. She flew the ship where she was told to and was paid well enough that she didn’t ask questions.

Burke’s status helped. She knew of Crossley-Burke, one of Burke’s family’s original corporations. She knew Burke had an estate on Sylvadae. He’d even intimated once or twice he was doing work for the emperor.

She didn’t doubt that. She’d seen the same high-profile society vids I had, with Burke on the arm of this vidstar or that socialite.

I realized with a start that I’d probably have liked Brigitta Halemon. She loved her position at a stellar helm as much as I did.

Ah, but she doesn’t quite have your sparkle.

I tamped down my flare of annoyance. It took two to play the game.

I brought up the communications screen and found the codes for Burke’s ship. “I need a noisy, unreliable comm-link.”

Sully squeezed my shoulder. “On it.” He took the seat at communications, waving Philip to remain where he was at helm.

I knew where Halemon’s conversations with Burke were now. Not in the regular transmit file nor even the two subdirectories I’d found, but in a third data cache. That didn’t feel like her idea. Hayden must have instituted that. I played the last two recent transmits with Burke’s ship while Sully made sure communications were less than optimal.

Halemon didn’t talk to Burke directly in either one, but with a male named Zeno.

Del pushed out of his chair at nav and headed for me as I listened to the second transmit. “Repeat that last one,” he said, then leaned one elbow on the back of my chair.

I forced his proximity from my mind just as I had Barth’s. They were there but that didn’t mean I had to let them affect me.

Del was nodding. “Stolorth.”

“Burke’s captain?” Sully asked.

Images and voices whirled through my mind as Del answered. “Not sure. Brigitta’s never met Zeno. Only talked to him as Burke’s representative. But I’m hearing a familiar accent.”

I heard it too. Not that I knew what I was listening to but voices Del knew sounded in my mind. Three men debating the merits of Lashto brandy versus Graunan.

Cousins,
Del told me. And told Sully as well though I couldn’t be sure.

Zeno’s Serian?
I asked.

The accent is Delkavran. Like you, angel.
He ran his fingers lightly down my arm.

I tensed but refused to jerk away.
Stow it, Regarth.

I caught Sully’s quizzical glance. He hadn’t heard or felt what Del did but picked up my annoyance. I shifted away from Del.

“My error. Sorry, Captain.” Del gave me a half shrug then glanced at Sully and repeated the shrug.

“So Zeno’s Delkavran?” I asked aloud because Philip had been kept out of the conversation.

“Possible. He also could have been raised or educated in a Delkavran household. It’s immaterial unless he leaves the ship. According to Brigitta’s memories, he doesn’t. It’s Burke and…” Del trailed off. I sensed him reaching, thinking. Absorbing someone’s memories didn’t mean you knew everything immediately. You still had to look for specific things. And you had to know what you were looking for.

That was why Sully had never known that Berri Solaria was working for Burke or that Gregor was dealing with the Farosians. Answers only came when the right questions were asked.

“Burke, Dexter, and Morlo.” I saw the three men as the answer came to me. “And Lazlo, but not recently.” Because Lazlo had died on Marker along with Berri Solaria.

Brigitta’s memory of Burke was the same as mine. He was clearly Sully’s cousin with his build and coloring. Except his eyes were light, and his smile a bit too polished. Dexter was shorter and wiry, his head shaved bald, his skin ruddy. Morlo was almost as tall as his employer, fair-haired and fair-skinned, but built thick and bulky like Marsh.