Shades of Treason (10 page)

“Damn it,” she whispered. Then, cursing the sun, the moon, and every celestial object in the Known Universe, she sprinted back to the smoke-filled corridor.

CHAPTER NINE

“FIND THE SARICEANS’ capsule,” Bayis ordered his crew.

Rykus stood out of the way and scanned the battle screen that stretched across the front arc of the bridge. The Sariceans couldn’t have arrived without a tachyon capsule. The hideous, behemoth-sized containers allowed for interstellar travel. One should have appeared light-years away, in the designated tachyon arrival zone on the outskirts of Ephronian space. Coming out of the time-bend anywhere else was too dangerous. Debris no bigger than a bullet could damage the capsule’s fragile
darridean
shell, destroying the ships, the passengers, everything on board. Capsules were too expensive, the
darride
too scarce, to risk.

And the
darride
was one of the reasons there was a conflict with the Sariceans to begin with. They kept attacking
darride
-rich planets.

“Admiral,” the comm officer said, “multiple warships are reporting a capsule leaving the TAZ. Enemy ships are engaging our defensive forces.”

“And our capsules?” Bayis asked.

“
Aevin’s Dream
is fleeing the enemy. Captain Furyk of the
Retribution
is on an intercept course and predicts a seventy percent chance he’ll be able to give it enough time to capsule out.”

Rykus recognized Furyk’s name, knew him to be a demanding and competent officer. The
Dream
would survive. The other capsule, however, wouldn’t share the same fate.

Bayis had divided the battle screen into three sections. The first showed the
Aevin’s Dream
, the middle the
Obsidian
, and the last, the section to the right, showed Saricean forces pummeling the second capsule, the
Xpedition
. Rykus didn’t have to be a member of the Fleet to see that the few Coalition ships in range wouldn’t be able to defend the second capsule. Already, fires dotted its surface, extinguished quickly when the vacuum of space swallowed the burning gases.

Bayis issued commands in a steady, authoritative tone. When a hard blow rocked the
Obsidian
, he settled a hand on the console in front of him.

Rykus had no such support near him. He knelt, braced a hand on the floor, and attempted to not fall on his ass. Not easy to do with his muscles cinched tight, but he couldn’t force them to relax. There was a damn good reason he hadn’t joined Fleet. Sitting behind a console punching buttons while an enemy tried to send you straight to hell wasn’t his idea of a good time. He needed to be in the action, his muscles straining, his senses sharp and ready.

When the quake subsided, he rose and clasped his hands behind his back. He kept quiet and, outwardly at least, calm as the
Obsidian
returned fire.

The next vibration felt like all the others until a deep, creaking groan surrounded them. He had no idea where it originated, if the ship’s infrastructure was affected or if a vital system had failed, but a change in air pressure caused a sharp pain in his ears. He swallowed to ease the tension just as a new alarm wailed from enviro.

Hagan, who was doing a remarkable job of keeping his mouth shut and staying out of the way, let out a curse.

Rykus blew a breath out between his teeth. If Hagan, who’d once commanded his own ship, was worried, then things weren’t looking good.

“Enviro’s not responding,” a spacer reported, fingers jabbing his keyboard as if the pure force of his will could change that fact. “Vents in sections A and B on deck two and section D on deck three are open.”

“Assessing now,” one of the ship’s cryptology officers said.

“Watch our databanks,” Bayis said.

Rykus glanced at the crypty. The Sariceans might be firing on them and the
Obsidian
might be firing back, but half of every battle was fought by two officers sitting at a console. They shouldn’t have a problem protecting this ship—that’s why the Coalition had lugged it out of the museum. A sentient-class warship, on the other hand, had billions of sensors and datastreams the Sariceans could hijack, implanting worms and false codes. The
Obsidian
had far fewer. A couple hundred thousand at most. Her vital systems wouldn’t be as vulnerable as the other Coalition vessels orbiting Ephron.

Another blast rumbled through the ship, and Rykus shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to run and fight even though there was nowhere to go.

“Vents are shut,” the crypty reported. “Virus is contained, sir.”

“Very good,” Bayis said, his posture as relaxed as if he were watching a harmless comet shower. “If you can help our friendlies, Mr. Lieve, do so.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Sir, exterior amidships shielding breached on portside,” a spacer reported. “Hull damaged but holding.”

“Evacuate affected sections and seal off in two minutes,” Bayis ordered.

“Fires confirmed in med bay. Chance of spreading seventy-two percent.”

“Two minutes and seal,” he said again in the same firm, unaffected tone.

To hell with this. Rykus was affected, and he wasn’t capable of standing back and watching the fight. He wasn’t needed on the bridge now anyway. He could help those who were injured.

Or he could find the woman who had to be responsible for this catastrophe. The Sariceans had arrived within twenty minutes of Ash’s escape. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

The betrayal, undeniable now, wrenched through him.

He spun toward the exit, and when he left the bridge, he wasn’t certain if he was storming off to save lives or to take one.

Ash made it through the heat and black smoke in time to see Katie take off her O2 mask and loan it to an injured spacer. It was a damn stupid move. The doctor was already coughing and choking. A few more seconds and she’d be too disoriented to walk, let alone provide help to anyone else.

Keeping her own mask on, Ash grabbed Katie’s arm.

“There’s an exit in the officer’s mess,” she shouted into Katie’s ear. Then she pulled her down the corridor.

Some of the spacers followed. Two didn’t.

Katie choked out their names.

“We have to go,” Ash yelled, tightening her grip. She’d throw the doctor over her shoulder and carry her if she had to, but that wouldn’t be much faster than their current stumbling pace. Ash was hurt, her last booster was almost out of her system, and she needed to get her ass off the
Obsidian.

