Enemy Within (39 page)

“Prepare to receive and record data. Use your handheld.”

She did. Looking at what he sent, Ari swore. Her heart rate picked up speed.

“The codes for your transponder,” he said.

She nodded. One was missing.

“You’ve undoubtedly noted the omission of the destruct sequence,” he said. “You don’t need it. I deactivated that some time ago.”

She sat bolt upright. He had? When? And why not say so?

“We will conduct a transponder test while you are within the shields,” he went on. “Once the test is complete, the transponder will be on and will remain on. Please do not, under any circumstances, shut it down. We’ll get you out of there, Ari. Stay alive so we can.”

The connection died. Ari swore. She’d stay alive, all right, just so she could kick him in the backside for dropping this bomb when he knew she couldn’t answer or ask questions.

“Captain Idylle, Captain Idylle. This is a test of your transponder frequency,” Sindrivik’s voice resounded in her head.

She keyed on the transponder. “Cut transmission volume.”

“Acknowledged. Level test, level test. How’s that?”

“Another notch, Lieutenant,” she said. “I want to be the only one hearing you.”

“Roger that,” Sindrivik said. His voice no longer rang in her skull. “Level test. Any better?”

“Much. Are you the only one with ears on?”

“Negative, Captain. We’ve got you on speaker in the situation room.”

“Shut it down. I can’t afford more than one person’s head clouded by what you might hear. More to the point, the situation room personnel will need to talk. If I hear that, the Chekydran will know. Your ears only and pin your mouth shut if you have to, Sindrivik, or anything you say will get us all killed. Cravuul dung. I’m there. Going to com.” She switched open the intership communications array.

“Approaching shields,” Ari said. “All parties, stand by. Cutting engines. Thrusters at station keeping.” She brought the shuttle right up to the shimmer of energy protecting the
Dagger
and the
Sen Ekir
. “Awaiting Chekydran transmission.”

“Sending,” a voice rendered by the computer translator replied.

“Awaiting confirmation of transmission and data.”

“We are receiving,” her father said. “Stand by.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Transmission complete.”

“Confirmed,” her dad replied.

“Complete transport,” Hicci ordered.

Ari recognized his voice. A rush of adrenaline ripped her insides. “Awaiting file validation.”

He stepped away from the computer translator and clicked/ hissed/hummed a swift, violent string of sounds directly over com.

She squeezed her eyes shut and refused to confirm for anyone that she’d understood what he’d said. She wished she could fool herself into believing she hadn’t understood the series of promises to make her pay for frustrating him.

“Captain Idylle.” Raj’s voice pulled Ari out of a pit of nausea and dread.

She opened her eyes. “Go ahead, Dr. Faraheed.”

“File integrity confirmed,” he said.“Repeat. File integrity confirmed.”

Damn. Her last chance to turn back going down in flames. At least Raj and her dad had a better shot at curing the illness infecting the
Dagger
. It’s what she’d come for.

“
ENGAGING
engines,” Ari said. Her voice barely shook. “Clearing shields.”

The shuttle slid sideways and shuddered, responding to a Chekydran tractor beam. So did Ari. Despite the assurances she’d given herself that things were different this time, that she was in control, that she felt nothing, she froze and blanked. She sat unable to move, unable to turn her gaze from the Chekydran cruiser dominating her screen. Awareness retreated. She didn’t know where she went or what she accomplished by fleeing, but when the shuttle bumped to a halt in a dimly lit bay, Ari started, slammed into consciousness.

Their hum penetrated the shuttle, setting it to resonate in harmony. The deck vibrated beneath her boots.

Cold purple-blue light turned the bay hollow and endless. How could she forget that Chekydran vision only functioned in a narrow band of the spectrum? They lived in perpetual twilight and used bright light to condition and hurt her. A spurt of adrenaline threatened to short-circuit her tenuous grasp on her brain. She locked the memory away by forcing herself through shutdown procedures.

She tried to stand. It took several seconds for her body to accept the command. Ari’s breath came in short bursts and her pulse thundered in her ears, but outwardly, she remained in control. She opened the door, deployed the ramp, and walked down under her own power.

A detachment of soldiers flanked her, their oddly jointed legs letting them creep silently on the chitin plating of their ship.

She did fine until the ring of her boots on the metal ramp touched the surface of the Chekydran ship. The dead-sounding thud started a quiver deep inside. The hum intensified, vibrating bone and teeth. She struggled for breath.

Not now. She’d staved off a flashback this long. She had to stay on top of this. Wanted to. Falling apart gave the Chekydran the advantage.

One of the soldiers shifted his—or her?—weapon. She didn’t know the technology, but she understood the effect. Their weapons disrupted neural signals. A short burst would knock her on her butt and hurt like hell. Her muscles would twitch for hours afterward. A longer burst meant unconsciousness and days of tremors. They killed, too, something she’d seen once. The mercenary had died, convulsing, his nerve signals so interrupted he couldn’t even shriek in agony.

If she forced them to shoot her now, who knew what it would do to the transponder? Besides, she wanted to walk up to Hicci under her own power before she went off. Did they know what kind of bomb they’d made her with flashbacks? She intended to show them, up close and personal. She took a step. Then another.

Hicci saved her the trouble. He stalked into the bay, humming and clicking his rage. Her brain shrilled. Terror shoved jagged icicles through her body. She’d never get out of here. Hicci knew how to keep her alive. Not even death could rescue her.

Ari lost her grip on her slippery self-control and attacked.

Hicci laughed and ordered the soldiers away as he reached for her.

She hissed at him, a poor approximation of an unforgivable slur against his queen.

