Shades of Treason (12 page)

The instant she touched him, the pressure in her head disappeared. She snaked her arm around his neck and dug the Covar into his temple.

“Wait!” a man dressed in a civilian suit shouted. “Don’t kill him. Just calm down.”

She didn’t pull the trigger, not because the civilian told her not to but because she realized whose head she was about to blow off: War Chancellor Grammet Hagan.

A chill colder than the dark side of space crystalized beneath her skin.

These files will destroy the Coalition.
That’s what Trevast had told her as he died, and that’s why she’d fought so hard to keep the cipher to herself. She would not be responsible for destroying the Coalition.

She’d known she would have to take out Jevan, maybe one or two other government officials in order to preserve and protect the Coalition, but not Hagan. Not the Coalition’s fucking war chancellor.

Just how far did the telepaths’ reach extend?

“Let’s talk, Lieutenant,” the civilian said. Hagan’s aide, most likely. He had the look of a data pusher—pale skin, wide eyes, hands held submissively away from his body.

She took a step toward the nearest docking tube. That’s when Rykus stepped into the corridor. He stared down at the anomaly’s bloody, motionless body, giving Ash half a second to prepare for his command.

“
Stand
—”

“Mouth shut, Rip. Open it and the war chancellor gets a bullet.”

Not a complete bluff. She wanted to send Hagan straight to hell, but she was dead if she did. If she kept him alive, this hastily concocted plan of hers might actually work.

Rykus’s chest rose and fell in a familiar, fury-filled pattern. She’d only pissed him off this much a few times on Caruth. She’d pretended not to regret it then. She pretended not to regret it now.

“You’ll regret this,” Hagan choked out.

Ash shoved her gun harder into his skull. He clawed at her arm. It was locked too tightly against his throat for him to get a good hold, but that might not last.

She took the gun away from his head. The moment it came into his field of vision, he clutched at it. She put a bullet through his palm.

He yelled, tried to double over, but she kept him upright.

Fight me and you’re dead.
She didn’t know if Hagan could hear her thoughts since he was no longer in her head. He didn’t seem to. He clutched his bleeding hand to his chest.

Putting her back to the wall, she tightened her stranglehold, then pulled him toward the docking tubes. The spacers and soldiers assigned to the
Obsidian
kept back. They wouldn’t put Hagan more at risk unless someone ordered them to.

“Ash—”

“Shut it,” she snapped, silencing Rykus. Her hand shook. Her fail-safe didn’t give her a command, but his dark eyes were grim as hell, and it took everything in her to keep the weapon pressed against Hagan’s head.

Rykus must have seen how close she was to the edge. He went still. It was more terrifying than if he’d let out a roar and charged. The loyalty training sank its talons in deeper.

“Do something,” someone ground out. Hagan’s assistant again.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving
. She repeated the words like a prayer, hoping distance would break the control Rykus had over her, but her fail-safe stalked forward like a comet on a collision course with a moon.

“I will kill him,” she managed to say.

Rykus started to open his mouth again but closed it quickly. The hollow of his cheeks jumped when he clenched his teeth. She could see the tension in his body, practically feel it in her own. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t without killing the highest-ranking member of the Coalition’s armed forces.

A bitter laugh lodged inside her chest. She knew exactly how frustrating it was to keep silent.

“Kill her, now,” Hagan wheezed out. Gutsy bastard. He had to know if she died, so would he. She’d make sure of it.

“The universe knows you hate each other, Rip.” Ash made her voice cool yet conversational. “They’ll blame you for his death.”

Another jaw clench, then Rykus let out a breath. He stopped his approach.

Turning Hagan toward the nearest docking tube, Ash ordered, “Open it.”

He croaked out a no.

“Open it or I’ll shoot a hole through another appendage.”

“You won’t survive this.” he said, but he slammed his uninjured hand against the palm-reader. She could have bypassed the security system, but that would have taken time, time Rykus wouldn’t have allowed her, so it was beyond convenient having the war chancellor with her. His palm could open every door on every military ship, station, and complex in the Coalition. She ought to thank him for that.

