Shades of Dark (8 page)

I remembered being trapped in the shuttle bay on Marker 2 under fire from Burke’s followers, Philip at my side.

“There are supposed to be ways to break a
ky’saran
link,” Philip had told me. “I’ll help you.”

Is this what he’d known?

A trilling sound jolted me out of my thoughts. Incoming transmit—incoming private transmit—via my deskscreen. I moved quickly to the other side of the desk, tapping at my screen as I swiveled my chair around.

A message was waiting for me, tagged urgent. From Admiral Philip Guthrie.

Oh, God. Thad.

Right after Sully and I had left the
Loviti
and returned to the
Karn,
I made sure Philip had both Sully’s and my secure, private transmit links. Philip was a source of information even Sully agreed we couldn’t afford to ignore. But Philip hadn’t tried to contact me until now.

With Drogue’s comment that both Philip and my father had been in to see Thad fresh in my mind, I brought up the message file. It cycled through Sully’s security filters. Then Philip’s image appeared on my screen.

He didn’t look as pale as I’d last seen him, but of course at that point he’d had med-broches plastered over most of his body, having barely survived Berri Solaria’s attempt to kill him. His expression was grim but other than that he was the usual impeccable Admiral Philip Guthrie, his trademark prematurely silver hair cropped short, the blueness of his eyes only adding that much more interest to an already classically handsome face. He was forty-five, ten years my senior. He’d been my mentor, my commanding officer, my husband, my ex, my friend. I wasn’t sure what role he was playing now.

“I hope this reaches you in time, Chaz,” Philip said. He was seated behind a desk in his private office on the
Loviti
. “And Sullivan, if you’re listening to this—and I have to assume you are—yes, I used every security measure and then some to make sure this transmit is not intercepted or decoded.”

He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. Philip didn’t like Sully any more than Sully liked Philip, and neither took great pains to hide that fact.

“I’m assuming you know about Thad’s arrest,” he continued. “It’s been on the news feeds. What you need to know is I had no advance notice or I obviously would have taken some kind of action. Jodey actually learned of it before I did. Thad didn’t attempt to contact me. Perhaps things would be different if he had. Perhaps not.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t at all like the sound of Philip’s “perhaps not.”

This was one of the problems with civilian deep-space transmits. No real-time communications. Only Fleet had the technology and permission for that. I wanted to reach through the screen and shake the information out of him. All I could do now was wait as Philip leaned forward and folded his hands.

“Thad’s turning state’s evidence. Against my advice, your father’s on his way now to make him tell everything he knows about you and Sullivan.”

My stomach hit the floor, my hands turned to ice, and for a moment, my head spun dizzily. Something grabbed me, centering me, concern and strength flooding my senses.

Chasidah?

I slapped the pause icon on the screen. Sully needed to be here and hear this.

A transmit from Philip just came in,
I told him, now sensing a secondary calming presence in my mind. Ren. Wherever Sully was, Ren was with him.
Bad news,
I continued.
Can you—?

On my way.

It wasn’t quite fifteen seconds and the cabin door opened, Sully surging in. I’d already restarted the transmit and, at his nod, let him listen from the beginning.

“Your father’s on his way there now to make him tell everything he knows about you and Sullivan,” Philip’s image said again. “I understand the need for self-preservation, but I never thought…” His mouth thinned and he shook his head. “I’ve known Thad for too many years. He’s an intelligent, capable man. But Lars…Thad won’t cross him. And Lars was adamant in his conversation with me that he wasn’t going to lose both his adult children. He said he wasn’t going to tolerate any further damage to the Bergren name. He still has your half brother, Willym, to worry about.”

Lars didn’t lose me. He disowned me. Abandoned me. Not that that surprised me. I’d been a traitor from the day I decided I preferred to live with my mother after their divorce. Marrying Philip Guthrie had briefly brought me back into the realm of acceptable. Being court-martialed had taken me clearly out of it again.

Whatever information my father now knew about Sully and myself only pushed me even farther out, if that was indeed possible.

And if Thad was in Tage’s camp, then it was very possible Lars knew it all.

I had seen my father as Thad’s salvation. I never suspected that I’d be sacrificed to the cause.

A hand gently caressed my shoulder. A warmth spiraled through me. Sully standing next to me, feeling my pain, wanting me to know I was loved. I reached up and threaded my fingers through his.

“If Tage and Burke didn’t know that Sullivan was a
Ragkiril
before,” Philip continued, “they’ll know now. I think that’s a given. I think it’s also a given that this will alter how they’ll deal with you, both of you.

“I’ll repeat what I said three months ago: Chaz is safer with me, even though I’m no innocent in this mess. But I’m a Guthrie. Tage will have to tread carefully around that fact. What you are, Sullivan, will not make them fear you. It will make them hunt you.” He leaned back in his chair. “The
Loviti
has legitimate business on the A-B that will put us within a shipday’s range of Dock Five. We’re scheduled for a meetpoint at Raft Thirty in about six shipdays. Meet me there, let Chaz transfer to my ship. At least until the Admirals’ Council can do something about the information you gave me about Burke’s jukor labs.”

Philip held up one hand. “Don’t say no, yet. Think about it. Raft Thirty. Until then, for God’s sake, be careful. I am. Tage has a lot of power and Burke has a reputation for playing hard and dirty. You know how to reach me if you need me.”

The screen blanked. I half-turned in my chair to glance at Sully and caught a flash of something that looked like anguish on his face. Then it was gone. A light warmth still trickled through my senses, but he’d pulled back.

A sigh of exasperation blew through his lips. “This is not good news.”

“I never thought Thad would do something like that.”

“I should have.” His voice was bitter, thick with blame.

“Sully—”

He waved away my comment before I could make it. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t omniscient.

He stepped away from the desk.

