Gabriel's Ghost (36 page)

“I am.”

We have time. Just knowing you’re willing is enough for me.

“But not for me. I want all of you.”

He groaned softly. His hands stroked, caressed, explored me outwardly while warmth began to build, pulse. I pushed him down on the bed and stroked him in return. My mouth caressed a fire on his body.

His mind sent me his passion, mixed it with my own. Blended it, hard fire with sweet fire. I felt something stronger than the warmth that always flowed through my veins at his touch.

It felt molten. Yet it was incredibly delicate, like the whisper of a flame. It traced and retraced every inch of my body as if he knew me, yet didn’t.

Because he didn’t. This wasn’t just Sully. This was Gabriel, touching with gentle fervency the edges of my mind with his own as we made love. Then slowly, going deeper, claiming everything I was as his own. It was as if his breath were mine, the beating of his heart were mine.

I relaxed into his strength, his power. And I invited him in.

Not yet, Chasidah-angel
.

He rolled on top of me, all hard male, heated skin. That made me shift my focus outward, to the physical. I could smell the soap from his shower, clean and slightly salty, like the taste of him.

I wrapped my legs around him, took his mouth as he entered me, but it was slow. Very slow. Long, hard and deliriously slow.

I arched against him. Waves of heat built, threatened to crash. He held me, poised, almost breathless…

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Then body sensations and mind sensations merged, collided with a rush of incredible pleasure. I was soaring. Felt him soaring, rising. Felt as if a thousand wings beat against my skin, inside my skin, inside my heart.

I felt his passion crest, as if it were my own. It was my own, flowing into his. Flowing from him. For a moment I glimpsed my own face as if through his eyes, my hair drifting like a cloud around me, down my arms, over his. Behind us and around us, gray fuzzy soft everywhere.

And then gray fuzzy soft exploded into bright silver stars, a thousand, a million. I closed my eyes and still they danced through my lids, sparkling. We plunged through them, clinging to each other. Spiraling upwards.

The spiraling slowed. A warm wind rushed over me, past me, around me. Gentling me. Caressing me. I’d felt that wind before, but couldn’t quite remember where.

I heard a sound, a soft hush, softer than our breathing. I’d heard that soft hush before, but couldn’t quite remember when.

The wind caressed me, again. Flowed down across my body. Moved up.

I had to know. My eyelids fluttered open. The darkness of Sully’s infinite eyes was all I saw.

“Hush, Chasidah.” He kissed my eyelids closed. “Don’t… don’t look. Just let me love you.”

Warmth, again. Caressing me. Surrounding me. Floating with me, rocking me gently. I felt safe. Loved. Incredibly complete. Both of us.

All that I am, is yours.

I woke with Sully, warm, behind me. I turned, curled my fists into his chest, and nuzzled my head under his chin.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Is it that time already?”

“You saw the clock when you turned over.” He laughed, quietly.

“Damn.” I sighed theatrically, aware of his gentle presence in my mind. And that he’d seen the clock through my eyes. “Yeah. Coffee.”

* * *

Sully and I met Dorsie in the corridor between Gregor’s cabin and Ren’s. She had a pot of coffee in her hand. I hoped it was a good sign.

“How’s Ren?”

“I don’t know. Marsh asked me to bring this to the bridge.” She flashed a tight smile and moved past us.

I turned to watch her go. Sully’s hand on my shoulder sent warmth seeping through in small waves. “You tried. I did, too. There’s not much more we can do.”

The anguish in his eyes mirrored my own.

Eighteen hours.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Marker Shipyards – Outer Terminal

Marker Shipyards were actually five starports of varying sizes on the fringe of the Aldanthian Drifts, a rich asteroid field that was the source for both metals and fuels. It was surrounded by security beacons and backed up by Fleet security patrols. The beacons would scan you, then warn you.

The security patrols would target you and if you were lucky, just shoot your engines out so you could live to be interrogated.

Marker One was the largest starport; a cylindrical core out from which jutted the larger repair hangars and new ship bays like thick, ungainly branches on a tree.

