Deadly Betrayal (2 page)

Blake cleared his throat again, and this time both of us glanced over in his direction.

“Commander, get on the bridge. Alex, come back in here for a minute.” He sounded amused.

If he was going to reprimand me for slapping the scientist, I was not sorry.

Empty of people, the Captain’s office looked large and cold. Blake nodded towards the guest chairs. “Have a seat.”

“Aren’t you going to yell at me?”

He looked honestly surprised. “Why?”

“I hit your guest.”

I didn’t expect him to laugh, but he chuckled.

“No. He had it coming. He should be happy it was you and not John.”

Good point. And what an advantage of being a woman; John couldn’t afford to lose his temper, not like that. If
he
hit the scientist and put some heart into it, the man would be dead.

Blake said, “I’m pleased he walked in on the two of you in the corridor. I couldn’t have planned it better.”

“Oh yes, because I’m sure you didn’t see it coming.”

He grinned. “Perish the thought.”

At times, we thought much alike.

Leaning back in the chair, my captain sighed. Now when he relaxed, he looked worn and weary. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes.”

“Even from your husband?”

“Probably not. Depends on what it is.”

The last time I tried I had to tell Adam about John being his father to stop him from embarking on a suicide mission. He was normally great at reading people, but that time he got it wrong. He misread the signals and thought John and I were lovers. To his ever-logical brain it seemed reasonable to take himself out of the equation and let the humans be human together.

I did love John, but in another way. Adam was modeled after him and at times they acted so similar and looked so much alike it confused me. That didn’t mean they were interchangeable like Adam seemed to think.

Blake probably knew what I was thinking. He smirked and pulled out a drawer. I expected him to produce something technological, but he took out two glasses and a bottle of scotch.

In theory, alcohol was forbidden on the Bell. In reality it existed, but mainly around John.

I took the offered glass and smelled the golden liquid.

Tempting.

Shame I had to put it down untouched.

“Don’t you like whiskey?”

“I do, but he’s a walking alcohol detector. If I taste this, he’ll know.”

“If you
have
to tell him, swear him to secrecy. Adam would do anything for you.”

Good point. I took a sip and it was just as good as I hoped.

I fingered the cool glass. “This is very nice, but I doubt you asked me in here just to have a drink.”

He nodded. “We have a problem. A real problem, not one of these everyday annoyances.”

There was always
something
happening. We ran into new problems every day, and many concerned the welfare of entire worlds. If we had a
real
problem, it had to be huge.

Blake caught my gaze. “All my officers come from the same school. We all think the same way. I need a fresh point of view.”

Crap. Nothing good could come from this.

“And you want
mine
? There are many civilians on this ship, and most are probably smarter than I am.”

“There aren’t as many as you would think right now, and you’ve gotten us out of tight spots before. I made up an excuse to send all civilians on shore leave. Right now there’s you and John. And Martinez, but he should be leaving right now.”

Unless it was wartime or the ship faced certain destruction, Blake would not separate families. It was against the law. I knew this well; the law protected me when Martinez attempted to steal me from the Bell and take me to Earth for study. He intended to hook me up to a machine that could record all my memories.

In retrospect I should probably be grateful. Thanks to him and his lack of respect for people and privacy, Adam and I were married.

I couldn’t even imagine the ship without all the civilians. It was normally filled with life. Children, shops, restaurants…

“The promenade?”

“Closed. We’re running on a minimum crew.”

“You sound like we’re going to war.”

He nodded. “I think we are. I would advice you and John to leave too, but you’re both so stubborn I doubt you’d listen.”

I probably looked like an idiot, staring with my eyes like round saucers. “What’s going on? We weren’t away
that
long.”

“This has been in the works for a long time. There is a power struggle in the Confederacy. Up until now we’ve been explorers. We have negotiated and made treaties, member worlds have been treasured and respected. If the new faction gets its way, all this will change. They feel we should
take
and strive for power, not ask. They feel building on diplomacy is too lengthy a process.”

I hoped he was joking, but it didn’t seem likely. Didn’t these people know anything about history?

“Let me guess. This comes from one or a few persons who covet power but hide it well. They probably want everyone else to think like they do and like whatever they like.”

Blake nodded. “Charismatic and dangerous. You’ve probably seen it before.”

Same old power struggle, but on an interstellar scale. The enemy might not even be human.

“What are you going to do?”

He ran a hand over his face. “Several of the top Confederacy leaders are already dead. We have size on our side. Something happening on a few worlds doesn’t necessarily affect all the others, at least not at once.”

“I hear a
but
.”

“Yes. They have already attempted to send out new orders to the fleet, through several admirals even, but for all we know the messages might be computer generated. The admirals might be dead. I want to head for Earth, but we are far away.”

What a mess.

He said, “Most of the people on the ship don’t know. They think we’re preparing for training exercises.”

I took another sip. The drink was good thinking on his part; I needed it. “What do you want me to do?”

“Use your unique perspective. They have requested, well, ordered us to meet up with their new flagship. I think they will attempt to persuade me to back them. When I don’t, they’ll try to take the Bell, and when they can’t, they will destroy her.”

“Sounds like a reasonable scenario.”

And scary.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

As far as I could see there was only one way out of it. “Don’t go.”