“Sully.”

Hush, Chasidah. Let me think.
He paced to the outer bulkhead wall and stared out the viewport, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders stiff. I didn’t need any kind of mental connection to guess at what was whirling through his mind: the rejection by his crew, his contacts, possibly even Drogue if his
Ragkiril
talents were revealed. No, not if. When.

“If we have to,” I said softly, “Verno, Ren, and I can run the
Karn
.”

He turned, then leaned back against the wall. “The problem is larger than that. People on the rim—people who work outside the Empire’s laws, as I have—don’t trust easily. It’s taken me years to develop contacts like Pops, Junior, and Newlin. Like Nathaniel Milo.” He dropped his gaze, staring at the carpet for a long moment. Captain Nathaniel Milo’s
Diligent Keeper
was supposed to be my ticket off Moabar, but Milo was killed by Ministry of Corrections officers, tipped off the ship was going to be used in a prison break. Not mine—Sheldon Blaine’s. The MOC would never have taken such aggressive action over mere Captain Chasidah Bergren.

The false lead had come from Burke’s people, of that we were fairly sure. But even though it was false, Milo had died because of us. That had affected Sully deeply. And, judging from the tight line of his mouth, it still did.

“If my damned crew doesn’t mutiny on me,” he said, raising his gaze back to mine, “then the dockhands on the rafts or Narfial will sell me out because they’ll believe I manipulated them.”

I thought of the money he’d won playing cards with Junior on Dock Five. Stolorths were banned from Imperial casinos for that reason.

“Does Drogue know you’re—?”

“I doubt he’d offer sanctuary, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I was and he wasn’t reading my thoughts. He shut himself off from me again, his usual reaction when he was hurt or angry.

“Drogue doesn’t know,” he continued, “and while professionally he’d accept what I am, personally it would destroy our friendship. Not just because of what I am but because I never told him.”

I knew that feeling. When I’d found out Sully was a
Ragkiril,
all I’d wanted was to put as much distance between him and myself as possible. And I wasn’t a follower of a religion that believed
Kyi-Ragkirils
were spawns of hell.

He straightened. “We’re going to have to push for Narfial now. If Tage releases that information about me, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to make dock there, let alone get this Del to talk.” Del was the name of our contact on Narfial. That was all we knew about him: a name. “We have to get there before Tage makes any kind of move.”

“Specs-plus-twenty?” Specs-plus-ten—the way Sully could push a ship to outperform even its design by 10 percent—was damned near Sully’s middle name. But I didn’t know if even the
Karn
could handle plus-twenty.

His mouth twisted, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “If I have to. But there are some gates out here at the C-D. Old smugglers’ routes. That might be better.”

I wasn’t sure. I’d heard the rumors: quick and deadly. The jumpgates traded safety for speed.

“All the more reason I’ll want you in the pilot’s chair and not Gregor when we use them,” Sully said when I voiced my objection. A brief flare of warmth, a sensation of confidence floated through me.

I appreciated Sully’s support, but it didn’t negate Gregor as a potential problem. “He’ll try to alert Nalby when we change course. And he’ll be expecting a response or new orders from them.” Which he wouldn’t get because we’d blocked his transmits. “Unless we wait until he’s asleep. He’ll be off shift in an hour.” Then he’d probably take a meal, spend some time in the gym. Or playing cards with Aubry in Dorsie’s galley. “Where will we be in four, five hours?”

Sully was already heading back to his desk. “Too far from the gate I want to use,” he said after a few moments of leaning over his deskcomp and tapping at it. Then he ran one hand through his short-cropped dark hair. “Okay,” he said, his tone suddenly grim. “I need him out of the picture.”

Something chilled in me at his words. I was Fleet, military. It wasn’t something I liked, but when it was necessary I’d taken lives in the line of duty. But knowing how Sully would do it—a
zragkor,
ripping Gregor’s mind apart—made my breath freeze in my lungs. Yes, Gregor had sold us out to the Farosians. But to cold-bloodedly murder him…Part of me still believed in a fair trial, even if I’d not been granted one.

“I’m not a murderer, Chasidah.” Sully’s voice was flat. “I’m just going to give him a bad case of stomach cramps. Or at least, make him think that’s what he has.”

Shame flooded me for jumping to conclusions. And for not realizing that he was linked to my thoughts. “Sully, I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He turned quickly from me, emotions simmering around him, tainting the link between us with anger and pain. He slapped at the doorway palm-pad with more force than necessary and vanished into the corridor.

“Five minutes to hard edge, Captain Chasidah,” Verno said, working helm and sharing navigation with me.

“Five minutes,” I echoed, watching ship’s data on the pilot’s armrest console. Sully was at communications, muddying our signal in case the Farosians were interested, and monitoring long-and short-range scanners. Marsh worked engineering. Aubry and Ren were off duty. Gregor, last I heard, was passed out cold in his bunk after puking his guts out for almost an hour.

Dorsie had given him tea with a small dose of honeylace to make him feel better. At Sully’s suggestion, of course. We’d be a bit more than a shipday in jump. Gregor might be waking up just as we exited. If we exited.

I didn’t like the look of this gate or the jumpspace it configured at all. It looked slippery—a term I’d heard helms officers and navigators use since I was small, denoting the fact that the gate beacon’s signals were diffuse and inconsistent. They “slipped” off the narrow, safe path ships needed to traverse the neverwhen. I’d programmed in two additional gate fixes—both Imperial—as emergency relocators. But there was no guarantee when we were in jumpspace that I’d still be able to receive their signals. That was another problem with being slippery. Communications’ signals were skewed.

“Hypers online,” Marsh said.

That, at least, looked good. Between Marsh and Aubry, the
Karn
’s sublight and jumpspace engines were as pristine as Philip Guthrie’s dress uniform.