Enemy Within (40 page)

She held her breath and remained silent. Her answer didn’t matter. They both knew what came next. Nothing Ari could say or do would dissuade the monster swaying on his eight feet. He’d be careful. Much more injury and she’d be incapable of responding. Hicci must have had nothing to lose or he’d have reigned in his temper and left himself more room to persuade her to cooperate.

“Allow me,” Angelou directed.

She heard the creak of leather and automatically glanced up as Hicci brushed a tentacle through her blood. The admiral sounded so close. But of course he wasn’t. Chekydran audio tech brought Ari every nuance of Angelou’s tone and of each move he made, despite the long-distance com channel.

Hicci tapped his bloody tentacle against the same spot on his foreleg repeatedly. The cadence of his hum hitched.

“Captain, you do understand, don’t you, that physical violence is engrained in the Chekydran culture? The strongest, most physically fit soldier is eventually chosen to be the queen’s consort. Please believe the beating you took is a sign of respect among the Chekydran. I am sorry you’re in pain. I will do my utmost to make it transitory. We need you. You’ve never shown any tendency toward xenophobia. Don’t start now.”

Ari shuddered in revulsion.

Hicci trailed both tentacles over her broken skin, scraping his tacky, almost sticky, segmented skin on hers. From fondling her wounds, he caressed his tentacles alternately over his eye ridges and against the underside of his body.

The notion that Angelou, ensconced safely in his office, believed he comprehended any aspect of this alien society while Hicci jerked off with her blood made her sneer.

The background hum and vibration of all of the Chekydran aboard the ship quieted and shifted into listening mode as Hicci’s hum and chortle intensified.

Ari pressed her eyes shut, wishing she could close her ears as well. She could only cling to Angelou’s voice in an attempt to ignore the fact that Hicci took great sexual pleasure from her blood and misery. He’d done this for three interminable months, beat her to a pulp and been excited by it. She’d never told anyone.

“What do you want?” Ari whispered, desperate to hear anything other than the creature above her.

“The completion of your mission, Captain,” Angelou replied.

She frowned. Even that hurt. What mission?

“Ari, you and I have always had an understanding surpassing commanding and junior officer,” Angelou said in a rush, as if pleading for her comprehension. “You are one of my best and brightest. I don’t need to detail the threats facing Tagreth Federated. You’ve demonstrated a tactical grasp of our situation. I couldn’t tell you before now, but I head a few off-the-books projects designed to neutralize the most egregious of those threats.”

Hicci’s hums and clicks of arousal had risen so high, they registered only as squeaks in her ears. The aural net hummed encouragement.

Good. He’d finish soon.

She fought back nausea.

Concentrate, Ari. Admiral Angelou and his off-the-books projects. He could be telling the truth. He undoubtedly believed he was. The Council had, in the past, authorized secret projects for the security of Tagreth Federated. The faintest note of superiority in the admiral’s tone, as if only he knew and could appropriately assess a threat, raised her doubts that he operated within the purview of the Council.

“You and I both know the Claugh nib Dovvyth presents the most pressing menace to TFC security in this sector. Intelligence Command is dancing to its own tune, dangerously so. I’ll be frank. The Admiralty for some time has been suspicious of Intelligence Command. I had no choice but to put my own agents in the field. IntCom denies the rumors citing a massive military buildup within the Claugh Empire, but my people in the field have seen it with their own eyes. Via someone within the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s organization, we have indications of alliances forged between the Claugh and the most powerful of the mining consortiums.”

A traitor inside Seaghdh’s team? Did Angelou know about the strike team? Or that Seaghdh had authorized an attack against TFC?

As he approached climax, Hicci wrapped his tentacles around her, as if he wanted to lift her body and use it in some grotesque fashion.

She forced her awareness away, pictured Angelou’s office as she remembered it. He had a window, one of very few in the Admiralty building. It looked out on the capital, the streets lined with trees and people. If you leaned just a little, you could even catch a glimpse of the silver-domed Council Building. The office sported white walls, black leather, and utilitarian lines as if Angelou had never quite given up the notion of commanding a battleship. He’d never settled into riding a desk, never gotten comfortable, not even behind the real ebony-wood monster that dominated his office.

Hicci shuddered and released her.

“I needed someone I could trust without question. I needed someone strong, determined, and committed, someone who could survive Chekydran brutality and biological manipulation,” Angelou said. “You were the right choice, but I made the mistake of ignoring your considerable intellect. I hope you can forgive me. In retrospect, I should have brought you in with full disclosure.”

Hicci peaked with a high-frequency shrill that made her head feel like it had split in two. Rage and hatred flamed through her.

“Full disclosure,” she gasped. Her head spun as the implications sank in. “You planned this? You handed me over to these bastards?” She wanted to scream. The band of stabbing fire constricting her chest wouldn’t allow it.

“No.” Angelou shifted in his chair, the leather creaking again. “In the strictest, most shortsighted reading of events, I suppose I did. This is part of a much larger plan, one in which you have played a key role. Help me finish this.”

By the Twelve Gods, all she wanted was to finish the entirety of the Chekydran species.

“Help you how?” she wheezed.

“Your memory has been augmented.”

“Yes.”

“We need it.”

“A code.” Ari tried not to move. Her head felt too full. Nausea surged and receded, surged again. It felt familiar.

“Not just any code. You’ve spent time aboard the Claugh nib Dovvyth command ship. You’ve seen people log into the ship’s systems.”

“You want the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s code.”

“You got close enough to get it?” Angelou marveled. He laughed. “Well done!”

She opened her eyes.