“We have to.”

“In that case, make sure we win the battle. Bring a good strategy, and backup.”

Blake grimaced. “We can’t win this by pure force. We’ll need another tactic. Something stealthy and sneaky.”

Stealth and deception wasn’t exactly their strong side. Not mine either, but I was better at it than they were. My strategies in the past were based on Hollywood movies and TV shows, but worked as long as the other side hadn’t seen the same thing. In this place and time, Adam and I were the only ones who even knew what TV was.

“I’ll see what I can come up with.”

“Don’t think too long. We’re scheduled to meet them tomorrow.”

My instincts on arriving to the Bell had been right. We should have hurried in the other direction.

*****

I had a lot of new information to take in, and barely noticed my surroundings when I left the Captain’s office and headed for the elevator. If this rested on
my
shoulders, if Blake really hoped
I
would come up with a viable plan, we were in trouble. The situation must be more serious than he wanted to let on, and we were all going to die.

Hopefully he had more viable ideas than asking me. Maybe I was just a backup.

The floor disappeared under my feet as the ship jerked. For a moment I hung suspended in the air, and then gravity returned, sending me sprawled on the floor.

Oww. And, what the hell?

An alarm sounded, making me want to cover my ears. The ship vibrated, and I recognized the movement all too well. We were firing at someone, and receiving shots.

A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me up, and before I knew what was happening, the Captain tugged me onto the bridge. Not a place I liked to be. It was a large and oval hall filled with mysterious consoles and indecipherable holograms.

Adam turned his head towards us and lifted an eyebrow, but was clearly too busy keeping the ship together to ask any questions. Blake pushed me towards a chair.

“You’re my new advisor. Here.”

He slapped a rank insignia on my blouse.

“This is a bad idea.”

“So give me a good one.”

Holograms flickered on around the room, showing an enormous gray ship with antennas sticking out in all directions. It must be at least four times the size of the Bell, and she was huge.

Blake said, “The Grendl. Guess they didn’t want to wait until tomorrow.”

That
was the new flagship? Ugly monstrosity.

One of the lieutenants said, “Sneaky bastards.”

Adam reported, “They’ve taken out propulsion. Shields at thirty-five percent. Starboard weapons array malfunctioning. Port weapons array at forty-two percent.”

So, this was it. We were all going to die, sooner than I expected. Not the way I thought it would happen, but death tends to come as a surprise.

Blake made a grimace. “They have us right where they want us.” He glanced over at me. “They probably don’t want to destroy the ship. Not if they can take it.”

His tone of voice made it seem okay to ask questions. “How could they cause this much damage if we still have shields?”

Blake frowned. “That is an excellent question.”

Adam reached for a switch to the radio. “Jia’Lyn.” No answer. “Commander?”

Nothing.

He said, “Lieutenant Watanabe, go to engineering and report in from there.”

“Yes, Sir.” A man I could swear I never saw before disappeared out the door.

Someone reported, “Shields at twenty-seven percent.”

One of the projectors showing the Grendl switched to damage reports from different parts of the ship. There were many.

Blake said, “Advisor, advice.”

I had nothing.

My mouth blurted out, “Stall. We need time.”

I didn’t expect anyone to agree, but Adam said, “I concur. There are other ships in the area. We have sent out a report and a distress call.”

Blake nodded. “And we need time for repairs.”

The room came to life with Watanabe’s voice, but it wasn’t intended for us. This transmission went out on all decks. “Medics to engineering. All off-duty engineers, report in.”

That couldn’t be good.

Not my problem, I needed to focus on the things in front of me. Ima would deal with engineering. She was Blake’s wife, the ship’s doctor, and the first alien I ever met.

A voice sounded from further in the room. “They’re hailing us.”

Blake and Adam answered at the same time. “Put it on.”

*****

I had seen the bridge communications systems before, but I was still unprepared for a larger than life face appearing in mid air. The man had graying temples and cold blue eyes.

“Captain, surrender your ship.”

Blake smiled, looking relaxed at a level beyond my wildest dreams. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Come over here and discuss.”

Adam gave his head a slight shake. I agreed. Nothing good could come from setting foot on that monstrosity of a ship.

Blake said, “We can discuss here.”

An explosion rocked us and a young voice exclaimed, “They didn’t fire.”

A split second later, the air shimmered and our Captain was teleported away.

A crewmember said, “We have lost shields, Sir.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Adam sounded weary.

“Dispatching repair crew.”

I recognized the voice. Energetic, blonde, and beautiful Laura was the only person on the ship I couldn’t get along with no matter how hard I tried. She disliked me at first sight and I could never figure out why. Of course she
had
to be on the bridge the second time I visited it in my life.

I glanced at the damage reports still coming in from all over the ship. A miracle we were still alive.

Adam turned to a young man. “Try to locate the captain. If he’s on that ship, we need to know where.”

He fixed his eyes on the rank insignia Blake gave me and frowned. “Lieutenant, over here.”

I got to my feet and obeyed, but muttered, “It wasn’t my idea. I did
not
intend to be recruited when I woke up this morning.”

Adam stood by the far wall with his arms crossed. “We have enemies out there and enemies in here. Suggestions?”