Enemy Games (4 page)

D
AMEN, nonplussed by her accurate leap of logic, shook his head. “Your father has been accused of treason. He’s disappeared. We intercepted a message from Gerriny Eudal for you.”

“My father’s second-in-command? Bring it up,” she said. “I see no harm in everyone watching it again.”

At her bland tone, Damen awarded her a hard look. Of course he’d memorized every nuance of intonation and expression in the message, had already culled as much information as he could from it. He had a job to do. She didn’t have to like it.

Damen turned to bring up the message at the communications station aware that Jayleia represented a new information source. He kept a surreptitious eye on her and trusted that V’kyrri would scan her as well.

The screen flickered to life. A thin-faced man with brown eyes and graying light brown hair appeared on the screen. He sat at a desk and leaned forward into the camera, his posture tense, his hands clasped before him, the knuckles white.

Jayleia leaned back in her chair, her features tight.

V’kyrri shifted, drawing Damen’s eye. The telepath grimaced and mentally murmured,
She hates him. Can you feel it?

I smell it,
Damen answered.

Look at her. Barely a hint of what she feels. Without your enhanced senses or my telepathy, you’d never know,
V’kyrri marveled.

Damen returned his attention to her.
Control? Or conditioning?

“Jayleia,” the man on the screen said, his tone grave. “By now someone will have told you that some unfortunate accusations have been made against your dad. He’s missing.”

The man pressed his lips thin, shook his head, then looked into the camera.

The acrid bite of an emotion Damen couldn’t easily identify overpowered Jayleia’s scent. Hatred? Rage? Not being able to connect a feeling state with the complicated odor unsettled him.

“I’m concerned,” Gerriny Eudal said, “for your father and for you. I’ve done some damage control. As a result, you’re considered a victim of your father’s deceit rather than a coconspirator. I have our people pulling and preserving every file on your dad they can find. One of our most trusted computer techs says she’s found evidence that someone’s tampered with the data.

“If it’s true, there’s a chance your father is innocent. Help me prove it. Call me. Please.”

The message ended with the Intelligence Command director’s seal.

Damen frowned as another compound altered Jayleia’s scent. The volatile smell made his heart pound.

V’kyrri flinched.

Cold terror
, the telepath noted.

Damen nodded once, agreeing. Why? He studied her, struggling against the impulse to wrap an arm around her shoulders in comfort.

Her hands clenched in her lap, the only outward sign of the emotions waging chemical warfare within her body.

Laser fire impacted their starboard shield.

Damen spun back to his panel to manage the energy balance in their defense screens.

She knows more than she’s letting on
, he thought, aiming his silent observation at V’kyrri the way he’d been taught.

His friend sent him a mental agreement.
And she has no reason to trust us.

Damen blinked.
She knows us. Her best friend . . .

Changed sides
, V’kyrri finished for him.
We’re not here for friendship’s sake, Damen. We’re here to use her to get at her father. Jayleia knows that.”

Aloud, V’kyrri muttered, “That Erillian will not go away.”

Damen glanced over his shoulder.

Speculation ran rapid-fire across Jayleia’s face.

The impression unfolded within him that Dr. Idylle’s soft-spoken xenobiologist masked someone sleek and deadly.

Seeming to feel his regard, Jayleia straightened. Her features settled into the intelligent, shy woman he’d thought he’d met aboard the
Sen Ekir
a year ago. Her gaze was so clear when it focused on his, he almost believed he’d imagined the calculation he’d seen.

“The exact accusation against my dad?” she demanded.

“Collusion with the Chekydran,” he said.

She barked a hoarse laugh, then the color drained from her face. Horror stood out in the lines around her eyes and in her quick, audible breath. “Get me a line to the
Sen Ekir
!”

“Leave them out of this,” Damen countered.

She spun to face the communications panel, rested her hands on it, but obviously couldn’t make out how to activate it.

“Damn it!” he said, concern twisting him as fresh blood tracked a stained path down her injured arm. “It isn’t safe and you belong in medical.”

“I belong on the
Sen Ekir!
” she retorted, rounding on him. “Do you want Dr. Idylle, Pietre, and Raj dead? Get me a thrice damned line!”

V’kyrri shifted. Looking over his shoulder, the telepath spent a moment studying her before flicking his sea-green gaze to Damen.
She’s hiding something. I need more time and fewer people shooting at us to get at it. She is, however, genuinely afraid for her crewmates.

Damen nodded.

“Opening channel,” V’kyrri said aloud.

“Make it fast,” Damen growled at her. “You’re bleeding.”

“And at least one other ship is coming in hot on your aft thrusters. I get it.”

Damen leaned past her. Her scent had subsided to her normal rich, creamy cocoa underpinned by lush traces of wine. The smell tainted by the copper of her blood ramped his pulse. He contented himself with breathing her in deep. He watched, fascinated, as goose bumps rose on her bare arms.

Confusion clouded her frown as she pressed back in her chair.

Despite the circumstances and the ship lobbing warning shots at them, he smiled.

Her body reacted to his.

He’d spend his time counting the ways he could turn that to his advantage. Interrogation began to sound like fun. His lower body tightened. Choking back a curse at the sudden discomfort, he opened the channel.

“You’re on,” he said, straightening.

She faced the panel and seemed to need a moment to gather her thoughts.

“
Sen Ekir
,
Sen Ekir
!” she said. “Get on the line!”

“
Sen Ekir
,” Pietre answered. “Jay? You’re ship-wide. What’s going on?”

“Lift. Get off the planet. No delay.”

She hesitated.

Damen noted she hadn’t specified a secure channel. Oversight? Or had she planned it so as to avoid having to give up information to her kidnappers that might lead them to her missing father?

