Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2) (24 page)

“How’s a cat supposed
to sleep with all that racket going on?”

Wolf shifted behind
her, pulling her tighter against him and sending a cascade of wicked notions
through her mind. His lips brushed the side of her neck. “Ignore the bloody
comm,” he grumbled.

“If someone’s looking
for us at this time of night, it might be important.” Fitz repositioned the cat
and slid out of bed, padded across the darkened room and punched the receive
button. The image of a battleship’s bridge on full alert blasted the last of
the muzziness out of her mind. Maks Kiernan stared back at her, struggling to
maintain a professional demeanor, but a sheepish grin lit his face

“Ah…Colonel, you are
totally out of uniform.”

Fitz realized she
didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. Wolf slipped up behind her, wrapping a
blanket and his arms around her. “Admiral, what’s going on?”

Kiernan’s eyes narrowed.
“Youngblood?”

Kiernan snapped to
attention at Wolf’s nod. “Triumvir, at 0147 hours fleet time, we received a
message from Remote Station Beta-34, sent as they were destroyed. Three Tzraka
hive ships jumped in at the hyperlimit, and are inbound toward Scyr.”

Fitz walked into Wolf’s
office, twisting her hair up into an untidy knot. “Are you ready? Lizzy is on
the pad and waiting for us.”

Armored in SpecOps
black like her, Wolf pulled pistols, blades and explosives from the open weapons
cabinet. He slapped a fresh power cell into the Acton and looked up, shaking
his head. “All I want to do is gun up, charge into that warehouse, and finally
have it out with Jan, but I can’t do that, can I? I’m not a free agent any
longer. I have responsibilities; a Fleet to command.” He jammed the pistol into
the holster under his arm. “I knew there was a reason I hated this job the last
time I had it.”

“I’ll take care of
Tritico,” she said.

Jumper flexed his
lethal claws.
“And Super Cat will help.”

“No.” Wolf’s reply was
quick and final. “I’m not the only one with responsibilities. You’ll both stay
with Ari and guard her. That’s your job.” His voice took on a hard edge,
reminding her that he was her superior officer. “In the minds of the people, Ari
is the Empire. She must be protected at all costs.”

“She has her Praetorian
Guard…” Fitz started to protest, but his fingers against her lips stopped her.

“You know what I think
of them.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’m certain Tritico has another
attack on Ari planned, and with the confusion of this invasion, now would be
the perfect time to spring it. I’m not going to forget again that his ultimate
objective is the throne. While I’m out with the Fleet, I need to know you’ll be
there, standing between her and whatever that devious mind of his can dream
up.”

“Dammit, I’m not going
to let him slip through our fingers again.” She stepped away and paced. “What
if I called up a Special Forces team? Would you be able to give them directions
to that warehouse?”

“Yes, but from what I
can dredge up out of Cypher’s memory, Tritico has at least three augies in
addition to the bugs, so you’ll want to send in more than one team.”

“Hell, I’ll send an
entire battalion if that’s what it’ll take. I’ll call Pike now and get him to
set it up.”

Her comm to the
lieutenant’s private line went to message; so did Chin’s, but Bartonelli
answered immediately. The merc sat at a desk, kitted out in her mismatched Gold
Dragons armor, a pulse rifle at her side.

“Where’s Pike?” Fitz
asked.

“Gone, along with Chin
and that gimpy staff officer, Perez. And any Praetorian who ever pulled a tour
on a warship. Because of the holidays, Fleet’s personnel are scattered all over
hell’s half acre on shore leave, and a lot of them couldn’t make it back before
Kiernan burned out of here. He was in the devil’s own hurry to get his ships
moving because he wanted to engage those bugs as far out in the system as
possible. I thought he’d shanghai me, but instead told me to stay with Momma
Dragon until you showed up. Right now we’re in medical helping Ski get set up
in case we have casualties…”

The sergeant’s eyes
widened as she caught sight of Wolf sliding into the image. “Behind you,
Chima!” she shouted.

“It’s quite all right,
Sergeant. I’m myself again.” he said.

A smile split her dark
face. “Wolf?”

“Is that Youngblood?” a
man’s voice called from off screen. “Let me talk to him.”

Bartonelli ceded the
chair to Logan Von Drager.

