Enemy Within (25 page)

“And IntCom, for whatever reason, no longer trusts Armada Command,” he mused.

“I don’t know that,” she corrected. “I only know that IntCom isn’t talking to my commanding officer at Armada.”

Eilod shifted. “You sound like you’ve been briefed, Captain.”

“I have. In medical.”

“What?” Her Majesty turned on Seaghdh.

“Medi-scan results incoming,” he said, tapping a screen embedded in the table in front of him. “The transmission came in near the end of Captain Idylle’s scan. Medical diagnostics picked up traces of the communication. Com alerts did not.”

A murmur of voices and bodies shifting let Ari retrieve her handheld unnoticed. One young man rose and raced from the room.

“Why did you not bring this to my attention immediately?” Eilod demanded, glaring between Ari and her cousin.

Why hadn’t he? He didn’t know the content of the conversation, but he damn well knew she’d had it.

“Admiral Angelou . . .” Ari began.

“Your commanding officer?” Eilod clarified.

“And my mentor,” she acknowledged. “Friend” she kept to herself. “He made some accusations. Ones I’ve heard leveled at Armada Command.”

Seaghdh swore.

Ari activated the handheld and turned up the volume. Admiral Angelou’s voice sounded oddly muted, punctuated by her taps of acknowledgment.

The transmission ended with a barely audible click.

“That c’ruhb rwotsh dung eater,” the queen whispered.

Ari frowned. She had no idea what a c’ruhb rwotsh dung eater was. She could guess she didn’t want to know.

Eilod’s gaze flicked to Ari. “How do I disprove this claim?”

Ari studied her for several seconds while trying to remember what she knew about the young queen. Her empire was a constitutional monarchy. She answered to her Nobles Council and to her Peoples Voice Council. The history of the empire was checkered with monarchs of varying efficacy. The Councils had always bound things together. Until three generations ago, when a vibrant, charismatic king had galvanized the Councils and greatly expanded his empire, absorbing worlds and entire populations into the chaotic mix of races and species comprising the Empire. His son followed in his footsteps, heading the Councils and carving out a reputation of fairness and compassion. Rumor claimed he’d been assassinated. Official announcements stated that he’d died after a protracted illness. Walking through some of his media clips, Ari wondered if he hadn’t spontaneously combusted. He blazed when he spoke. She’d felt scorched just watching him.

While Eilod had charisma in spades, she didn’t have the fire-eaten look her father had worn. When had she come to the throne? And what connection did she have to Cullin Seaghdh? And he to her? They were cousins, that much was common knowledge. Despite the fact that TFC didn’t recognize nobility, or maybe because of that very fact, many TFC citizens took an interest in the Claugh royal house. Ari could see the attraction. The queen was a beautiful woman. She had quite a following among both men and women. Speculation about her preferences in partners abounded. As far as Ari knew, she had neither husband nor consort.

Seaghdh was damnably attractive, but she’d never heard much about him. The Auhrnok Riorchjan had too formidable a reputation for ruthlessness. She had trouble reconciling the Cullin Seaghdh she thought she knew with the remote, rumor-ridden Queen’s Blade. Reports claimed he’d do anything for Her Imperial Majesty. Speculation about why that might be focused on the bizarre and nasty. It didn’t help that Eilod didn’t seem to indulge in romantic liaisons.

She wasn’t acting. Ari didn’t know how she knew, but she did. Someone was lying, but it wasn’t Eilod Saoyrse. That left her with only one lead. “Call in the
Sen Ekir
. Allow my father and his team to examine Tommy’s body.”

The queen glanced at Seaghdh.

He nodded. “With our options fast diminishing, I concur. Dr. Idylle’s profile suggests his allegiance is to science, not to a political entity.”

Ari raised an eyebrow. She wouldn’t have given the same assessment of her father’s loyalties. Entirely. However, if Seaghdh’s read was correct, it explained why her dad had been left out of the Shlovkura disaster. Wow. There was a price attached to being too good at your job.