When the door slid open, Ash backed into the tube, still holding Hagan as a shield. Her eyes remained on Rykus. He hadn’t moved, but it felt like his hands were wrapped around her throat. She didn’t breathe until the tube door slid shut, cutting off her view.

Free of her fail-safe’s hold, she shoved Hagan toward the other end of the tube.

“You’re making a mistake, Ashdyn,” the chancellor said. Sweat glistened on his face and a red stain grew on the gray uniform beneath his bleeding hand.

“Keep moving.” She stalked toward him with her gun raised. “Open the shuttle door.”

“Every spacer and soldier in the system is on high alert. More security is capsuling in. You’ll never get what the Sariceans promised you. You’ll never leave this system.”

“I’m an anomaly. I’ll figure it out.”

“What about Rykus?” Hagan said. “What about every other Caruth-trained anomaly? Kill me and all of you will end up in the institute. The only way to stop that is to give me the cipher. Tell me why you killed your teammates. How you broke the loyalty training.”

She aimed at his right kneecap. “Open it.”

His left eye twitched, but he placed his uninjured hand on the palm-reader. The shuttle door slid open and she motioned him inside.

Inside a CR2 maintenance shuttle.

Ash fought down a curse. She’d been hoping for a search-and-rescue craft. They had decent shielding, good maneuverability, and a few basic weapons, and if the fight with the Sariceans was as bad as Rykus had made it sound, there should be dozens of SARcraft looking for survivors. This CR2 wasn’t much more than a flying bucket. It could barely deflect space dust, and the only offense it could manage was a suicide blow to the nearest flying object. It was built in space and intended for space. Theoretically, it could fly in atmosphere, but it wouldn’t be an easy ride.

“Sit.” She motioned Hagan toward the three seats in the center of the opposite wall.

“How long have you been working for the Sariceans?” the war chancellor asked, dropping into the middle seat. The shuttle’s crew had unloaded most of the hold. She opened one of the remaining crates, found a coil of wire, and tied Hagan’s wrists and ankles together, then to the chair.

“Have other anomalies turned traitor?” he demanded.

Sparing a second, she met his eyes. She tried to feel his thoughts, to press her way into his mind. She couldn’t be wrong about him. She’d
felt
him approach. The instant she’d grabbed him, he’d fled from her head.

She didn’t have time to force a confession; she rushed to the cockpit.

All the shuttle had going for it was that it was here and it was unoccupied. She hacked into the primary interface, bringing the engines online, and futilely checked for any modifications to its shielding or propulsion systems.

No luck.

“This is going to be fun,” she muttered. Then she broke the seal with the docking tube. She kept navigation on manual, took the controls, and banked away from the
Obsidian
.

Alarms sounded when she left the old warship’s side. She didn’t have to look at the status screens to know what was wrong. Debris littered Ephronian space. Crushed and twisted hulls crashed into each other while smaller hunks of broken metal careened through space on dangerous, deadly trajectories. A vessel without decent shielding would be punctured to pieces by the debris. Not even the planet was safe. Bright white explosions lit up its atmosphere, making it look like a lightning storm had engulfed the entire world.

Ash squeezed her teeth together. Not all the space junk would burn up before entry. A significant amount would survive the fall and create a hazard for the planet’s citizens.

It was one catastrophic mess, and she was heading straight into it.

Increasing the CR2’s speed, Ash checked the situational display. It was even worse than she expected. Life rafts—hundreds of them—dotted the screen. Most of the tiny blue specs would contain life, but that many pods also gave an indication of just how many men and women had died above Ephron.

She gripped the throttle hard. She wanted the Sariceans dead as much as anyone did.

Tapping on the main console, she called up stats for every friendly signal within half an hour of her location. She dismissed the life raft signals, leaving her with several dozen search-and-rescue shuttles, six Coalition warships, and nearly thirty fighters patrolling Ephronian space. None of those would be a problem. They were too far away, and once she put a few kilometers between her and the
Obsidian
, she’d be safe. The fighters weren’t close enough to catch up with her, and if the big vessels risked taking a shot, they’d likely injure or kill survivors in the life rafts and the SAR crews now working to bring them to safety.

