Shades of Treason (26 page)

“Thanks, Katie.”

She gave him a small smile. “You’re a good man, Rhys. Take care of yourself.”

He waited until the door closed behind her. Then he went to his closet and pulled down his duffel bag. He took out the unregistered comm-cuff. Katie couldn’t protect Ash. He could, but not from the
Obsidian
. He had to get off the ship and onto the tachyon capsule, and there was one person he could call who might be willing to pull some strings to get that done legally.

He tapped on the comm-cuff. “Contact Grand General Markin Rykus. Authorization Code 583910. Bypass Code 5.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ASH FOUGHT THE dark. She kicked and clawed and snapped her teeth at it, but it didn’t retreat. It was damn stubborn. Damn impenetrable. And damn confusing. She didn’t know why it existed.

She suspected it was poisoning her. She felt sluggish, mentally clouded. Was she under an ocean? Was she stranded in space? She didn’t feel the pressure of a life-suit on her body, didn’t hear filtered air circulating in a helmet. And wouldn’t she see
some
light? The hint of a moon’s glow on the water’s surface? The flicker of a distant star?

She hated the confusion. Hated not being able to think.

She kicked at the darkness again, but it smothered her. It crept over her skin and chilled her blood, defeating her from the inside out.

Poison. Definitely a poison.

What motherfucker had poisoned her?

A face almost formed in her mind. She thought she heard a vaguely familiar voice. She needed to know who it was, if the person was there to help or hurt her, if the person was really there at all.

Her neck muscles strained. She swore she heard her tendons creak as they tightened and bent, and she was almost certain she turned her head to the left. It was a gargantuan feat, but it didn’t impress the voice. The voice went silent.

She was alone again. Alone with the toxin. She had to cleanse it from her system. Sweat it out. Drink it gone. But the turning of her head had been a mistake. It had drained her energy, her strength. The poison was winning. It was beating her. Killing her.

She succumbed to the venom again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

RYKUS ALMOST MISSED the last transport to the capsule. He’d had to agree to a meeting with his father “sometime soon.” Rykus had been home exactly two times since his supposed death at the Battle of Gaeles Minor, and both trips had been to see the other members of his family, not the man who’d done everything he could to sabotage Rykus’s career. The Javerian general might have finally forgiven Rykus for joining the Coalition’s Fighting Corps, but that didn’t mean Rykus and his father needed to be on the same planet together. They hadn’t gotten along before Rykus resigned from Javery’s Home Guard. His father’s mind-changing grief hadn’t changed that.

It took twenty long, frustrating minutes to convince the general to make a call, and only after a promise to discuss events more when Rykus visited. Of course, if the tachyon cruise went badly, he wouldn’t be visiting his family on Javery; they’d be visiting him in a Coalition prison.

The transport’s dock-clamp doors clanked open, and Rykus stared out the window at the huge, oblong, garishly painted tachyon capsule. From the outside, capsules were the ugliest vessels in the Known Universe. This one was owned by Starlight Lines, a pleasure-cruise company who took the rich from system to system on multiday vacations. It was painted bright green and pink, a combination of colors that was guaranteed to make anyone not from the company’s home planet of Esyll sick.

But Starlight Lanes had offered the capsule to help with refugees and other humanitarian services, and even though it wasn’t as big as the military capsules Rykus was used to traveling on, it was capable of holding a dozen full-size, capital-class ships in its hollow interior. In addition to transporting ships, capsules transported individuals, and the inner walls of this capsule would be lined with boutique shops, high-credit restaurants, first-class recreation areas, and of course, the most elaborate hotel accommodations of any vessel in the KU. It was a mobile civilization.

But it was a
civilian
civilization. Security wouldn’t be as tight as a military capsule’s, so if Rykus’s instinct was right and someone tried to hurt Ash, they should be able to disappear, either into the crowds or onto one of the ships in the hold.

He felt a tug on his pants leg and looked down. A boy of about five standard years peered up at him.

“You’re Rhys Rykus,” the boy said.

Ah, hell.

The kid didn’t wait for his response. He took off the comm-cuff encircling his small wrist and held it and a stylus out, his eyes wide with expectation.