“Would he defect?” Her Majesty asked.

“No,” Ari replied. “Family.”

“Will you?”

Ari gaped at her. “Don’t pull your punches, Your Majesty.”

“You ought to defect because of your family,” Turrel grumbled across from her.

Ari scowled at him.

“They’ll make it worth your while,” Turrel assured her. “I’d know.”

So that’s why they’d put her opposite him. Ari looked back at the head of the table but refused to meet anyone’s eye. She couldn’t risk seeing anything in Seaghdh’s face. “I—don’t know,” she hedged. Impatience broke past caution and she kept talking when she’d meant to shut her mouth. “Hadn’t I better live through whatever you and your spymaster have planned for me first?”

“
YES.
” The queen stretched the word to its limits as she stared at Ari. Abruptly, she looked away. “Clear the room. Captain Idylle, please stay.”

That hadn’t been a request. Baxt’k. Weariness swept her as Ari took a sip of tea and noticed how badly her hands shook.

“Your Majesty,” Seaghdh began.

“Clear the room, Auhrnok,” Eilod repeated without looking at him, her voice flat. “Await our pleasure. All other personnel, we require your reports within the hour. Dismissed.”

Ari’d never heard royal-speak before. It made her smile. Everyone rose and bowed before filing out of the room. She felt the sonic shield drop as the door opened. Seaghdh left last, a tick in the muscles along his jaw letting her know he wasn’t at all happy. He glanced at her as she took another swallow of tea. The tension in his expression eased.

The barely audible hum of the sonic shield engaged the moment the door shut behind him. Ari leaned into the table and examined Eilod Saoyrse. The queen wore an assessing, distrustful expression.

“Are we done being polite?” Ari asked.

Eilod smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I hadn’t realized I was sending him to retrieve a beautiful woman. Has your hair always been that blond?”

Thrown off balance, Ari blinked and fingered a curl. She was nodding.

“What are you, Captain?”

“What,” not “who.” Interesting.

“Seven months ago, I could have answered that question,” Ari said. “I can’t anymore. I don’t know. I do intend to find out.”

“Why did the Chekydran let you go?”

“Grand-prize question, isn’t it?” Ari pushed the tea away in favor of the soup mug and shook her head. “We all know they had a reason. Damned if I can work out what it was.”

“Is that why you lock yourself into your cabin each night aboard your father’s ship?”

Damn Seaghdh’s hide. He’d probably reported on her unusual medical technique, too. She deeply regretted not putting her fist in his throat when he’d crouched beside her. Ari pinned an angry glare on his prying cousin.

“Ever lie awake nights because you know damned well someone is using you? You just don’t know how or for what?”

Eilod pressed her lips thin and nodded.

“At least the ones using you are humanoid,” Ari said. Mentally, she added, not to mention that you have someone like Seaghdh watching your back. How many of the people trying to use you end up dead or missing?

Looking stricken, Eilod frowned. “You cannot ascribe human motivation to the Chekydran. Is it possible they sent you to kill us?”

“Absolutely,” Ari said. “Your cousin has tempted me a few times. More than once, I’ve regretted not following up on the impulse.”

“What have you done to him?” the queen demanded. The sharp edge in her voice told Ari they’d reached part of her real point.

“What have
I
done?” Ari boggled. “You send him after me. He hijacks my father’s ship, endangering my family and my friends, and you have the gall to ask what I’ve done? Lady, with all due respect, you and your precious cousin can roast in the lowest levels of hell. I’m sorry I answered any of your questions.”

Eilod grinned. The smile didn’t just reach her eyes this time. Amusement took over her entire countenance. “No, you’re not,” she retorted. “I sent a man I know and trust on a mission to recover you at any cost. I admit that may have been shortsighted. Captain Idylle, the man who returned is not the one I sent out.”