“How did you get here?”
Wolf grumbled. “A man’s out of touch for a few days and the whole bloody world
gets turned on its head. What do you want, Doctor?”

“You have to kill Janos
Tritico.”

“Believe me, I’d like
nothing better, but right now I have an invasion to stop.”

“The best way to do
that is to kill Tritico.”

Wolf shook his head.
“As of last night he was there in Striefbourne City. How is he controlling a
fleet at the far edge of the solar system?”

“You’ve located him?”

“I know where to find
him, but he has a team of augies guarding him, along with several bugs of a
type I’m not familiar with.”

“One of them will be a
Speaker.”

“Speaker?” Fitz asked.
“Like the one I saw him talking to on Baldark?”

“Yes, except this will
be one of a twinned pair, two Tzrakas born conjoined from a single egg, sharing
one mind. After separation they retain the ability to communicate instantly,
even across interstellar distances, in a form of quantum entanglement. That’s
how Tritico controls the hive ships. You have to sever that link; eliminate one,
and its twinned pair will perish. Without direction, the bugs will break and
run like they did at Lockmea Rho.”

“Then why do I have to
kill Jan?” Wolf asked. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“No, you don’t
understand.” Von Drager squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a breath. “Tritico
thinks he’s using the bugs, but they’re manipulating him, changing him and the
way he thinks; molding him into something more like their old Arkainsahaar
masters. When he returned from that trip to locate the Tzrakas, I could see the
difference in him—colder, more cruel.”

Fitz swallowed against
a mouth that felt stuffed with cotton. A Tritico
more
unfeeling than the
one she’d faced on Baldark? The one who’d discussed turning her body into an
incubator for thousands of Tzraka nymphs with the same casual disregard he’d
use when asking for a cup of tea?

Von Drager twisted the
zipper pull of his lab jacket between his fingers. “I’m afraid it’s gone beyond
a battle for control of the Empire. He sees us and any other Lazzinair he can’t
control as the enemy. It’s as if fate has predestined us to play out the same
struggle that tore apart the ancient Arkainsahaar.”

Fitz knew nothing was
free, particularly this chance at an extended life span, but had the symbiont
come with a price higher than any of them had imagined?

Wolf folded his arms
over his chest. “Fate has nothing to do with this. As I see it, you created
this entire mess, Von Drager—or should I call you August Lazzinair?”

The doctor flinched as
if he’d been struck, his face furrowed by the same grief Fitz had seen that
morning in the maximum security cell. “No. That foolish old man should stay
buried.” He gave a choked, desperate laugh. “But you are right about it all
being my fault. I caused it all. I unwittingly dragged us into their war, a war
which had been going on for over a million years.” He scrubbed his hands
together as if trying to remove blood only he could see. When he spoke again,
his words were barely audible. “My stupidity started the Tzraka War.”

Wolf’s lips thinned,
pressed together so tight they looked bloodless. Fitz noticed ghosts stirring
in his eyes as he dropped into his chair. He placed the slug thrower on the
desk, retreating into the solace of disassembling it and cleaning each part
with exaggerated care.

Too deep into his own
misery, Von Drager didn’t notice the effect his words had on Wolf. “A mining
company on Lockmea Rho discovered a population of aboriginals living on the
planet.”

“And if they proved to
be indigenous, they’d lose the contract, unless they split a healthy percentage
of the profits with the locals.” Fitz wondered if the involvement of the planet
where the final battle of the Bug War took place could be a coincidence. Not
likely.

Yes,” Von Drager said.
“So there was a lot of pressure—and money—for a xenoarcheological report supporting
their assertion the population wasn’t native. I agreed, but, thank Hansue I had
enough professionalism to go into the field and observe the subjects before I
wrote the fraudulent report. As it turned out, there was no need to lie. They
weren’t natives at all, but a group of Arkainsahaar, stranded at a remote
listening post for centuries, awaiting a retrieval that never came. They had no
idea the war was long over and time had passed them by. Those who survived had
degenerated into little more than savages.”

Von Drager looked down
at his restless fingers. “To learn what I could of their civilization, I stayed
with them after I submitted my report. It must have been that information that
alerted their enemies. They woke the Tzraka, gathered their hive ships, and set
out immediately for Lockmea Rho, so consumed by their hatred that they couldn’t
allow even a pitiful handful to exist.”