She could make it to Ephron’s surface. Once there, she could disappear and come up with a plan of action. A plan that would preserve and protect the Coalition while clearing her…

She frowned. A bright blue dot on her display broke away from the
Obsidian
and tailed her, no more than a minute behind at present velocity. It was another shuttle, but not a CR2. Her display identified it as a Dugular-class diplomatic transport. No weapons, but it had decent shielding. More problematic than that, it had better acceleration than her CR2, and more than likely, it had one Commander Rhys “Rest in Peace” Rykus behind its controls.

Her communications panel pinged.

“Hail from DDT-12,” her shuttle’s automated voice announced.

Not going to happen, Rip
. He couldn’t command her over the comm, but her mind already urged her to back off. If she heard his voice, the discomfort burning through her veins would only get worse.

The comm pinged again. Ash focused beyond her forward viewshield. Instead of blue waters and the browns and greens of Ephron’s landmasses, black and gray smeared the skies. Smoke. Thick, heavy, and widespread, it engulfed the biggest continent, centered as near as she could tell over the capital city.

That’s where she’d land. The infrastructure would be in shambles. Power would be down. Law enforcement would be occupied saving lives and battling fires. She could disappear, regroup, rest. She just needed a couple of minutes’ head start on Rykus.

A third ping. Tearing her gaze from the viewshield, Ash checked the situational display again. She’d hit atmosphere. She needed to slow the CR2, but Rykus was still on her tail. Only forty-eight seconds behind according to the readout. He’d have to slow down too or risk burning up in Ephron’s atmosphere.

She waited for him to back off. Instead, he eased more speed from the DDT, shortening the distance between them to twenty seconds.

An alarm sounded on Ash’s console, warning her to decrease her speed.

Sweat dripped down her spine. She kept her gaze on the display, watching Rykus close the distance to nineteen seconds.

Eighteen.

Rykus’s alarms had to be going off too.

“Slow down, Rip,” she whispered.

Fifteen seconds.

The controls shook in her hand, and the CR2’s nose pitched up. Emergency safety measures to help slow descent. She overrode them.

Rykus must have done the same. Twelve seconds separated them.

From the rear of the shuttle, Hagan cursed. He spit out threats and ordered her to cease her madness and turn herself in.

A second alarm wailed. She grabbed the console as the whole cockpit vibrated hard. Enviro flashed red, a warning that the air regulators were no longer able to keep up with the heat penetrating the shuttle’s skin.

A roaring, ripping sound came from somewhere beneath her, and she was jarred back in her seat. Her ears popped. She needed to pull up if she wanted to have any maneuverability when she descended closer to the surface.

Hell, she was going to have to pull up if she wanted to survive.

So was Rykus. He was a damn fool, pursuing her in atmosphere at these speeds.

“Slow down,” she whispered again. The loyalty training clawed at her, each sharp talon telling her she was putting her fail-safe’s life at risk.

Distance between them decreased to five seconds. Half her displays sparked and showed static.

The comm pinged again.

Ash slammed her fist down on the green icon. “Back the fuck off, Rip.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FINALLY
.

“Slow down,” Rykus ordered. “Pull up.”

“I said
back off
.”

“No.” He siphoned power from enviro, shifted it to his engines. Ash’s fire wake ended just beyond his transport’s nose.

“You have a fucking life,” Ash bit out. “Go back to it.”

His laugh was sharp, caustic. “You shot my XO. You’ve abducted the war chancellor. I’m not backing off.”

“You stay on my tail and you’ll be lying in a grave with me.”

A wide, white section of skin broke away from Ash’s CR2. Rykus jerked his transport to the left, dodging it. “You burn, I burn, Ash.”

A part of him—a part he despised—wanted to believe those words mattered to her. He wanted to believe
he
mattered, but he’d been a fool. He’d let her go, let her take his sidearm, let her off the ship, all because his damn emotions had scrambled his gut instinct.

Tabbing through his displays, he scanned for some way to get more power, more speed.

“You’re putting Hagan’s life at risk,” Ash said. “You want that on your conscience?”

Rykus peeled his gaze away from his readouts and focused on her shuttle roaring and vibrating on the other side of his viewshield.