He drew back the tentacle he’d extended, striking out.

Ari fended it off, diving close to his body, and landed a solid blow to his throat pouch.

He wheezed and fell silent. The hum of the ship faltered for a heartbeat, confused by his abrupt absence from the aural net.

She blocked two more strikes, landing little more than glancing blows, until Hicci swept her feet out from under her.

She went down screaming obscenities in every language she knew and several she didn’t.

He wrapped a tentacle around her neck and dragged her out of the bay, her fingernails digging at his tentacle and her boots struggling for a purchase that would let her ease the pressure on her windpipe.

By the time he’d dragged Ari to the interrogation room she thought of as his office, she was only semiconscious. He released her, leaving her gasping for air. He’d recovered from her attack and his hum rattled her skull, driving her into awareness.

She heard a clink and glanced up.

A container of pinkish liquid sat in front of her.

“Drink,” Hicci ordered via his translator.

Did this mean he didn’t know she understood everything he said? Could she use that? She sat up slowly, eyeing the liquid. “What is it?”

“Game you play no,” he said.

Before she could blink, he had her by the throat, toes dangling inches above the floor.

“I say,” he snarled. “You do.” He threw Ari against the far wall.

She heard the snap of breaking bone and landed in a heap. Pain hit. She blacked out.

 

 

ARI
came to gagging on something bitter being poured down her throat. It was all so familiar. She felt as if she’d finally woken for real and that the past few months of freedom had been a short-lived dream. Her heart thumped hard. She choked and kicked, a shriek rising against the horrible, oily liquid burning her esophagus. Hurt sliced up her left arm while some more aware part of her brain took inventory. Left arm, broken at the elbow. Hicci’s tentacle wrapped around her neck, lifting her, letting her head fall back while he poured the unspeakably vile stuff down her throat. Her uniform jacket and shirt sodden with something that smelled like bile. Uniform. That was different. She hadn’t been stripped.

Hicci dropped her, his pallid yellow-and-white-striped throat pouch rippling as he clicked happily, and scuttled across the room.

She rolled to her right side, sharp stabs radiating from her left arm as she wheezed and coughed. The burn spread from her throat to her stomach. She groaned. Despite the pain in her broken arm, she curled into a ball. It didn’t help. Acid tipped into her blood. It raced to her head where it seared the inside of her skull. Her rising moan turned shrill and Ari clawed at her scalp with her one good hand. Panting as the fire in her head built, she hazed, aware of but unable to affect the convulsions wracking her body. When they finally eased, her breath sounded like sobs.

Something wet and warm trickled down her cheeks. She brushed at the moisture with trembling fingers. Blood. Her heart constricted hard. A swift check confirmed her fear. A trickle of blood wept from her eyes and ears. A steady stream oozed from her nose. Maybe it was dangerous. She was past caring. At least she no longer felt the need to rip open the top of her skull.

With booted feet and one good hand, Ari slid backward an inch at a time until she found the wall. Slowly, painfully, she levered herself to sitting and avoided looking at the smear of blood she’d left in her wake.

“Remember now,” Hicci said.

Remember? She stared at him. He’d screwed with her head for three months, ensuring she wouldn’t forget anything ever again. Why be so concerned about his handiwork, now?

Hicci shut down the translator, stretched his neck, exposing more throat pouch, and hummed/chittered into the aural net of the ship. “Prepare swarm.”

Ari shivered, cursing at the pain shooting up her arm. He was sending the Chekydran fleet to war. They were still in Claugh nib Dovvyth space. Weren’t they? Hadn’t she already killed everyone aboard the
Dagger
? Why did he need the swarm?

“Code,” he demanded.

Ari hadn’t noticed that he’d turned the translator back on. Her brain understood his order before the computer rendered it in Tagrethian. Numbers and patterns blossomed in her brain, jostling for space.

“Specify,” she grated, alarmed to find she had to clamp down on her right hand when her fingers began tapping out a pattern on the floor. It hit her in a rush what the Chekydran wanted. Seaghdh’s access code. She prayed Sindrivik still had active ears on the transponder and could read between the lines enough to change the
Dagger
’s computer codes.

Hicci spun.

Ari recognized the move and his posture. Terror spilled cold and paralyzing into her gut. She’d made a mistake questioning him.

He pounced.

“Which one? Which one?” she babbled, trying desperately to scrabble out of his reach.

He raised his two front legs from the floor, supporting his trunk with his other six, and rained punches down on her. His tentacles landed like whips, first shredding her fatigues, and then her skin. She dragged herself across the floor, trying to escape, even using her broken arm at one point.

He broke an ankle, then her ribs.

“Twelve Gods,” Sindrivik muttered in her head.

Despair seeped through her. He was still listening. Did that mean he couldn’t get a good recording of the Chekydran hum, or he couldn’t create a file to do what they needed? Had the strike team not moved to her rescue yet? She couldn’t survive much more abuse, and at this rate, she’d be forced to give up codes of some kind long before she died.

“You are brutal and I am suitably impressed that you are in control of the situation. She cannot give us their shield codes if she’s dead,” someone said. The words echoed around the chamber, but Ari recognized that voice.

Angelou.

Hicci hissed something Ari didn’t understand. The translator offered nothing.

She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. At least two ribs had been broken. Sipping in shallow gasps of air, she prayed the ribs wouldn’t puncture a lung. What irony. After spending three months with Hicci, hoping to die, she now desperately wanted to live. She tried to laugh. Agony searing across her chest cut that short.

“Code,” Hicci repeated, the growl beneath his hum a warning. He towered over her, his tentacles weaving an excited pattern just above her body.