Rykus stared at him. The boy couldn’t have been born when the Coalition had pinned medals on him. He shouldn’t know his name, let alone recognize him.

But the boy knew. Everyone in the transport knew. He felt their eyes suddenly, and his shoulder ached.

If the boy had been an adult, if there hadn’t been other kids around, and if people weren’t staring at him with so much damn appreciation in their eyes, he would have turned his back on the request. But he didn’t have it in him to hurt a kid’s feelings, and he wasn’t allowed to discuss the details of what had happened over Gaeles Minor.

He took the stylus and comm-cuff.

“You got rid of the Sariceans?” a man, presumably the boys’ father, asked.

It was a good thing the media wasn’t on board. Rykus would have killed someone.

“Not me,” was all he said, and he quickly signed the band of the boy’s comm-cuff, then handed it back.

He turned to the window again. He wasn’t a hero, never had been, and he was walking the edge of treason with his current actions.

“Please take your seats and strap in for docking.” The pilot’s voice came over the transport’s speakers. Rykus sank into the nearest empty chair, thankful for the distraction. Five minutes later, the transport latched onto the capsule.

“We’ve docked,” the pilot announced. “For those of you who’ve lost friends and family, our deepest sympathies are with you. Please depart, and know that we’re going to get those Saricean bastards.”

Some of the refugees let out cheers as they stood. Others muttered quiet agreements, but no one moved toward the door. They remained in their places. It took Rykus another second to realize they were waiting for him to depart first.

Seeker’s God, he hated this.

Grim faced, he moved down the aisle.

The pilot met him at the door. “Thank you, sir.”

Muttering something that wasn’t quite an acknowledgment, Rykus fled the transport.

Half an hour later, he located Ash. The Coalition hadn’t taken her to the capsule’s detention center. She was in the medical bay, slotted into a room at the end of a hallway that needed more than a few lights replaced. Unconscious, Ash was harmless. It was more important to monitor her vitals than to make sure her chains and room were secure. He told the two men guarding the corridor that’s all he wanted to do, but they weren’t buying it.

“The authorization is from a highly respected general,” he told them.

“General Rykus isn’t a member of the Fighting Corps, sir.”

“General Galmon is.”

The younger of the two men, a corporal, kept his expression neutral. “General Galmon’s orders state only that you are granted a transfer to capsule security detail. This is a special assignment. You shouldn’t be here. You should be receiving your orders from Security HQ.”

The muscles in Rykus’s neck and shoulders tightened. He wanted to take out his frustration on the corporal, but the man was doing his job. He was following orders, sticking to procedure. It wasn’t his fault that Rykus’s father hadn’t pushed Galmon for a more thorough authorization. Rykus was lucky his father had agreed to ask for the favor at all.

He stared at the corridor that led to Ash’s cell and tried to convince himself that she was perfectly fine.

“Who are you receiving your orders from?” He asked the question out of a dim hope that he might know their CO, but a suspicious silence came from the two guards.

“Who’s your CO?” he asked again, scrutinizing their expressions.

The other guard, a Sergeant Mullenz, answered. “Lieutenant Hastings, sir.”

“Call him.”

The two men exchanged a glance. Rykus’s hand drifted toward his hip. His weapon wasn’t holstered there. This was a gun-free capsule—only a very select few were allowed to carry—but the guards noted the movement.

“One moment,” Mullenz said. He stepped to the computer terminal to the right of the corridor and waved his comm-cuff over the sensor. It took less than a minute for his CO to pick up. The soldier kept the conversation private. All Rykus got was a few glances and a sprinkling of “yes, sirs” and “I understand, sirs.”

Mullenz ended the connection and turned to face him. “Commander Rykus, I’ve been ordered to take you into custody.”

Rykus stared at the man. He couldn’t have heard him correctly.

“You shouldn’t be on this capsule, sir. You’re AWOL.”

“AWOL? You have my authorization right there on your comm-cuff.” He jabbed his finger toward the man’s wrist.

“It’s fraudulent, sir.” Mullenz took out a pair of restraints.

What the hell was this?

“Get your CO back on the comm.”

“Turn around, sir.”