Von Drager cleared his
throat. “After the fighting started, I returned home, but before I left, the
Arkainsahaar gave me a gift. The symbiont. At the time I thought it was a
kindness, but now I’m not so sure. As the casualty count mounted, I tried to
convince the government that I had knowledge that could cut down on our troop loss.
I received permission for an experiment at a remote field hospital on Yebbix.
There should have been few casualties…”

“But then the fighting
shifted,” Wolf said. “Those of us stationed on Yebbix found ourselves on the
front lines. A lot of people ended up in that aid station, important people.”

“And I killed them.”
Von Drager said. “Because I didn’t know about the connection between the
symbiont and the virus the Tzraka carried in their blades.”

Fitz stared out the
office’s door at the snow sleeting across the darkness, rather than look at the
anguish on the doctor’s face. The symbiont had brought her only joy, a new
life, a promise of love, and most importantly, Wolf and a child. Shame burned
in her throat that she should feel happiness from something that brought
another human being such suffering. Even when Von Drager tried to save lives
with the symbiont, his act brought only more tragedy.

She checked the chrono
in her inhead display. “Wolf, we need to wrap this up.”

“So all I have to do is
kill Jan. And his immortal augies. And Yig knows how many bugs.” He dragged a
hand across his stubbly head and snorted. “I’d better go for the Speaker first.
Which one is it? I seem to remember a smaller one and another that looked
humanoid.”

Von Drager paled. “A
Destroyer? He has a Destroyer?”

“That means something
to you?”

“The Destroyers are
assassins, chimeras engineered from the fusing of a drone’s DNA with that of
the intended victim. Because of that genetic link, it has the ability to track
its victim psychically, follow it no matter where it hides. The need to kill
drives the creature insane, and it will destroy anyone and everything that
tries to stop it. Could you recognize any traits that might have told you who
the target is?”

“Only one person it
could be,” Fitz said. “Ari. Tritico must have taken some of her genetic
material from fleet archives.”

Wolf pushed back his
chair and stood, holstering his pistol. “Doctor, let me talk to the sergeant
again.”

“Yes, sir?” Bartonelli
stepped into view, pushing Von Drager aside.

“Sergeant, get Ari to a
defensible position. If she argues, you have my permission to slug her and drag
her to safety. Fitz and Jumper will join you shortly.”

Fitz clenched her lower
lip between her teeth to stifle her protest. She knew her duty—to stand between
her sovereign and death—and she would do it, even if it meant allowing the man
she loved to walk into an unwinnable battle alone. Even if that duty threatened
to rip the heart out of her armored chest.

Wolf read her emotions
and pulled her into his arms, his hand caressing the nape of her neck. He
whispered into her hair, “A part of me wants to leave you here, put up the
force dome and barricade you behind it. You and our child.” He eased her away
to study her face. “But if you were the type of person who’d let me do that,
you wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with.”

“Hell of a life we’ve
made for ourselves.”

“Yes, but who would
have either one of us?” He kissed her, tenderly at first, but then it heated,
driven by fear and uncertainty. A song of passion filled her mind, their
melodies weaving together in counterpoint.

The residence comm
crackled to life. “Colonel,” said Lizzy, “I’m still waiting on the landing
pad.”

Wolf pulled back from
her lips. “That bloody ship has the uncanny ability to interrupt us whenever I
kiss you.” He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a silver box
wrapped with bright ribbons. “One thing before we go.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s your Founder’s
Day present. Or had you forgotten that this is Founder’s Day morning?”

“We really don’t have
time for this.”

“Just open it.” He
pulled a dagger from his battle harness and passed it to her hilt first.

She accepted the
offered blade and sliced through the ribbons. Inside was another box, this one
of dark, polished wood adorned with gold hardware. She lifted the lid, and a
sharp gasp escaped her lips. Nestled in the padded velvet interior lay another
Koenigsagg slug thrower, this one silver with an intricate pattern of leaves
and vines engraved on it.

Wolf placed a holster
and box of ammunition on the desktop. “After we returned from Baldark, I
tracked down Emil Koenigsagg’s daughter. She still runs her father’s shop, and
agreed to produce a third pistol to his original specifications. Now you don’t
have to keep coming up with excuses to borrow mine.”