“Go to Kebgra,” she said. “Tell Augie my father’s been accused of treason and has disappeared.”

Three voices competed for the line, peppering her with questions.

“Clear the channel!” Dr. Idylle bellowed. “We’ll lift when we have you aboard, Jayleia. You need treatment!”

“I’m being kidnapped,” she replied. “I gather Ari hasn’t been able to convince the Claugh that I’m no use against my father.”

“Sindrivik!” Dr. Idylle snapped. “Tell me my xenobiologist, who has never done so to this point, is overstating her case.”

“No, sir,” Damen replied. “She isn’t.”

Silence.

Jayleia turned to stare at him. His regret seemed to drain the strength from her. She paled.

Damen and V’kyrri swore in unison as another mercenary ship registered on long range.

“We will not run when one of my crew . . .” Dr. Idylle began.

Casting quick glances her way, Damen saw Jayleia swing back to the com panel.

She slammed a fist on the console. “This isn’t a game! Everyone will put out a grab for the missing director’s daughter. You’re the last people to know my location. You’re in danger! Get off the planet! Raj! Get the
Sen Ekir
and its remaining crew to safety.”

Damen shook his head. She’d recovered quickly, efficiently from the shock of her father’s disappearance, as if she’d expected and trained for the eventuality. Given her father’s occupation, maybe she had.

“I will not be recruited into the family business,” her cousin, Raj, bit out.

“Then you’ll have a front-row seat when the mercenaries on our tail sheer off to try their luck with Dr. Idylle, Pietre, and you,” she said, her tone cold and hard as Isarrite. “Are you off the ground?”

“Atmospherics online and warming,” Pietre said.

“Transmitting a safe exit path through the three ships on approach,” V’kyrri said.

With her sitting so close behind him, Damen felt her relax.

The ship rocked and skittered sideways, engines whining.

She slid to the floor, and yelped in pain.

“Four ships,” V’kyrri corrected, every last drop of good humor drained from his tone. “Transmission complete. Get out of here,
Sen Ekir
. Now. We’re taking fire. This ship is fast and agile. We’ll outrun them and make sure we draw a lot of attention doing it. Take advantage of it.”

“Lifting!” Pietre replied.

“
Kawl Fergus
out.”

“What’s the weapon recharge rate on that Erillian Aggressor?” Damen demanded of V’kyrri, while keeping an eye on Jayleia.

“How would I know?” V’kyrri snapped.

She sat as if frozen in place, her gaze focused on nothing inside the cockpit of his ship.

“Find out,” Damen grated. “Even a few seconds would let me buy the
Sen Ekir
more time.”

She swore in an undertone she must have believed he couldn’t hear.

Good.

“Erillian Aggressor? No name, no flag?” she repeated, as if confirming the facts.

“Yes.” Damen frowned at the lines of stress crinkling the corners of her eyes. Besides the blood oozing down her right arm and the fact that she’d landed in a heap on the deck plating, she looked torn.

He hesitated, wondering for the first time, what doing his job would cost her.

When she began struggling to get her feet beneath her without using her injured arm, he released his restraints and hauled her back into the chair.

“Strap in,” he ordered.

“I can’t,” she snapped.

It occurred to him he was caressing the bare skin of her uninjured arm in mute apology. He met her dark gaze, unprepared for the glimpse of unyielding bitterness there. The urge to gather her into his arms and smooth the tension from her fine-boned face rocked him back on his heels.

She looked away.

He swallowed hard. Admonishing himself to stick to business, he fastened her restraints.

“You might have asked for help,” he said.

“Because asking to be returned to my ship for medical treatment has yielded such positive results?” she retorted, her tone so mild that he stared at her for several seconds.

“Weapon recharge rates?” V’kyrri reminded, chuckling.

Damen threw himself into his chair, strapped in, and focused on the computers. He’d let her distract him. After forcing her to acknowledge she knew one of the ships on their tail, he’d let his damnable attraction to her blow the interrogation. He swore, toggled his console awake, and did his best to ignore V’kyrri’s knowing grin.

“Their weapons recharge is next to zero,” she said. “That Erillian’s little more than weapons strapped to engines.”

He narrowed his eyes, scanning the sensor readouts. One hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist on his panel.

“How many nonlethal options?” he demanded.

“Two, maybe. They aren’t usually hired to take their prey alive.”

Meaning her father had used them often enough for her to have become familiar with their spec.

A swiftly changing reading caught Damen’s attention. “The Erillian is closing. Looks like they’re going to make a grab for us. Shields holding.”

“What? No small talk? Whatever happened to romance?” V’kyrri quipped.

Jayleia chuckled.

The sound sent warmth fizzing through Damen’s veins, senseless jealousy, too, that it had been V’kyrri who’d elicited her laugh.

“This can’t get any worse,” Damen muttered.

“It did,” V’kyrri grated.

“I see it,” Damen said.

“What?” Jayleia demanded.

“The Ykktyryk mercenary’s seen the
Sen Ekir
,” Damen replied.

F
EAR for her friends and family drove ice into Jayleia’s chest.

“Bringing weapons online,” V’kyrri replied. “Intercept course laid in.”

“Locked and executing,” Damen said. He shoved the ship into a twisting dive that slammed her against her restraints.

“Take my handheld. Load translation,” she said. “I’ll cover weapons.”

“No time,” Damen replied. “I’ll talk you through. Weapons are behind you, across the cockpit.”

V’kyrri grabbed her chair, hit a control, and spun her 180 to face the panel behind his seat. She realized the cockpit had been designed for them to sit in the corners where they could each reach two stations. Damen piloting and communications, V’kyrri navigation and weapons.