Ari’s anger stopped short. “Not the same how?”

The queen hesitated as though sorting through how much to confide. Did she mean for Ari to see that?

“He seems to have lost his objectivity, Captain,” she said.

The queen wasn’t sure she could trust him. Because of her? How could—Ari gasped. “You think I’ve done something to him telepathically?”

Discomfort shot into the woman’s expression, then disappeared. “Perhaps not consciously.”

“Serve him right if I had.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t think he hasn’t taken full advantage of that voice talent of his. If I did something to him telepathically, that’s only fair, wouldn’t you say?”

Eilod leaned forward, her eyes wide. “He’s used Nwyth Okkar in his dealings with you?”

“In varying shapes and sizes from the command that all but tossed everyone out of the room earlier,” Ari said, trusting “Nwyth Okkar” equaled “voice talent.”

Eilod sat back hard, drumming her fingers on the table and glared at her. “He has evaluated hundreds of subjects before you. He is a brilliant, cunning strategist and is ruthless regarding the safety of our people. Yet when he looks at you, the rational, almost cold man I know and trust evaporates.”

Stunned and gaping, Ari shook her head. “He’s playing a part! The part he’s been playing since he took my father’s ship! Why should he work at extracting information from me when he can charm it out of me?”

“Damn it, Captain! You aren’t listening!” Eilod accused. “I can’t trust you! Yet I have to ask you to put your life on the line for me and for my people! Something about you has my Auhrnok Riorchjan acting like a schoolboy! What am I supposed to think?”

“Whatever you please,” Ari answered, clinging to the thought that it couldn’t be true. He was a dueling master. He was using her. Wasn’t he?

Staring witlessly at the queen like she was, Ari saw the flicker behind Eilod’s eyes and straightened. She was considering having Ari killed. Not today, but eventually. Ari could see the thought running through her head. The notion clearly repulsed the young queen, but she forced herself to examine it, to be logical and unfeeling about Ari’s eventual murder. It was something Ari could understand and even respect. Maybe their cultures weren’t so far apart, after all. She’d have considered the same option in the queen’s place. The fact that Eilod wanted Ari to risk her life on behalf of the Claugh Empire meant Ari could trust her. Briefly.

“I’m nothing more than a piece on a game board. It is increasingly clear that I have been for far longer than the six months of hell my life has been since my capture. If I’m going to find out why, I’ll need your help,” Ari told her.

That startled Eilod out of contemplating her death. “My help?”

“Get this transponder out of my head,” Ari said, nodding. “Armada can’t track me with it, but they can communicate through it and I can communicate with them. Using the unique ID associated with it, they can initiate a teleport. It hadn’t occurred to me until that conversation with my CO, but it is possible there’s functionality built into the unit that I’m not aware of.”

“Such as?”

“Record and report. Not remotely, or they’d know where I am and it’s clear they don’t. Auto-destruct is also possible.”

Eilod’s breath hissed between her teeth.

“I don’t know that it’s true,” Ari said, “but in my commander’s place, I’d have wanted the option. They don’t know why I was freed, either.”

The queen’s gaze sharpened. “They implanted this without your permission?”

“I’m a soldier. That was all the permission they needed.”

Eilod eyed Ari for several seconds, her expression thoughtful. “Captain Alexandria Idylle, what do you want?”

“I want my life back,” Ari blurted in response. “That doesn’t seem likely, so I’ll settle for my command. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had that was really mine.”

Folding her hands on the table, Eilod dropped her gaze. “Then perhaps cooperating with the Claugh nib Dovvyth is not in your best interest.”

“On the contrary,” Ari replied easily.

Eilod shot her a narrow-eyed look.

“Let’s call this what it is,” Ari suggested. “We’re talking about an alliance, temporary though it may be. My oath when I joined the military was to serve and protect all the citizens of Tagreth Federated, nothing about loyalty to a political body or an organization.”