Enemy Within

Table of Contents

 

The bastard had sliced clean through her jacket and the buttons of her shirt. One millimeter more and she’d be bleeding . . .

“Lesson one,” Cullin said. “Watch the man wielding the blade . . .”

He smiled in pure masculine satisfaction.

Ari whispered a curse.

His gaze dropped to her mouth and the fire flared in his eyes. He grabbed her by the hair and fastened his mouth on hers. She tasted exotic spice and the faint trace of salt. Fire shot through every fiber to her core, urging her to melt into him. Before she could rouse the least bit of bracing rage, he released her. She wiped a sleeve across her mouth as much to erase her mortifying lack of alacrity—she should have shoved her blade through his chest—as to obliterate the feel of his lips on hers.

“Lesson two,” he said. “Never offer what you cannot afford to lose.”

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2010 by Marcella Burnard.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY
^®
SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / November 2010

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Burnard, Marcella.

Enemy within / Marcella Burnard.—Berkley sensation trade pbk. ed. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-44491-7

I. Title.

PS3602.U759E64 2010

813’.6—dc22 2010022419

 

 

Special thanks:

To my beloved husband, Keith, whose patience, faith, and support know no bounds.

To my family for rooting for me, for talking up my book at every turn, and for not disowning me over that faraway look I’d get in my eye whenever a story started playing in my head.

To my longtime friend and cohort, Dr. Kurt “Spuds” Vogel, Lt Col, USAF (ret) for keeping me rooted, if not in the probable, then at least in the outer reaches of the vaguely possible.

To Dawn Calvert, Darcy Carson, Carol Dunford, DeeAnna Galbraith, Melinda Rucker Haynes, and Lisa Wanttaja, a great group of writers, mentors and, best of all, friends.

To my editor, Leis Pederson, and to my agent, Emmanuelle Alspaugh, for helping me tell a better story.

To the members of Feline-L whose wide-ranging backgrounds and interests allowed me to ask the most obscure questions and receive cogent answers.

Last but certainly not least, my sincere thanks to Eratosthenes, Autolycus, Cuillean, and Hatshepsut, my feline snoopervisors, lap warmers, keyboard walkers, and reminders that no matter how large looms the deadline, there’s always time to play.

SUN
glinting off the barrel of a gun stopped Captain Ari Idylle dead in her tracks. She cursed under her breath. A perimeter guard? Three Hells. No one on her father’s science expedition knew how to stand guard like that. She eased off the trail, shifting her thought processes from research scientist to military operative.

Three short, insistent beeps startled her, kicking her heart into high gear before she realized it was the guard’s ident badge transmitting.

“Captain,” the guard muttered. “Incoming.”

“Affirmative. Scanning.”

She didn’t recognize the voices of the men tracking and possibly trying to capture her. That meant someone else controlled her father’s ship.

Sucking in an alarmed breath, Ari shucked her backpack and jacket. Draping the coat around the pack of carefully stowed viral specimens, she backed up as the shimmer of a teleport beam locked onto the ship’s badge pinned to her jacket. The bag and coat vanished. She took to her heels, recalling every ounce of training she’d ever had, and slipped into the cool forest.

What had happened? She’d left her father and his four crew members cataloguing botanical oddities two days ago. Fear squeezed the breath from her. Did her father and the rest of the crew still live?

She halted and listened. Nothing. It didn’t mean that she wasn’t being tracked. Only that she couldn’t hear anyone tracking her. She swore again and angled back to the ship, sliding between massive, thorny tree trunks. Whoever these people were, they knew she’d have to get close enough to assess the situation.

Breathing hard, she scaled a rocky, fern-studded rise and lay belly down in the brown and red fronds. The sun sat midway down the sky. She had four or five hours of light left. Ari fished for her binocs, parted the ferns, and peered into the clearing where the
Sen Ekir
sat, hatch open, equipment and specimens still sitting in the shadow of the ship’s belly. Except for the absence of scientists, the scene looked so normal she could almost believe she’d imagined a stranger’s voice answering to “Captain.”

Another glint of sunlight on metal and she suddenly saw the man stationed in the bushes opposite the hatch. A sniper. Spawn of a Myallki bitch. Who the hell were these guys, and what did they want with a science ship? She put the binoculars down, careful to avoid any telltale flash of light on glass. She drew her little snub-nosed pistol and desperately wished for an assault rifle and scope. Her tiny, short-range gun was useless against snipers, but Armada Command had taken her guns when they’d taken her command and sent her on a forced sabbatical.

She let the ferns slide upright in front of her and blew out a shaky breath. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She keyed the transponder embedded in the skin behind her left ear.

“
Sen Ekir. Sen Ekir
, come in.”

“Well, well, well,” a masculine voice drawled. “If it isn’t our wayward scientist. Your father’s worried about you.”

“Identify,” she demanded, ignoring the sudden hope speeding her pulse. Just because he’d mentioned her father didn’t mean he was alive.

“Why don’t you come on down and find out?”

“Ident.”

“What do you want?” he countered, his melodic voice dropping into a coaxing, seductive tone that sent a shiver through her.

Ari swallowed hard. She’d just placed his musical accent. He was Okkarian. Had he proven that the mythical voice talents of his race were fact? She shook off the thought and wiped a hand over her face.

“I want a Wrate Leaf burger, a nice char on the outside, the inside still white and tender. With real guacamole, not that crap they make in the chem lab on Rackora. And an ice-cold pint of the darkest Porter this side of the Three Hells,” she said.

Silence.

“I’ll settle for my father on the squawk.”

The man laughed softly. “Alexandria Rose Idylle. I’d been told you don’t have a sense of humor.”

“You have me at a disadvantage,” she noted.

“I like it that way,” he said in a whisper thick with innuendo. “Stand by.”

Blotting sweat from her forehead, she sighed. She still didn’t know anything she could use.

“Alex?”

Her breath caught. “Dad. Status.”

Her father’s laugh sounded forced. “Screwed six ways to Sunday. The ship’s been commandeered. The four of them caught us unaware. No one takes science ships. We . . .”

“Casualties?” Ari smiled. Trust Dad to tell her how many bogeys she had to face.

“None.”

“Repairs?”

“Complete. Except that someone’s scrambled my command codes. What in the Three Hells were you thinking, locking me out of my own ship, Alex?”

She didn’t answer. They both knew what she’d been thinking, that she couldn’t trust anyone farther than she could throw the
Sen Ekir
.

“SOP, Dad,” she growled. “Could we put a cap on the trade secrets, please?”

The captain’s voice cut off anything her father might have said. “You know what I want you to know, now. So how about we talk trade?”

And he knew far more than she wanted him to know. She whispered a curse. She shouldn’t have bothered. Thanks to the damned transponder, he heard.

“You want the code fixes,” Ari surmised.