Shades of Treason (2 page)

Rykus stopped the woman, stuck the knife, spoon, and fork in his pocket, grabbed the tray, then dumped its contents across the table, effectively ending Ash’s next escape attempt before she had the chance to implement it. “She can eat like a dog.”

CHAPTER TWO

RYKUS KNEW ADMIRAL Bayis would be waiting in the brig’s security room, so he forced his fists to relax, his jaw to unclench, and he put on a cool, controlled façade to disguise the turmoil banging around in his chest.

“Interesting woman,” Admiral Bayis said. He stood in the observation room down the corridor from Ash’s cell, staring at the security vid that showed brown gravy dripping off the data-table and onto the floor.

“She is,” Rykus agreed, though the assessment was an understatement. Ash was more than interesting. She was intriguing, infuriatingly insolent, and one of the most cunning and determined soldiers he’d ever trained. He hadn’t seen her in three years, but she hadn’t changed. As the medic unstrapped the bio-band, Rykus watched Ash’s face and felt that old, uncomfortable ache in the pit of his stomach. Her smile was the same; so was the slight tilt to her head and the spark in her green eyes. He’d grown to hate that expression, to hate the way she always looked like she knew a secret. He’d punished her for it, kept her up through the cold nights at Caruth’s poles, run her into the ground during the planet’s blistering summers. He’d tried everything that was permitted to make her tap out of the program, but that half grin never wavered.

And she still had that damn braid. It was barely visible beneath the rest of her dark hair, but the end of it draped over her right shoulder, a blatant sign of defiance.

“Has she broken the loyalty training?” Bayis asked.

“I’m not sure,” he managed to say, ignoring the quick, sudden tightening in his gut. He’d left Caruth because of the loyalty training. He and the other three lead instructors had been told the program would insure the anomaly’s mental stability—something that had been an issue in the past—but after the soldiers were put in the psyche-mask and indoctrinated, the side effects had become evident. Loyalty-trained anomalies would jeopardize everything to follow their instructors’ commands. That had never sat right with Rykus, even when I-Com explained that, unless something went wrong, he would never again come into contact with any of the anomalies he trained.

Bayis clasped his hands behind his back. “If the Sariceans have broken the programming, the doctors will want to study her. They’re already asking she be sent to the institute.”

Of course they were.

“The institute will botch up her mind,” Rykus said. “We need the cipher, not a brain-dead zombie.”

“Can you make her talk?”

Rykus stared at his former cadet. “I don’t know. Even with the loyalty training, she was a difficult cadet. Manipulative. She stretched the rules, tested limits. Plus she’s stubborn. Unmovable when she sets her mind to something.”

“Perhaps she’s always been a Saricean agent then?”

Bayis was thinking out loud—he didn’t intend the question as an insult—but it cruised too close to Rykus’s flight path anyway. He’d spent four years of his life on Caruth, training cadets whose combined psyche and medical exams came back a hundred points higher than normal. He schooled them in martial arts, taught them to fire every weapon in the Fighting Corps’ arsenal, and made them experts in tech-apps, systems engineering, cryptography, and hack-sig. He and the other instructors on Caruth had weeded out the cadets who couldn’t handle the pressure and those who had questionable moral compasses. They were all damn good at their jobs, but a few anomalies slipped through the other instructors’ filters. The Senate Intelligence Committee had insisted on the loyalty training. They’d wanted dependable soldiers and a guarantee that their investments wouldn’t snap or go rogue.

They’d wanted a fail-safe.

“I don’t think so.” He should get a medal for his even, controlled tone. It would have been more deserved than the last one he’d received. “Ash never hid her opinions. If she had a problem with something, she’d tell you, no matter how much you might want her to keep her mouth shut. That’s why her behavior makes no sense. She’s not talking, and that’s not like her.”

“You said she’s manipulative.”

“Yes,” he said. “But I could always see through her charades. I know her, Admiral. I trained her. I spent two years learning her strengths, her weaknesses, her little quirks. She couldn’t hide something like that from me.”

Bayis’s eyes snapped to his. “Fraternization between ranks is discouraged—”

“I know.”