Marker Two was a smaller administrative and residential facility, a short shuttle hop from M-1. Commander Thad Bergren lived and worked in M-2. So did more than three hundred other people, both military and civilian.

Marker Three and Four were secondary residential and repair facilities for smaller ships and less prestigious workers. Techs, dock workers and Takas were usually housed in M-3.

M-5, also called Marker Outer Terminal, hung on the edge. Not dissimilar to Dock Five, it was long, like a mining raft. Three beacons guided us in. They were friendlier than the beacons surrounding the rest of the shipyards.

But then, we also squawked the right entry codes. Winthrop’s
Gallant Explorer
, in service to the Englarian Church.

I watched the newsvids we’d snagged from the latest beacon while we waited for dockspace to clear. The
Karn
, now the
Explorer
, was a small ship compared to the commercial liners and freighters also queuing for space. We were also, therefore, low priority.

Welcome to Imperial NewsWatch. Top stories for in-system viewers
.

Another mysterious rape and murder in a starport in Baris. And another mysterious disk lefton the woman’s body
.

I flipped off the vid, glanced at the Englarian robes draped over the bed. Brother Sudral and Sister Chadra would accompany Sister Berri through security. Sully was in engineering, making sure this time my forged medical files were up to date.

I brought up the schematics on Marker Two. I knew the place by heart; I’d grown up there. But there had been some changes in the past few years. Changes I didn’t know about, even when I’d visited Thad. Changes that had built private research labs with Crossley Burke money in a section of M-2 that used to be nothing but storage holds.

It had taken us two weeks of sifting every bit of data we could get, but that’s where we believed the primary jukor labs were.

We didn’t even want to think about the secondary one yet; the one we believed was on a ship, moveable, but not yet completed.

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We had to start with what we did know. If we were lucky, we’d find evidence filling in the gaps about what we didn’t know.

I reviewed the files Sully had tagged. There might not be another chance after this. My first selection was the vidclip of Hayden Burke at the party. Lazlo was there, in one frame, briefly. Sully had tagged it but I wanted to look for the man on my own, make sure I could pick his face out of a crowd.

I slowed the vid down, scanned it. It was easy to pick out Hayden, even with his back turned. I searched for Lazlo, not seeing him at first. Then I did.

But something else caught my eye, just before that.

Something that flitted through my mind with the briefest recognition, the kind you can’t directly identify, but only feel. Not so much the recognition of a face, but of a stance, an arrogant tilt of a chin.

A woman talking to Hayden, leaning on his arm, her face upturned. Seduction was all but written on her forehead. She was beautiful, her features highlighted by elaborate makeup, her long honey blonde hair curling at her shoulders. Her slender figure draped in a dress of a rich, shimmery blue fabric.

I was wrong. She didn’t look familiar at all. Maybe it was because her hair color reminded me of Ilsa. But that was the only thing that did.

I went back, picked up Lazlo in the vid and studied him. The vid shifted and I lost him in the crowd, then picked him up again a few minutes later.

This time, the blonde in the rich blue dress was just stepping past him, her hand briefly on his shoulder. Her back was to the camera; I couldn’t see her face but I recognized the dress as well as the elegance of her movements.

A friend of Hayden’s or a friend of Lazlo’s? Or neither, just another female trolling for a good time that night.

I dismissed her. I’d located Lazlo again, on my own. That’s all that mattered.

* * *

Sully came in, followed by Ren. Ren’s hair was still wet—a final soak that would have to hold him until Gregor came back in. Both men were in black. I wore a black shirt but dark green pants. Spacer issue, all. But no holsters, no weapons. We couldn’t get those through the gate scanner. They were hidden in our luggage, shielded in a special compartment.

“Everything set with Gregor and Marsh?”

Sully nodded. “He’s cooled off a bit, probably because he’s in command again and has the codes.”

“And because neither Ren nor I will be on board.”

Sully tugged on my braid as he walked by, his gaze on the screen. I had the news running again.

“Another?” he asked. Then before I could answer, “Verno’s leaving to go with Sister Berri.”

I glanced at Ren then back at Sully. “Why?”