Rykus shouldered his way past the man to look at the screen, hoping to glimpse the last connection. The comm screen wasn’t up though. Instead, it showed a small white room with a bed in its center and a black medical tower to its right.

Ash’s eyes were closed, her face relaxed. All lights on the med-tower were green, and its screen was idle and dark. The sedative was doing its job. It hung inside a recess near the top of the tower, dripping a clear liquid into her bloodstream.

Mullenz grabbed his arm. Rykus was about to let himself be pulled away when a man stepped inside Ash’s room. Rykus couldn’t see his face, but he was in civilian clothes.

“You said no one was permitted into her room.” His tone didn’t betray the sudden pounding of his heart.

“Medical personnel only.” Mullenz pulled at his arm.

“That’s not a doctor. Not even a medic.”

“Your hands, sir. Before we have to use force.”

“He’s a threat.” He fired the words in the guard’s face.

The idiot drew his baton and swung.

Ducking beneath the blow, Rykus yanked the weapon free, then slammed it into the man’s temple.

The second guard was already moving. Rykus laid him out too. He grabbed Mullenz’s restraints, cuffed the men’s hands together beneath the bolted-down desk, then sprinted down the long hall, praying he’d make it in time to save Ash.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THERE WERE COLORS in the blackness now. Dark blues, darker reds, and even the occasional streak of something that might be called orange.

Ash felt her chest moving, filling with air. That was good. And there was a prickling sensation in her hands and feet. That was better. She might be able to make her muscles work.

She started with her eyes, because that should be easiest. She told them to open—a simple order—but they squeezed shut instead.

At least they did something.

She lay there a moment longer, listening to the silence. She waited for something, some noise or rattle to give her a hint about where she was. When none came, she focused inward again. She needed to get the stardust out of her brain. She needed to remember.

Remember what?

Something important. Something big. Something…

Her body jerked. Memories assaulted her one after the other, bright and vivid and painful. Jevan blowing a hole in Trevast’s head. Kris begging for his life. The rest of her team, slaughtered. More blood. More death.

Rykus.

His image eased her panic until more memories came. The ambush. The cipher. Rykus’s cooperation with the admiral.

Son of a bitch. He’d tackled her when she tried to prevent his XO from sticking a needle in her neck.

Jolting fully awake, she opened her eyes.

Just in time to stop a man in midstep.

He stared as if she were a razorwolf clawing the ground. That almost made her laugh. She could barely lift her head, and her wrists were restrained, albeit with strong, self-attaching straps, not metal shackles, but she was in no condition to attack.

“You’re supposed to be unconscious,” the man said. Then he
pushed
against her mind.

Adrenaline scorched through her veins. It was Hagan’s legislative assistant, the telepath who’d spoken in her head on the
Obsidian
.

“Stratham,” she said. “So nice to finally meet you in person.”

Her voice wasn’t as strong as she wanted it to be, but she couldn’t manage anything more. Her mouth was dry, and her body wasn’t fully functional yet.

Some of the surprise left his expression. It was replaced with anger. “Who woke you?”

That was a good question, one she didn’t have an answer to, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m an anomaly, asshole. I woke myself up.”

More pressure on her mind. She glared at Stratham and said as loudly as she could without actually saying anything,
Fuck off
.

He flinched.

She smiled. Looky there. More of her facial muscles were working.

Stratham’s eyes narrowed. His hand clenched around something. A syringe.

She stared at it before she shifted her gaze back to him, her expression unconcerned. “You don’t look like a killer.”

He straightened. Then he strode to the side of her bed.

“What happens if I scream?”

His gaze flickered toward the door, then back. “You can’t.”

The simple words made her chest tighten. It was the same uneasiness she always felt just before she blacked out. Now was definitely not the best time to risk losing consciousness. She needed to stall. Stall until the drugs wore off and she had some chance of breaking out of the straps.

“Did you kill my guards?” she asked. “Did you disable the cameras?”

“The guards have been taken care of,” he said, then he reached toward the bag of fluids in the recess of the tall black med-tower. That liquid was supposed to keep her hydrated and unconscious. It was still connected to the IV in her arm, but someone must have switched the bag.