“And she’s one of your anomalies. It would be more than discouraged between you. It would be—”

“There’s nothing between us,” Rykus bit out. He held Bayis’s gaze until the admiral relaxed and turned back to the security vid.

Rykus looked at the vid too. There had never been anything between him and Ramie Ashdyn, and not just because a relationship would have resulted in a court martial. No, he knew better than to get involved with Ash because Ash played games. She was an unrepentant tease. It had taken him months to find the woman she kept hidden behind her flirtations, but eventually he had found her. She wasn’t a traitor. At least, she hadn’t been.

Now?

He watched Ash stare at the gravy dripping off the edge of the data-table.

Now he didn’t know what he believed.

When Ash’s guard and the medic approached the cell’s door, Bayis stepped forward and entered a code into the console beneath the screen. The door slid open, allowing the two men to exit the cell. A minute later, they emerged from the corridor. The admiral acknowledged their salutes then waited until they left before speaking.

“Oh two hundred on the sixth,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Operation Star Dive is a go.”

The only outward reaction Rykus gave to those words was a small nod, but his insides felt pelted by bullets. After months of political posturing, gambles, and deals, the Senate Intelligence Committee had finally come to a decision. They’d given a go date. In three days, Rykus would lead a contingent of soldiers in a daring, deadly assault on an enemy shipyard. In three days, the Coalition and the Sariceans would be at war.

“She could save lives?” Bayis asked.

Rykus followed his gaze back to Ash.

“Many lives,” he said. He hadn’t shared the exact projections with Bayis. Rykus was in charge of the
Obsidian’s
Fighting Corps so it was his burden to bear, full gravity, not the admiral’s, but the numbers haunted him. Blowing up the shipyard was the easy part of the mission. It was the second phase that would be costly. I-Com wanted Rykus and a select group of soldiers to take over a nearly complete Saricean warship and bring it back to Coalition space.

In one piece.

The last time Rykus had taken over an enemy vessel…

No. Going back to the past wouldn’t do him any good. He had to focus on the present and on the future. And if he wanted the majority of his soldiers to make it through the mission alive, he needed the Saricean files decrypted. They contained the schematics for the shipyard. Intel gave him and his men a general idea of what to expect when they arrived, but experience told him general wasn’t good enough. A corridor with three doors instead of two could be the difference between life and death. He needed details, and the key to getting them was shackled in the
Obsidian’s
brig.

“Are we certain she changed the cipher?” he asked Bayis.

“None of our algorithms fit the digital signature, and Colonel Evers said she never denied the accusation.”

“Evers? How did he capture her?”

Bayis’s lip twitched into a smile. Evers was Fighting Corps, but even the admiral knew the man was an idiot, an idiot who had his sights set on a political appointment to I-Com.

“She didn’t fight his men when they boarded.”

“What?” Rykus bit out.

“She didn’t resist arrest.”

That didn’t make sense. If Ash had killed her teammates and had time to re-encrypt the files, she would have tried to escape before she was escorted onto the
Anthem
, the ship that had brought her and her deceased teammates back to Coalition space. The fact that she hadn’t meant…

“She wants to be here,” he murmured.

His murmur was, apparently, loud and clear enough for the admiral to hear.

“Two escape attempts suggest otherwise. Evers said they almost lost her just before they rendezvoused with us. She took down three of her security detail, nearly killed a fourth.”

“They underestimated her.”

“Yes.” Bayis turned to face him fully. “I’m putting you directly in charge of her security. I know the myths surrounding anomalies are exaggerated, but the enlisted ranks are superstitious. I don’t want her guards getting trigger-happy if she tries something again.”

And she
would
try something again, Rykus was sure of that.

“What’s the ETA on the interrogator?”

“He’s coming on the war chancellor’s shuttle with the crypties and a medical specialist from Caruth. They should be docking soon.” The admiral paused and his brow furrowed as he studied Rykus again. “You think the interrogator can get the cipher in time?”

“I think he’ll have a better chance of getting it than the crypties will have of breaking in.”

“They’re not here to decrypt the files,” Bayis said. “They’re here for you.”