“He belongs back in the monastery,” Ren said. “It’s where he feels most comfortable. Plus he wants to work with his people, teach them that murder isn’t the answer. He’ll still be a good contact for us, if there are any other reports of gen-labs using Takas.”

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“You’ll miss him.” With Verno gone, and Dorsie distancing herself from him, Ren now had only Sully and myself.

“I never expected him to stay. This is not his path, as it is mine.”

Gentle acceptance and understanding. Just like my brother, Thad. Hah!

Sully clicked off the screen. “We’ll be docking in fifteen minutes. Go put on your robes, my friends, and try like hell to look pious.”

* * *

Sister Berri Solaria reached up and adjusted my hood before I could back away from her touch. “There, that’s better. We must at all times be aware that our outward appearance mirrors our humbleness and our mission to serve selflessly.” She yanked on my robe. “It would help if you’d at least try, Captain Bergren.”

Supercilious bitch
. I heard Sully’s voice clearly in my mind as he brushed by me, his hand briefly clasping my shoulder. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I caught his half-smile when he stopped by the airlock with Ren and Verno. He felt my laughter just as clearly as I heard his words. Could hear them, ever since we’d made love and I willingly granted him entry into my most intimate part, my thoughts. My mind.

It still startled me slightly when his thoughts accompanied his touch. Though the few thoughts he’d sent to me since then, like the one just now, were all light in tone. Gentle. Teasing. Still testing. I could feel that. Still cautious. Still making sure, as he’d asked me outside Trel’s bar, that I wasn’t angry. Afraid.

I wasn’t. I knew him. No gill slits, no webbings and, as I’d told Dorsie, no wings. Terribly human, terribly male, wonderfully—

The
Karn
jerked. Marker Terminal’s gateway impacted against us, locking onto our hull.

I took a deep breath, patted my ID secured at the belt at my waist and when I caught his dark gaze, nodded to Sully.

Showtime.

* * *

Verno handed his ID to the Taka guard at the bottom of the gateway. “Blessings of the hour, brother.”

“Blessings to you. Brother Verno?” Their conversation was a gravelly, growly exchange of voices.

I still had trouble reading nuances of tone when Takas spoke. They always sounded angry, annoyed. But then, Ren and Sully were probably scanning, reading. If there were troubles brewing, I’d know.

Verno extended his hand toward Berri. “Sister Berri Solaria. We’re here to open the new temple.”

“Missed Peyhar’s. Would have liked that.” The guard took Berri’s ID, scanned it through. Took mine, Sully’s, Ren’s. Studied Ren for a few seconds more than I liked. But he let us pass.

“Next Peyhar’s!” he called after us. “Good celebration then!”

“Praise the stars!” Verno waved back.

We walked into Marker Terminal’s main corridor. My heart started beating again.

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* * *

Fleet personnel were everywhere. I kept my head tilted down. The chance I’d run into someone from Thad’s office was slim, but it existed. I had to count on the fact I was out of uniform—people have a tendency to lump face and uniform together—and that I was believed to be on Moabar. I was also in an Englarian nun’s robe. Right face, maybe, but definitely wrong uniform.

We followed Berri and Verno to the luggage and cargo ramps. Berri moved confidently through the corridors and cross-corridors, heading for a bank of lifts. She’d been here before.

We threaded the crowds down one level to cargo. I worked on calming myself. They’d let us through. Our luggage was tagged as church property. No reason to expect it contained weapons. Explosives. Poison gas.

Everything was shielded in special compartments. Sully knew what he was doing. He couldn’t have worked as a smuggler for all those years, if he didn’t.

We passed through a second set of security gates before we entered the luggage ramp area. About a half dozen people milled about, all human, except for two tall forms I was startled to realize were Stolorths. The only Stolorths I remembered seeing on Marker belonged to a diplomatic delegation. They’d been well-guarded, and I’d seen them only from a distance. These wore freighter uniforms, their ship’s patch unfamiliar to me. They were deep in conversation, didn’t look our way, didn’t seem to notice the humans staring nervously, purposely giving them a wide berth. Ren had turned and kept his back to them. Berri glared at them openly, her lips pursed, but said nothing.

The Stolorths wandered off with an anti-grav pallet wobbling behind them.