“Move your feet, Doctor!”

Katie stopped struggling, most likely because she couldn’t breathe. Ash barely caught her when she buckled over. She bit off a curse, then dragged her the rest of the way.

Three spacers made it to the mess hall with them. They stumbled to the open blast hatch, then dropped through the floor one at a time.

“Go.” Ash pushed Katie toward the hole.

“No. The others—”

“They’re dead,” Ash said. It was the truth. Neither had oxygen masks. The smoke would have taken them by now.

“We can—”

Ash shoved her down the hole. Then she grabbed a bar on the underside of the opening and slid in.

She didn’t drop to the floor below. She dangled from the bar with one hand and reached up to close the blast door. If its hydraulics hadn’t been functioning, she never would have managed it. But one push triggered the closing mechanism, and the hatch settled back into place. She gave the underside wheel a quarter turn, would have given it more but her muscles gave out. She crashed down hard on her right shoulder.

It took longer than it should have to move. Just as it had taken too long when Jevan and his men had boarded her team’s shuttle. Suddenly she was back there, on her hands and knees with a sharp, piercing pain stabbing at her temples.

She’d thought she was hallucinating when she’d looked up and seen Jevan. It would have been pointless to talk to a ghost, so she hadn’t said anything. She’d waited for him to disappear. Instead, he’d come closer, and the agony in her mind had increased.

It was increasing now, and unbidden, the algorithms she’d used to encrypt the Sariceans’ files appeared in her mind.

With a sharp intake of breath, she pushed the numbers and equations away. When she heard the telepath curse, she relaxed her fists. He hadn’t pried the cipher from her mind. Jevan hadn’t been able to on the shuttle either.

Jevan was rushed. I am not.

She looked up and to the right. There was nothing there except the wall of the corridor, but it
felt
like the telepath was that direction. That direction and perhaps a deck or two up. She might be able to find him—

He vanished from her mind, taking the stabbing pain with him.

Coward. If she weren’t determined to get off the ship, she’d find a corner and hide until he sought her out again. Then
she’d
seek
him
out. She’d track him down, rip him apart, and make him talk.

“You’re hurt,” a voice said behind her. “I’m a doctor. Let me see…”

The hand was already on her arm, already lifting it to inspect her injuries. Ash still had her O2 mask on, but it didn’t matter. The other woman recognized her bruised and swollen wrists.

Katie’s eyes widened. She released Ash as if she was a contaminant.

“Lieutenant Ashdyn.” The doctor’s voice was barely a whisper, but the nearest spacer’s head snapped their direction.

The instant he charged, Ash leapt to her feet. She sidestepped, brought her knee up to catch him in the crotch.

He doubled over. She swung her elbow down and delivered a sharp blow to the back of his head that sprawled him face-first on the floor.

“Lieutenant, wait!” Katie called.

Ash ran, dodged a grab by another one of the damn spacers she’d saved, then turned down a side corridor.

This part of the ship wasn’t empty. Spacers were running to their fighters. Those who weren’t were helping the injured, men and women with cuts and bruises, broken bones and burns.

Ash whipped off her oxygen mask, then joined the rush toward the flight deck.

“Stop her!” someone shouted.

She shoved away a man who grabbed her arm, punched a second one who blocked her path. Then there were too many. Her broken pinky bent beneath her hand when she fell.

She gritted her teeth against the pain, flipped to her back, and let her elbows fly. A quick upkick at a two-hundred-pound monster knocked him backward, then she was scurrying away from the next attacker.

On her feet. Running. She couldn’t go directly to the flight deck, but she might be able to make it into maintenance. If she did, one of the birds parked there might fly. It was her best option.

She regulated her breathing as she ran, letting it fall into the quick and even rhythm that kept her focused during ops. She identified every target, every obstacle that came her way, and neutralized them.

Within minutes, she was in maintenance, securing the door with a lockout code that should take at least a few minutes to override. Then she turned to face the bay.

It was a small area, big enough for only three fighters. Two were cranked up on jacks. She approached the third, a Zenith Predator.

She would have whooped if she weren’t concerned about drawing attention. Predators were quick and agile, lethal both in orbit and in sub-atmo elevations. Its hull could withstand a heavy barrage of fire and the ship would only be knocked off course by a few degrees. They were sweet, sleek rides and—

She almost stepped on a diagonal thruster.

Hell. The thing was in pieces by the rear wheels. It would cost a minimum of ten minutes to reassemble and install it, with no guarantee the Predator would fly afterward.

She couldn’t risk it. She needed a functional bird.

Her gaze scanned the bay, then locked on the closed door to the flight deck. It wouldn’t be empty on the other side. She’d have to fight her way to a cockpit.

Grabbing a crowbar off the ground, she sprang into a jog and was halfway across the maintenance bay when the access door opened.

Ash slid to a stop, but it felt like her heart kept going. She could feel it beating outside her chest as her fail-safe—cold, angry, and intimidating as hell—stepped over the threshold.

The room seemed suddenly smaller and the air seemed suddenly stale. Rykus was big and broad, and he completely blocked her route to freedom.

He took a step forward, and the crowbar shook in her hand. She willed her fingers to tighten around it and focused on the pain in her broken pinky. It was an asset now. She could concentrate on it instead of on Rykus’s smothering presence.

“You took an oath to protect the Coalition,” he said, and his words vibrated through her.

She bit the inside of her cheek, took a step backward when he took another one forward.

“The anomaly program gave you a chance at a new life.” His chin angled downward. Any second, he could charge. “It took you away from that hellhole of a planet you were born on. It gave you a family.” Another advance from him, another retreat from her. “And you murdered them.”

Images of her teammates’ lifeless faces exploded into her mind. She wanted so badly to deny Rykus’s words.