Rykus resisted the urge to pinch the headache growing between his eyes. The two crypties—Cryptologic and Information Warfare specialists—would be part of his assault team. Their job was to infect the Saricean ship—one which might possibly be equipped with new weapon or defense capabilities—with a data-virus that would give the Coalition control of navigation and enviro. The pair was supposedly the best in Coalition space, but Rykus had glanced at their bios. They’d been transferred too many times to be the best. Most likely, they were adequate and dispensable.

He just hoped they had combat training.

“I’ll meet with them tonight.” He turned back to look at Ash, who still hadn’t touched the slop of food dripping off the table. “I want to read through her file again, see if anything seems atypical.” Atypical for Ash, at least. “Maybe I can pinpoint when her aberrant behavior began.”

“Would it help to use someone close to her for leverage? Threaten them?” Bayis waved the comm-cuff fastened around his wrist over the sensor in the wall console, then typed in his security code. “I believe the addendum to her file mentioned a fiancé.”

Rykus was damn lucky the admiral wasn’t looking at him. If he had been, he would have seen Rykus’s mask shatter for an instant as cold, hard shock knocked him off-orbit.

“Yes. Here it is,” Bayis said. “His name is Jevan Valt, a legislative assistant for the senator from Rimmeria. Record says they met last year. He put in a notice of pending marriage about two months ago with his employer—it’s required by the senate—but he withdrew it after Ashdyn’s arrest. He doesn’t think he revealed any classified information, but he’s working with Coalition investigators to be sure.”

Rykus yanked an invisible blade free from his gut. It never should have wedged itself in there to begin with. Ash had never been his—had never been anyone’s—and it was best that way. But maybe that’s what bothered him. He never thought she’d allow herself to be shackled to any man. This Valt character couldn’t have known Ash at all if he thought she’d settle into a marriage. His cadet wasn’t wife material.

And his cadet wasn’t a traitor.

Rykus’s headache throbbed again. This time he did reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Treason. The word cut like shrapnel. He didn’t want to believe it. He’d rather Ash be certifiably insane. The loyalty training was supposed to prevent that, but the program was only four years old. It was possible it hadn’t solved the problem with anomalies, and if it didn’t and Ash’s mind had broken, she would be sent back to Caruth for evaluation at the institute.

Rykus dropped his hand to his side. “Who’s the medical spec—”

The admiral held up a finger and tilted his head, listening to someone on the voice-link looped around his right ear.

“Yes,” Bayis said. “Yes. Good. I’ll meet him in my office.” He focused on Rykus again. “The war chancellor’s shuttle just docked. I need to brief him on Lieutenant Ashdyn and our preparations for Star Dive. He’ll want to speak to you as well.”

Rykus locked his jaw shut.

“He’ll
insist
on speaking with you,” Bayis said. “He came all the way from Meryk to make sure this operation goes smoothly.”

“I don’t have time to waste on that politician.”

“Commander.” There was no rebuke in Bayis’s tone. He knew Rykus’s opinion of Chancellor Hagan. After the infamous hearings three years ago, nearly everyone in the Coalition did.

“I have Ash’s records to review, two crypties to brief, an assault plan to triple-check, and I need to meet with Brookins to make sure he isn’t having issues with the excess crap I’ve delegated to him.”

“Your XO can handle it.” Bayis turned toward the brig’s exit.

Rykus walked with him past the security desk then out into the
Obsidian’s
gray-and-white corridor. He almost tripped over a broken sensor box.
Utilitarian
is how fleet described this ship. If they meant she was useful as a salvage ship, Rykus would agree, but he had his doubts as to whether the ship would hold together under fire. Multiple ceiling panels hung open, spilling the
Obsidian’s
innards into the air.

Rykus ducked beneath a tangled mess of wire. “You sure she’s going to be operational in three days?”

“She’s not that complicated a ship,” Bayis said, a tight pinch in his voice.

Rykus snorted at that. The
Obsidian
was an ugly box with bulky engines, bulky weapons systems, and most importantly, bulky, outdated computer systems. The latter was the reason they’d pulled the ship out of a museum—a physical, dirt-anchored
museum
—and were retrofitting her for Star Dive. The war council had decided to send an old, brainless warship into the Sariceans’ territory so the enemy wouldn’t be able to ransack the systems of the Coalition’s newest, sleekest sentient-class ships.