Angelou went on. “It isn’t his code I require. Interestingly enough, our information indicates that the Auhrnok Riorchjan’s security codes are not tied to command codes. Maybe his own people don’t feel they can trust him. No. There’s a young computer specialist.”

Sindrivik?

“Give me his code.”

“I didn’t see . . .” She halted as memory unfolded, clear as if she stood in the doorway of Eilod’s conference room. Sindrivik. Logging into the computers to fix the system failures. Panic rose and she quashed the vision, forcing her eyes to focus on right here, right now.

That’s when she realized Hicci was reading her. He stood on eight legs, rocking back and forth; her blood crusting on his skin, his three rows of vestigial eyes all swiveled in her direction. His tentacles lay quiescent below his vibrating throat pouch. How long had she let him sift through her head?

It had been easy to close the Chekydran out before V’kyrri had told her she was a telepath. She’d had long years of belief that such mind talents were impossible in her people. Except she now knew there were no people she could identify as hers. Thanks, Mom.

The pressure in her skull increased unbearably and the first dry, desiccated alien tendril drilled into her thoughts. Ari’s confidence broke. She retreated, diving down the well that had always been her safe haven.

Someone had beaten her to it. Soul chilling fear surrounded her, permeated her. She huddled, quaking, and recognized it. Seaghdh. He struggled against terror. He didn’t fear for himself. It was for her. She could feel it.

She cursed. She should have known better. Seaghdh had offered safety. She’d clung to the illusion that another humanoid could keep her safe. This was the result. She’d made Cullin Seaghdh integral to her sense of security, maybe to her sense of self.

Hicci shifted. It was a tiny move and nearly silent, but it alerted a more aware part of her brain. For the first time since she’d been captured, he was picking up her thoughts.

Icy fear drove through her. She couldn’t lock him out. Every bolt hole she’d ever used to escape him mentally had just slammed shut. Her heart raced, beating against shattered ribs. Seaghdh’s anguish clawed at her. It was much worse than her own fear. No matter what had happened, she loved him.

The thought stopped her cold and Ari stared at it. She wanted to reject it, to throw it as far and as fast as she could. Loving Auhrnok Captain Cullin Seaghdh nib Riorchjan would only bring her, and possibly him, pain. All right. Acknowledged. But she’d survived pain. So far.

She loved him. Knowing in a way that no one else could, feeling in a way no one else could, the despair he suffered on her behalf shattered her self-control. She ached to fix it for him.

Hicci’s hum deepened, vibrating hurt through every broken bone in her body. She suddenly felt his tentacles grasping her face. Thrice-damned bastard. He was sifting her emotions, her fears, her thoughts. It felt exactly like the touch of his skin, sticky, raspy.

Ari wanted to help Seaghdh, but she didn’t dare try. She had to get out. Now. Before Hicci realized she’d managed to connect to Cullin on a rudimentary level. Even assuming she could deepen the telepathic contact with Seaghdh, she didn’t know how to do it without hurting one or both of them.

She couldn’t risk that Hicci might be able to read Seaghdh through her. And if Hicci finally got around to killing her, she couldn’t risk being in Seaghdh’s head. From what tiny bit she understood about telepathy, if she died while in contact with him, Seaghdh could all too easily die, as well.

Hicci crept through her head like a dark, unspeakable stain, spreading, blotting out. This was worse than having her blood and pain used for his sexual gratification. Yes, that horrified and sickened her, but this invasion ripped bits of her away, scattering the pieces into the dark. Ari gasped, desperate for respite. Retreating from his presence, she threw feeble blocks in his way to keep him from following her. Nothing held.

“Relax, Ari,” Angelou coaxed. “Let your mind drift. Listen to my voice. Think back to the times you saw someone sign into the computers. That’s all you need do. The Chekydran will take it from there. They’re telepaths, Captain. Let your memories flow. We will take the code from you, disable the
Dagger
’s shields, and take the first steps to assuring the security of our people. I will have the Chekydran place you in a medical crèche while we bring the Claugh nib Dovvyth Empire to its knees.”

Bring the Claugh nib Dovvyth to its knees? Why did they need her? Or the codes? Awful suspicion rolled in her brain. Hadn’t they already decimated the ranks aboard the
Dagger
with the disease she’d unknowingly brought onboard?

Twelve Gods and all Three Hells. She’d sacrificed herself for a disease that wasn’t fatal.

HICCI
chortled and shoved his way deeper into Ari’s brain.

She writhed, unable to cry out or pound the floor with her bloody fists. Too late, she could plainly see that Angelou and the Chekydran hadn’t needed to kill anyone; they’d only needed to convince her to return to Hicci’s ship so they could access her memory the way they hoped to access the
Dagger
’s command codes. She was as much a prototype as Tommy had been.

She’d fled so far before Hicci’s onslaught that she doubted she’d ever find her way back. Part of her recognized the incipient disintegration of personality, of sanity. Ari didn’t care. Maybe if Hicci drove her into madness while in contact with her, he’d get sucked over, too.

She had to protect Seaghdh and his people, even if it meant throwing away her life to do so.

Clarity burst across her beleaguered mind like a supernova overwhelming view-screen filters and she knew what she had to do.

She had to die.

And she had to take Hicci with her when she went. He was already deep into her head. If she could lure him just a little farther, maybe she could telepathically access her transponder and trip the self-destruct sequence. It was a long shot. She had to try.

She called up the memory of her last duel with Seaghdh, reviewing the blade and foot work move by move, uneasily experiencing the surge of remembered arousal that went with it. Ari shrank from allowing Hicci access to those feelings. She treasured them. He’d know that, though, and the memories with the accompanying emotions would be irresistible to him. Closing her eyes, she built the sensory detail.